THE ROLE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN OUR LIVES

Talk delivered at the INDIA TODAY CONCLAVE , March 13, 2010, New Delhi

Suman Sahai

It's a pleasure to be here especially since it is not very often that you get an opportunity to discuss science and technology at a gathering like this. I particularly appreciate that INDlA TODAY has put together this agenda. Michael Specter of the New Yorker has just laid before you very comprehensively, and in great detail all the classical arguments that are put out in defence of genetic engineering and genetically-engineered crops. There are some things that I agree with and there are many I don't. As a practicing laboratory scientist trained in genetics  myself, there are a  few things I would like to clarify.

The oft-repeated phrase that genetic engineering is very precise is not true. Genetic engineering as we use it today is actually a very imprecise technology. We can neither guide the gene to where we want it go nor can we get the number of copies of genes that we want. If I want to put in two genes I can't. I shoot in genes into a cell and I wait for something to happen. So there is great randomness to this technology.

This is all right provided you take on that randomness on board and then work with the fact that it is not a precise technology. Therefore, you have to work with the fact that you will have to deal with safety testing. On the question that there are the starving millions, hungry hordes, the growing population and that genetic engineering is necessary to address this problem, there is no evidence so far. 

Whether genetic engineering will also play a role in solving the problem of hunger will be seen in the future. Today, the technology is very restricted, its application is wide but its offer is very restricted. Unfortunately though, the mythology of genetic engineering is replete with claims that are not substantiated by fact and reality. If we talk about hunger, we need to look at the number of things that are happening to cause it and all the solutions that may be available. 

“Genetic engineering is a regulated technology and it has to be regulated cautiously.-

Hunger happens when a person does not have access to productive assets like land or water to grow food or does not have a job and enough money in his pocket to buy food. Today, in this country and in many other countries in Asia, we have many potential solutions for hunger. There is a tremendous amount of genetic potential locked up in the crop varieties  that we are unable to translate into big harvests,  because farmers can't afford enough fertilisers, soil health is poor and potential yield is not translated into real yield. 

Again on the question of hunger, look at India and see how much of India is irrigated. Sixty to seventy   per cent of Indian arable land (where crops can grow) is not irrigated but dependent only on the monsoon. So, before you get into a technology fix, all that you need to do to double and triple food production, in the country is bring water to these un irrigated areas. When you bring water to the areas which are growing only one crop a year today, you can grow two or three crops in a year. You will not just double food production, you will probably triple it.

Technology can play a role in improving the situation but to give credence to a technology beyond what the technology has so far shown is perhaps misguided.

On Mr. Specter’s contention that to ban Bt brinjal was a misguided decision, I differ. I think the government should have banned Bt brinjal, because of all the things that had gone wrong with developing and regulating it. Violations cannot be condoned.

Genetic engineering  is a regulated technology and it has to be regulated cautiously. It is scientists who have acknowledged that there are safety concerns. Regulation was asked for not by political leaders, not by civil society, not by NGOS, but by scientists. We must take the matter of safety of these products very seriously. Bt brinjal went through a series of processes. There were grave and outstanding questions about the way it had been regulated. This country has a policy on mandatory labelling of GM foods. This is the policy we represent in all of the meetings at Codex Alimentarius.

The Regulators wanted to give permission for the release of Bt brinjal, but the country has not yet got the labelling, infrastructure or mechanism in place. We are in violation of our own rules. We don't have a law on Liability and Redress nor is there a law nor mechanism to grant compensation if something goes wrong. Many questions have been raised about the nature of the safety tests and the careless and inadequate manner in which they were done.

This is not to attack the technology, it is to attack the atrocious regulatory systems that governs it. To say that the decision on Bt brinjal can't be defended is incorrect. It's a decision that should have been taken at least on account  of the failure of regulation and the paucity of evidence on safely of the product. People ask how much testing is needed. Testing has to be done till it is clear that the product is safe or otherwise.

The golden rice issue was raised but I want to put before you the fact that India and countries like India have a huge genetic variability in the crops that they grow. There are rice varieties rich in iron , zinc, vitamins and so on.

Golden Rice may or may not pan out finally but we don’t need it.  We have golden millets, golden sweet potatoes, and other Vitamin A rich foods. If you really want a Vitamin A fix, you don't have to genetically engineer rice, you have many kinds of rice that are nutritious and also other kinds of staple foods that will deliver vitamin A ( and many other nutrients ) and deliver it in much more cost effective ways. I am not shutting the doors on technology but to say that GM technology is central or even exclusive to solving our problems of hunger and malnutrition, is frankly ridiculous.  -

“Just as science can do a lot of good, its application can also do a lot of bad. “-

GM technology may play a role one day but today there are just two genes on offer: the Bt gene and the HT (herbicide tolerance) gene. Neither of them has any connection to hunger, nutrition or improving livelihoods.

You must think after all this that despite being a geneticist, I am firmly anti-science or anti-technology. I am not and I can't be. I have been trained in science and it has been the best part of my life, but I have to put before you the fact that neither science nor technology operates in a vacuum. Just as science can do a lot of good, its application can also do a lot of bad.

You have heard about Einstein's theory of relativity, but how many people know that the GPS in your car and in your phone is actually derived from the Theory of Relativity. That's how easily you can adopt sophisticated science for human applications and derive benefit from it. That's the same GPS that's used in drone airplanes that bomb the hell out of places. When Enrico Fermi did  his experiments on nuclear fission on the sports field in Chicago and started understanding the nature of fission, it led to the nuclear reactor, to the Manhattan Project, to the bomb and then to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There is a purity about science that I am for but there may not be a purity in the application of science, when science turns into technology. When you look at genetic engineering, it comes from very straight forward work by an Austrian priest called Gregor Mendel. In 1860, when we were roughly wrapping up our first War of Independence against British rule, an Austrian priest was working on the principles of heredity and this Austrian priest laid the foundation of genetics, of understanding heredity which has been of crucial importance in understanding human disease.

We have understood how to make family pedigrees to see the transmission of disease. We have understood how to tackle disease but we have also understood genes and heredity and have developed amniocentesis, sex determination and the killing of girl foetuses. Atrocious gender ratios, like 750 females per 1,000 males, exist in many parts of our country and outside. -

“We can create new life forms in the laboratories using synthetic biology. “-

Therefore, science and technology do not operate in a vacuum. The onus  is on us to take science and technology and to make them work for the betterment of humankind. You think we have a seen a lot of genetic engineering? How many of you are aware of the new science, synthetic biology, which is just five or six years old? What happens with synthetic biology? You can actually construct new life forms with synthetic biology. You can take the DNA which is essentially a chemical. You can buy it off the shelf and paste it together in the lab and create a new life form. In fact, Craig Venter, who is a brilliant scientist, has created an artificial bug called Mycoplasma laboratorium and what Venter's group did was to strip a bacterium called Mycoplasma genetelium and pack it with completely new DNA and he created an artificial organism called Mycoplasma laboratorium. Before that the Centre for Disease Control in the US had reconstructed the virus that causes Spanish flu which incidentally killed 100 million people in 1918 after the World War-I. This is the brave new world of science.

“The precautionary principle is an important cornerstone of all negotiations in the world of science.”-

As a practicing laboratory scientist, let me tell you, accidents will happen. Test tubes will break, petri-dishes will break, solutions will spill and, however, technically well organised your laboratory is for safety, accidents will happen. Murphy’s Law operates and therefore it is important to realise that not all risks can be contained. So what does this mean?

When you have an artificial organism like the one created out of synthetic biology what can you get? Think of bio-warfare. If you have an anthrax attack what will happen? It will kill some people and then you will quickly deploy an antidote. But you don't know what Mycoplasma laboratorium can do because it has no pedigree. It comes from nowhere. This is novel genetic material that you have put together, but you don't know how it will interact with the environment. You don't know what damage it can do to human health. You have no idea how to control it or destroy if it turns out to be dangerous.If you have bio-warfare with anthrax, you know what to do with it. But should you have a bio-warfare with an organism like that, you are completely at sea as to how to control this organism.

And - as against physics and chemistry, the brave new world of biology replicates. Bugs have babies, humans have babies, genes have babies, they all replicate.

If you put a transformer out here or a glass out there, it will sit there for the next 3,000 years and it will not have babies. But if you put out a dish with a cell culture, the cells will proliferate, spill out and go places. Therefore, when you are tinkering with biology, then you must step back a bit. It is famously said that the 21st century will be the century of biology. It will be. All the breakthroughs are going to happen in this field. This field is already giving us transformative technologies like genetic engineering, nanotechnology,  synthetic biology etc. Transformative because they are going to transform the way we live, the way we eat our food, the way drugs are delivered to us and also the way environment will be. So what do we do when we confront this situation? Do we step back and say no science, no technology? No, of course not. Rather we ask ourselves which science, which technology? 

After destroying the planet to the extent that we have, I think we should have learnt some lessons. And we need to make a distinction between science and its application in the form of technology. The crucial and deciding factor is human greed. Today, as we look and see the potential of science and what it has to offer, let us step back with a little modesty. Let us agree that it is sufficient to optimize profits not necessarily to maximise them. Nature has a very tolerant and benign presence, you lean on her, you hurt her a bit, she takes it. You cut down some trees, the forest will come back. But if you push her, if you knock off entire forests, if you release fiddled bugs, if you destroy the climate, if you ravage bio-diversity, then nature will hit back. We need to remember this. Nature will give you  leeway but will hit back if you go too far.

“Nature has a very tolerant presence. It gives you much leeway, but it will hit back if you hurt it.”

So what are the lessons for the application of science? We should certainly forge ahead it but with three words I will leave you with - Ethics, Regulation and Precaution. There is a whole field of bio-ethics that is developing, not as fast as it should but it is there. And it is scientists who have laid some restraints on themselves. When genetic engineering started, scientists converged at Asilomar for a conference in 1975. They got together and said this technology can go places,  also where we don't want it to go, so we must exercise control and have regulation. We have self-imposed bans on human cloning, on human germ-line therapy, on human embryonic stem cell, so it is not that scientists don't think about it but when science leaves the laboratory  and goes into the field of technology and application, other factors, most notably money, come into play.

You have probably heard of the maverick scientist trying to clone the human embryo then having it implanted in a women and about people trying to fool around with germ line therapy in humans which is extremely dangerous since you don't know what the outcome will be. As we confront the brave new world of science, we need to look at the Ethics, Regulation and Precautionary Principles.

The precautionary principle is now becoming a very important cornerstone of all negotiations and transactions in the world of science. If there is insufficient evidence and you are uncertain, step back and exercise caution. Don't rush in where fools fear to tread. I think the way ahead is progress but with intelligence, maturity and responsibility. We must work with the approach that we hold this Earth only in custody for our children. In legal terms, this is defined as the principle of “Inter-Generational Equity”.  We are bound by a moral responsibility to hold the Earth and pass it on to our children in as intact a form as possible. I submit before you that the sentiment alone should guide the pursuit to science and technology.

Questions & Answers

Ms Sahai raised the issue of ethics, regulation and precaution. But Mr Specter, you didn't seem to agree with it. Is it really right to give science a free hand without caring too much about?

Michael Specter- I like ethics and regulations but there are a couple of things which I disagree with. For instance, the idea of making 1918 flu virus from scratch is a bad thing. It is extremely dangerous. Do you know how we make vaccines in the world? We make them today the way we made them in 1930s. When we grow vaccines in the 19th century traditions, we will die the 19th century way as well. After the precautionary principles, here are a couple of things we wouldn't have if there was too much regulation. We wouldn't have airplanes, x-rays, antibiotics, vaccines, televisions or radios and we wouldn't have nuclear power which I think is a great solution to one of the Earth's most pressing problems. So, precaution. Yes, apt but let's not confuse the greed of a company with the ability of science to accomplish things because I should say synthetic biology to me is not only a brave new world, it is the most exciting thing to happen in human history so I guess, we disagree on it.

Q. Ms Sahai, you mentioned that if water is provided then land, where only one crop is cultivated, two or three crops can be grown but Mr Specter mentioned that on a daily-basis 10,000 people are becoming middle-class right now. How do we cope up with it? The percentage of farmers is getting lower by the day. What do you suggest?

Suman Sahai- You have to grow crops because you need food. We can't say the middle-class is increasing and we can't say there is growing hunger. If we have growing hunger and if we have growing population as well, and we need to feed them, then we need to grow crops and an important input to grow crops is to get water for irrigation. If you have a GM crop in an area that doesn't have water, then it will not grow. The defining lacuna is water. Water is important for growing food.

Q: Mr Specter, you spoke of the ban on Bt brinjal. As a layman what I understood is that the minister after public hearing found that out of some 22 tests that were supposed to be done, only eight had been completed. What was more appalling was the fact that most of these tests were done not by independent bodies but entirely by the manufacturers. Therefore, they have now asked to complete the tests and then do a review.

Specter- I dispute those facts. Thousands of independent tests were done and there were thousands of independent studies elsewhere too. There is a clear safety profile in the question. It is legitimate to ask if the benefit is good enough to let the risks exist. I don't think those are always clear answers but in this case, I think it is pretty clear. As I said, it is something like soyabean or corn. It is not to improve the quality of life for people but there are dozens of new products about to come in the market that will help with drought resistance environments. I couldn't agree more about water but getting water to the places where we need it is really tough. It could be done but it can't be done easily and I think we need to look at other solutions and this is one of those solutions.

Q. The points raised by you Mr Specter are political and fair, sometime the arguments are not rational, they are more emotional. Ms Sahai, if we buy seeds from Monsanto, we would then be submitting ourselves to a new form of colonialism. The fact that all farmers will have to buy from a single source and then they would have monopolies, I mean these are issues that need to be addressed and Ms Sahai, would you like to speak on this matter?

Sahai- Sure, I think that as the debate progressed on genetically engineered crops, there was a lot of incorrect information going around. When you are taking a serious view, you are sifting the wheat from the chaff. On the question of control over seeds, I would say that it is a socio-political aspect not an emotional one. Who ever controls the seeds, will control to a very large extent the kind of agriculture and the kind of cash crop that will be cultivated.

Let me tell you something else-who is entitled to a patent, who is entitled to that control? Here is a new variety of seed that has been created, how many steps does it take to make this new variety? Let us say 100  steps , of which 80 to 90 steps have been contributed by farmers and later by a number of  scientists. It is only the last 5 or 10  steps of sticking in genes or taking out a genes that the molecular biologist does . The patent on the entire 100 steps is claimed by those who have contributed the last 5 to 10 steps! That is what a patent on seed is all about and that is why it is essentially incorrect, unethical and unjust. Patents cannot be granted to the corporates because they are not the real inventors. They have added just the tail end.   I would want to put things in perspective and say that there is a question of control on seed if you have a weak legal framework, if you do not have sufficient training in filing for intellectual property and your scientists and lawyers are not trained to play that game, then the playing field is not level and it is not fair. It is not really possible to grant patents on biology. Biological materials derive from nature and are constantly changing. The patent game is about using words and playing politics. Give me a patent on biology and I will tell you how to crack it.  

“There cannot be patents on seeds because there are several contributors to a seed, a variety. “

Q. Would you have accepted Bt brinjal if we did not have a patent issue associated with it and like the Internet, the technology and the processes were thrown open to public use.

-

“We neither have laws for labelling and liability nor any verification of the test protocols.”

-

Sahai- It is not about patents but about biosafety. There are a few things that we need to know. Was the Bt approach to control the so-called pest of brinjal necessary? The answer is no. The Bt gene controls a pest called caterpillar borer. That's all it does. The main pest of brinjal and the brinjal family to which tomatoes, and chillies also belong, is not caterpillar borer, it's a disease called bacterial wilt. If you really wanted to control the brinjal pest, you should have found a solution to bacterial wilt not the caterpillar.  You don't have a law for labelling, you don't have a law on liability, you don't have any independent verification of the tests, biosafety protocols are still fairly Neanderthal, test protocols for food safety are very elementary.  These are the things that  are going wrong. Pointing this out does not make you an opponent of science.

I think science and technology must go back to the lab when there are open questions and  research must continue till you find answers, till you come to the situation where you can confidently say, yes, this will work or no, we can't get the wrinkles out it will not work. The CSIRO in Australia worked for years on peas trying to make a transgenic pea to control a pest. They were not able to make a safe transgenic pea. When they  tested it for food safety, there were health issues like serious  inflammation in test animals. Finally, CSIRO decided this is not going to work so they shut the door on it and that is what honest science should do. Test till you are fairly confident that your product is safe and if you can't get the wrinkles out, shut the door.

Session Science and Health: Does Science Work Against Nature?
Suman Sahai - India Today Conclave 2010

Suman Sahai - India Today Conclave 2010
Suman Sahai - India Today Conclave 2010

Climate Resilient Sustainable Agriculture: Adapting for Change in India

Suman Sahai

Introduction
Agriculture is critical for human survival. It is also one of the sectors that climate change will have the worst impact on. Indeed, there is now growing evidence that the impacts of climate change are unfolding at a pace much faster than those predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). Very high losses in agricultural production, ranging from 20 to 40 percent, are expected to occur, especially in Africa and South Asia. However, apart from being a victim of climate change, agriculture is also thought to contribute to it. According
to various estimates, it is suggested that in India alone, agriculture could contribute around 25 to 30 percent of national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Rejecting the Dominant Unsustainable Agricultural Model

Small and marginal farmers contribute 50 percent of crop production in India. Those farmers make up 85 percent of agricultural labour and of them, 40 percent are women . Despite their importance in Indian agriculture, most smallholder farmers have been driven into penury due to recurring drought,
crop failure and state neglect. 

The high input, mechanised, monoculture promoting and agrochemical based model of agriculture that is being endorsed in most parts of the world (including India) further marginalises small farmers.

Furthermore, intensive agrochemical farming with its large carbon footprint is obviously unsustainable for the future. 

In short, such model cannot help smallholder farmers cope with the emerging challenges and threats from climate change; it can only exacerbate the problem. This unsustainable model urgently
needs to be replaced with a sustainable, climate resilient, and environmentally as well as socially benign model of agriculture. Agriculture must effectively adapt to the changing climate, in a
manner which minimises or eliminates production losses. At the same time, GHG emissions from agriculture must also be minimised or eliminated in order to meet the global target of containing the rise of average temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius.

Climate Resilient Sustainable Agriculture

An alternative agricultural model must have the following elements in order to successfully move away from the dominant unsustainable model:

Water conservation and harvesting

The most important step in adapting agriculture to climate change will have to be the conservation of
water wherever it falls. Rainwater harvesting, creation of village level water bodies and watershed
development, combined with maximisation of food production, must become a core strategy to help
farmers cope with the vagaries of the changing climate.

Conserving the genetic diversity of crop plants

Conserving genetic diversity of crops is recognised as the key to helping farmers cope with climate change. Promoting agro-biodiversity at village level through Zero Energy Gene Seed Banks (such as the model developed by the Gene Campaign ) means conserving the gene pool and those genes that will be needed to breed new crop varieties to cope with droughts, floods, soil salinity and other environmental challenges that will inevitably accompany climate change.

Reducing water use and agricultural waste

By adopting new practices, such as the System of Rice Intensification, farmers can adapt to climate change with minimal losses.The System of Rice Intensification is a water saving, methane emission reducing rice cultivation strategy; this step alone would significantly reduce GHG emissions from agriculture.

Bio-organic substitutes

Agriculture can be made more sustainable and highly productive by replacing chemical fertilisers and
pesticides with bio-organic substitutes to the extent possible. By making this change, carbon footprints can be reduced, and reducing the use of nitrogenous fertilisers will also reduce nitrous
oxide emissions.

Food and nutrition gardens

To buffer the most marginal and poor sections of the society from the reduced food production
resulting from climate change, household level food and nutrition gardens will provide supplementary food supply and much needed nutrition.

Minimising mechanised agriculturePromoting labour-intensive rather than mechanised agriculture has the benefit of reducing energy
consumption, and thereby carbon emissions. It also provides employment and income to small
farmers and peasants as well as landless agriculture labourers.

Questioning genetically modified (GM) crops

There is a need to examine the role of GM crops being promoted as the answer to climate change. A critical analysis needs to be done of what, if anything, this technology can contribute to agricultural and food security. In addition, bio-safety regulations in India and other countries need to be examined to check that regulatory processes ensure safe GM crops and food.

Conclusion

A climate resilient as well as environmentally and socially appropriate approach to agriculture, such as those above, can be as productive as the high input and energy intensive approach to agriculture that has been relied upon for decades. Furthermore, sustainable agricultural methods can also provide
long-term food security in the face of frequent and extreme weather conditions. Lastly, the role of small and marginalised farmers in championing climate resilient sustainable agriculture must be re-emphasised and further explored.

 

Comments on the Technical Expert Committee’s report on GMOs

Suman Sahai

1.A Technical Expert Committee (TEC) was appointed by the Supreme Court to go into issues raised in the two PILs filed on GMOs. The first by Gene Campaign in 2004, the second a year later by Aruna Rodrigues and friends, in 2005. The Supreme Court had appointed a five member TEC to give recommendations on two specific issues:  i) whether a ban should be imposed on conducting field trials of GM crops , in open fields and i) if such trials were to be conducted, then what scientific protocols should be followed and what conditions imposed for such trials.

 The TEC has submitted its interim report and has pointed out the serious lacunae in the regulatory framework for GMOs  and recommended a moratorium for 10 years on any open field trials  till the shortcomings in regulatory procedures  have been sorted out and additional safety data generated through proper studies. It may be recalled that a similar injunction by the then Environment Minister , to generate additional biosafety data on Bt brinjal led to an embarassing cut and paste rehash of old data by senior scientists of the ICAR system.

In upholding the Precautionary Principle in its approach, the TEC members have played a responsible role in protecting the public interest and safeguarding the health of humans and animals, as well as the environment. It is heartening  to find mention in the TEC report of several important points that Gene Campaign has been raising over the years, like banning genetic transformation of crops for which India is a Center of Origin (like  rice) and a moratorium on trials of GM crops with  the Herbicide Tolerance trait, which is labour displacing and destroys valuable biodiversity used by rural communities as food, fodder and health and veterinary care.

TEC has also emphasized the importance of considering the socioeconomic aspects of introducing GMOs , before taking any decisions.  Socioeconomic aspects are  an important issue raised in the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to which India is a signatory and the conditions of which it usually fails to take on board. In failing to consider the impact of a GM crop , for instance on organic farming, the Indian regulatory system completely ignores the interest  of such farmers who would lose their markets if contamination with the GM product were to take place. In addition to this, in failing to pay attention to socio economic aspects, India is in violation of its commitment under the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety.

The TEC report’s emphasis on the extremely limited, often compromised nature of biosafety testing is correct. The current practice of conducting dangerously  inadequate feeding  studies to assess the food safety and toxicity of the transgenic plant has been strongly  criticised , as has been the practice of allowing applicants of GM crops  to sub contract their biosafety  studies to other agencies. This abdication of responsibility and failure of accountability by agencies engaged in developing GM crops and foods, in such a crucial area  is a recipe for disaster and almost certain to include violation of even the weak biosafety guidelines that are in place. 

Civil society groups have over the years uncovered several instances of  field trails of GM crops being conducted in flagrant violation of all biosafety procedures, in the middle of farmers fields, thus ensuring transgenic contamination of neighbouring crops. In many cases these untested GM  food crops from open field trials have found their way to the markets and been consumed by local farm families, putting at risk the health of those who have unwittingly consumed these possibly toxic foods.  The TEC recommendation to stop such shoddy , unregulated field trials  immediately , even in cases where permission has already been given, is a much needed intervention in the right direction.

Gene Campaign’s original prayer in its 2004 PIL and an oft repeated subsequent demand for  more  technically competent people in regulatory bodies , specially in the apex GEAC, has found mention in the TEC report. It has said an immediate rectification of this  serious lapse is warranted because the current members were not capable of assessing scientific data to assess safety. The TEC critique should help to fundamentally overhaul the unsatisfactory and inadequate regulatory system and force a reality check on regulators who  have never tired of calling themselves the best in the world.

The TEC report should also put the GM industry on guard which for too long has succeeded, by using all sorts of methods to get its way with half tested GMOs . With the complicity of pliable regulators, violations by powerful companies are covered up by the  regulators themselves and nobody is brought to book.

The TEC recommendations for a ten year moratorium on field trials of all Bt transgenic food crops is a correct step but needs to go further. Several transgenic food crops are being developed with non Bt genes and these must also be brought into the ambit of the 10 year moratorium. The impacts of these genes ( like the ama gene used in potato and the genes being used in mustard etc)  are even less understood than the Bt gene and bringing them under the moratorium for further assessment is crucial. Perhaps the final TEC report that is yet to come,  will deal with these issues. 

 

2. I fully agree with the interim report submitted by the Committee to the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

The Precautionary Principle has been rightly invoked by the Committee in giving its recommendations. The Precautionary Principle says that if there is a reasonable suspicion that an action will result in damage to the environment, human and animal health, such action should not be allowed. In case of GM Technology there is concrete evidence about its potential for harm to health and environment safety. All recommendations made by the TEC have scientific and legal support and therefore, ought to be reiterated and re-emphasized.

The Supreme Court in its order dated 10 May, 2012 had given three months time to the Expert Committee to submit its final report. The interim report was required to be submitted only in the event that the Committee was unable to submit its final report within the three month period. The Supreme Court has not accepted the recommendations of the Technical Expert Committee appointed by it and has opened up their report for comments from the government and the GM industry. The government council has said explicitly that they will not accept the report. The GM industry, not surprisingly, has taken an aggressive line against the Supreme Court appointed expert committee’s recommendations.

The most logical action for the Technical Expert Committee would now be to respond to all the objections and suggestions that have been raised on their report by the government and the biotechnology industry and submit one final report. This report should include what still remains to be submitted as well as  the responses to the new objections and suggestions. There does not seem to be any reason for the TEC to file another interim report incorporating responses to the objections and then to submit a final report after that. In the interest of rational decision making, the TEC should collate everything and submit its one time final report. 

Marred by faith

“It is the scientists who are asking for regulation and precaution” Suman Sahai What do you think of environmentalist Mark Lynas’ sudden change of heart – from being an anti-GM crusader to a pro-GM crusader? It is a renewed propaganda push to create goodwill around GM crop. This is a product that very large corporations are trying to sell. India is a very particular target because of large scale rejections (of GM crop) in Europe, many parts of Africa and Latin America. For these corporations, there are only two big potential markets – India and China. Everybody knows it is impossible to influence Chinese policy because they are very determined about what they want and what not. India is perceived as a soft target with a big market and therefore a huge amount of propaganda is directed towards India and Indian policy making. What is your stand on promoting GM crops in India? As a scientist, geneticist, this is my subject. It is the scientists who are asking for regulation and precaution right from the beginning. The (GM) industry is trying to cut corners on regulation because adequate bio-safety testing costs money. It is my firm belief that had this technology been purely in public sector it would still be in the laboratory. It would only come to market after it was sufficiently and properly tested. If you want to engage in science and technology that has a downside – any potential risk of the GM product having an allergenic component – but potential for benefits, then you have to be super careful to evaluate safety. ____________________________________ Sahai is a geneticist, Padma Shree awardee and winner of 2004 Borlaug Award for contribution to agriculture and environment
	GM debate: Contrary to Lynas’s simplistic views, India’s real concerns are ad-hoc regulatory body, self-defeating bio-safety norms and worthless scientific data

Spiralling food prices? Blame speculators

 Suman Sahai

 

India must not pursue reckless high-growth policies at the cost of diverting attention and investment from agriculture and food production

2012 looks like a repeat of 2008. Food prices are soaring in India and the world. For food-importing countries to which India sometimes belongs, when the monsoons have been sub-optimal, as they have been this year, this brings a special burden.

Prices of agricultural commodities in the international market have risen from 20 to 30 per cent for corn and wheat. For soybean they have gone up by 40 per cent. All this means food imports will be even more expensive. This kind of food inflation is debilitating for the poor who can spend from 70 to 80 per cent of the total household income on food.

Global warming and climate change are part of the problem. Climate turbulence brings extreme weather conditions, like unprecedented drought conditions, as in the US this year, which has decimated the corn crop. In addition, drought conditions these last two years in major wheat-producing countries, like Australia, Russia and Ukraine, have led to short supply and spiralling prices for this staple.

Another major reason for food shortage and spiralling prices is the diversion of food grains to biofuel production and high-blending mandates in both Europe and the US. A 20 per cent blending mandate means a mix of 20 per cent biofuel and 80 per cent fossil fuel. This is resulting in increasing amounts of corn, canola and soybean being diverted for ethanol and bio-diesel production. Increasing ethanol production, especially in surplus-producing countries, hikes the demand for corn. This sets off a chain reaction, drawing in other foods, as substitution effects kick in, thus resulting in food shortages.

When corn is diverted to ethanol production, corn consumers shift to wheat and rice, increasing demand for these cereals and causing their prices to rise. Similarly, the diversion of corn to bioethanol causes shortages of animal and poultry feed; so these producers take wheat to feed their livestock, sending up the prices of wheat. In a related development, wheat and rice farmers see an assured market for corn, with attractive prices and shift to growing corn instead of rice and wheat, causing a shortage of rice and wheat stocks and, therefore, escalating prices of these cereals. A World Bank report of 2008 categorically states that the crop-derived fuels have been the major triggering factor of the food price crisis.

There is a third factor, which was beginning to be mentioned at the time of the 2008 food crisis but is acknowledged more openly now, and this is financial speculation. Financial speculation is now probably the most influential factor that is pushing food prices north in the short term. So who is investing ? A range of players, and not just the rich “high net worth individuals”, but also agencies as diverse as pension funds, public and private foundations

and university endowments, in addition to corporate investors, are all chasing the honey trail.

Looking at price rise this year, there is no question that the drought in the American Midwest played a role in the dramatic rise, but that is not the whole story. It is true that wheat prices in the international market began climbing this summer as soon as news of the US drought started circulating, but the hike is not explained by panic buying fearing shortages due to the drought. Analysts found that physical stocks of wheat were not so low as to be any cause for alarm and that the sharp rise in wheat prices was because of speculation by non-commercial investors, like hedge funds and pension funds.

This is a trend that has been consistent these past few years. Spiralling food prices appear to be influenced by heavy speculation rather than physical shortages. After oil and real estate, the commodities markets seem to be the new target of global speculators. When the commodities in question are food, the consequences are spiralling food prices, shortages in food-importing countries and increased hunger.

In addition to the usual reasons for food shortages, rising prices and hunger, exacerbated by climate change, the poor are now the victims of financial speculators. Global financial players are pouring their dollars into food (and other) commodities on the expectation that emerging economies will have to buy increasingly from the international market to satisfy their demand. By jacking up prices in this manner, they are causing unimaginable hunger and human distress across the vulnerable regions of the world.

The only way for us to counter this immoral and pervasive manipulation is to ensure that we strive to achieve food security at the national and household level. India must not pursue reckless high-growth policies at the cost of diverting attention and investment from agriculture and food production. Not just food security but food sovereignty (however much the economists try to rationalise it away) has to be upheld as a prime national goal. We need to keep in mind the old truism — a nation that is not food secure cannot be considered secure in any other sense.

The writer, chairperson of Gene Campaign, is a scientist and development activist.

Source: Asian Age, New Delhi, December 15, 2012 

Climate of threat to food security

Suman Sahai

Despite the fact that independent India has not had large-scale famines, widespread hunger prevails and is growing. According to official data, almost 87 per cent of rural India gets less than the minimum calorie requirement.

The decline in agricultural productivity, the diversion of foodgrains to feed poultry and livestock, policies that focus on export products and cash crops, as also inflationary food prices are contributing to a growing food crisis in the country. In addition, there is the proposed diversion of land and water to the production of Jatropha-based biofuels, the rapidly changing land use policy and the government’s support for special economic zones even when they encroach on prime agricultural land.

Economic reforms in India have led to disinvestment in the agriculture sector. This has adversely affected more than two-thirds of the population that is dependent on agriculture for its livelihood. Farmers themselves face hunger due to rising input costs and non-remunerative prices of farm products. There is no effective crop and livestock insurance to cover damage and credit is not available at reasonable rates.

Food availability has declined. Immediately after Independence, from the 1950s to 1964, it ranged between 140 and 170 kg per capita per annum. Between 1979 and 1994, it went up to 180 kg per capita per annum. After the reform period, foodgrain availability declined sharply to 150 kg per annum. There is a considerable shortfall in the actual requirement and availability of foodgrains. In the context of the current agrarian crisis, this trend poses a grave danger to communities already afflicted with hunger.

Adding to this already grim scenario is the new challenge of climate change. This year’s see-saw with the monsoon is a pre-runner of what awaits us ahead. According to climate estimates, agriculture in the productive areas of South Asia will be among the most adversely affected. As temperatures rise, the growing season is expected to shorten with decreases in agricultural productivity of up to 40 per cent. The worst brunt of climate change on food production will be borne by farmers in rain-fed areas.

Coping with the impact of climate change on agriculture will require careful management of resources like land, water and biodiversity. A large-scale public education and training programme is necessary to help farmers cope with the changes coming from global warming. Nothing in their experience has prepared them for the rapidly evolving, anthropogenic climate turbulence.

The disbanded extension service in the agriculture sector must be resumed urgently. Training and capacity building programmes must help to increase sensitivity to the problems that agriculture will face and understand its causes. At present, there is little understanding among rural communities about global warming and they are facing difficulties adjusting to the unpredictable changes that are throwing their long-held cropping patterns out of gear. The new extension service must be geared to teaching farmers how to adapt their agriculture to the new weather conditions that will negatively impact their food and livelihood security.

Not just farmers, it will be necessary to provide education and training to a range of actors. This would include policymakers, Panchayati Raj institutions, the banking sector, civil society groups, corporate executives and others, in the theory and practice of adapting agriculture to climate turbulence. Such capacity building will enable the successful adoption of adaptation strategies at policy and implementation levels.

There will have to be a fundamental strategy change in food production. Practices in agriculture will need to shift from intensive, mechanised, water-demanding agriculture to a more sustainable, conservative agriculture that grows crops using less water. “More crop per drop of water” is a strategy recommended to tackle drought. The same approach is applicable in a wider sense when addressing the challenges posed by global warming.

The first step in adapting agriculture to cope with climate change will be to diversify the farm production model to minimise risk and obtain the most benefits from available resources. Such sustainable models will have to include crops, livestock, poultry and where possible, fisheries and agro forestry.

As the monsoon rainfall gets reduced and more uncertain and receding glaciers reduce water flows in rivers, farmers must learn to make maximum use of available water. Rainwater harvesting and traditional water storage structures such as farm ponds, wells and tanks will have to be revived. Watershed development and catchment area recharge treatments to allow for aquifer replenishment will have to be undertaken on priority basis in all ecosystems. As rainfall becomes less reliable, water conserved in tanks, ponds and wells will provide life-saving irrigation to crops.

Soil management will need to focus on increasing organic matter to improve soil nutrition and water retention capacity, thus increasing crop productivity. The eco-system approach to agricultural production using crop rotation, maintaining an appropriate balance of soil nutrients and using an integrative and bio-organic approach to pest management will be effective in coping with rapidly changing farm conditions.

Contour bunding will be useful, especially in the hill areas, to increase water retention in terraced fields and improve crop productivity. It was a central component in regenerating degraded soils in Burkina Faso in West Africa and is credited with as much as a 40 per cent increase in agricultural production the first year after its implementation. Planting hedgerows of leguminous plants, especially in poor soils, which constitute the bulk of the soil in India, is important to fix nitrogen, prevent soil erosion and conserve soil moisture.

Mulching and other types of soil cover is helpful in arresting soil erosion and extending the availability of soil moisture. Mulching has the added benefit of reducing weed populations by up to 60 per cent, saving on weeding costs. None of these are rocket science but they are neglected in our policy and implementation plans. India’s strategy to deal with climate change, encapsulated in the National Action Plan on Climate Change lacks vision and offers no realistic solutions. We need urgently to come up with a policy and framework to protect our agriculture and food production from the onslaught of global warming.

The writer, chairperson of Gene Campaign, is a scientist and development activist. She can be reached at mail@genecampaign.org

Source : Deccan Chronicle, October 15, 2012

THE BORLAUG DILEMMA

By FRED PEARCE

Will agricultural intensification save our natural ecosystems from farmer invasion?

He is the most revered figure in agricultural research – the father of the green revolution.  But the late Norman Borlaug’s influence extends further even than delivering the seeds that have fed the world.  He also established in agricultural and environmental orthodoxy what is known today as the Borlaug hypothesis — the idea that intensifying agriculture is also the key to saving forests and other natural ecosystems from invasion by farmers.

The idea underpins research priorities in agriculture, for which increased yield is to holy grail.  More surprisingly perhaps, it sustains conservationists who want to abandon green notions of low-intensity organic agriculture in favour of giving agriculture its head.

Now the argument is being deployed in the debate over a future global climate change deal.  Some advocates of REDD, which would provide finance for protecting forests as carbon stores, say carbon offsetters should be encouraged to fund intensified farming too.  It is one facet of the push for “climate-smart” agriculture that we will heard again at the next climate talks in Doha later this year.

Lord Nicholas Stern, the British economist behind the highly influential Stern Review on the economics of climate change, puts the Borlaug hypothesis this way: “Cattle pasture in Brazil has only one animal per hectare.  Raise that to two animals and you can save the Amazon rainforest.”

But is it true?  If farming were a zero-sum game, with a simple aim of growing enough food to feed the world, then clearly intensification should spare land for nature.  But market forces may have perverse effects.

The Contrarian View

The counter-argument is that farmers don’t clear forests to feed the world; they clear forests to make money.  So helping farmers become more efficient and productive won’t reduce the threat.  It will increase it, by encouraging them to expand, and increasing their resources to do it.

As Tony Simons, deputy director of the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi, put it to me a year or so back: “Borlaug thought that if you addressed poverty in the forest border, they’d stop taking their machetes into the forest.  Actually, they get enough money to buy a chainsaw and do much more damage.”

Recent studies give weight to this contrarian view.  Thomas Rudel of Rutgers University, New Jersey, compared national trends in agricultural yields and how much land is under crops.  If Borlaug was right, then countries with fast-rising yields should see less increase in croplands, perhaps even a decrease.  Sadly, he found no such link.

Robert Ewers of the Zoological Society of London reported that increased yields of staple food crops do not spare the land, but stimulated increased planting of other crops, including non-food crops like cotton, rubber and biofuels.  As a result, he concluded, “land sparing is a weak process that only occurs under a limited set of circumstances.”

Economists are not surprised

That’s how markets work, they say.  Arild Angelsen, of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and senior associate at CIFOR, modelled the competing influences and concluded that, contrary to the Borlaug hypothesis, “local yield increases tend to stimulate agricultural encroachment”.

Globalization increases the stimulus.  After all, Brazil’s assault on the Amazon in the late 20th century was driven not by an imperative to feed its own population, but by its successful drive to become the world’s biggest agricultural exporter.  Similarly only a fraction of the palm oil grown on Indonesia’s former forests is for domestic use.

Rudel has suggested that the Borlaug hypothesis is confounded by a modern version of the Jevons paradox.  The 19th century British economist William Jevons pointed out that during the industrial revolution, increased efficiency in coal burning led to more coal being burned, rather than less. Similarly today, more intensive agriculture may stimulate rather than defuse the clearance of land for new farms.

Can the Borlaug hypothesis help tackle climate change?

There are other reasons to question Stern’s suggestion that the Borlaug hypothesis could help tackle climate change.  Even if agriculture did spare forests, it also massively increases farming’s carbon footprint.  Might those emissions swamp any gains from protecting forests?

A study by Jennifer Burney and others at Stanford in 2010 suggested not.  After balancing both influences, she estimated a net benefit to the atmosphere from agricultural intensification of 590 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in the past 50 years.

But surely that depends on the timescale you use.  A mature forest is can only sequester so much carbon, while agricultural emissions continue for as long as the land is cultivated.  Run the clock forward and the balance may be reversed.

None of this is to say that intensification won’t be needed.  The world has to be fed, after all. But the simple belief that deploying agribusiness to drive up farm yields will deliver forest protection seems economically illiterate.  And the even simpler notion that investment in the intensification of agriculture can have a direct carbon payback seems dangerous folly.

About the Author:

Fred Pearce is a journalist and author based in London, UK.  He writes regularly for New Scientist magazine, the Guardian newspaper and Yale e360 web site.  His books include Peoplequake, When the Rivers Run Dry and, mostly recently, The Land Grabbers.