Suman Sahai Blog

Water, Asia’s New Battleground by Brahma Chellaney

2011-12-15T21:15:00.003+05:30

Reviewed by Suman Sahai

In a recent James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, the villain hatches diabolical plots to corner a certain South American country's fresh water resources. The Bond war is not over deposits of oil and gold but water. The conflict potential of water has clearly arrived even in the public’s imagination. In the backdrop of growing tensions over the sharing of water resources across the world and specially so in Asia , Brahma Chellaney’s new book titled Water, Asia’s New Battleground ( Harper Collins, 2011) is both timely and relevant.

In its seven chapters the book deals with diverse aspects of water in Asia , the conflicts and disputes that exist already and those likely to exacerbate as the economic boom in this region drives demand for scarce water resources. Many of these water resources will become further points of dispute as climate change melts glaciers , diminishes rainfall and reduces the over all availability of water in shared rivers. The unique role of the Tibetan plateau and China’s control of the headwaters of several rivers crucial to Asia constitutes an important part of the book’s analysis of the growing potential for discord. The book also deals with shared water resources on India’s western side, with Pakistan and the growing conflict over that sharing under the Indus Treaty. At the time of partition, the British gave the three western rivers of the Indus river system ( Indus, Jhelum and Chenab) to Pakistan and the three eastern rivers ( Ravi, Beas and Sutlej) to India. According to Mr Chellaney, India has failed to address this source of tension.

Mr. Chellaney describes the impact of the destructive use of natural resources, including water, in Asia’s rapid quest for double digit economic growth and how this is laying the ground for strategic shifts in Asia’s water politics, creating even greater potential for water wars between countries. The increasing demand for water to grow more food for the population dense countries of Asia, particularly China and India, is already causing upheavals in water sharing agreements. Both China and India are shown to be the victims of their earlier legacies of water use. Mao made grandiose plans for mega projects to divert water from the water rich south of China to its arid north and make huge dams on its rivers so that today China has the largest number of dams in the world. This includes the highly contentious Three Gorges dam which has wrought environmental destruction on an unprecedented scale. The over damming of rivers has interfered in their flows leading farmers to turn to groundwater, causing its overexploitation and pollution of aquifers.

In a different way, Mr Chellaney says that India’s negligent and disjointed approach to water management has also created a water crisis. Constitutionally water was made a state subject (rather than a central one, which would allow easier regulation) so that today states that share rivers are perpetually entangled in water disputes. Similarly, the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan ( 1960) according to which India committed to indefinitely reserve 80 percent of the Indus waters for Pakistan, reflects a lack of foresight and understanding of the role of water , especially for an agriculture dependent, food insecure country.

The book’s most fascinating part is where it lays out the position and politics of Tibet as an enormously rich source of natural resources, especially minerals, water and biodiversity. China’s annexation of Tibet and the brutal measures it takes to subjugate this rich land and its gentle people, is to be seen in the context of its determination to exploit Tibet’s vast mineral resources and its water for hydropower and irrigation, even as it destroys it unique, often unparalleled biodiversity . Having brought its own water resources under severe stress and caused irreversible contamination in many parts, China is now seeking to conquer the waters of Tibet. It is pursuing major water projects like inter river transfers in the fragile ecosystem of the Tibetan plateau. Tibet qualifies as a world heritage site on account of any one of its many aspects, its irreplaceable biodiversity, its landscape with deep gorges and canyons, its unique systems of agriculture and the culture of its people. Mr Chellaney’s description of the desecration of Tibet by China is heartbreaking .

This is a comprehensive and interesting book but it could have paid greater attention to suggesting what India could propose to mitigate the potential water conflict with China; what negotiating positions could it put on the table ? What counter measures could it take to protect its interests ? How for instance, could the two countries take advantage of each other’s strengths so that there is more to be gained from cooperation than conflict? Both countries, but especially China, have experiencewith micro hydropower projects. Local communities in the Himalayas and in Tibet have a tremendous knowledge of biodiversity,hydrology and efficient water use, as well as water conservation. Sharing this knowledge could build bridges of mutual benefit and provide a stake in collaborating. So far, collaboration and coordination between the two countriesin dealing with environmental challenges has been limited, despite several signed agreements. In1993, China and India signed a collaboration agreement on the environmentand more recently they have signed an agreement to jointly monitor glaciers work and together in the areas of energy and afforestation. Suggestions on taking such beginnings forward would have added value to this book.

Asian Age, Dec 11, 2011

WE NEED A BETTER FOOD SECURITY LAW

2011-12-10T10:44:00.009+05:30

Suman Sahai

Despite the proposition that independent India has not had large scale famines, widespread hunger prevails and by all accounts, is growing. As we now know from official data, the majority of the population does not attain the minimum calorie levels for rural and urban areas. According to one estimate almost 87 per cent of the rural population gets less than the rural cut-off of 2400 calories/day, and 64.5 per cent of the urban population gets less than the urban cut-off of 2100 calories/day. India finds itself at the bottom in terms of the HDI rankings. According to the multiple poverty index the levels of poverty in the country are alarming, in the range of 645 million, or 55.4 per cent of the population.

The Indian State Hunger Index (ISHI) found that 12 of 17 states surveyed had ‘alarming’ levels of hunger, with one state having an ‘extremely alarming’ level. Not a single state had ‘low’ or ‘moderate’ hunger levels. Despite this commonality, the ISHI demonstrated high variability in hunger between states. The ISHI enabled global comparisons which showed that several of India’s worst performing states have higher levels of hunger than countries such as Zimbabwe and Haiti. Madhya Pradesh, the worst performing state, ranked just above Ethiopia.

The agrarian crisis
The output of food grains in 2003–04 was still 14 million tonnes below the high level reached in 2000–01. Admittedly the food grain production did go up in the last two years yet the shortfall is still massive. In 2011 there was the announcement of so-called record food grain production which prompted the lifting of the Supreme Court ban on wheat exports. Nevertheless, this increase in production has been limited to the surplus states such as Punjab, Haryana, and Andhra Pradesh whereas the rainfed states suffering from the highest levels of hunger, such as Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand, have not shared in these increases. On the contrary, the extent of fallow lands is increasing as farmers are unable to farm due to the paucity of productive resources. Given these growth rates and the regional disparities in hunger and agricultural production, it is not surprising that hunger and malnutrition have reached unprecedented levels.
Malnutrition

Today, nearly half of India’s children below the age of three are malnourished and stunted, and 40 per cent of rural India eats only as much food as sub-Saharan Africa. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), India is one among 17 countries where the number of the undernourished decreased in the first half of the 1990s, before increasing in the second half, thus almost completely offsetting the gains made during the earlier part of the decade. The per capita availability of food has declined for the first time since the 1960s. The official National Sample Survey (NSS) of 2000 revealed that three-fourths of India’s rural population and half the urban population did not get the minimum recommended calories. This is confirmed by nutritional and health surveys, which show: more than two-fifths of the adult population suffers from chronic energy deficiency, and a large percentage are at the border of this condition; half of India’s women are anaemic; and half of India’s children can be clinically defined as malnourished (stunted, wasting, or both). It is estimated that half of the Indian rural population, over 350 million people, are below the average food energy intake of sub-Saharan African countries.

Economic reforms in India have led to disinvestment in the agriculture sector. This has adversely affected more than 60 percent of the population which relies on agriculture for its livelihood. Many of the farmers responsible for making India self-sufficient in grain production are themselves facing hunger due to non-remunerative prices and rising input costs, among other factors. The following graphs show how the new agriculture policies have diminished the food availability gains made in the 1980s, resulting in a food availability situation not much better than the early 1950’s.

Fig 1: Food Grain Availability

Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Delhi 2005.
Fig. 1 shows that the 1950s, and up to 1964, the per capita availability of food grains ranged between 140 and 170 kg per annum. The availability dropped drastically in 1967, when it touched 143 kg, and then it increased again. What is noteworthy is the trend between 1979 and 1994, when the per capita availability of food grains ranged between 155 and 180 kg per annum. After 1994, availability declined to 150 kg per annum.

This picture becomes clearer if we mark out the per day availability of food grains as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 : Per Day Food Availability

Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Delhi, 2005.
Fig. 2 shows that the net per day availability of food grains in India has dipped alarmingly. It is now touching almost the same levels that it had reached in the early 1950s, at less than 450 grams per day per capita. There is a considerable shortfall in the actual requirement and availability of food grains. In the context of the current agrarian crisis, this trend poses a grave danger to communities already afflicted with hunger.

The Food Security Bill
In the backdrop of declining food availability, there have been diverse efforts to tackle hunger. There has been the Public Distribution System (PDS) providing subsidized grain, the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and the mid-day meal scheme for school children.

The most recent in this line of efforts to improve the hunger situation, is the National Food Security Bill (NFSB) proposed by the powerful National Advisory Council (NAC). The NFSB is being considered seriously by the government where reception to its contents is mixed at best. Elements in government and out of it have not been unanimously supportive of the Bill. An expert committee headed by C Rangarajan, stated that the entitlements outlined under the NAC draft (90 percent coverage of the rural population and 50 percent of the urban) were not feasible due to unavailability of sufficient food grains. They recommended that the entitlements which were guaranteed for above poverty line (APL) households be discarded and that only below poverty line (BPL) households (as measured by the Tendulkar estimate plus a ten percent margin) be included in the scheme. This would mean a drastic reduction in coverage with only 46 percent of the rural population and 28 percent of the urban included under the ambit of the legislation.

The Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has expressed doubt over the large quantity of grain procurement that would be required by the NAC draft and said that the issues raised by the Rangarajan Committee remained ‘pertinent’. Adding to this, the Food Ministry submitted their revised draft legislation days later which was substantially different from NAC’s proposal and decreased both the scope and size of the entitlements. Civil society groups appear divided on the NAC Bill, with some terming it merely a revised form of the PDS.

There are grave problems with the government draft that patterns itself on the draft provided by the National Advisory Council. Primary is its extremely restricted scope. This is not a Bill that attempts to bring about food security, it is only a Bill that offers a different plan to the existing PDS system, to distribute grain. No attention is paid to the most important components of food security, the production of food, its distribution and its absorption by the poor and hungry. Of the three major pillars of food security, food production, food distribution and food absorption, the NAC draft addresses just one. It is actually more a welfare Bill, a ‘dole’ as it were than an effort to tackle the complex problem of food security per se.

Tackling food security will certainly mean treading on influential toes. The conflicts will arise over who will have preferential access to productive resources like land and water. Will Coca Cola get the water for its bottling plant or will farmers get it for their cultivation? Will small farmers in the dry lands get massive investments in creating water bodies to enable them to have a second crop in the winter? The conflicts will be over such things like fertiliser subsidies. Will Punjab, Haryana, Western UP, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu continue as the principal beneficiaries of the government’s subsidies or will nutrient based subsidy be directed at poor quality soils in rainfed areas that most need intervention, finally get their due? The smallest , most marginal farmers have the worst soils and the least access to water. A Food Security Bill will have meaning only if it tries to swing things in their favour.

The Food Security Bill must tackle the fundamental question of common property resources and the right of access to them. It must be able to speak out against Jatropha plantations on common lands which are conveniently designated as ‘wasteland’. The biofuel produced in the name of clean energy will take away the grazing lands of herders and pastoralists , the place where they can park their livestock because they have no other land. It will take away the source of leafy green vegetables and medicinal plants that the poor rely on.

Just as it will have to tackle the Coca Colas , the Food Security Bill must also take a position against the Adanis, the Reliance lot and all the other conglomerates who are grabbing agricultural lands in the name of SEZs to set up industrial estates ( or just to corner real estate ) India’s most productive lands, the two crop and three crop zones are being snapped up to build urban estates. Where will we grow our food?

The food production part of the Food Security Bill will also have to deal with putting into place our response to ensure food security when faced with climate change. According to the IPCC report, the impact of climate change will be most severe in Africa and South Asia, especially its rainfed areas. We cannot continue behaving as though this is someone else’s problem and even as we debate the finer points of universal versus targeted distribution of food grains , that someone will step in and make the problem go away.

The neglect of rural India continues . There is no technical or financial obstruction to providing sanitation and clean drinking water in mission mode but it still has not been done. Children continue to die of diarrhoea and adults continue to sicken with it , unable to retain the little nutrition they get. There is no reason why this simple intervention has still not been done….
The fact is that to draft a truly comprehensive Food Security Bill and accommodate the logical aspects that belong there, a lot of people will have to be asked to give up some of what is in their bag of goodies. The Food Security Bill clearly fights shy of that .

Questions have also been raised about the manner of drafting this Bill. What kinds of consultations were undertaken? How did the principal stakeholders engage in the process of providing inputs? In what manner were experts and other actors brought on board ? How were the public’s views sought? Has this Bill attempted to be pluralistic representative of other views?

Redrafting a Food Security Legislation
It seems clear that to draft a food security bill, more than just the distribution aspects will have to be addressed. The Bill must include all relevant aspects related to the three major pillars of food security :
• the production (availability) of food,
• the distribution of food
• the absorption of food and nutrition. For this clean drinking water and sanitation are minimum requirements to prevent diarrhoea.

Better Food Storage?

2011-12-09T21:15:00.002+05:30

Suman Sahai

It is estimated that around 20 percent to 25 percent of India’s food grain production is lost due to improper or inadequate storage. That amounts to approximately 60 million tonnes of food grains each year, almost as much as what India actually stores in its official godowns. Almost 120 million tonnes of fruits , vegetables and other perishable commodities, twice the volume of grains, are similarly wasted due to delayed and inadequate transportation, lack of cold chains as well as treatment and storage facilities.

The absence of a supply chain is seen to be the major bottleneck. Responding to this line of thinking , the government has set up a new . The aim is to improve the storage capacity in the country and also help producers and consumers get a better deal by cutting out intermediaries and wastages. The 2011-12 budget made cold chains and post-harvest storage a part of infrastructure and made them eligible for income tax relief.

The initial focus for the WDRA has been on the agricultural sector and the central government has announced the Rural Godown Scheme to promote the construction of warehouses in rural areas. At present the WDRA scheme includes 40 agricultural commodities like cereals, pulses and spices.

If the WDRA scheme is implemented properly and corruption is contained, it will give farmers a concrete advantage and some control over their produce. In the absence of available storage, farmers are unable to hold their harvest and have to resort to distress sales immediately as the harvest comes in. This provides middle men and traders with the opportunity to drive down prices and buy up the agricultural produce of the season at rock bottom prices. They can store the grain and sell at high prices later but the farmer cannot do this in the absence of affordable and accessible storage.
Today most food warehouses in rural India are for captive use, very few are business models. To remedy this, the WDRA has recently registered 50 warehouses across the country, which will now be able to issue negotiable warehouse receipts. Negotiable Warehouse Receipts have been devised by the WDRA to enable farmers to get the best price for their produce and help bring down prices of commodities by cutting out the arbitrage earned by middlemen which they do by setting different prices for the same commodity.
Warehouses who want to participate in the Negotiable Warehouse Receipts scheme must get themselves registered by an accredited agency. Eight such agencies, four each in the public and private sector, have been recognised by the WDRA. Accredited warehouses and the Warehouse Receipt scheme are designed to ensure that the concerned warehouses have the facilities for safe and effective storage. They will also be required to do grading and sorting according to quality of the produce and fix expiry dates for the commodities so they can be moved out of storage for use. To give the stored products financial and transactional value, the WDRA has formed linkages with the Indian Banks Association to ensure that banks honor the receipts from registered warehouses.

Beginning with 50, the WDRA has made plans to accredit another 300 warehouses in the months ahead. But before this scheme is made fully operational, farmers will have to be trained in the procedures of storing their produce and the rights and obligations that they will have with such storage. Costs of such storage(including transportation to site from their fields ) will need to be worked out to see how feasible such storage facilities will be and how suited to small farmers.

Small farmers create small but critical surpluses which will have to be accommodated to make storage meaningful. Otherwise, big farmers and traders will be the only ones to benefit from the government’s scheme of better storage. Vigilance will be required in this scheme to ensure that it does not get hijacked by the big players to facilitate their commodity trading by having secure and subsidized storage. With agricultural decisions being the jurisdiction of state governments, it will have to be seen how the states intervene in the execution of issues like negotiable receipts and ownership of the produce.

A note of caution must be sounded on any plans to take a step by step approach in this matter. The argument of economic viability must not lead us into the trap of creating a national facility that first accommodates big account holders and pushes small farmers
away, to be accommodated later.

GEAC orders silly tests to judge if Bt brinjal is fit to make Ayurvedic medicines

2011-08-18T21:26:00.001+05:30

In a quandary over the release of Bt brinjal, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has ordered laboratory tests to conduct a compositional analysis to find out if Ayurvedic principles are disturbed in Bt brinjal.

P Anand Kumar, Principal Scientist, National Research Centre on Plant
Biotechnology (NRCPB) who has been working on Bt brinjal for several years, has informed that the tests are being conducted in the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad. The lab test report which is expected in the next two months would pave
the way for commercial release of Bt brinjal, it is thought.

Dr Ananda Kumar said the tests conducted in NIN would clear the apprehensions expressed by some that the Bt variety of brinjal would not have the same efficacy for preparing ayurvedic medicines as the non-GM.

This is utterly ridiculous. What are the 'lab tests' supposed to reveal about the suitability of using Bt brinjal in Ayurvedic medicine? Ayurveda scholars and practitioners will tell you that it is hard to identify isolated elements responsible for the medicinal value in a plant. Most often it is not known which specific 'chemical' actually is the effective one with the healing property. According to Ayurvedic principles, its a combination of elements that work to create the healing effect. This is the reason why many isolates from medicinal plants lose their healing properties when they are extracted and bottled.

Medicinal plants produce special chemicals under specific conditions. When these are changed, the composition and balance of such chemicals can change. The chemicals will vary from species to species and from location to location. It is for this reason that developing cultivation packages for medicinal plants is difficult. The cultivated varieties very often do not contain the effective properties that their naturally occurring counterparts do.

Competent as the NIN is, it can only measure what is known. If the active principles in brinjal that confer medicinal properties are not known, what will NIN measure ?

Dr Ananda Kumar should declare the mandate given to NIN and explain what they have been asked to measure. Further, Dr Kumar should explain how the measurement of these elements will reveal whether Bt brinjal is suitable for Ayurvedic preparations or not.

G20 PRESSURE ON INDIA TO EXPORT FOOD

2011-07-24T21:09:00.001+05:30

Suman Sahai

The agriculture ministers of the twenty most powerful nations in the world, the G 20, to which India now belongs, met for the first time in June 2011. This high powered meeting held in the back drop of the global food crisis tried to hammer out a strategy for the farm sector that would help to alleviate the world food situation. Prime amongst the strategies proposed was for countries like India and Russia to export their grain reserves. Whereas Russia has traditionally been an exporter of certain grains , specially wheat, India is a net importer especially when faced with a monsoon that is less than adequate.

What quite takes my breath away is the gall of the Americans who pushed for India to lift its ban on exports to meet global demand for food. After the food crisis of 2008, India had imposed a ban on rice exports so as to meet domestic food requirements and avert a crisis that could result from high food prices. This ban, according to the Americans should be lifted. In addition, India should share with the Americans information on the amount of grains stocked and their location so that they can intervene more directly.

Quite apart from the brazen interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, the Americans in typical fashion, hold one set of standards for themselves and another for the rest of the world. American corn is burnt to produce biofuel , creating a shortage in the international availability of corn. The biofuel fad leads nowhere since without the unnatural subsidies it receives, it is not a viable product. Nor apparently is it good for the environment it attempts purpotedly to save. The Obama administration’s review of the American biofuel program found that more conventional energy was required to transform corn into biofuel than the energy it would save. Why doesn’t America stop its biofuel program and let the corn and wheat that it destroys , re enter the food chain ?

If the American heart bleeds for the hungry and if it wants to help the global food crisis, let it begin to implement its sermons at home. Instead of telling other nations to release buffer stocks of grain meant for the poor and hungry, let America first release all the food stocks it destroys to produce biofuels. Then let it stop the enormous wastage of food . According to the most recent report of the FAO, the US and Europe together waste about a third of the food that is produced in their countries. Once they have cleaned up their own act, may be they will acquire some legitimacy and be able to offer suggestions to others about what they should be doing to resolve the global food crisis.

WHY FARMERS DON’T FARM

2011-06-24T08:12:00.002+05:30

Suman Sahai

Some years ago the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) reported after its study on agriculture that roughly half the farmers in the country did not wish to continue with farming. They would quit if they had an alternative . This shameful fact reflects the despair that farmers feel and is based on the fact that agriculture is a loss making enterprise and the farmers are unable to either feed themselves or turn a profit. In addition to this, rural India is looked down upon by the well to do urban India , including the policy makers who are seen as part of the urban elite. Whether or not they are, they certainly behave like that. This discrimination strips farming and the farmer of his ( and even more so , her) dignity and does anything but provide an incentive to the younger generation to want to take up farming. Raised on a diet of unreal aspirations beamed out through our surfeit of television soap operas and bollywood films, the rural youth sees neither glamour, money nor dignity in farming. Why would he want to adopt it if there is nothing there for him ?

The tenuous situation with farming is not helped by electoral politics playing with rice and wheat as gimmicks to get votes. In this election the Congress-led United Democratic Front in Kerala joined the rice politics of the state and promised 35 kg rice at Re 1 per kg in a month for BPL ( Below Poverty Line) families and at Rs 2 per kg for APL (Above Poverty Line) families in its election manifesto. Before this, the LDF manifesto had guaranteed rice at Rs 2 per kg for all BPL and APL families. The poor must certainly get the help of the state to overcome hunger and poverty but the way to do this should be empowerment and fostering self reliance , not creating dependency through doles. When such support is enmeshed in politics, nobody is fooled and it creates a culture of cynicism and dependence. This has undesirable consequences at several levels.

In the last few months during my visits to the Gene Campaign field station in Jharkhand, I have been encountering a dangerous pulling away from agriculture. In addition to the other work we do on food , nutrition and livelihoods, we also provide training in adapting the fragile agriculture of the dryland to the growing uncertainty of global warming and climate change. These trainings are hands on, with several practical demonstrations and we usually have enthusiastic farmers coming for training programs which they have found useful. Although the youth have sometimes been less keen to continue with agriculture , or to invest too much physical labour in it, it is now all farmers who are reluctant to practice farming and are reluctant to come for trainings. If their agriculture has become unattractive, why would they come for training programs to improve agriculture?

The uncertain rainfall and drought of the last three years has made farming even more risky than before. In Jharkhand farmers can take only one crop in the year during the monsoon when it rains. Because there is no irrigation, they are unable to plant a second crop in the winter as farmers in the irrigated regions of Punjab and UP can.

When the monsoon has become uncertain because of global warming and farming remains non remunerative , the farmers have no incentive to continue farming. Farm losses become even higher if the single rice crop too fails, creating a crisis of hunger for farm families. The coping mechanism for such a situation is to abandon farming and seek work as manual labour since that brings assured income, which farming does not.

Abandoning farming now makes economic sense to the farmer. In Jharkhand, here is how it works for them. In a family with five members, if four go out to seek manual work in mines or at construction sites, they collectively earn about Rs 300 per day at an average wage rate of Rs 75 per person which is below the minimum wage but it is money that comes into their hands at the end of the day. This makes the average monthly income of the family Rs 9000 rupees per month, or Rs 1 lakh eight thousand per year. This is several times what they can ever dream of earning from farming from the un irrigated land holdings they possess. In the farmer’s calculation, agriculture is expensive, risky and requires back breaking work which does not even bring enough to eat, let alone any surplus. On top of all this, it carries the near certain burden of debt since in order to coax his single crop out of the ground, the farmer needs to take credit to procure inputs like seed and fertilizer, sometimes even water .

In another scenario, the BPL card holder gets 35 kg of rice at Rs 1 per kg and 3 liters of kerosene oil per month for cooking. This subsidized grain lasts his family for fifteen days in the month, for the other fifteen days he purchases food from the market with the money the family has earned from manual labour. On the other hand , here is what many farmers recounted about their experience with hybrid rice cultivation. Hybrid rice is promoted aggressively by government agencies although all the hybrid rice seed is being sold by private companies and there is not a single public sector hybrid rice available on the market. ! Farmers bought hybrid rice seed at about Rs 250 per kg, planted the nursery and at the time of transplantation, the rains failed. Since there is no investment in rainwater conservation, there are no water bodies and life saving irrigation is not available to save the crop. So, after investing between 3000 to 4000 rupees , the farmers got about 50 to 60 kg of rice from the entire kharif crop. Compare this with the 35 kg rice that they get for Rs 35, every month. Why would the farmer farm ?

The failed agriculture sector combined with wage labor opportunities in the market and subsidized grain schemes like those for Below Poverty Line and Antodaya card holders, has made agriculture and food production the least attractive option for the rural community, especially the youth. Food is more easily ( and less painfully ) obtained by a combination of activities which does not include farming. There is another danger in this set up, the deskilling of agriculturists. Many in the younger generation are forgetting how to farm. They have increasingly little facility with the hoe and plough, do not know how to turn the soil and make the field ready. The younger lot are unable already to read the weather to time the planting of their crop; they do not know which seeds to choose for the particular situation that is currently obtaining. Slipping away too is the knowledge of agricultural practices in special land types, keeping the soil alive, problem solving, seed and grain storage, adding value to local produce and a host of other things. Two more generations of this kind of youth and we may not have enough people who can grow food in this country. And then ?

COPING WITH CLIMATE CHANGE TO PROTECT FOOD AND LIVELIHOOD SECURITY

2011-05-14T16:36:00.004+05:30

Suman Sahai
As the world struggles with successive food crises and turbulence marks the countries that suffer from endemic hunger, there is the new factor of global warming and climate change to contend with. Climate change and its impact on agriculture and food production is being properly understood only now, as its anticipated impacts are being felt in agricultural ecosystems across the world.

The developing countries in the tropics are more susceptible to climate change damage than the temperate countries, many of which will be beneficiaries. The worst impacts of climate change on food production are anticipated in Africa and South Asia. For the latter where agriculture remains largely monsoon dependent, disturbances in the monsoon as we know it, could have grave implications for food and water security. If the monsoon falters, so does our food security as well as the livelihood security of large parts of the population.

Changes in rainfall patterns and temperature regimes, influence local water balance and disturb the optimal cultivation period for particular crops, known as Length of Growing Period (LGP). According to climate change data, land with good LGP will decrease by as much as 51 million hectare world wide.

Adequate LGP is needed to ensure that medium to long duration crops are able to grow to maturity. Some crop varieties ripen quickly and are ready for use in a shorter period ( short duration varieties), others, specially among cereals require a longer period to mature.When the LGP in an agro climatic zone is long,a variety of crops from short duration to long duration can be cultivated there, throughout the growing season. This means higher food production. When the LGP contracts, the growing season is shortened, with implications for food production. Most climate change models predict large increases of LGP in today’s temperate, and arctic regions. This means that temperate regions which are currently one crop zones will become two crop zones, thus increasing agriculture production there.

Tropical areas on the other hand are slated to see an expansion of arid zones accompanied by a contraction of 31-51 million ha of favorable cultivation areas. This will mean a significant reduction in food production in the most vulnerable areas where population density is high and food is already scarce. Nearly one billion people live in these vulnerable environments, dependent on agriculture. These vulnerable populations will suffer most from climate damage like land degradation and biodiversity loss.

Climate Change Impacts in India and South Asia
According to climate data almost 40 percent of the production potential in certain developing countries could be lost. In India and South Asia, dryland areas where agriculture is rainfed, will see cutbacks in productivity due to a shorter, more uncertain monsoon. The biggest blow to food stocks however is likely to come from declining production because areas where two to three crops are being cultivated today, as in Punjab, western Uttar Pradesh, the Northeastern states and certain coastal areas, are likely to turn into single crop zones, where only one crop can be taken in a year because the rest of the season will be too hot and dry to support cultivation.

The manifestation of climate change in India and South Asia finds many forms. There have been serious and recurrent floods in Bangladesh, Nepal and India since 2002 and unusually heavy rainfall and floods in Mumbai in 2005. Torrential rain in Jaisalmer and parts of Rajasthan in 2010 led to floods in this desert region, accompanied by more frequent and prolonged droughts as in the years 2008 to 2010. At the same time cyclonic activity has become high. Witness the increased cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea since 1970 and more recently Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar in 2008 and Cyclone Aila in 2009. This weather turbulence is accompanied by increasing turbulence in India’s food lifeline, the South West monsoon.

According to monsoon modeling data, the total number of rainy days during the monsoon period will decrease by 15 days. Considering that most of the monsoon rainfall falls within 100 days, this will be a significant shortfall. The intensity of the rainfall is expected to increase accompanied by strong surface run off and loss of fertile top soil. The melting of the Himalayan glaciers will diminish the water flow in the major rivers of North India ,affecting the food production in the highly productive Indo- Gangetic plains.

The melting polar ice is causing the sea level to rise. Large parts of the Maldives could go under, as could the Ganges delta in Bangladesh. India with its coastline of nearly 6000 km, has cause for concern. Several million people practice agriculture and aquaculture along the coast, all of which will be threatened by the increasing salinity of ground water as sea water seeps into aquifers. Along with major staple crops, other food sources like livestock and fish , both marine and fresh water will be affected by rising temperatures. Sea level rise will impact the habitations of populations that live along the coast, as in Kerala or Bangladesh and loss of homesteads along with livelihoods will create a new class of climate refugees who will be forced to migrate inwards, seeking new avenues of survival, creating greater pressures on urban centres. Contingency plans will be needed to rehabilitate climate refugees from vulnerable areas.

To cope with the impact of climate change on agriculture and food production India will need to act at global, regional, national and local levels.

Global –India must negotiate hard to ensure that the emission reduction pledges in climate change negotiations are sufficient to ensure that the global temperature rise is capped at 20C. If this is not done, the impact on agriculture and food security in developing countries will be devastating.

Given that agriculture is the lifeline of the developing world and will bear the worst brunt of climate change, India must insist that developed countries must reduce their own agriculture emissions while at the same time paying for adaptation, especially in the agriculture sector, consistent with the ‘polluter pays’ principle.

Regional.- Regional cooperation at SAARC level and with China is necessary to protect the Himalayan ecosystems and minimize glacial melt. Negotiations on river waters emanating from the Tibetan plateau are urgent so that the river flows in our major rivers like the Ganga and Brahmaputra are maintained to support agriculture. Regional strategies for mitigation and adaptation across similar agro ecologies will help all countries of the region to protect their agriculture and food production.

National – The Prime Minister has established the National Action Plan on Climate Change with eight national Missions designed to cope with the impact of climate change in diverse sectors like energy, water, agriculture and biodiversity. Appropriate policy and budgetary support for mitigation and adaptation actions is needed. In agriculture, adaptation strategies have long lead times and need to start NOW. Multiple food and livelihood strategies are needed in rural areas to minimize risk. Food inflation must be contained at all costs. It will worsen with climate change as more frequent and unpredictable droughts and floods will result in shortfalls in food production. Just one bad monsoon in 2009 led to a reduction of 15 million tonnes in rice and 4 million tonnes in pulse production, causing prices to go through the roof. To prepare for climate altered conditions, practices in agriculture will need to shift from intensive, mechanized, water demanding agriculture to a more sustainable, conservation agriculture that grows crops using less water, extracting more crop per drop of water.

Local- Attention will have to be paid both to mitigation and adaptation to climate change, the real action for which will have to be at the local level. The pursuit of sustainable agricultural development at the local level is integral to climate- change mitigation and combating climate change effects is vital for sustainable agriculture.

Since approximately 17 percent of total GHG emissions are attributed to crop and animal husbandry , it is necessary to reduce this for the overall health of the planet. Mitigation measures can include minimizing mechanization; supplementing urea with biological fertilizer and using neem coated urea to minimize ammonia volatilization contributing to nitrous oxide emissions. An effective strategy to reduce methane emission from cattle is establishing biogas plants with animal dung which in addition provides a clean source of renewable energy. Building soil carbon banks to capture and retain carbon in the soil can be achieved by planting fertilizer trees

Mitigation of greenhouse gases from agricultural systems and building adaptation strategies must be anchored in the village panchayat system to enhance coping capacities of farming communities. Mitigating emissions from agriculture will reduce input costs for the farmer and make the production system more sustainable but the real challenge to the food and livelihood security of our people will have to be met by rapid and targeted adaptation strategies.

Adaptation will require strategies to reduce vulnerabilities, strengthen resilience & build the adaptive capacity of rural and farming communities. Industrial agro ecosystems damage environmental goods and services and so have weak resilience. The ecosystem approach with crop rotations, bioorganic fertilizers and biological pest controls, improves soil health & water retention, increases fertile top soil, reduces soil erosion and maintains productivity over the long term. The more diverse the agro ecosystems, the more efficient the network of insects & and microorganisms that control pests and disease. Building resilience in agro ecosystems and farming communities, improving adaptive capacity and mitigating GHG emissions is the way to cope.

Agriculture biodiversity is central to an agro ecosystem approach to food production. The genetic diversity in livestock and fish species and breeds is as important as in crop varieties . Genetic diversity gives species the ability to adapt to changing environments and combat biotic and abiotic stress like pests and disease, drought and salinity. A knowledge-intensive, rather than input-intensive approach should be adopted to develop adaptation strategies. Traditional knowledge about the community’s coping strategies should be documented and used in training programs to help find solutions to address the uncertainties of climate change, build resilience, adapt agriculture and reduce emissions.

An early warning system should be put in place to monitor changes in pest and disease profile and predict new pest and disease outbreaks. The overall pest control strategy should be based on Integrated Pest Management because it takes care of multiple pests in a given climatic scenario. A national grid of grain storages , ranging from Pusa Bins and Grain Golas at the household/ community level to ultra- modern silos at the district level must be established to store buffer stocks to ensure local food security and stabilize prices. A special climate risk insurance should be launched for farmers and the agriculture credit and insurance systems must be made climate responsive and more sensitive to the needs of small farmers.

Adaptation and mitigation support structures in the form of Climate Risk Research Centers should be established at each of the 128 agro-ecological zones in the country. The Centers should prepare computer simulation models of different weather probabilities and develop and promote farming system approaches which can help to minimize the adverse impact of unfavorable weather and maximize the benefits of a good monsoon. Gyan Chaupals and Village Resource Centers with satellite connectivity should disseminate value added weather data from the government’s Agromet Service to farmers through mobile telephony, giving them information on rainfall and weather in real time.

Uncertain weather will disrupt established cropping patterns, requiring a different set of crop varieties for which seed will have to be produced. Decentralized seed production involving local communities will help to produce locally adapted seed of the main and contingency crops. A network of community level seed banks with the capacity to implement contingency plans and alternative cropping strategies depending on the behavior of the monsoon will be a key adaptation strategy.

Finally, investments must be made in strategic research of both anticipatory and adaptive nature. This should cover all aspects of food production , starting with farming systems and including crop, fodder, livestock, fish and the key aspects associated with each of these.

GOOD CROPS – POOR FARMERS

2011-05-07T21:13:00.002+05:30

Suman Sahai

Traveling through western and central Uttar Pradesh on my way home to Tilhar for the Holi break, I had occasion to see the winter crop . Tilhar lies about 300 km east of Delhi in the fertile plains of northern India. Here acres of wheat stood sturdily in the fields, slowly changing colour from green to yellow. The crop was good and if all goes well ( touchwood !) the farmer will have a good harvest ,bringing in a good average of grain, but will it bring in prosperity? Will the crop in the field translate into money in the bank? Likely not.

One thing is clear , the farmer knows how to farm. He, and now increasingly she, can coax out of the earth, even under difficult conditions of poor soil and little water, something to eat. In areas blessed by Nature like in the Indo-Gangetic belt where Tilhar lies, farmers know how to take good crops.

This year the wheat is good. Fairly decent winter rains that came late in the season were nectar for the standing crop. The westerly wind did not blow too much and the farmer was relieved . Because when the Pachiyao wind blows in from the west , it will cruelly dry up the sap in the seed so the grains will be light and shriveled. But this season with its sunny warming days and cool nights, so crucial for wheat, the crop was thriving and the grains are plump and plentiful. The wheat crop depends on the night temperature. It must be cold for the wheat to thrive. This year the nights have been cold and the crop in the fields shows it.

Western and Central Uttar Pradesh produce surplus grain like Punjab and Haryana and since the days of the Green Revolution, these have been important centres where rice and wheat are procured for the central pool. In the early days this worked well for farmers but in the last years , procurement has become an exercise to torment farmers rather than support them. First, the Minimum Support Price (MSP) that is announced, is never paid in full, always less. If the price announced for wheat is Rs 1120 per quintal, as it is this year, the real price that the farmer would get could be anything from Rs 750 to Rs 950 per quintal. Corruption locks the farmers in a vice like grip because they have no storage facilities and must sell their harvest immediately after harvest.

Both procurement agencies and where relevant, the market, knows this and turns the screws on price since they know the farmer has no choice but to sell. Other strategies that are used to press prices down is to tell the farmer that their grain has not been dried sufficiently ( whether that is true or not) and will not be lifted. As soon as palms have been greased, the grain dries miraculously. Other tricks are to declare the grain too ‘light’ , not fulfilling the standards set by the Food Corporation of India (FCI). The FCI’s exacting standards are equally miraculously met once the farmers pockets have become correspondingly lighter.

Often there is an unholy nexus between the FCI agents and private companies . The deal is that the procurement agency will reject much of the grain on one pretext or another Farmers have to travel to procurement centres with their grain, for it to be inspected, weighed and lifted. If they do not have their own bullock carts, they hire these or rent trucks or tractor trolleys to bring their grain to the centre. Every day of delay costs the farmer in rental money. Its like ports charge demurrage charges if you do not lift your goods. Each day the port holds your goods, it charges you a fee. Bullock cart , tractor- trolley and truck owners do the same. So if they have to wait around till the farmer can negotiate the deal, the cost of hire goes up every day.

This eats into the farmer’s profit. When the farmer’s grain is held up and he is desperate to sell , the private companies will step in and buy up the grain at low prices. In this way the backbreaking effort put in by the farmer and the little subsidy he gets on fertilizer and diesel to irrigate his fields goes to benefit the private companies. Despite a good harvest the farmer may not make a profit. Sometimes he can not even recover his cost and in this way he gets poorer and so desperate that he wants to abandon agriculture.

This is not my version. The National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) discovered this in its survey in 2007 when almost half the country’s farmers said they would abandon farming if they could find another occupation. This should set the alarm bells ringing in the corridors of power. If the farmer does not grow food what will we eat? Import food ? But there is nothing available on the international market to buy ! Droughts in Australia and Russia, floods in New Zealand and turbulent weather every where has ensured that the guaranteed food surpluses cannot be counted on. The biofuel drive in the US has drawn away the American corn into ethanol production so that wheat is being diverted to animal feed and both corn and wheat are now in short supply.

It is not rocket science to understand that we need to make agriculture work if we as a nation are to get anywhere. Pursuing the dreams of 9 percent growth while leaving large chunks of India out of the ambit of such growth is fraught with danger, as the developments in Chattisgarh and Jharkhand are showing us every other week. Internal security, the Prime Minister says is the country’s largest crisis. Fixing agriculture and putting money in the farmers’ pocket is a dead sure way of finding our way out of this crisis. When will we get that?

The Green Signal

2011-04-15T22:23:00.000+05:30

Sri Yoginder Alagh’s recent article ‘The Green Signal’ in the Indian Express of April 13, 2011, makes a worrying point on the cultivation of soybean in the country. Alagh mentions that the boost in the cultivation of soybean is a result of the use of GM varieties. India’s regulatory agencies have not yet given permission for the cultivation of GM soybean since the bio safety testing process has not been completed. If Sri Alagh has knowledge of the cultivation of GM soybean, he must immediately report it to the authorities since this cultivation violates the biosafety law and is therefore illegal. The cultivation of the illegal GM soybean poses a threat to the environment and human health since it has not been fully tested nor declared safe for consumption by the authorities.

Sowing the seeds of destruction

2011-03-30T20:59:00.000+05:30

Suman Sahai

Here is yet another Mahyco-Monsanto tale, one of defiance and breaking the law even as the scientific community looks on. Monsanto is the world’s largest investor in seed and biotechnology research investing $1 billion/`5,000 crores and is also the leading producer of genetically engineered (GE) seed. It provides the technology in 90 per cent of the world’s genetically engineered seeds.

The Mahyco seed company had approached the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) in its meeting on January 12, 2011 for permission to produce seed of genetically engineered cotton containing a herbicide tolerant gene. This non-Bt cotton was not proposed to be released as a herbicide tolerant (HT) crop but to be used as the refuge crop for when BG II RR Flex cotton is finally approved for cultivation. Currently it is in trials. BG II RR Flex refers to Bollgard II, a cotton hybrid that carries two Bt genes as well as a gene conferring tolerance to Roundup Ready, which is a herbicide. This double Bt, single HT cotton is a stacked cotton hybrid, which is piling on Bt genes to stay ahead of the bollworms that are fast catching up and becoming resistant to the Bt toxin inside the plant, which is meant to kill them.
Mahyco had already applied to GEAC in September 2010 to produce the same seed and had been turned down on the grounds that the hybrid had not cleared the regulatory process and did not have permission for environmental release. Therefore, according to the Rules of 1989, which govern biotechnology, Mahyco could not be given permission to produce seed of the unapproved cotton. But did Mahyco accept the GEAC ruling and desist from using the unapproved HT cotton seed? No it did not.
It went ahead, cocking a snook at GEAC, made seed of the unapproved non-Bt RR Flex cotton and is using it to plant the refuge crop in the trials of its double Bt, single HT cotton hybrid BG II RR Flex. A 20 per cent “refuge crop” of non-Bt cotton is required by the law, to be planted along with Bt cotton so that the invading bollworm has a non-toxic cotton to feed on, to delay the build up of resistance to the toxic Bt cotton. The Mahyco Company is merrily carrying on using the unapproved cotton as the refuge planting in the trials of its new double Bt, single HT cotton hybrid even after GEAC had denied it permission to do this.
So why is Mahyco breaking the law to plant (the unapproved) herbicide tolerant cotton as the refuge for its double Bt, single HT cotton hybrid? Because it slyly admits what we have been pointing out all along, that planting a herbicide tolerant crop, like the new Bt-HT cotton, and using the matched herbicide (Roundup Ready) during its cultivation will destroy all the neighbouring crops and the adjoining biodiversity. This will happen when Roundup Ready lands on them when fields of the HT crops are being sprayed. Only plants carrying the HT gene can survive the herbicide spray. Since the other crops and the surrounding biodiversity do not contain the HT gene, they will die when the Roundup Ready hits them.
HT crops can only be cultivated if all the other crops in the region are also HT (which is an impossibility), otherwise they will be destroyed when they catch the Roundup Ready spray drifting in the wind or if they get sprayed inadvertently. In several articles and submissions I have made to policy bodies, this is why I have argued that the herbicide-tolerant genetic trait must not be permitted for use in India. First because it will displace agriculture labour (weeding provides wage labour), second because it will destroy all the surrounding biodiversity that rural communities use as food, fodder, medicinal plants etc. and third because of what Mahyco-Monsanto now themselves admit, that Roundup Ready sprays will destroy all the other non-HT crops in the neighbourhood.
The Director of the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) in Nagpur acknowledges the problem with HT crops, saying that the refuge for the Bt-HT cotton must be planted with HT cotton during commercial cultivation. Otherwise the refuge will be killed by Roundup Ready spray drifts. According to the minutes of the 106th GEAC meeting of January 12, 2011, the CICR director’s views are recorded as follows: “If the Refugia in BG II RR Flex comprise only of non-Bt cotton without RR-Flex (HT trait), there is every likely possibility of the refugia patch getting destroyed due to spray drift or inadvertent application of ‘Round-up’ on the ‘non-RR-Flex-non-Bt-cotton’”. So the scientists admit there is a problem with the implementation of HT crops in real life. The CICR director, however, does not propose a strategy for how other crops and biodiversity should be protected when Mahyco’s new Bt-HT cotton is planted commercially and Roundup Ready is widely used in the fields.
Because Mahyco has blatantly defied the directions of the GEAC not to produce HT cotton seed until it gets regulatory approval, the regulators have decided to issue a showcause notice to the company, seeking explanation on why penal action should not be initiated against it under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA), for violations of the Rules of 1989. The Rules of 1989 are framed under the EPA that is the umbrella legislation.
It will be interesting to see how this story unfolds. Will the GEAC really follow through and take action against Mahyco for its defiant stand and blatant violations? Or will Mahyco walk home free as it has done in the past? It is openly mentioned that the Mahyco-Monsanto gang are used to getting their way with regulatory agencies like the GEAC. Do they indeed get away with things? The grapevine is full of gossip and names are mentioned openly. This situation is untenable for a society that lays claim to scientific achievement. After the disgraceful performance of the scientific community in the Bt brinjal case, let them redeem their reputation and tighten up the regulation of genetically modified crops so that it is rescued from being the farce that it is today.

Dr Suman Sahai, a genetic scientist who has served on the faculty of the Universities of Chicago and Heidelberg, is convenor of the Gene Campaign

CORPORATE FOOD SAVIOURS

2011-03-26T19:12:00.001+05:30

Suman Sahai

Almost a billion people in Asia and Africa are plagued by hunger. The global firms pushing the “New Vision for Agriculture” have little to do with sustainable agriculture or solving the problem of hunger. Their goal is to corner resources like land and water as well as public sector finances and make these work to earn big profits for themselves

Seventeen corporations belonging to the consumer industries community of the World Economic Forum have announced their intention to enter the food business in the name of the poor. The alliance includes the world’s biggest life science corporations like Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont and BASF, the world’s largest food commodities traders like Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge and Cargill, processed food giants like Kraft Foods, Nestlé and PepsiCo, global retailers like Walmart and Metro in addition to diversified transnational corporations like SABMiller, Unilever, Yara International, Coca-Cola and General Mills.

These colossal entities that control the food chain starting from the genetically modified (GM) seed, fertilizer and pesticide to the grain and finally to the cakes and biscuits in large retail stores hope to become the saviours of global agriculture and the defenders of food security. Without a shred of embarrassment, they assert that their project works to “advance market-based solutions to agricultural sustainability”.

They call it the New Vision for Agriculture, and they have hijacked all the clichés of food security to portray their intent: “… over the past two years, food security and economic crises have highlighted both the urgent need and the potential for developing sustainable agricultural systems”. Or “Nearly one billion people — one out of six globally — lack access to adequate food and nutrition” . Their mantra to feed the 9 billion people expected to be on the planet by 2050 is to increase agricultural productivity through investment, innovation and the right policy framework! The sustainable agriculture growth they profess to initiate is to be achieved by market-based solutions.

It’s quite another matter that the poor are barely linked to the market except as consumers because they have nothing to sell and little means to buy with. The crisis of food is exemplified in India by the twin tragedies of rotting grain in buffer stocks and families suffering from endemic hunger. Almost a billion people in Asia and Africa are plagued by hunger even as large food stocks are traded in international markets by the very people who are the stewards of this New Vision of Agriculture, the Cargills, the Archer Daniel Midlands, the Bunges and so on.

The alliance claims that it seeks a “win-win” approach that leverages and multiplies each party’s investment. Revealed here is the real face of the New Vision for Agriculture, its corporate face that has little do with sustainable agriculture or solving the problem of hunger and malnutrition, but everything to do with cornering resources like land and water as well as public sector finances and make it work to earn big profits for themselves.

For instance, this New Vision for Agriculture has struck a deal in that part of Tanzania, (the south) which has bountiful water, good soils, favourable climate and a good infrastructure linked to regional and international markets. In short, ideal conditions for commercial agriculture. This is not the area that needs help because the conditions there are favourable anyway. It’s the sub-Saharan countries that need a leg up to improve agriculture, food security and nutrition but the New Vision for Agriculture is not going there.

What the New Vision proposes in Tanzania reads more like the land grab that is taking place all over Africa than any activity with the philanthropic intent of solving hunger. Land grabs are rampant in the favourable, fertile parts of Africa, where African governments and foreign corporations are striking unholy deals to corner large tracts of land belonging to small farmers. This is being leased out to produce food to be shipped out, not solve hunger at home.

By its own candid admission, the New Vision project proposes to involve itself only with profitable, modern commercial farming and agri-business. This too not everywhere but only in selected areas and only with crops with high market potential. According to current planning, the project leaders will identify “profitable, scalable agricultural and services businesses, with major benefits for smallholder farmers and local communities”. The politically correct categories of smallholder farmers and local communities are mentioned at appropriate places (although not too often). It is alleged the proposed projects will bring them major benefits, though how this will happen is not spelled out. The New Vision does not plan to establish anything in areas that require improvement but build only on existing operations mobilising and leveraging both public and private-sector investments into those opportunities that are viable. No talk here of investing in improving the viability of those units that are not so viable!

As part of their food security programme in Vietnam, the New Vision for Agriculture has made plans to develop coffee, tea, fish, fruit, vegetables and grain commodities for regional and global markets. A task force has been set up to oversee implementation. Members of the task force include Bunge, Metro, Cargill, Cisco, DuPont, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Monsanto and Unilever.

The current crop of New Visions and Alliances against Hunger look like con jobs. Curiously though, neither the crops selected to alleviate food insecurity nor the strategy to achieve this goal seems to strike the involved governments as the slightest bit incongruous. It says something about the state of affairs in the food domain that this in your face brazenness has not met with howls of protest from international agencies or national governments. On the contrary, even India, with its massive food security issues, is rushing to partner in this exercise. Shouldn’t we be doing something to stop this blatant exploitation? Isn’t anyone in any government thinking?

The writer is the Chief Editor of Gene News, published by the Gene Campaign Foundation

On Record: 'Crux of food security lies in rainfed farming'

2011-02-09T14:56:00.007+05:30

by Vibha Sharma

Founder of Gene Campaign Suman Sahai, recipient of the Padma Shri in the category of science and engineering, is an active voice on food security for the past many years. She is opposed to the UPA government’s Food Security Bill in the current form. Which is why, the announcement of the top government honour came as an "unexpected, but pleasant surprise" to her.

She speaks to The Tribune on the Padma Shri and about the food security legislation.

Excerpts:

Q: Were you expecting the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour of India?
A: It is an unexpected but a pleasant surprise. Gene Campaign has been critical of government policies but whenever we have done we have also tried to provide an alternative. Ours has not been a vicious, meaningless criticism. We disagreed only because we wanted a better situation for farmers and food security. It is a wonderful feeling to know that the government has the capacity to recognise constructive criticism. The award is in recognition of our contribution to agriculture and farmers’ and community rights.

Q: Your views on the Food Security Bill being considered by the Government and the National Advisory Council are hardly charitable. What are your objections and what is the alternative?
A: The problem with the Bill is that it has skipped the first nine steps and jumped to the last one. A whole lot of people who have no idea about food security have taken over the agenda. Welfare is one part but if you do not ensure a proper atmosphere for farmers to grow more, how will you get that extra food for distribution?
Right now there is something drastically wrong with the farming sector. Half of the farming community wants to get out of it specifically because it is not remunerative. If farmers are not making enough money to be encouraged to stay in the business, it would be a ridiculously simple approach to come up with a binding legislation on food security.How will you get that extra food from? There is no surplus grain in the international market. Food security equals food sovereignty. Otherwise you will always be vulnerable to external forces. You have to come up with a bigger vision and start from step number one, growing enough food. Solutions are not exactly rocket from step number one, growing enough food. Solutions are not exactly rocket science. They are fairly obvious.

Q: What should be the plan of action before the government makes the final commitment?
A: First, agriculture has to be made sustainable for the farmer. Then there has to be a well-defined water policy, including one groundwater extraction. There is also no need to give free water or electricity to farmers who are not looking for freebies. They are more than willing to pay for conveniences you provide if they are making money.
If the farmer does find farming remunerative he will give up the production. If you want to make the country food secure, bring the water to rainfed area. The crux of food security lies in rainfed agriculture.
I strongly recommend shifting subsidy in urea to sustainable agriculture in rainfed areas. Solutions are neither complex nor cost-intensive. They are very simple, practical solutions, something that should have been implemented yesterday. The food security legislation currently is more like propaganda: it does not reflect the genuine desire to solve food problem. It is not a sustainable legislation.

Q: Punjab and Haryana farmers have been complaining of lowering of yields. What is your advice to them to increase productivity?
A: Move away from the current model of agriculture which has sucked out micronutrients of the soil without giving anything back in return. `A0As it is, the area is fairly arid and cultivating rice has just left a layer of concrete in places. Farmers should step back from this crazily intensive production system they have been following and improve the soil health.
Secondly, diversification does not mean growing kinnow. Rice and wheat have been taking away the same kind of nutrients. So, go back to oilseeds, pulses and other cereals. The soil has to be given an opportunity to recuperate. Pulses will put back some nutrients rice and wheat have been extracting. Also, reduce mechanisation.Farmers must realise that while they are building the soil health their rates of profit will go down but agriculture in this region has to take rest and then start off differently.

Source :The Tribune, 6 Feb, 2011

WikiLeaks on bio-terrorism : India is vulnerable to attacks by novel organisms

2011-01-11T17:50:00.010+05:30

By Suman Sahai

THE media has been spilling the contents of the Radia tapes with salacious gossip about a minister running Air India into the ground to benefit private airlines, or the promiscuous ways of an industry tycoon. WikiLeaks is also getting space with stories of the less than reverential US attitude towards us despite all the soft-soaping going on in public about the power of rising India. What went unnoticed in this milieu of gossip and innuendos was a set of postings having unnerving contents. Dealing with bioterrorism, these minutes of the meetings of US diplomats with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) reveal the US evaluation of India’s lack of preparedness to handle any kind of bioterrorism.

Indian officials have been aware of the threat of bioterrorism at the hands of jihadi elements for some time. Two years ago a terrorist apprehended in Kashmir was found to be carrying a sophisticated device looking like a fountain pen, which contained strange and toxic chemicals. According to a WikiLeaks document, MEA officials admit that Indian intelligence agencies have picked up the conversation of suspected terrorists discussing the use of bio-terrorism. According to this leaked report, jihadi groups have opened up channels to identify people with PhD degrees in biology and biotechnology to recruit those sympathetic to their cause. No guesses for figuring out what these PhDs should be doing for their jihadi masters.

Though old-style bio-terror agents like anthrax bacteria and cholera germs are still effective, antidotes are known for these and can be deployed fast if the state agencies are alert and can respond in real time. The real fear of bio-terrorism, however, now comes from the next generation of biological organisms that are being created in the lab using new tools like genetic engineering and synthetic biology. Advances in biotechnology have put in the hands of scientists and laboratory technicians several methods and techniques, all of them quite uncomplicated, that can be used to create new organisms with hitherto unknown traits.

Given that there are hundreds of labs engaged in the exercise of cutting and splicing genes from one organism to another and that all the equipment and chemicals needed to do this are easily available, the potential of creating God-knows-what in the lab is magnified several-fold. India’s rich biological diversity offers a range of bacteria and viruses and thousands of lethal toxins that can be obtained from sources like micro-organisms and plants. All these have the potential of being cut and spliced at will, creating dangerous new organisms that have no pedigree and for which no antidotes are known. These are the monsters on the horizon, waiting to be picked up by terrorists with mayhem and destruction on their agenda.

So far as bugs like anthrax are concerned, we know their structure and understand their way of functioning. We know how to control and destroy them. If there were to be an anthrax attack as it occurred in the US a few years ago, people would know how to contain the bacteria in a short time after the smallest number of casualties. In the case of new organisms created by genetic engineering or synthetic biology, nobody knows their structure or their properties. Since they are not natural, they are not related to other organisms, which could offer clues about their functioning. The spread of such new organisms in a population could cause devastation because we would have no way of containing them or knowing how to destroy them fast enough.

Since threats from such novel organisms are rated as serious, the technologies of genetic engineering and synthetic biology are highly regulated. In May 2010, when Craig Venter announced his breakthrough “artificial life” a newly constructed micro-organism made up of genes synthesised in the lab, one of his first actions was to notify the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues so that official circles were in the know about what he was developing and could keep track of it. Since then the Presidential Commission has issued a number of recommendations for the emerging field of synthetic biology, most notably for coordinated federal oversight of scientists working in both large and small institutions.

In India, it is a matter of concern that there is little such oversight. It is ridiculously easy to procure biological materials such as harmful bacteria, viruses or toxins from academic laboratories since the supervision in these institutions is notoriously lax. According to the WikiLeaks report, there is a real fear that getting into a supposedly high containment facility to obtain lethal bio-agents is not very difficult in India and that “India's notably weak public health and agricultural infrastructure coupled with high population density means that a deliberate release of a disease-causing agent could go undetected for quite a while before authorities become aware”.

Of a piece with all this is our shabby regulatory system for genetic engineering which is known to be full of holes. Premier academic institutions do not follow the rules and prescribed regulatory procedures. A few years ago the field trials of Bt brinjal being conducted in the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in Delhi had to be burnt down because they were being done in violation of the process laid down for such trials. The Mahyco company has been conducting field trials of Bt rice in Jharkhand in flagrant violation of all prescribed norms. When evidence of their violations, which were contaminating the native rice, was pointed out to the regulators, they refused to take action against the company and began to harass Gene Campaign instead for bringing this to light. There are rumours of even worse. That regulation can be influenced and clearances obtained for a price.

In addition to leaky and compromised science and technology systems, India is particularly vulnerable to bioterrorism attacks because there is almost no coordination between the ministries and departments that would need to pull together in immediate response to such an eventuality. Turf guarding, lack of communication and the near-total absence of cooperation among key stakeholders from different departments is a glaring and dangerous impediment to the country’s capacity to respond to a bio-terrorist attack. For officials milling around inflated with self-importance, sober introspection about our terrifying vulnerability to modern bio-terrorism would appear to be an urgent requirement. It is high time this “emerging global power” got its house in order to protect the life of its citizens.

The writer, an expert in genetics, is the convener of Gene Campaign.
Source : http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110111/edit.htm#4

Dangerous plastics in the kitchen

2010-12-27T16:08:00.001+05:30

Suman Sahai

As endocrine diseases erupt in populations across the world and the incidence of all types of cancers register a sharp increase, surely we need to reflect on what we are doing wrong. The infamous Cancer Express from Punjab, so named because it carries cancer patients for treatment is testimony to the killer impact of chemicals in agriculture which enter our food and damage our health. The link between the chemical load in our food is increasingly better understood today but the food industry manages to keep regulation weak and standards as low as possible.

Take Bisphenol, it is a chemical used in plastic containers used to store food, food grade plastic bottles ( that is plastics approved to be used in food containers) , food cans and feeding bottles for babies. There is growing evidence that Bisphenol is harmful for health. Animal studies show that low doses of Bisphenol have adverse effects on the brain, reproductive system, and metabolic processes related to insulin balance and liver function. It may be related to cancer or even obesity and heart disease. The greatest sensitivity to Bisphenol is during early development and the substance is not flushed out as some drugs are, but accumulates over time in the body, causing damage to health

Despite the evidence, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the US allows the use of Bisphenol in food grade plastics and the plastic industry the world over takes its cue from that and allows Bisphenol to be used in plastic meant for use in the packing and storing of food. Microwaving food in plastic containers is particularly harmful. The plastic bottles that we use to store water at home should not be used and children should not be given plastic water bottles to take to school. Glass bottles are heavier but safer . Heat, detergents and scrubbing can break down Bisphenol and increase exposure. Consumers need to become aware of the dangers of Bisphenol and protest against its use in the food sector.

The Bt Brinjal Story

2010-12-10T11:31:00.001+05:30

Suman Sahai & Carly Nichols

Bt brinjal was developed by India's Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company (Mahyco) using the modified gene Cry1Ac, under license from Monsanto. The modified Cry1Ac gene, found in the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, along with two other supporting genes, nptII and aad, are assembled in such a way that they work to produce an artificial insecticidal protein that is toxic to the targeted insect, in this case the fruit and shoot borer. Thus the intended effect is that the fruit and shoot borer is killed after ingesting any part of the Bt brinjal plant but that other organisms such as secondary insects, animals, and humans are unaffected. Field trials which must be performed before the release of GM crops are done to evaluate (a) the effectiveness of the insecticidal properties against the targeted insect; and (b) the safety of human, animal, and environmental health upon exposure to or consumption of the modified plant containing the transgenic construct.

Confined trials of Bt brinjal were first carried out between 2002 and 2004 and the data from these trials was submitted to the Review Committee of Genetic Modification (RCGM) in April 2006. On the basis of this data, generated and reported by Mahyco, RCGM recommended that GEAC should consider granting approval for large scale field trials of Bt brinjal.

In June 2006 Mahyco submitted bio-safety data to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), the statutory and regulatory body for all genetically modified technology in India, and sought permission for large scale trials. GEAC decided to create a sub committee, called the Bt Brinjal Expert Committee I (EC-I), to look into the concerns raised by civil society on the accuracy of the submitted bio-safety data along with other overriding concerns such as cross contamination of normal brinjal by genes from Bt brinjal. These civil society concerns found expression in a May 2005 Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition filed by four activists, Aruna Rodrigues, Devinder Sharma, PV Satheesh, Rajeev Baruah (Writ Petition (Civil) No. 260 of 2005). The petition requested that field trials should only be allowed once “comprehensive, scientific, reliable and transparent bio-safety tests have been carried out” (Sreelata. 2006). This PIL eventually resulted in the Supreme Court issuing a ban on all GM field trials on September 22, 2006, pending scientific consensus on the risks involved with such field trials.

In July 2007 the EC-I submitted its report to GEAC, which recommended that 7 more studies on bio-safety be repeated to verify data which had been generated during the confined trials. Despite this, the EC-I gave the recommendation to go forward with large scale field trials. In August 2007 GEAC accepted this report and gave approval to begin large scale field trials. The Supreme Court subsequently lifted the ban on GM crop field trials so long as they abided by certain regulations such as isolation distance to prevent the risk of cross-breeding. As per GEAC direction, the Indian Institute of Vegetable Research (IIVR) implemented large scale trials of Bt brinjal at 10 research institutions across the country in 2007 and 11 in 2008. (Decisions taken in the 79th Meeting of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee held on 8.8.2007. <http://moef.gov.in/divisions/csurv/geac/geac-aug-79.pdf> ).

On a separate front, Gene Campaign, followed by Greenpeace, had asked under the Right to Information (RTI) Act for data to be released on toxicity and allergenicity tests conducted on Bt brinjal. The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) refused to release this data saying it was Confidential Business Information. Gene Campaign approached the Supreme Court submitting that data having a bearing on public health could not be considered Confidential Business Information. In March 2008 the Supreme Court directed the Government to release allergenicity and toxicity data obtained from Bt brinjal.

Once the field studies carried out by Mahyco were obtained by civil society organizations data from them were sent to several expert scientists for independent reviews. These reviews yielded several reports by eminent scientists which questioned Mahyco’s experiment protocols as well as their interpretation of the data collected from trials (Carman 2009, Seralini 2009, Gurian-Sherman 2009, Heinemann 2009).

One notable report was authored by Gilles Eric Seralini in January 2009 just prior to the GEAC session slated to decide on the commercialization of Bt brinjal. Seralini, a biochemist with the Institute of Basic and Applied Biology (IFBA) at the University of Caen, found numerous discrepancies in Mahyco’s reporting of statistically significant data. For example, in goats which were fed Bt brinjal, blood took longer to coagulate and the bilirubin count had increased which indicates liver damage. Other adverse reactions were found in tests conducted on rabbits, cows, chickens, and rats which were fed Bt brinjal. These ranged from decrease in liver weight to changes in red blood cell profiles. Moreover the longest toxicity test which was conducted was for a 90 day duration which is far too short to gauge the risk of long-term effects such as cancer or tumour development. The overall validity of the trials has also brought into question as Seralini reports that Bt brinjal was modified to produce an insecticide toxin containing Cry1Ab and Cry1Ac modified sequences. However, in the toxicity tests (against target and non-target insects) a different Cry1Ac toxin was used instead.

Mahyco claims they disregarded the findings mentioned by Seralini for a variety of reasons. For example, deviations which did not show a linear dose response or a time response were disregarded, as were differences which showed up in either males or females, but not both. This omission of statistically significant results is contrary to standard scientific procedures. Seralini concluded his analysis of the mammalian biosafety trials by stating, “Clear significant differences [between Bt and non-Bt brinjal] were seen that raise food safety concerns and warrant further investigation. The GM Bt brinjal cannot be considered as safe as its non GM counterpart…it should be considered as unsuitable for human and animal consumption.”(Seralini. 2009).

Seralini also analyzed the environmental risks associated with the release of Bt brinjal. He characterized experiments done on the effect of Bt brinjal on non-target organisms, beneficial insects, and soil health as “woefully inadequate and give no assurances for the environmental safety of growing Bt brinjal.”(Seralini.2009). This is because indirect effects are not taken into account, such as the effects of Bt brinjal as it moves up the food chain. Seralini found that the gene flow studies performed were also inadequate as they failed to assess the risks of other methods of contamination, such as through the mixing of seeds. Based on these insufficient experiments Seralini recommended that Bt brinjal not be released into the environment for field trials or commercialization.

In January 2009 the IIVR submitted the results of the large scale trials. Due to concerns raised by several stakeholders, including experts such as Seralini, GEAC decided to constitute a second sub-committee (EC-II) to look into the adequacy of biosafety data which had been submitted as well as the broader concerns raised by stakeholders. The EC-II was to be overseen by Dr. P.M. Bhargava, a retired scientist with expertise in cell biology, who had been recommended by the Supreme Court as an observer in GEAC.

On October 14th, 2009 the Bt brinjal EC-II submitted its report, dated October 8, 2009, at the 97th meeting of GEAC. GEAC accepted the report and approved the environmental release of Bt Brinjal containing the event EE1 for commercialization. However, this approval was qualified by stating, "..as this decision of the GEAC has very important policy implication at the national level, the GEAC decided its recommendation for environmental release may be put up to the Government for taking final view on the matter"(GEAC 97th Meeting. October 14, 2009).

Within 48 hours of GEAC’s approval Minister of Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, intervened and halted the approval for commercialization. Responding to strong views expressed both for and against the release of Bt Brinjal, he extended an invitation to the public for comments. He further said that a decision regarding Bt brinjal’s release would only be made pending a nationwide consultation in January and February 2010.

From January 13th, 2010 to February 6th, 2010 seven public hearings on Bt-brinjal were organised by the Center for Environment Education (CEE) supported by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoE&F). These were held in Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Bangalore. Almost 8000 people from different sections of society participated in these seven public hearings. Participants included farmer organizations, scientists, seed suppliers, state agriculture department officials, NGOs, allopathic and ayurvedic doctors, students and housewives.

On February 9, 2010, after concluding the public hearings, Minister Ramesh announced a moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal. This, he said, was done in response not only to public concern but also significant input from national experts and the international scientific community, pressure from an active and civil society, and opposition from ten State governments, including all the major brinjal producing ones (Decision on Commercialisation of Bt-Brinjal. 2010). He said this moratorium would remain until there was further safety testing and a regulatory system specifically for genetically modified crops set in place. The Minister further said that the moratorium period would be used to commission fresh scientific studies and improve the testing process. Ramesh stated “If you need long term toxicity tests, then you must do it, no matter how long it takes… There is no hurry. There is no overriding urgency or food security argument for [release of] Bt brinjal.”(Decision on Commercialisation of Bt-Brinjal. 2010). Ramesh also made clear that the moratorium period should also be used to implement a functioning independent regulatory authority and hold a parliamentary debate on private investment in agricultural biotechnology.

This decision by Ramesh was followed by a request from civil society for a report to be drawn up to further assess the EC-II report. David A Andow, an eminent scientist at the University of Minnesota, was requested to assess the EC-II report and the environmental risk assessment (ERA) of Bt brinjal. In his report Andow said that the ERA which was submitted to GEAC had a too narrow scope to adequately gauge the risks posed by the commercial release of Bt brinjal. Andow states, “the EC-II is criticized not for whether it has accomplished what it set out to do, but whether it set out to do the right thing in the first place”(Andow. 2010). Andow’s main conclusion from his analysis of the EC-II report along with the original Mahyco bio-safety dossier is that the EC-II has not effectively characterized the risks associated with the release of Bt brinjal. These risks include not only environmental contamination and bio-safety hazards but also socio-economic risks to smallholder farmers which comprise a large part of Indian agriculture. Andow recommended that the risks posed by Bt brinjal need to first be adequately characterized, after which a proper risk management analysis can be performed.

At the same time that Andow was requested for an independent expert analysis, Ramesh commissioned six of India’s top scientific academies (The Indian Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Academy of Engineering, The National Academy of Sciences (India), The Indian National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and The National Academy of Medical Sciences) to more broadly assess the feasibility and safety of genetically modified (GM) crops and their regulation. The report was supposed to specifically focus on the case of Bt brinjal.

On September 24th 2010 the Inter-Academy report was released which stated that Bt brinjal’s safety for human consumption had been established "adequately and beyond reasonable doubt"(Inter-academy Report on GM Crops. 2010). They supported the quick release of Bt brinjal at limited sites across the country provided that distance and isolation requirements were maintained. Countering the findings of Seralini and Andow, the Inter-academy Report said that environmental risks associated with Bt brinjal were “negligible” and that there would be “no appreciable effect of GM crops on biodiversity.” However, the Inter-academy Report quickly became embroiled in scandal as proven allegations of plagiarism and blatant pro-GM biases surfaced within days of the report’s release. (India Today. September 26, 2010. Indian Express. September 26, 2010)

By September 27, 2010, this report had been dismissed as unscientific and overtly influenced by pro-GM thinkers by not only civil society and activist groups but by Minister Ramesh, himself. It was found that significant sections of the text were plagiarised from an article published in 'Biotech News' magazine and authored by Dr. Ananda Kumar, a scientist who heads the National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology. The report did not contain proper references and was criticized for using an unscientific tone rife with generalizations and clichés. Minister Ramesh dismissed the report and stated that it did not “appear to be the product of rigorous scientific evaluation.” (Indian Express. September 28, 2010). The poor quality of the Inter-Academy report and the Minister’s response to it has further confused the matter of Bt brinjal in India. As it stands today, the moratorium on Bt brinjal continues.

References

Andow, David A. “Bt Brinjal: The Scope and Adequacy of the GEAC Environmental Risk Assessment”. Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota. August 2010.

“Bt Brinjal safe, says new report” Indian Express. September 26, 2010.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/bt-brinjal-unsafe-says-new-report/688153/1 Accessed December 1, 2010.

Carman, Judy. “A Review of Mahyco’s GM Brinjal Food Safety Studies” Institute of Health and Environmental Research, Inc. January 2009

Decisions taken in the 79th Meeting of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee held on 8.8.2007. <http://moef.gov.in/divisions/csurv/geac/geac-aug-79.pdf>

Decisions taken in the 97th Meeting of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee held on 14.10.2009 <http://www.envfor.nic.in/divisions/csurv/geac/decision-oct-97.pdf>

Gurian-Sherman, Doug. “Comments on Possible Consequences of Gene Flow from Bt Brinjal to Brinjal Wild Relatives in India, and the Inadequacy of the Current Risk Assessment”. April 2009.

Heinnemann, Jack. “Summary of Analysis of Mahyco Fruit and Shoot Borer Tolerant Brinjal”. Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety. July 2009.

Inter-Academy Report on GM Crops. September 2010. The Indian Academy of Sciences, The Indian National Academy of Engineering, The Indian National Science Academy, The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences The National Academy of Medical Sciences, The National Academy of Sciences (India). <http://subharmonics.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/transgenic-report-sep2010.pdf>

“No scientific rigour in report on GM crops: Ramesh”. Indian Express. September 28, 2010. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/No-scientific-rigour-in-report-on-GM-crops--Ramesh/689268 Accessed November 30, 2010

Ramesh, Jairam. Bt Brinjal: Note by Ministry of Environment and Forests. Decision on Commercialisation of Bt-Brinjal. February 9, 2010. >

Seralini, Gilles-Eric. “Effects on Health and Environment of Transgenic (or GM) Bt Brinjal”. CRIIGEN. January 2009.

Sharma, Dinesh C.“Academies Copied to Push for Bt Brinjal” India Today. September 26, 2010. <http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/114057/India/academies-copied-to-push-for-bt-brinjal.html> Accessed December 1, 2010.

Sreelata, M. “Indian Supreme Court Bans GM Crop Trials”. Science and Development Network. October 31, 2006. <http://www.scidev.net/en/news/indian-supreme-court-bans-gm-crop-trials.html>. Accessed December 8, 2010.

Writ Petition (Civil) No. 115 of 2004. Gene Campaign & Another Versus Union of India & Others. Supreme Court of India. <http://www.genecampaign.org/home_files/GM%20Writ%20Petition.pdf>

Writ Petition (Civil) No. 260 of 2005. Aruna Rodrigues & Ors. Versus Union of India & Ors. Supreme Court of India.

Challenges to Genetic Diversity and Implications For Food Security in South Asia

2010-12-07T14:19:00.005+05:30

Suman Sahai

Genetic diversity in the field is the key to long-term sustainable food production. In agriculture and forestry, genetic diversity can enhance production in all agricultural and ecosystem zones. Genetic erosion is the loss of genetic diversity, which is being caused not just at the level of individual genes but at the level of gene combination, which is even more dangerous. The main cause of genetic erosion is varietal replacement. However, there are many traditional varieties that are extremely high yielding and that can in fact form a much bigger mix of varieties available in the field than this very narrow approach to increasing productivity would suggest. Genetic erosion is happening at a more rapid pace in developing countries because of the somewhat faulty planning to bring about change and increase productivity. Above all, agro biodiversity which is genetic diversity related to agriculture, is threatened not because of over use but because it is not used.

I Genetic Diversity and Agriculture
Genetic diversity in the agricultural system is recognised to be the foundation on which food, livelihoods and income security is based. It is the result of natural selection processes and the careful selection and inventive developments of farmers. Agricultural biodiversity, also known as agrobiodiversity or genetic resource, includes:

Crop varieties, livestock breeds, fish species and undomesticated (wild) resources within field, forest, and rangeland and including tree products, wild animals hunted for food and plants and animals in aquatic ecosystems;
Natural undomesticated species involved with production ecosystems that support food cultivators including soil micro-biota, pollinators, bees, butterflies, earthworms, and natural predators of pests;
Undomesticated species in the larger environment that are part of ecosystems that support food production. These could be agricultural, pastoral, forest and aquatic ecosystems.

Agrobiodiversity is the result of the interaction between the environment, genetic resources and management systems and practices used by culturally diverse peoples. Thus, agrobiodiversity encompasses the variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms that are necessary for sustaining key functions of the agro-ecosystem, including its structure and processes for, and in support of, food production and food security. Local knowledge and culture can therefore be considered as integral parts of agrobiodiversity, because it is the human activity of agriculture that shapes and conserves this biodiversity.

Many farmers, especially those in environments where intensive agriculture cannot be practiced, rely on a wide range of crop and livestock types. This helps them maintain their livelihoods in the face of sub-optimal soils, biotic and abiotic stress like disease and uncertain rainfall, fluctuation in the price of cash crops and socio-political upheaval. Many minor or underutilised crops are frequently found in proximity to the main staple or cash crops. Yet they are neglected and little effort is made to either conserve them or mainstream them for domestic use or the market. During times of stress like drought or flood, such underutilised plants can play a very important role in food production systems at the local level. Plants that will grow in infertile or degraded soils, and livestock that will survive on little fodder are crucial to the survival strategies of communities.

Agrobiodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge
Indigenous knowledge is the information that people in a given community have developed over time. It is based on experience and adapted to the local culture and environment and is continuously developing. Indigenous knowledge is embedded in social structures. Different groups of people, ethnic groups and clans hold different knowledge. Women and men often possess very different skills and knowledge of local flora and fauna. Indigenous knowledge and gender differences within that knowledge, are key factors that shape and influence plant and animal diversity. Such knowledge can help increase the relevance and efficiency of agrobiodiversity management and conservation efforts at different levels. Indigenous knowledge continues to be an important asset for resource poor people to sustain their livelihoods.

The Value of Genetic Diversity in Agriculture
It is now well established that the traditional practice of maintaining genetic diversity in the field is the key to long-term sustainable food production. In agriculture and forestry, genetic diversity can enhance production in all agricultural and ecosystem zones. Several varieties can be planted in the same field to minimise crop failure, and new varieties can be bred to maximise production or adapt to adverse or changing conditions.

Newer strategies for stabilising production involve the use of varietal blends (a mix of strains sharing similar traits but based on different parents) or multilines (varieties containing several different sources of resistance). In each case, the crop represents a genetically diverse array that can better withstand disease and pests. Despite these efforts, genetic uniformity still places some crops at risk of disease outbreaks and in some regions, that risk is considerable. Some 62 per cent of rice varieties in Bangladesh, 74 per cent in Indonesia, and 75 per cent in Sri Lanka are derived from one maternal parent. From 1930 to 1980 in the US, the use of genetic diversity by plant breeders, accounted for at least half of the doubling in yields of rice, barley, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and sugarcane; a threefold increase in tomato yields; and a fourfold increase in yields of corn, sorghum, and potato.

As important as genetic diversity is to increasing yields, it is at least as important in maintaining existing productivity. Introducing genetic resistance to certain insect pests can increase crop yields, but since natural selection often helps insects quickly overcome this resistance, new genetic resistance has to be periodically introduced into the crop just to sustain the higher productivity. Pesticides are also overcome by evolution, so another important agricultural use of genetic diversity is to offset productivity losses from pesticide resistance.
Wild relatives of crops have contributed significantly to agriculture, particularly in disease resistance. Thanks to wild wheat varieties, domesticated wheat now resists fungal diseases, drought, winter cold, and heat. Rice gets its resistance to two of Asia’s four main rice diseases from a single sample of rice from central India, Oryza nivara.

Genetic Diversity and Livestock Breeding
Genetic diversity is becoming increasingly important in forestry and fisheries, and the use of genetic resources in livestock breeding has markedly increased yields. The average milk yield of cows in the US has doubled over the past 30 years, and genetic improvement accounts for more than 25 per cent of this gain in at least one breed. Although not as dramatic, Asia has also seen a rise in milk output due to the improved genetic stock of dairy cattle.

For a variety of reasons, genetic diversity has been less useful in livestock breeding than in crop breeding. Whereas one major use of the genetic diversity of crops has been in the development of strains resistant to specific pests and diseases, livestock husbandry has relied largely on vaccines since animals (unlike plants) can develop immunity to disease. Second, maintaining livestock germplasm is tougher logistically than maintaining the genetic material of plants: since animals do not produce anything comparable to plant seeds that can be stored easily. An additional problem is that many of the closest relatives of domesticated animals are extinct, endangered, or rare, and thus unavailable for breeding. This should be a priority area for germplasm conservation.

Genetic Improvement of Forest Species
Genetic improvement of forest species has also received less attention than crop improvement. Until recently, most timber was harvested from the wild and little attention was paid to breeding programmes. In addition, because trees are so long-lived, the rate of genetic improvement of tree species is quite slow. Tests and measurements of growth characteristics have been made for some 500 species (primarily conifers) over the years, but less than 40 tree species are being bred. Yet, impressive gains have been made with these species. In intensive breeding programmes, a 15 to 25 per cent gain in productivity per generation has been attained for trees growing on high-quality sites without inputs of fertilizer, water, or pesticides.

Aquaculture
Fish breeding has not been widely utilised to enhance yields because most of the fish eaten is caught from the wild. An exception is aquaculture. In one case, the domestic carp (Cyprinus carpio) was bred with a wild carp in the erstwhile Soviet Union to enhance the cold resistance of the domestic species and allow a range extension to the north.

Maintaining Soil Biodiversity for increased agricultural production
Improvement in agricultural sustainability will require the optimal use and management of soil fertility and soil physical properties. Both rely on soil biological process and soil biodiversity. This implies management practices that enhance soil biological activity and thereby build up long-term soil productivity and health. Such practices are of major importance in marginal lands to avoid degradation, and in degraded lands in need of restoration.

Integrated Soil Management and Soil Biodiversity
Over the last few years, the concept of Integrated Soil Management (ISM) and Integrated Plant Nutrient Management (IPNM) has been gaining acceptance. It advocates the careful management of nutrient stocks and flows in a way that leads to profitable and sustained production. ISM emphasises the management of nutrient flows, but does not ignore other important aspects of the soil complex, such as maintaining organic matter content, soil structure and soil biodiversity.

Soil biodiversity reflects the mix and populations of diverse living organisms in the soil—the myriad of invisible microbes to the more familiar macro-fauna such as earthworms and termites. These organisms interact with one another and with plants and animals forming a web of biological activity. Environmental factors, including temperature, moisture, acidity and several chemical components of the soil affect soil biological activity. Clearly, for a productive sustainable agriculture, the complex interaction among these factors must be understood so that they can be managed as an integrated system.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation:
‘Soil health can be defined as the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living system, within ecosystem and land-use boundaries, to sustain biological productivity and maintain their water quality as well as plant, animal, and human health. The concept of soil health includes the ecological attributes of the soil, which have implications beyond its quality or capacity to produce a particular crop. These attributes are chiefly those associated with the soil biota; its diversity, its food web structure, its activity and the range of functions it performs. For example, soil biodiversity per se may not be a soil property that is critical for the production of a given crop, but it is a property that may be vital for the continued capacity of the soil to produce that crop’ (FAO 2004).

Biological populations and processes influence soil fertility and structure in a variety of ways, each of which can have an ameliorating effect on the main soil-based constraints to productivity (See FAO 2004):

Symbionts such as rhizobia and mycorrhiza increase the efficiency of nutrient acquisition by plants;
A wide range of fungi, bacteria, and animals participate in the process of decomposition, mineralisation, and nutrient immobilisation and therefore influence the efficiency of nutrient cycles;
Soil organisms mediate both the synthesis and decomposition of soil organic matter and therefore influence cation exchange capacity, the soil N, S, and P reserve, soil acidity and toxicity; and soil water holding capacity;
The burrowing and particle transport activities of soil fauna, and the aggregation of soil particles by fungi and bacteria, influence soil structure and soil water regime.

Enhancing Soil Biological Diversity
Certain ecological principles are needed to enhance soil biological diversity and thereby increase agricultural production.

Supply of Organic Matter
Most soil organisms rely on organic matter for food. Each type of soil organism occupies a different niche in the web of life and favours a different substrate and nutrient source. Thus, a rich supply and varied source of organic matter will generally support a wider variety of organisms.

Increasing the Number of Plant Varieties
Crops should be mixed and their spatial-temporal distribution varied to create a greater diversity of niches and resources that stimulate soil biodiversity.

Create a diverse landscape: diverse habitats support complex mixes of soil organisms;
Rotate crops: crop rotation allows nutrient demand and rooting depth to be varied, thus reducing nutrient mining and hardpans. This encourages the presence of a wider variety of organisms, improves nutrient cycling and improves natural processes of pest and disease control.

Protecting the Habitat of Soil Organisms
Stimulate soil biodiversity by improving soil living conditions, such as aeration, temperature, moisture, and nutrients quantity and quality.

Reduce tillage;
Minimise compaction;
Minimise the use of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers;
Improve water drainage
Maximise soil cover.

Farming Practices to Change Soil Life
Direct methods of intervening in the production system aim to alter the abundance or activity of specific groups of organisms (inoculation and direct manipulation of soil biota). Indirect interventions are means of managing soil biotic processes by manipulating the factors that control biotic activity (habitat structure, microclimate, nutrients and energy resources) rather than the organisms themselves. Common constraints to the use of different soil biological management practices include labour and time costs, monetary cost, availability of inputs, for example planting material/inoculants and capacities, as well as social acceptability.

II Gender and Genetic Diversity
Men and women play important, but different roles, in the management and conservation of agrobiodiversity. There is a gender differentiation in the roles and responsibilities in agriculture. Gender relations are also affected by the upheavals in the management and conservation of agrobiodiversity and local knowledge. Cultural values continue to be the driving force of biodiversity management and conservation. Changing food culture and dietary habits can lead to the erosion of women’s knowledge of processing, preparation and storage. This ultimately leads to the erosion of plant diversity and family food security and health. Commercialised agriculture, modern technologies and innovations have created high external-input dependent systems. These often rely on introduced species and varieties, which have introduced changes in gender roles. Changes within the household composition affect available labour resources and have a profound impact upon agricultural management practices and agrobiodiversity. Shocks, such as HIV-AIDS, have an impact on gender relations and the interaction with other livelihood assets.
A gendered long-term strategy for the conservation, utilisation, improvement and management of genetic resources will require:

Acknowledgement that there are gender-based differences in the roles, responsibilities and contributions of different socioeconomic groups in farming communities.
Recognition of the value of men’s and women’s knowledge, skills and practices and their right to benefit from the fruits of their labour.
Equity in agricultural policies and implementation strategies to provide incentives for the sustainable use of genetic resources, especially through in situ conservation and improved linkages with ex situ conservation.
Appropriate national legislation to uphold the principles of equity and protect ‘threatened’ genetic resources for food and livelihoods, guarantee their continued use and management by local communities.
Ensure that any benefits accrued from the commercial exploitation of genetic diversity is dedicated for the use of local community.
Incorporate gender issues in legal instruments that regulate the management and use of biodiversity, at national and international levels,
Increase the access of farm men and women to land and water resources, to education, extension, training, credit and appropriate technology.
Participation of rural women and men in decision making.

III Policy Requirements Broadening Diversity in Crops
In order to increase agricultural production in the long term, the incorporation of a broader range of crops including non-food crops is a necessity. Innovative approaches in plant breeding for the purposes of domesticating new crops, bringing in as yet underutilised crops into the mainstream, the development of new plant varieties promoting genetic diversity on farms, such as planting mixtures of adapted varieties, are now recognised as a means for adding stability in agricultural systems and promoting agricultural production and food security.
Governments, intergovernmental organisations, research institutions, extension agencies, the private sector, farmers organisations and NGOs, should:

Develop programmes to monitor genetic uniformity and assess vulnerability in crops;
Review policies which may affect the level of diversity in agricultural systems, and specifically the degree of genetic uniformity and vulnerability of major crops
Increase heterogeneity by planting mixtures of adapted varieties and species as appropriate.

Funding agencies should be encouraged to support international agricultural centres, national agricultural research systems, and other relevant research bodies and NGOs, for work aimed at enhancing levels of genetic diversity in agricultural systems. The release by international centers of unfinished varieties to national programmes for further development, including on-farm improvement and the selection of high yielding landraces/farmers varieties are measures which could bring higher levels of diversity, adaptability and stability to crops.

Research systems should:

Increase their capacity to develop and use multilines, mixtures and synthetic varieties;
Increase their capacity to use integrated pest management strategies, including the use of race-non-specific (horizontal) resistances, the pyramiding of race-specific resistances, and the strategic deployment of resistance genes;
Encourage the strategic use of a broad range of varieties;
Use participatory plant breeding strategies to develop plant varieties specifically adapted to local environments;
Support efforts to identify those activities used in plant breeding, plant research and farming systems that foster on-farm diversity. Such research might include a review of non-homogenous farming systems such as those based on intercropping, polycropping, integrated pest management, and integrated nutrient management, for their possible wider applicability, as well as research to develop appropriate plant breeding methodologies.

At the national and international levels, systems should be put in place for:

Developing monitoring and early warning systems for loss of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture;
Supporting on-farm management and improvement of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture;
Increasing genetic enhancement and base-broadening efforts;
Developing new markets for local varieties and diversity-rich products.

IV Genetic Diversity and Food Security
Genetic diversity gives species the ability to adapt to changing environments, and combat biotic and abiotic stress like pests and diseases, drought and salinity. This diversity is the raw material for breeding new varieties of crops, which provide the basis for more productive and resilient production systems that are better able to cope with such stresses as drought or overgrazing and can reduce the potential for soil erosion.

Subsistence farmers, particularly in marginal areas are well aware of the relationship between the stability and sustainability of their production systems and the diversity of crops and crop varieties on their lands. This diversity is their greatest insurance against risk. Their management and use of a diverse range of varieties has helped them to survive under the most difficult conditions. Across Asia, farmers have classically planted a mix of varieties in the same field so that if some fell victim to pest and disease, others would survive, ensuring that atleast some grain could be harvested. Under monoculture conditions, the entire crop would be wiped out in the face of pest and disease, leaving the farmer nothing to take home. By growing a range of different crops, farmers have a better chance of meeting their needs and reducing their risk. These might be crops that mature at different times or mixed cropping, when two or more crops are cultivated in the same field. Crop varieties can also be selected for foods with a long shelf life to help to ensure a stable food supply throughout the year. Multiple varieties in the field provide a nutritionally balanced diet for farm families and diversify their income sources.

V Genetic Erosion
Genetic erosion is the loss of genetic diversity—both the loss of individual genes and the loss of particular combinations of genes such as those found in locally adapted landraces and farmer varieties. The main cause of genetic erosion is varietal replacement. The replacement of local varieties or landraces by high yielding, hybrid, genetically modified (GM) and exotic varieties and species is causing genetic erosion in all agricultural systems.

The genetic erosion of agricultural biodiversity is exacerbated by the loss of forest cover, coastal wetlands and natural, uncultivated areas, and the destruction of the aquatic environment. This leads to loss of the ‘wild’ or undomesticated crop plants and relatives important for the development of biodiversity and crop varieties. Also lost are natural foods available in fields and forests and fodder and medicinal plants that are so critical to rural and tribal communities as survival foods in times of crisis and for health and veterinary care.

VI Challenges to Agrobiodiversity
Expansion of Industrial and Green Revolution Agriculture
This includes intensive livestock production, industrial fisheries and aquaculture. Some production systems use genetically modified varieties and breeds. Moreover, relatively few crop varieties are cultivated in monocultures and a limited number of domestic animal breeds, or fish, are reared or few aquatic species cultivated.

Till the nineteenth and even early twentieth century, the agriculture sector had a sufficiently high autonomy vis-à-vis the other economic sectors. Today, the food industry which processes the raw foodstuff industrially is a highly concentrated trade sector and holds a dominating position. It demands standardised agricultural products that can be easily treated by machines.
With the industrialisation and intensification of agriculture, investments have escalated, and pressure has increased to compensate these costs by means of a higher productivity. This is being achieved through intensive land use systems, mechanisation, higher inputs of fertilisers and pesticides, monocultural cultivation and the breeding of high yielding crops and high performing livestock. These processes have caused massive ecological effects and unsustainable production and consumption patterns with impact among others on agrobiodiversity.

Globalisation of the Food System and Marketing
The extension of industrial patenting, and other intellectual property systems, to living organisms has led to the widespread cultivation and rearing of fewer varieties and breeds. This results in a more uniform, less diverse, but more competitive global market. As a consequence, there have been changes in farmers’ and consumers’ perceptions and preferences, marginalisation of small-scale, diverse food production systems that conserve farmer varieties of crops and breeds of domestic animals; reduced integration of livestock in arable production, which reduces the diversity of uses for which livestock are needed; and reduced use of ‘nurture’ fisheries techniques that conserve and develop aquatic biodiversity.

The Replacement of Local Varieties by Improved or Exotic Varieties and Species
Nearly all countries confirm genetic erosion is taking place and that it is a serious problem. Genetic erosion usually occurs as old varieties in farmers’ fields are replaced by newer ones. Genes and gene complexes found in farmers’ varieties are not found in the new varieties. The total number of varieties is reduced when commercial varieties are introduced into traditional farming systems. Few systematic studies of the genetic erosion of crop genetic diversity have been done so far.

Challenges to Local Knowledge
Local knowledge and local institutions managing this knowledge are particularly challenged by rapid socio-economic and environmental changes. Areas of very rapid population growth, or a concomitant reduction in resources by external pressures, may require particular adaptations of new agricultural technologies to increase food production and the diversification of livelihoods, leading to irrelevance of local knowledge. Immigration can mean that the repertoires of knowledge, for agricultural/pastoral production and environmental conservation, are out of focus with the new set of opportunities and constraints. Gradual environmental changes, such as climate change, widespread deforestation, or land degradation, challenge the resilience and adaptability of local knowledge systems. Rapid commercialisation and economic shocks can also undermine local knowledge.

Population Increase in Developing Countries and Agribusiness in the Developed World
With the vertical integration of the food chain and the linking of farmers fields to retail stores, companies began to standardise products, leaving no room for the banana that failed to measure to prescribed norms, the french beans that were too long or too short or wheat which did not have the prescribed gluten content. All this led to severe genetic loss since such crop varieties became gradually displaced from farmers’ fields.

Monocultures of crops to produce standardised fruit and grain and a few animal breeds with optimal food–product conversion effacing have starkly reduced genetic diversity. This has resulted in the neglect and marginalisation of small-scale, diversified food production systems that are based on a diversity of farmers' seed varieties and breeds of domestic animals, which may have low milk yields but can survive pests and disease and have a high ratio of fodder convertibility. These diverse gene pools varied with the eco-geography even within the same region and helped to maintain a broad genetic support base. A change in livestock production so that they are not integrated in arable production reduced the diversity of uses for which livestock are needed.

Catastrophes and Climate Variation
One need look no further than the recent devastation caused by the Kosi river shifting course in Bihar. Apart from the loss of human life and assets, the crops of the area have been swept away and along with them, the traditional varieties that were cultivated there. In the coming days of global warming and climate change, cyclones and hurricanes will increase and with that will increase the probability of loss of genetic diversity. Whereas stocks of seed of the HYV and parental lines of hybrids are carefully maintained, these can be restored but government agencies and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) have no provisions for conserving seed of traditional varieties, therefore, many traditional varieties could be lost for ever.

Flawed Policies
Genetic diversity in animal breeds was starkly reduced in the 1960s and 70s when the livestock improvement programme started in India. This consisted of importing cattle to cross with indigenous breeds and a large scale programme of artificial insemination using imported cattle as one parent. During the artificial insemination programme, large numbers of bulls of indigenous breeds were culled or castrated to prevent them from impregnating the animals meant to be inseminated. This resulted in substantial loss of genes of less productive animal breeds, which had other traits like the ability to withstand extreme temperatures, resist diseases and survive in fodder scarce times.

In developing countries, loss of diversity has been reinforced by a donor policy that has promoted the import of exotic breeds and crossbreeding that threatens the survival of local breeds. Both the markets for agricultural inputs and for agricultural outputs have been increasing in size, thus feeding into a globalising food market that demands goods in huge consignments. In order to process them industrially, those agricultural goods need to be homogenous. Therefore, apart from the yields, it is the requirements of industrial cultivation, husbandry and processing (and to some extent consumer demand) that determine the breeding objectives rather then nutritional value, taste, improved stress resistance or adaptation to natural conditions.

Agrobiodiversity Loss through New Technology
Modern, highly selective breeding methods contribute to diversity loss, thereby leading to dangerous degrees of homogenisation. In livestock breeding artificial insemination, multiple ovulation and embryo transfer are applied to reproduce only a few top performers; a huge number of other individuals are thus excluded from breeding and the genetic distance within populations is correspondingly reduced. Hybrid breeding, with both animals (for example. poultry, pigs) and plants (for example corn, rice), and in the future, cloning, are methods used to reproduce genetically homogenous and high performing livestock and plant varieties. In the case of animals, impacts on the genetic pool are expected when traditional pure breeding gets replaced by modern methods. Also, since hybrid breeding produces infertile breeds and seed, farmers cannot use the material to continue breeding/growing according to their own selection preferences, they are forced to rely on commercially bred/grown livestock and seeds, which they have to buy again every year. In plant breeding, ‘Genetic Use Restriction Technologies’ (GURTs) have the same effect.

The economic and technological developments detrimental to agrobiodiversity were partly supported by policies and governance structures such as intellectual property rights (IPR) and sovereignty regimes that regulate access to genetic resources as well as seed and livestock breeding laws. These have encouraged high output and homogenisation, thus affecting the choice of plants and livestock.

At the coming into force of the WTO/TRIPs (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) IPR laws had to be enacted over biological resources in all countries. Patents and stringent Breeders Rights restricted the free flow of germplasm and contain it in compartments that are increasingly privately owned. Two major IPR regimes can be distinguished, which impact agrobiodiversity in varying degrees. The first is patents and the other is Plant Variety Protection (PVP), applying only to plants. Plant variety protection systems based on Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) are inclined to diminish agrobiodiversity.

The criterion for variety protection—the so called ‘DUS requirements’ (for Distinct, Uniform i.e. homogenous and stable), impacts on plant variability. Secondly, Plant Breeders Rights, like other IPRs have indirect effects on agrobiodiversity by restricting access to genetic resources. The uniformity criterion aims at minimising genetic diversity within a plant variety, because to qualify for a Plant Breeder’s Right, the variety must be distinguishable from other varieties. This physical distinctiveness and uniformity comes at the expense of genetic variability. In the field, uniform varieties are less able to withstand biotic and abiotic stress. At the same time, the uniformity criterion puts genetically diverse land races out of the purview of protection. The DUS criterion inclines breeders to develop varieties that have low adaptability and are highly adjusted to monocultural production systems for large markets.

VI Declining Diversity and Impact of Diversity Loss
Since the 1900s, some 75 per cent of plant genetic diversity has been lost as farmers worldwide have abandoned traditional varieties and landraces for genetically uniform, high-yielding varieties. 30 per cent of livestock breeds are at risk of extinction; six breeds are lost each month. Today, 75 per cent of the world’s food is generated from only 12 plants and five animal species. Of the 4 per cent of the 250 000 to 300 000 known edible plant species, only 150 to 200 are used by humans. Only three—rice, maize and wheat—contribute nearly 60 per cent of the calories and proteins (FAO 1999).

Loss of robust crops and livestock breeds adapted to their ecosystem, and their replacement by genetically homogenous, high yielding varieties and high performance animals and birds makes inevitable the use of unecological inputs like chemicals, hormones and antibiotics, leaving an ecological footprint. The new varieties and breeds are not only more vulnerable, and prone to diseases, because of their narrow genetic base, they are dependent on high cost inputs like energy, and agrochemicals as well as pharmaceuticals in the case of animals. The loss of locally adapted traditional varieties and breeds also impacts on the surrounding eco-system and wild biodiversity by disrupting the interdependent system of survival of the ecosystem. The protection of landraces and indigenous livestock breeds is important despite their comparatively lower yields since they often possess valuable traits such as disease and pest resistance and are better adapted to harsh conditions and poor quality feed, which are qualities desirable for low-input, sustainable agriculture.

In terms of social impacts, the loss of genetic resources poses a threat to food security. Genetic resources, along with soil and water, constitute the foundation upon which agriculture and world food security are based. The destruction of the diversity of these resources not only increases vulnerability in terms of animal diseases, pests and harvest failures, but it also undermines the foundations of future breeding and development paths. Another social dimension of agrobiodiversity loss is the equity issue. It becomes relevant in relation to property rights, especially patents and stringent Breeders Rights, regulating the balance between farmers and agribusiness. It also becomes relevant in relation to the distribution of benefits between agrobiodiversity rich countries in the South and industrial countries in the North which appropriate the returns when utilising these resources.

Finally, agrobiodiversity loss also has economic impacts: the diversity at the genetic, species and agro-ecosystems levels protects against vulnerability to the vagaries of the weather, insect pests and diseases that can devastate a uniform crop. There are famous examples of economic disasters springing from ‘genetic monoculture’ such as the nineteenth century Irish potato famine and the US pest ‘Corn Leaf Blight’ in 1969. In the case of diminishing farm animals, genetic diversity impedes adaptation to diseases, parasites, or variations in the availability and quality of food. Thus, agrobiodiversity loss increases the economic risks for individual farmers and can undermine the stability both of agriculture and the food business.[1] Whereas traditional mixed farming systems produce modest but reliable yields, planting a single modern crop variety over a large area can result in high yields but the crop may be extremely vulnerable to pests, disease and severe weather.

VII Farmers’ Perception of Agrobiodiversity
Gene Campaign conducted a study in Bihar and Jharkhand in India to ascertain farmers’ perception about agrobiodiversity and their views on its conservation. The main goals of the study were to understand:

The perception of farmers about the erosion of genetic diversity with the coming of green revolution varieties;
The farmers’ opinion about the drawbacks of traditional varieties, if any;
Their response to the loss of traditional varieties;
The farmers’ views on efforts to preserve the large varieties of seeds that are a part of their heritage;
What the farmers want as material benefits in order to grow traditional varieties on a portion of their land.

The study found that:

Most farmers were nostalgic about the traditional varieties that were grown in their region in the past and have been replaced by the High Yielding Varieties (HYVs) over the years. They regret the fact that this has happened.
The farmers felt that there was an urgent need for local seed banks, offering both traditional seeds and HYVs.
In districts where HYVs are cultivated, primarily irrigated areas, farmers were of the opinion that the biggest drawback of traditional varieties is its low yield and the fact that seed is not easily available.
In districts where hardly any HYVs were cultivated, primarily rain fed areas, farmers do not have complaints against the traditional varieties, recognising that that do better under their conditions. They also complained about the difficulty of accessing seeds of these varieties. Neither seed stores nor government agencies provide such seeds.
Most farmers are of the opinion that the loss of traditional varieties is a negative development for agriculture.
A section of younger farmers are not sure if this loss is a negative development or it has actually been a positive development for the farming community, resulting in the overall development of agriculture.
Farmers acknowledged that HYVs fare better in terms of yield and marketability but traditional varieties are better in terms of the characteristics they offer, amount and quality of straw and disease resistance. The traditional varieties were said to be better tasting and important for festivals, ceremonies and rituals.
Most farmers are open to cultivating traditional varieties of crops, at least on a portion of their land. The main impediment to this is lack of seeds.
Farmers were open to changing over to cultivation of traditional seeds but wanted incentives to offset the loss of yield compared to HYVs. Some of the desired incentives were assured availability of water, link roads, assured supply of good quality seeds, fertilizers and pesticides and marketing facilities with price support.

VIII Rectifying the Situation
Public sector investments must be made to maintain genetic diversity and the livelihoods of the poor. Comprehensive characterisation of varieties and species should be done to document features like the agroecological niches occupied by plant types which are little known or regarded as weeds. The various economic characteristics of plants and livestock, including pest and disease resistance, their nutritional properties, and their complementarity with others in an ecosystem should be recorded.

Protect Genetic Diversity through the Public Distribution Systems (PDS)
The Public Distribution System (PDS) which procures grains for distribution to the poor can become a powerful tool to support genetic diversity, at the same time offer local people foods that they know. The government scheme procures only high yielding varieties and quality standards are set for the procurement of such varieties. This encourages farmers to grow just one variety, at best two, of both rice and wheat. Traditional varieties are not procured because there is diversity in these crops so the grains are not identical. Some varieties produce short, fat grains, others may have long, narrow ones, some dark, the others light in colour. This makes absolutely no difference to the quality of the food. In fact, traditional varieties usually have a better nutritional profile than the high yielding ones, but farmers are discouraged by the lack of a market.

Instead of rice and wheat from Punjab and Western UP, if the PDS would buy traditional varieties of crops locally from farmers it would be a great incentive for farmers, to continue growing these varieties and so called minor cereals like millets. Farmers in rainfed areas are still growing traditional varieties of rice, millets, pulses, oilseeds and vegetables. If there is a good price for these crops, the farmers will not feel the pressure to shift to high yielding varieties, which get them higher incomes. In irrigated areas where farmers have been practicing mono-cropping and intensive agriculture, the ecological impact of intensive use of agro-chemicals is becoming apparent. They would be happy to convert some portion of their land to traditional varieties but are hesitant to do so because there is no market for these crops.

Ensure Seed Supply of Traditional Varieties
In a study conducted in UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh, Gene Campaign found that among other reasons, farmers tend to shift away from traditional varieties because seed of these varieties is difficult to obtain if they should lose their own seed. The formal agricultural system does not offer any support for traditional varieties and farmers cultivating older varieties are usually left to their own devices. They encounter difficulties at both ends, in the availability of seed and the lack of a market to sell their produce. Were this situation to change, farmers would be more willing to cultivate traditional varieties of rice, as also varieties of millets.

Agrobiodiversity Conservation: The Gene Campaign Experience
Gene Campaign elected to work on conservation of agrobiodiversity in Jharkhand because, along with Orissa and parts of Chattisgarh, this region of Eastern India is considered to be one of the primary centres for the origin of rice. The wealth of genetic diversity here is being eroded by the aggressive promotion of HYV and hybrid rice. There is no corresponding effort for the conservation of traditional rice varieties. The Seed Exchange Programme undertaken by the Government of Jharkhand is an official instrument for the systematic destruction of the genetic diversity of rice in its birthplace, the area where a large and varied genetic diversity is still found. The Seed Exchange Programme provides high yielding seed to farmers in exchange for their traditional varieties. Farmers bring in their traditional rice varieties and take back an equivalent amount of seed of HYV or hybrid rice seed. There is no programme for the conservation of the traditional varieties that are brought in, instead, they are milled and turned into rice, thus destroying large amounts of genetic diversity in a systematic way.

Gene Campaign started a few years ago to collect, characterise and conserve traditional varieties of crops, principally rice but also legumes, oilseeds, millets and vegetables. Gene Campaign’s activities to conserve the genetic diversity scientifically are as follows:

Collection of agro biodiversity of various crop plants, chiefly rice and its characterisation and processing for long-term and medium-term conservation in Gene/Seed/ Grain Banks
Ultradessicating seed samples for storage at room temperature and testing seed viability and germination every year for five years
Setting up Gene and Seed Banks in the village with proper storage conditions like water proofing, light proofing and pest control
Developing a community-based system for using and administering the material in the Gene/ Seed bank
Multiplication of seed samples to create seed source for farmers
Refreshing seed in field plots every year to retain the viability of the seed stored in the bank.
Characterising the collection of agrobiodiversity using standard forms and approved descriptors.
Maintaining the integrity of the seed collections by proper curating of the collection, weeding out mixtures, exact and accurate labeling.

Agrobiodiversity conservation in village level Gene-Seed Banks will help support local food security in a number of ways. The long-term conservation of genetic material will aid future breeding work and the genes contained in conserved agro biodiversity will not be lost as traditional varieties get displaced from farmers fields. These genes should be conserved so that as climate, biotic and abiotic conditions change/vary, breeders can use this kind of bank to access genes with specific properties, to breed new varieties. That is why it is important not just to collect but also to characterise the properties of traditional crop varieties.

In the short term the Gene-Seed banks have begun to serve as a seed source for farmers who can access seed adapted to local dry land conditions. Not all farmers can opt for HYV or hybrid rice cultivation and maintaining a diverse and secure seed source for such resource poor farmers is important to support their agriculture and local food security. The Gene-Seed Banks provide such locally adapted seed.

The Gene/Seed bank is also a repository of Farmer Varieties, which can be registered with the National Plant Variety Authority. According to the new IPR regime in India and the new legislation on Farmer Rights, Farmer Varieties can be registered once they have been characterised. This is to accord ownership rights to farmers over their genetic material and the IK inherent in its breeding and conservation. The collection, characterisation and conservation of traditional varieties in the gene/seed bank helps to get farmers their legitimate due both intellectually and materially. It establishes their claim to the benefits derived from commercialisation and provides an incentive to conserve such varieties.

To give the next generation a stake in conservation, village youth have been trained to collect traditional varieties, process them scientifically and characterise them. They are also trained to multiply the seed samples in plots, harvesting, drying and storing the samples in a carefully segregated fashion. Farmers are trained to maintain careful field protocols and plot designs as trained by the scientists. These farmers can multiply seeds for the bank on their fields. The longer term goal is to encourage farmers to restore some of the traditional varieties on part of their lands so that there is field level conservation. Bringing scientific conservation techniques to the field should help to arrest the rapid genetic erosion. This kind of work should be magnified and spread to all regions where genetic diversity exists.

Impact of Setting up Seed Banks
The seed banks have had several impacts. Traditional rice varieties to farmer’s fields have returned. The traditional varieties that were lost from the region are being cultivated again in many places. Farmers have been trained to participate in seed renewal and multiplication, thus creating viable source of traditional seed. Traditional varieties with cultural-religious significance have also returned to communities. Conservation of rice diversity is beginning to happen in its Centre of Origin and farmers again have the option to mix varieties which helps to distribute risk, especially when hybrid rice is being promoted.

Suman Sahai is Convener of Gene Campaign.

End Notes
[1] The Irish famine in 1846 due to the potato blight Phytophthera infestans, is well known. In 1970, the US corn crop suffered a 15 per cent reduction in yield and losses worth roughly US$ 1 billion when a leaf fungus (Helminthosporim maydis) spread rapidly through the genetically uniform crop. The loss of a large portion of the Soviet wheat crop to cold weather in 1972, and the citrus canker outbreak in Florida in 1984 all stemmed from reduction in genetic diversity.

References
FAO. 1999. ‘What is Happening to Agrobiodiversity?’, Accessed from: http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5609e/y5609e02.htm, accessed on 14 May 2010.
FAO. 2004. ‘Soil Biota and Biodiversity: the “Root” of Sustainable Agriculture’, Accessed from http://www.fao.org/ag/agl/agll/soilbiod/docs/SB-brochure-sept.pdf, accessed on 14 May 2010.

Source : South Asian Survey (2010), A Journal of the Indain Council for South Asian Cooperation, Sage Publication, Volume 17, Number 1, Page 111

BT BRINJAL AND THE SCIENCE ACADEMIES

2010-11-29T17:15:00.001+05:30

Suman Sahai
Six academies of science in India ,The Indian Academy of Sciences, The Indian National Academy of Engineering , The Indian National Science Academy, The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, The National Academy of Medical Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences India, have just finished covering themselves in glory. This distinction came after their September 2010 report released to promote Bt brinjal and ask for its immediate release , was exposed to be a cut and paste job, shamelessly plagiarizing material from diverse sources, including some GM promotional material. The Inter Academy report shocked one of its authors ( Prof Vijayan of the Indian National Science Academy) sufficiently for him to declare “This is unfortunate — we are devastated. This should not have happened”.

Considering that this report was prepared in response to a request made by Dr Kasturirangan, Member Planning Commission and Sri Jairam Ramesh, Minister , Environment and Forests, it does little to address the points that the Minister raised in his detailed decision on why he held back commercialization of Bt brinjal. For instance the Minister had this to say on toxins in the brinjal family: “The plant family Solanaceae to which brinjal belongs appears to be more problematic than others because it contains several natural toxins that can resurface when metabolism is disturbed. The kind of testing done, it is being said, is not specific or stringent enough to detect toxins. This is an important issue since brinjal is an item of almost daily consumption for most of us.” But this concern, like many others, is not addressed in the report.

It was surprising indeed that the National Academy of Medical Sciences is a signatory to this report since both, the Director-General of the Indian Council of Medical Research as well as the Drug Controller to the Government of India had expressed misgivings about the release of Bt brinjal to Jairam Ramesh, recommending that chronic toxicity and other related tests should be carried out independently before taking a decision. As this goes to press, the National Academy of Medical Sciences has distanced itself from the Inter Academy report and has pushed for a fresh report with scientific rigor.

A scientific critique of the Bt brinjal testing has been done by David Andow, professor of insect ecology at the University of Minnesota and an authority on environmental risk assessment (ERA). His report says that the ERA of Bt brinjal conducted by GEAC and Mahyco was misdirected and failed to assess the actual adverse environmental consequences that Bt brinjal could have. In the August 2010 report, Andow has outlined the manner in which an ERA should be, but was not done, to address the specific biosafety questions relevant to Bt brinjal in India.

The main thesis of David Andow’s report is that the GEAC set too narrow a scope for the environmental risk assessment of Bt brinjal. Because of this, the testing was limited and many of the right questions were not asked; therefore most of the possible environmental risks of Bt brinjal were not adequately evaluated. For this reason, Andow concludes that the report of the Expert committee II ( EC-II) does not constitute an adequate ERA. Andow’s report has been endorsed by two highly respected scientists in this field, Professor Norman Ellstrand, University of California and Professor Allison Snow of the Ohio State University.

The report submitted by the science academies is embarrassing and worrisome on at least two counts. First, it reveals how the scientists have abdicated the responsibility of maintaining decent standards in science and second, that they have become lobbyists instead of remaining independent pursuers of the truth. A proper enquiry of this sorry episode must be conducted and strictures passed against the offenders. We must send the message that such shoddy work and ethical compromises are not acceptable.

The new colonizers

2010-11-29T16:54:00.005+05:30

Suman Sahai
A new colonialism is underway. Rich, food-importing countries are grabbing the world’s farmland for captive food production for their people. China, South Korea, Japan, as well as Saudi Arabia and the Arab states are the new colonisers. Africa, with its large land mass, fertile land in most places and abundant water, is a target, like India, with its fabled wealth that once was. Only this time, India is joining the ranks of the land grabbers, not on the same scale as the biggies but India, too, is acquiring land in Africa.

The tragedy of Africa is that it remains food insecure despite its fertile farmlands, receiving food-aid from UN agencies like the World Food Programme. Ethiopia, which is aggressively promoting the lease out of its land to foreign investors, receives food aid worth $115 million but its lands generate cereals worth $100 million for Saudi Arabia. Ethiopian land produces food for foreigners but cannot do the same for itself! Similarly, Sudan which receives as much as $1.6 billion worth of free food from international agencies, grows wheat for Saudi Arabia, vegetables for Jordan and its own staple food, sorghum, for animal feed in the United Arab Emirates.

The food crisis of 2008 and high food inflation brought home to many how fragile the global food situation can be, not just for the poor but also for the rich who do not have sufficient land to grow the food they require. When global food commodities disappeared from the international market as a result of factors like speculation leading to hoarding, diversion of foodgrains like corn and soybean to biofuels and increased demand for animal feed, the rich food-importing nations realised that it was not sufficient to have money. To be food secure, they decided, they could not depend on international food stocks but must have control over food production directly. If they did not have enough land in their sovereign territories, they would simply acquire this land elsewhere, produce the food there and ship it home. This would allow them to bypass global food markets and the volatility associated with them in the recent past. It is estimated that in the last few years, up to 20 million hectares of land are either already leased or are being negotiated for lease.

This new colonialism takes forward the trend of the last centuries. The 19th century Europe took over large tracts of farmland in Africa for coffee and cocoa plantations. US-based fruit growing conglomerates appropriated farmland in South and Central America and in Southeast Asian countries like the Philippines to produce bananas, pineapples and other tropical fruits for the world market. The farmland grab of today is fundamentally different though. Earlier it was cash crops and a means to wealth generation, today it is based on straightforward food security instead of revenue generation. Food-importing countries are seeking the first instance to secure food supplies for themselves.

Not just the wealthy countries, others have also joined this exploitation of global farmland.

In neighbouring Pakistan, the government is offering farmland to (largely) Arab investors. Government-backed roadshows are being held in the Gulf state, offering extremely generous tax incentives to attract investment. Given the state of the country’s domestic security situation, an additional bonus that Pakistan offers is a one lakh strong security force to protect the foreign investments.

India too is in the thick of the land grab. Indian companies have found a way out of the land ceiling laws in India to build vast agriculture operations in Africa where there is no ceiling on land ownership. Building huge agriculture empires is not possible in India, but it is in Africa. The Indian government supports this move and provides soft loans and reduced import duties to enable the shipment of agriculture produce to India. Indian farming companies have bought thousands of hectares of land in Africa and are growing rice, maize and pulses which they sell to India. These companies have invested upwards of $2.4 billion to buy up farmland in Ethiopia alone. Karuturi Global, a Karnataka-based company is one of the biggest land owners in Africa, where it grows cash crops like sugarcane and palm oil, as well as rice and vegetables. Not surprisingly, the backlash from people in Africa against foreign investments has begun. Karuturi is one of the prime targets. Activist groups are calling the investments a “land grab” taking away the entitlements of the African people. They say such alienation of land will deprive locals of their livelihoods. They have a point.

If this form of land leasing is to be made fair and sustainable, a code of conduct must be formulated. This could be done by bodies like the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.

There is a fear that the foreign investments in food production will end up hurting farmers as corrupt local governments allow the land to be leased out without building in any securities for the land owners. These could often be small farmers with little idea of what has been negotiated or what would be the terms of getting their land back. Would the land owner have some right to the food that is produced on his land? Would the local community have preferential rights to access the food or could it be all exported without leaving anything for the local people? Who would ensure that the land is not degraded during the lease period and that it is returned to the owners in a healthy state? Such investment deals have been notoriously non-transparent in most cases so far.

If this form of land leasing is to be made fair and sustainable, and if the small landholders are also to benefit from it, a code of conduct must be formulated. This could be done by bodies like the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. They should define the terms and conditions under which land is made available for contracted food production. There must be a consultative process with not just the governments but with the land owners directly and the terms and conditions must be made clear to them. Prior Informed Consent, a feature of recent negotiations determining access to resources, as for instance in the Convention on Biological Diversity, must be made standard features in all such arrangements, before a deal can be finalised. The international community must put its weight behind compliance of the code of conduct in both the host and investor country so that such deals do not become tools of exploitation, depriving the poor and hungry and robbing them of the chance to ever become food secure.

Dr Suman Sahai, a genetic scientist who has served on the faculty of the Universities of Chicago and Heidelberg, is convenor of the Gene Campaign

Hot, dry, hungry

2010-08-10T10:51:00.005+05:30

Suman Sahai

Despite the India Meteorological Department’s brave pronouncements, the monsoon this year is looking to be as disturbed as it was last year. A disturbed monsoon has a direct correlation with a deficit in food production. This happened last year and in all likelihood will happen again this year unless the monsoon in north India picks up immediately. These weather uncertainties are being attributed to climate change, a result of anthropogenic or manmade factors. The anticipated changes in climate and its impact on agriculture and food production are of great concern to tropical countries like India. The developing countries in the tropics are less able to adapt and are more susceptible to climate change damage than the temperate countries, many of which will be beneficiaries.

There is a broad consensus that tropical areas are slated to see an expansion of arid zones. This will be accompanied by a contraction of 31-51 million ha of favourable cultivation areas and a significant reduction in food production in the most vulnerable areas where population density is high and food already scarce. Nearly one billion affected people live in these vulnerable environments, dependent on agriculture. These vulnerable populations have limited capacity to protect themselves from the environmental hazards that will accompany climate change, like drought and floods, and will suffer most from land degradation and biodiversity loss.

The Polluter gets Paid
Climate related impacts on food production will be geographically unevenly distributed. In a perverse irony, the developed (industrialised) countries will experience an increase in agriculture productivity potential as temperate regions get warmer. The regions which because of their industrialisation and huge emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) are responsible for the climate change phenomenon will actually end up being its beneficiaries with respect to food production. On the other hand, today’s developing world in the tropics, which has not contributed to creating this climate hazard, will be its worst victim, and will suffer a loss in agriculture productivity, with serious consequences for food availability and hunger.About 40 poor and food-insecure countries, with a projected total population (in 2080) of one to three billion, will lose 10-20 per cent of their cereal-production potential. Of these, Africa will be the worst affected followed by South Asia. Crop production losses as a result of climate change could further worsen the prevalence and depth of hunger. This burden will fall disproportionately on the poorest. To compound the damage, the overall trend of reduced food production will create market imbalances, which will push up international prices, making it even more difficult for governments of food scarce countries to access food for their poor.

According to estimates, a little less than half the production potential in certain developing countries could be lost. In South Asia, the biggest blow to food production is expected to come from the loss of multiple cropping zones. The worst affected areas are predicted to be the double and triple cropping areas like Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh from where the surplus grain for our buffer stock comes. This means areas where two to three crops are produced in a year and which are predicted to turn into single crop zones, where only one crop can be taken in a year because the rest of the season will be too hot and dry for cultivation.

Coping with wheat loss
For South Asia, particularly India, one of the most serious impacts is anticipated in wheat production. Wheat is the single largest winter crop of north India and states like Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh produce the surplus wheat that goes into the PDS. Wheat is a particularly temperature sensitive crop and it has been estimated that for every one degree rise in temperature, wheat producing areas in India and South Asia will lose about four to five million tonnes of production. This will have a cascading effect on food for the poor.

The immediate challenge is to find a substitute for wheat as the dominant winter crop for north India and other parts where wheat is cultivated. Tubers like potato, can be part of the solution. These could fill the shortfall to some extent but the cereal deficit will have to be made up by some other cereal. Corn could be suitable as a supplementary crop and a partial wheat replacement. Millets are as yet an unexplored option and have not been assessed for potential. Although millets typically grow during the summer in Asia, there are also several millet types which are cultivated at high altitude. Such millet germplasm could form the basis of developing new varieties suited for cultivation during the winter season of a changed, warmer climate regime.

The ability of a country to cope with the impact of climate change on agriculture will depend on a number of factors. The total amount of arable land and available water resources will be critical determinants of the ability of regions to adapt to the changes brought by a warming world. Apart from land, the availability of water could become a critical limiting factor. For instance, the impact of global warming on the Tibetan plateau and Himalayan glaciers will affect the 10 or so main rivers like the Indus, the Mekong, the Yangtze and the Brahmaputra that come out of there and flow into China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma. Harnessing these river waters as the ice caps and Himalayan glaciers recede and the water flow in rivers diminishes, will need skilful diplomatic negotiations so that river waters can be shared in such a manner as to ensure that requirements of agriculture are met in all affected countries.

India has technical skills in agriculture and a sophisticated farming community capable of combining indigenous knowledge with recent scientific advances. The country is rich in biodiversity and community experiences from diverse agro ecological zones offer a number of options to find solutions. All this would enable the agriculture of the region to cope with climate change impacts provided a comprehensive and effective policy response is put into action right away.

- Dr Suman Sahai, a genetic scientist who has served on thefaculty of the Universities of Chicago and Heidelberg, isconvenor of the Gene Campaign

Rotting Food, Hungry People

2010-08-02T17:23:00.012+05:30

Suman Sahai

EVERY OTHER day there is either a newspaper report or an editorial comment lamenting the loss of food grain stored in buffer stocks. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, while prophesying a bumper kharif crop, admits he is worried about not having adequate storage for the produce. At a national conference in 2003, the Central Warehousing Corporation said it had covered storage capacity for 48 million tonnes of food grain. In 2002, the country had 63 million tonnes of food grain in buffer stocks, 15 million tonnes more than it could store. This grain was sold in the international market at prices below the cost at which it was procured by the government, because there was no storage space. That it was not distributed to the poor is another story.

Pawar, who also looks after food and public distribution and consumer affairs, needs to explain why even seven years after holding all three important portfolios, he has failed to increase the country’s capacity for stocking grain. Known for his administrative skills, why has Pawar restricted himself to moaning about poor and inadequate storage facilities, instead of getting up and doing something about it.

The government acknowledges that food worth nearly Rs 60,000 crore is destroyed every year due to poor and insufficient storage facilities. This lost food is keeping millions of Indians hungry. To add insult to injury, the government spends about Rs 2.6 crore of the tax payers’ money to get rid of food grain that has rotted during storage.

Even as it watches this destruction of precious food, the government has failed to take any action to fix responsibility and punish those responsible for such criminal actions. It is business as usual: callous neglect and corruption being par for the course, food is destroyed season after season as malnutrition ravages the countryside and India’s hunger and malnutrition figures slip below Sub-Saharan Africa.

When the shocking figures of grain loss came to light last year, Pawar told the Parliament that he would set up a committee to examine the matter. A year later, he has been crowned the Prince of the ICC, but not a single cubic foot of additional storage space has been built. Nor have those who routinely oversee the destruction of the country’s food harvests, been questioned, let alone punished.

Mountains of grain, collected over years, are stored in the open in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, covered by plastic sheets. They get wet in the rain and rot. In Punjab, the rotting grain is enough to feed three lakh people. When states appeal to the Centre to release the food stocks so that the poor have food, the government’s economists stop this, saying it would be bad economics. So the grain is allowed to rot, the people get hungrier, the youth in the hungry heartland get enraged and their anger gets seduced by the gun. India’s innards are exploding to the sound of grenades as the economists discuss inflationary pressures and the agriculture minister complains about poor storage facilities, as though it was someone else’s problem to fix.

Even in warehouses where grain is stored indoors in gunny bags, the damp gets to them because the construction is below par. When the moisture creeps in during the rainy season and the bags get wet, fungus destroys the grain, making it inedible. In addition, there are rodents that not only eat up large quantities of stored grain, but also leave behind their excreta to further poison the food. Together, fungus and rodents account for nearly 20 million tonnes of food grain lost every year, which is about a tenth of the country’s annual production.

STORING GRAINS in warehouses is a bad idea. The bags stored in the first phase lie at the bottom, rotting because they cannot be taken out first. So the bags on top, the most recent ones, get taken out when food has to be sent out. The cardinal principle of storage, ‘firstin- first-out’, is violated by the warehouse method.

There is a blindingly simple answer to this problem — grain silos. These vertical structures of steel allow grain to be poured in from the top and taken out from below. It is waterproof because the structure is lifted off the ground and the metal does not allow seepage and damp. There’s no room for rodents either, nor their excreta. Just clean dry grain, ready to be taken out and transported wherever it is needed.

Is the government taking steps to introduce this solution? No it isn’t. When MS Swaminathan and the National Commission on Farmers made this recommendation, the government response was to set up a committee, after a long delay, to examine its cost and effectiveness. Nothing has come of that so far, but plans are afoot to send a delegation to China to study how they tackle their storage problems. Many plates of Peking duck and lots of plum wine later we will have a report on how the Chinese manage their business, but we may not have a grain silo.

The grain silo isn’t a new concept for India. In Jharkhand and Bihar, the traditional grain gola, a silolike structure is used to store food produce in villages. In the Raj era, such silos were used to stock food grain during famine. These structures were made of galvanised iron and had a fairly long life. They are still around. There is no reason why a network of large silos and smaller grain golas cannot be built across the country. Let this government’s ambitions of nine percent economic growth begin with feeding the hungry in this land with the food that is already produced.

Suman Sahai, convener of Gene Campaign

The Kernel of Bad Ethics

2010-07-26T16:43:00.006+05:30

The controversial Seeds Bill is lying in Parliament. It is anti-farmer, pro-industry and needs a drastic rewrite

SUMAN SAHAI

IF DISRUPTIONS over phone tapping and the India Premier League controversy had not taken Parliament sessions hostage, the Rajya Sabha may have passed the controversial Seeds Bill in the week of April 26, when it was slated to come up for discussion.

The government was keen to give this Bill the force of law as soon as possible because the seed industry wants it. The Seeds Bill originally proposed in 2004 was met by resistance almost immediately. Just months after it was proposed, Gene Campaign organised a stakeholder consultation to critically analyse the Bill and suggest amendments. The pressure was kept up to have the Bill re-examined and it was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture in 2005. The Committee called for evidence and submissions from a number of agencies, including government departments, civil society groups and seed industries.

The Standing Committee accepted many of the amendments proposed by civil society groups and the amended draft Seeds Bill that was proposed to Parliament was vastly improved over the original. It made the playing field more level and while giving the seed industry a fair chance to profit from the seed trade, it incorporated safeguards for farmers. The Bill in that shape was however not accepted. Since then several other amendments have been proposed, some of which have been accepted in principle, others not.

So what is the Seeds Bill and is it needed? Many NGOs have been asking for the Bill to be scrapped. This is a dangerous proposition stemming from ignorance about what such a law is supposed to accomplish. The new Seeds Bill will replace the old Seed Act of 1966, which was meant to govern trading in seed. A law regulating the seed trade is necessary to ensure that farmers are protected against spurious seeds and that seed producers are obliged to put into the market only seeds of good and reliable quality. Such a seed law must encourage competitiveness to ensure good quality and low prices and not encourage monopolies.

Our seed law must ensure that the seeds produced by farming communities (Farmer Varieties) are treated at par with seeds produced by companies. The law must provide for a transparent system of seed testing and evaluation of performance so that the farmers get good quality seed and the nation’s goals of agricultural and food production are met in the most effective manner. So we do need a Seeds Act but we do not need this one.

The genesis of the current shape of the Seeds Bill is to be seen in the ire of the seed industry over the pro-farmer provisions of the Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers Rights Act (PPVFR), 2001. This IPR law that India enacted instead of accepting a patent law for seeds, gives intellectual property protection to the plant varieties of farmers as well as those of breeders. India is the only country in the world that has given legal rights to its farmers over seed, and the industry has been furious since. The seed industry wants monopolies over seed production and giving rights to farmers over their seeds spoils their plans. They retaliated by influencing the proposed Seeds Bill in a way that overrules the provisions of the PPVFR and Farmers Rights and had provisions written in that would allow seed sector monopolies with as little accountability as possible.

In the PPVFR, the breeder applies for registration for a Plant Breeders Right. This right is valid for a period of 15 years for crop varieties and 18 years for trees. The Seed Bill allows the period of protection to be doubled so that the seed varieties can be protected by the seed producer for 30 years and 36 years respectively. This extension of the seed owner’s right will allow monopolies to be established.

A KEY OBJECTION to the Seeds Bill is that despite several submissions for amendment, it still does not require the seed industry (plant breeders) to declare the parentage of the new seed that they have developed. This is bad science and bad ethics. Scientists always keep a record of the maternal and paternal parents of the new seed that they are developing. Resistance to submitting these records and keeping this provision out of the Bill means only one thing. The seed industry breeders will use the seed varieties developed by farmers and public sector scientists and pass this off as their own. This amounts to theft. The penalties for violation have been kept ridiculously low — Rs 5,000 — so that even if someone is caught stealing public sector material or that belonging to farmers, the punishment is a laughably small sum of money.

Of a piece with this is the refusal to accommodate a provision for pre-grant opposition. Law making in many parts of the world, including our own, particularly when rights are granted, as in IPR, allows an opportunity to the public to record its objections to the grant of such a right.

Many activists had wanted such a provision in the Seeds Bill as well so that if a seed company wanted to register a seed, which had used material from other, unauthorised sources, objections could be raised. But the government, anxious to please the seed industry refuses to include a provision for pre-grant opposition.

This Seeds Bill is distinctly anti-farmer and so against the interests of food security. It must be radically overhauled.

Dr Suman Sahai is a scientist trained in genetics. She heads Gene Campaign, a leading research and advocacy organisation

Are genetically modified foods safe?

2010-07-26T16:04:00.004+05:30

Suman Sahai

GM crops are promoted as the answer to global hunger, to combat climate change, to produce renewable energy; it appears that if there is a problem anywhere, GM crops have the answer. Apart from this hyperbole, a fundamental question remains: does GM technology produce safe foods or should we be apprehensive about negative health impacts?

There is a substantial body of scientific data that demonstrates that the process of genetic engineering itself can cause changes in the cell that can lead to new and unpredictable changes in it.
Adverse health effects from GM food can result from the over-expression of an existing protein or activation of a dormant toxic substance, resulting in cell products that could be dangerous to human and animal health.
In addition to this, the genetic engineering of plants may result in the expression of totally new substances, which are not found in the natural plant species or, genes brought in from plants having known allergy provoking properties would bring the allergenic property along with them into the new transgenic plant.

The mere act of inserting alien genes into the chromosome of the host plant can create unintended effects and the formation of new and unknown toxic or allergy provoking compounds which are almost impossible to analyse and detect.
This can be a special problem in the case of plants like brinjal, which belong to the Solanacea family. This plant family to which nightshade, dhatura and tobacco (all highly poisonous) also belong has several natural toxins.

The chance of natural toxins being recreated through genetic engineering is high and therefore the genetic engineering of plants of this kind is more risky and more likely to produce foods that could be a threat to human health. Our regulatory system for GM crops have no provisions to conduct specific safety tests of this kind. Such tests, for instance, were not done for Bt brinjal.

It is known that allergenic proteins can be transferred by genetic engineering from one organism to another. The potential for development of toxic or allergic reactions to GM foods is likely to increase with advances in the scope and range of genetic modifications, increasingly radical transgenic combinations and the introduction of a greater variety of GM foods into the market, the last resulting in an increased exposure among people to foods carrying novel proteins.
With the widespread penetration of GM food in the market, food-allergic people will have to contend with new sources of allergens. The danger will be compounded by the difficulties of implementing labeling in India and making such labels intelligible to a large section of Indian people, particularly in rural areas. Allergic consumers will not even know what to avoid, resulting in a great risk to their health.

Children will be particularly vulnerable because their young immune systems will be less able to fight the allergen and also because their exposure to such novel proteins will be of longer duration, increasing their risk. The use of GM food products as food additives and processed foods, including baby foods, will lead to earlier exposure, especially for infants either directly or via breast milk. Maternal dietary food proteins are regularly detected in breast milk, and cow milk.

A particularly controversial area in the application of GM technology has been the use of marker genes which are introduced along with the gene for the desired trait as part of the gene construct that is inserted. The marker gene is just that, a marker to identify if the gene transfer has been successful.

Historically, the most common marker genes have been those that code for resistance to antibiotics. The concern is that these genes could find their way into pathogenic microbes, potentially compromising the clinical efficacy of antibiotics used in human medicine or livestock production. The indiscriminate use of antibiotics in human medicine is a large enough risk for giving rise to antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Testing can be done when the protein created by the foreign gene is known but problems arise when the toxicological hazard results from newly formed proteins which can not be predicted. It is not possible to test for what you do not know and the hazardous proteins can remain undetected. The problem is made worse by the fact that induction of food allergies by increasing dietary exposure may be difficult to detect because of low frequency in the population to start with and because years of ingestion may be required to provoke an allergic response. This has special implications in the case of proteins where allergies are likely to show up years later.
There is plenty of evidence about the health dangers of GM foods, from animal tests.

Studies done at the Russian Academy of sciences, on rats fed with GM soya showed high rates of mortality, severe stunting of pups and high levels of sterility in the surviving litter. The startling results showed that 36% of the litter born to emales fed GE soya were stunted at the age of two weeks, by the third week over 55% had died. The mortality was six to eight times higher than in the control group which had been fed non GE soya.

Data on the health damage caused by eating GM foods comes from Monsanto's own labs. Results from a secret study conducted on their GM maize Mon 863 which were accidentally leaked, showed that rats fed on Mon 863 developed organ abnormalities, changes in the blood profile and collapse of the immune system.

Earlier studies on rats have also shown that rodents appear to be averse to GM foods and reject them in laboratory tests. When the first genetically altered tomato "Flavr Savr" was fed to rodents in the labs in 1994, data revealed that many of the rats developed lesions in the stomach. Seven of the forty rats that were fed with GM tomatoes died within two weeks. There have been numerous other reports of stomach lesions in rats, false pregnancies in cows, excessive cell growth and damage to animal immune systems, following feeding studies conducted with GM foods.

Adequate testing procedures for allergenicity are not available in India. At present food toxicity is tested merely by the chemical analysis of nutrients and known toxins. This may fail to uncover several categories of toxins and allergens. This means that animals and humans could be exposed to allergens which are not being detected. Before any further commercialization is allowed, testing procedures of sufficiently stringent standards should be put in place.

Dr Suman Sahai, trained in genetics, is the chairperson of the Gene Campaign, She has served on the faculty of the Universities of Chicago and Heidelberg. She can be contacted at mail@genecampaign.org

Synthetic Life?

2010-07-12T17:19:00.000+05:30

Suman Sahai

Synthia, the nickname given to the first synthetic bacterium created recently, has stirred up a global debate. Is it new life or just an efficient copy of life as it exists? As research prowess goes, the latter is nothing to scoff at. What Craig Venter’s group has done is a technological breakthrough. The researchers have created what they call ‘artificial life’ by creating a newly synthesized genome using off the shelf biological reagents. They then put this artificial genome into the shell of a bacterium from which most of the genetic material had been scraped out. The artificial genome revived the bacterial shell and made it functional. Venter announced his group had created ‘synthetic life’. This claim immediately became controversial.

While Venter says this is the first ever synthetic cell that's been made and the first ever life form on the planet “whose parent is a computer”, others in his team have been more modest and said that they had only taken "baby steps" toward custom-making an organism. Scientists too have had differing responses, some say that the new bacterium could not be called artificial life, that science does not as yet know enough about biology to really create new life. Others called this an epochal breakthrough in biology. As a biologist myself, I would say that the new research is dazzling but it’s not quite creating life. The newness is that the new DNA has not been created by replicating the DNA of an organism but by reading the code of the organism stored in a computer and creating the DNA spelt out by that code using store bought building blocks (nucleotides). That I would say is a brilliant mimicking of life , not creating it de novo.

Whatever the nature of the breakthrough, one thing is certain, the trigger for it is overwhelmingly commercial. Venter and his partners stand to make a huge amount of money on the patents that are already being taken out on all the processes and products associated with synthetic biology. The same thing had happened when Francis Collins and he had announced in 2000 that they had mapped the human genome, a full three years ahead of the international Human Genome Program being managed by a consortium of scientists from across several countries. A spate of patents on human gene sequences and even parts of genes followed. Many of these were not accepted as patentable subject matter because the function of the genetic material was unknown, but many were. For a patent to be granted, the invention must have demonstrable utility, if the function of the DNA sequences was unknown, it could not have utility. Despite these minor bottlenecks, Venter sits on a heap of patents which will spin gold when the time comes.

Speculation is rife about all that synthetic microorganisms could do for the benefit of mankind. Custom made bacteria and algae to produce whatever you want, creating drugs and vaccines, cleaning water and effluents, trapping carbon in cultures serving as carbon sinks, even novel foods, energy and fuels, industrial chemicals, paints and varnishes…almost anything. Venter has already mentioned a 600 million dollar deal with Exxon to create ‘synthetic ‘algae to produce biofuels; another deal for an undisclosed amount has been struck with the British petroleum giant BP. Despite this promising wish list that synthetic biology appears to offer, there are also immense ethical and security implications associated with this new technology.

The US system is gearing up to look at synthetic biology to identify ethical boundaries and minimize identified risks. President Obama has asked the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues to examine the new technology in this context. It will be interesting to see the outcome of this review, particularly in the back drop of how genetic engineering, another contested technology was reviewed. In that case, despite there being outstanding ethical and security issues associated with recombinant DNA technology, not dissimilar to the current situation with synthetic biology, it was commercial interests that ultimately prevailed. Transgenic technology was not considered violative of fundamental ethical principles and the security concerns were countered by the argument that there was sufficient vigilance and the benefits far outweighed the risks.

How should Indian science respond to the new developments? There is good potential for first class biological research in the country, even if some of it tends to be copycat. Indian labs will undoubtedly want to connect with this new technology domain. But before engaging with the field of synthetic biology , or any of the transformative technologies on the horizon, there should be a public debate involving Parliament on the desirability of this technology and more than that, the ability of our regulatory systems to cope with its more than considerable potential risks. The track record on regulating Agbiotech has been abysmal. Our regulatory bodies lack technical competence and are riddled with conflict of interest, lack of transparency and accountability.

In spite of sustained demands from a wide variety of people, to improve the regulatory system, vested interests are succeeding in maintaining a weak and ineffective regulation that does not get in the way of product release. The more radical the breakthroughs in biology, the more they upset the equilibrium achieved through evolution and the greater the danger of damage. By inference, therefore, the greater the need for caution and perhaps for abstinence. It does not stand that just because scientists can do something, society should endorse that it be done. We do after all have a self imposed ban on sexing a foetus, on human embryonal cloning and on germline therapy (doing genetic changes to the human germ cells which will allow the changes to be passed on to the next generation).

Proceeding with radical technologies that will alter, perhaps inalienably, many facets of our existence, needs the cautious and considered endorsement of society and its stewards.
If the decision is to move forward on synthetic biology, a new and effective regulatory system that has the confidence of the public must be put in place before the first test tube is picked up or the first culture plated.

GM CROPS TO SOLVE WORLD HUNGER: INDIA DEVELOPS SALT TOLERANT STRAWBERRIES!

2010-06-26T10:22:00.000+05:30

Suman Sahai
If anything indicates the absurdity of India’s research priorities, especially in genetic engineering, it is the report that a group of researchers from the Jamia Hamdard University in Delhi have developed transgenic strawberry lines tolerant to salt stress. The strawberry was genetically engineered to express the gene coding for the protein osmotin. Osmotin kicks into action in response to salt and water stress and cold temperature. It also shows anti-fungal activity.

Please bear in mind that this salt tolerant GM strawberry works under cold conditions so even if it had any relevance to anyone in India, it would fail to take off under the prevailing global warming conditions. Apart from this, the scientists reported that the growth rate of these plants is slower than other plants, so this crop of GM strawberries will straggle behind the normal strawberry plants. The question must be asked, who are these high tech strawberries intended to benefit?

Precious public funds, the money that you and I pay in taxes, is being wasted on frivolous research of this kind, even as the country fails to demonstrate adequate investment in time tested technologies to secure food production. As India faces a food crisis and awaits the debilitating double whammy of global warming, threatening to reduce agriculture productivity, scarce research money is being spent on developing slow growing strawberries!
The proponents of GM crops, in the scientific establishment, the Agriculture Ministry, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Prime Minister’s Office, and a host of lobbyists, never tire of repeating that GM technology is necessary to solve the problem of hunger. Is this their road map for a hunger free India? Is anybody in the science establishment thinking?
mail@genecampaign.org
www.genecampaign.org

Bt Brinjal: What people say

2010-06-14T11:04:00.000+05:30

Gene Campaign has been conducting polls through its website ( take a look at www.genecampaign.org ). The two last ones on Bt brinjal were interesting. 97 percent of the people polled said they would not eat Bt brinjal . In a later poll on whether people think the ban on Bt brinjal will be lifted or not, almost 75 percent said they believed the ban would stay. Only 25 percent polled said they though the ban would be lifted ! This perception that the government would uphold the ban because people did not want Bt brinjal ( the Environment Minister cited this as the reason he chose to impose the ban) demonstrates that people place their trust in government and believe it will not go against their wishes.

This trust in government came through clearly in a study that Gene Campaign and the University of Hyderabad have just concluded, on perceptions about GMOs. There too, farmers and consumers across five states, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Assam and Jharkhand said that government was the agency they trusted most among government, universities, companies , media and NGOs. This trust extended to information from government sources about agriculture, seeds, fertilizers etc, they wanted government in preference to any other agency, to test for the safety of GMOs. To label such foods and to monitor their long term impact

The government must be humbled by the trust placed in it by the country’s farmers and consumers with respect to agriculture and food technologies. This trust should propel government agencies to be that much more conscientious in discharging their duties and responsibilities as is expected from them, to safeguard the public interest.

CLEAN UP THE STABLES TO GET PEACE IN JHARKHAND

2010-06-11T16:31:00.004+05:30

Suman Sahai

Jharkhand is now being mentioned on par with Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh when it comes to the Maoist or Naxal issue. This is a new trend and it need not be this way. If Mr Shibu Soren lasts as the Chief Minister of Jharkhand , he must act decisively to curb corruption and ensure that those under investigation in both political and bureaucratic circles are punished if found guilty. This single act will make him a hero to the people and give him the legitimacy to act to bring the state back to normalcy.

Look at corruption in Jharkhand. We are witnessing the spectacle of a going nowhere investigation into the misdeeds of Mr Madhu Koda, former Chief Minister, and his cronies. If newspapers are to be believed, Mr Koda has spirited away roughly half the entire budget of the state and invested it in mines in Liberia and hotels in Thailand. Despite the evidence , Mr Koda, instead of being locked up, ran an election campaign and spent enough money to ensure the electoral victory of his wife and friends. The blatancy of this kind of corruption frustrates people and when they respond with anger and violence, they are called Naxals.

Naxalism in Jharkhand , until recently, was not so much the ideological challenge to the state by people of a certain political persuasion; it was more the rage and retaliation of the youth who were seeing their future sabotaged by venal politicians and bureaucrats. Admittedly the picture has changed in recent months, after the crackdowns in other places, the Naxals have spilled over seeking hiding places and many have come to Jharkhand ; it is likely we will now see an intensification of the kind of activities that are geared to ‘overthrow the state’ . There are already reports of roads being blown up and we have seen abductions and murders of officials in recent months. But its still early days and the situation can be reversed.

Jharkhand, is a state where there is no development. It is the only state in the country which is moving backwards and is worse off today even compared to its appalling state in 2000. Rich in minerals, its people have been displaced in expanding cycles of impoverishment as the earth is opened up displacing homes and destroying livelihoods; making many time billionaires of the already rich outsiders and leaving nothing but worsening poverty for the locals. Mr Soren has a better track record than many others on the matter of tribal rights , especially with respect to land displacement. This will become a crucial issue as the state’s huge mineral reserves are opened up further for commercialization. If the government in Jharkhand can bring in more equitable and just policies, making the adivasis partners and stakeholders in the sustainable exploitation of the state’s mineral wealth, the emerging violence can be checked.

Juxtaposed to the situation in Jharkhand, is the UPA government making plans for India to return to nine percent growth levels. If these plans could be stretched to cover Jharkhand as well, not even nine percent…even only half of that, then Jharkhand could be put on the path to recovery. As it stands, there is no economic development in the state. The neglect can be seen everywhere, perhaps most in the primary, life sustaining activity of agriculture, leading to growing hunger and malnutrition, which is worse in Jharkhand than in Sub Saharan Africa, according to studies done by international organizations like the World Food Program.

The money that is earmarked for development projects vaporises before it hits the ground. Even the 15 paise out of a rupee do not reach the people. The greatest challenge facing Jharkhand and its people is abysmal governance, perhaps the worst in the country , rampant corruption and such a cynical apathy among the powerful elite to the fate of the poor, that it makes the blood curdle.

As part of preparing an agriculture development plan for certain districts in Jharkhand , Gene Campaign had conducted village level surveys to assess the main problems faced by farmers. The survey asked which benefits the community received from officials in the Block and how often scientists visited their villages. Over 90 percent of the people responded that the community received next to no benefits from the Block and that scientists from the agriculture university never visited them. In addition to this, the survey recorded that 95 out of 98 lift irrigation units in the Gumla district and 84 out of 87 in Simdega district were non functional since years because they had not been repaired. This is in a water starved area which is able to take only one crop a year because there are no irrigation facilities ( irrigation cover in Jharkhand is three percent) to enable a second crop. When irrigation facilities have been set up, as in Gumla and Simdega, they cannot be used because the government functionaries responsible for their maintenance have siphoned off the money meant for their repair.

After the single rice crop is taken during the monsoons, the fields are left fallow and nothing is cultivated for the rest of the year because there is no irrigation. For 8 months in the year, the fields of Jharkhand are brown and barren, when many other parts of the country are lush and green with a second crop. There is no industry to speak of. Avenues for employment are low and the money earmarked for developmental projects that would help village boys and girls to improve their situation goes into the pockets of corrupt government officials. Such is the cruelty that when they cannot swallow the funds, these officials prefer to send it back to the center as unutilized, so as not to ‘spoil the field’. That means, not to start the tradition that resources can be allocated without paying hefty bribes.

Whereas the State must act resolutely against those who take life and destroy property, dialogue and development are needed on priority if we want to reverse this situation. I believe this is still possible in Jharkhand. Developing the agriculture sector, taking advantage of Jharkhand’s climate and altitude can make it another Bangalore. Irrigation cover must be increased immediately so that fruits, vegetables and flowers can be exported, putting money in empty pockets. The production of rice and other cereals can be stepped up making the region not just self sufficient in food but providing a surplus of premium foods for urban markets. The state is a natural to foster organic and green agriculture which will not just make agriculture sustainable in the long run but also bring in incomes.

Only talking the language of the gun and launching Operation Green Hunt against those whose dues have been denied them and who have been subjected to brutal deprivation by those who are responsible for their development is the wrong way to deal with this unfortunate situation. The enlightened approach would be for the state to have the attitude of parents and guardians to errant children. A mixture of strict discipline, justice and compassion is far more likely to engender the confidence needed to start the dialogue to find the way back, than exacerbating the injustice by hunting them down with guns.

Dr Suman Sahai is convenor of the Gene Campaign, a research and advocacy organisation which has been working in Jharkhand for several years. She can be reached at mail@genecampaign.org and www.genecampaign.org

WHERE IS THE CASE FOR BT BRINJAL OR BT ANY OTHER CROP?

2010-06-11T11:29:00.004+05:30

Suman Sahai

In China the mirid bug has begun to ravage plantations of apples, strawberries, pears, peaches and vegetables in the vicinity of Bt cotton fields. A once minor pest, the mirid bug has erupted as a major pest in the absence of pest control and now attacks fruit orchards and cotton fields after farmers reduced spraying insecticides on Bt cotton.

The State Bio-Control Laboratory of Assam has isolated two species of insect bio-agents and made it available to farmers for biological pest control. The two species of insects, Trichogramma japonicum and Trichogramma chillonis are found to be effective against borer pests like stem borer in brinjal, tomato, potato, as well as paddy, chilli and sugarcane, and farmers have already started accruing benefit from these bio-agents.

The major pest of brinjal, as also of tomato and chilli, all belonging to the Solanacaea family, is bacterial wilt, (caused by Ralstonia solanacearum), not shoot and fruit borer, which the Bt brinjal aims to target.

These findings along with data on the explosion of secondary pests of cotton in Bt cotton fields in China and elsewhere, shows how controlling one pest can trigger the spread of others.

The Bt approach to pest control is emerging as expensive, perhaps irrelevant, short lived and ineffective as a strategy for pest control.

Given the dynamic nature of host –pathogen relationships and the large pest density and pest profile in the tropics, the only possible solution is Integrated Pest Management.

Agriculture and the challenge of Climate Change

2010-05-14T11:02:00.013+05:30

Suman Sahai

Climate change is likely to have a long term impact on social, environmental, economic, technological and political processes. But its most destructive influence will be on agriculture and food production in the poor developing countries. These will be more susceptible to climate change damage than the temperate countries, many of which actually benefit from climate change. Changes in rainfall patterns and temperature regimes will influence the local water balance and disturb the optimal cultivation period available for particular crops, thus throwing food and agricultural production out of gear.

According to climate estimates, agriculture in the productive areas of Africa and south Asia will be amongst the worst affected. Some estimates say almost 40 per cent of the production potential in certain developing countries could be lost. In south Asia, the biggest blow to food production is expected to come from the loss of multiple cropping zones. The worst affected areas are predicted to be the double or triple cropping areas, where two to three crops are produced in a year. To offset this loss, an effort must be made to convert single cropping areas into two crop zones. This can be done by efficient rain water harvesting and developing micro watersheds and water bodies so that in rain fed areas where one crop is being harvested today, water can be made available for a second crop.

Coping with the impact of climate change on agriculture will require careful management of resources like land, water and biodiversity. Food production can be stabilized and livelihoods secured if the impact of climate change is factored into the design and implementation of development programmes. Large scale awareness programmes are necessary to prepare farmers, who are today bewildered by the rapid fluctuations in weather conditions that are affecting their farming. Their traditional knowledge does not help them to manage the current anthropogenic changes.

It is necessary to develop and demonstrate successful, replicable models to enable agriculture and food production to both adjust to the changing climate, as well as mitigate the emissions from crop production. Fortunately technologies and practices that can help to achieve this are now available. The real stumbling block is perhaps the mind set fixated on intensive, agrochemical based agriculture as the only option and the lack of political will to introduce the fundamental changes that are necessary to make agriculture sustainable and high yielding. A well articulated and focused advocacy position and an effective campaign is needed to bring about the required policy changes.

Making agriculture sustainable and reducing emissions

Practices in agriculture will need to shift from intensive, mechanized, water demanding agriculture to more sustainable, conservationist methods that give higher crop yields using less water. ‘More crop per drop of water’ is the strategy recommended to tackle drought. The same approach is applicable in a wider sense when addressing the challenges posed by climate change.

Sustainable practices like conservation agriculture can keep carbon fixed. Conservation agriculture is a system of farming that conserves, improves and makes more efficient use of natural resources through integrated management of available soil water and biological resources. The reduced till agriculture advocated by conservative agriculture means more carbon can remain trapped in the soil instead of being released when the soil is ploughed extensively before each planting. Important interventions include proper land preparation to minimize soil erosion, making contours and water channels to maximize water use, keeping overall water use low. Micro irrigation and drip irrigation are effective but expensive. Other helpful actions are planting trees and fodder crops on contours and watersheds, agro forestry and reforestation, crop rotations, green manure crops and intercropping as well as mulching and keeping a cover of crop residues on the surface.

The drawback though is the necessity of controlling weeds by extensive use of chemicals. But it is possible to replace chemical fertilizers and pesticides with bioorganic nutrients as much as possible without compromising yield. Such an agriculture system needed not necessarily conform to the standards set for organic certification.

Replacing agrochemicals with bio-organic substitutes, leads to a significant reduction in the carbon footprint. Reducing the application of nitrogenous fertilizers like urea will have a great impact on nitrous oxide emissions. Barring areas like Punjab, Indian agriculture which is largely manual, as against the highly mechanized agriculture of the west, has a low carbon footprint because it does not use fossil fuels.

System of Rice Intensification

Some (relatively) new agronomic practices are showing promise as adaptive strategies and are yielding good results, particularly in rice cultivation, which is Asia’s main crop. The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) is a water saving, methane emission reducing rice cultivation strategy. Instead of flooding paddy fields as in current rice cultivation, the SRI consists of watering and draining the fields in a manner that significantly reduces the amount of water required. Essentially, SRI changes agronomy practices in a manner that enables prolific root formation and tilling that leads to more panicles and hence more grains per plant. This has an obvious impact on raising crop yields. This strategy increases weeds in the fields which have to be dealt with but apart from reducing the use of water in crop production, SRI also reduces the build up of methane by doing away with standing water in rice paddies.

Agro biodiversity key to climate change adaptation

In addition to land and water, the other important factor needed to adapt to climate change, is the biodiversity related to agriculture that is adapted to local conditions. There is an urgent need to conserve the genetic diversity of crop plants and livestock. All the biodiversity related to agriculture is referred to as agro biodiversity and this according to the FAO, is acknowledged as a key resource to ensure that agriculture in various parts of the world can survive the onslaught of turbulent weather and unpredictable climate. Conserving agro biodiversity means conserving the gene pool and those genes that may come in useful for traits required by crops under changed conditions.

If coastal areas get submerged then crop varieties will need to develop tolerance to salinity and water logging. If on the other hand inland areas become drier and rain fed areas face almost drought like conditions, then it will be necessary develop crop varieties that are drought tolerant. Turbulence in the weather patterns including moisture and wind could bring new diseases and insect pests, requiring varieties that are resistant to these.

The key to breeding suitable varieties is to have access to the required genes, which would confer disease resistance or drought tolerance. Conserving agro biodiversity today conserves genes for today and tomorrow.

What will we be eating?

2010-04-29T14:49:00.001+05:30

Suman Sahai
In Princeton last summer I got a real sense of the extent to which the American food chain is industrialized. The food on campus and off campus in the city was largely bad, throwing up a major disconnect between the intellectual standards of the university and the pedestrian food in its environs. You would imagine the educated would eat better than that! Princeton is a small town dominated by the university and its past and present inhabitants. It has a high percentage of educated and affluent people yet most of the food there comes out of boxes and bags.

On early morning walks I saw small and big trucks unloading pre-finished foods at stores, restaurants and delis. Neatly packed boxes of industry made dough labeled ‘farmers bread’, ‘ciabatta’, ‘whole wheat’ or ‘multi grain’ would be delivered for the freezer, to be later put into microwave ovens and served up warm and ‘fresh’. So also with meats, vegetables, pasta, french fries, sauces, anything.

Whether you ate at an up market restaurant, picked up a sandwich from the neighborhood deli or stopped for a hot meal at the university faculty club, the food tasted the same. The sauces came out of bottles, the vegetables and pasta out of the freezer, as did the meat and fish, detouring through the microwave onto your plate. Everything tasted of plastic and preservatives. On travels across the world I have found in hotels that many foods are identical regardless of whether you are in Nairobi or Tokyo. ‘greek yoghurt’, ‘farmer sausages’ or hash brown potatoes ,shipped in giant plastic tubs from a central American facility, appearing simultaneously at breakfast buffets from Reykjavik to Rio has become the norm. At a charming seaside hotel in Granada in the Caribbean some years ago, it was not possible to order fresh fish because the trawlers of the big fishing companies had contracts that allowed them to scoop everything from the sea and send it back chopped and processed into frozen sticks and cubes.

The response to plastic foods was the organic movement, aiming to produce fresh food; that was flavorful and nutritious, was not tired from traveling thousands of miles and looked like food, not briquettes.

In the early days of organic farming, there was no premium, no mass production and no supermarket sales. But even as we watched, the process begun by the early pioneers, about expanding the world of healthy, natural foods began to derail. The organic food and its localized markets of the early days has now mutated into an organic foods industry that is centralized as against local, is riddled with complex regulations and has passed into the hands of big business like industrial food. Increasingly, the same companies have a product line of factory produced foods and another of organic and so called ‘natural’ or
‘like natural’ foods. This ‘organic food’ is as anonymous as the factory food and has as little connection with the geography of where it was produced. Instead, it is packaged like factory food with detailed labels listing its virtues. This hijacked organic food process has gone to absurd extents bearing no resemblance to the fresh, seasonal, unrefined food that was its initial promise. It even puts out ultra heated ‘organic’ milk without realizing the irony of it.

My worry is that in India where many regions continue to produce food that is naturally organic, before a healthy organic trend can be strengthened and made mainstream, the food chain is on its way to getting industrialized. Big players from outside and inside the country are already in food, there is contract farming, organized retail, packaged foods and underpinning much of this, the Indo –US deal on Agriculture. Agriculture and food in India continues to get the short end of the stick despite public pronouncements by all political parties. We face multiple crises in this sector. There is the global food crisis to which India is not immune even if it is not in the vortex, there are the challenges of global warming and the inexplicable biofuel policy threatening to take land and water away from food production. As if all this was not bad enough, we are on the verge of entering the era of plastic foods. Perhaps now, finally, middle class India would find it worthwhile to raise its voice; if not to ensure a livelihood for the farmer, then at least to ensure that the rice for the sushi is organic.

MONSANTO CLEARING THE DECKS FOR ITS SECOND BT COTTON

2010-03-19T17:34:00.014+05:30

Suman Sahai

The March 5, 2010 statement by Monsanto that Bt cotton in Gujarat is now demonstrating resistance to pink bollworm , does not add up. For one, it has been known for quite some time that the Bt cotton in India, was in fact susceptible to the pink bollworm. Gene Campaign had first made this observation in 2003, after documenting the performance of India’s first ever Bt cotton harvest.

The 2003 study found that Bt cotton hybrids had a mixed response to the bollworm ( Helicoverpa armigera) , but they did not offer protection against pink bollworm (Pectinophora gossypiella). Pink bollworm attack was found to be severe after 60 to 70 days and farmers used several sprays to control the pest. There is a genetic basis to the resistance of pink bollworm . Scientists have shown that field populations of pink bollworm harbour three genetic mutations that confer resistance to Bt toxin. Because the Bt.-resistant pink bollworm larvae mature into adults synchronously and later than the susceptible larvae, they are more likely to mate with each other, rather than with susceptible bollworm .In this way, the resistant pink bollworm not only persists but increases in the population. No surprises therefore that Bt toxin is unable to control the pink bollworm.

In fact the question of resistance build up in the ‘worm’ pests of Bt cotton ( there are more pests of other kinds) , the bollworm, tobacco budworm and the pink bollworm, is a given. No pest can be kept down for ever, as our lifelong experience with pest control demonstrates. Sometimes the host plant comes out on top, sometimes the pest does. But almost always, pests ultimately develop resistance to a single agent used to kill them. Pest resistance in Bt cotton is being reported for some time now. The first reports came from Arkansas in the American cotton belt, where Bt cotton was first introduced.

In 2006, scientists from the Nagpur-based Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR) had noted pest resistance in Bt cotton fields and sounded the warning against growing resistance developing in the cotton pest, specially marking Gujarat as vulnerable. CICR said that incorrect farm practices like not planting insect refuges and the spread of illegal Bt cotton is accelerating the process of resistance development and it would only be a matter of time till the bollworm develops complete resistance to Bt toxin.

A 2007 study in China led by the Cornell University ,found that six to seven years after adopting Bt cotton, secondary pests had become so dominant , that farmers were spraying heavily to control these. Bt toxin is directed only at leaf-eating bollworms, so other pests remain unaffected. In an effort to keep the Bt cotton strategy alive and the pests vulnerable to the Bt toxin, Chinese scientists have begun implementing a more integrated pest control using natural predators to kill the secondary pests and enforcing the planting of refuge areas where broad-spectrum pesticides are used.

With all this evidence already available, Monsanto owning up that the pink bollworm is now resistant to the Bt toxin, is less a mea culpa than setting the stage for something else. This sounds like a prelude to the push for the promotion of Monsanto’s second generation Bt cotton, the Bollgard II. Granted approval for commercial release some years ago, Bollgard II carrying two Bt toxin genes instead of only one, as in the first generation Bollgard I, is already being cultivated in parts of India. So is Monsanto trashing its first Bollgard to promote its second Bollgard? It would seem so.

Given that there are over 300 Bt cotton hybrids approved by the GEAC, and most companies, barring a few like Nath Seeds ( which use a different Bt construct) , have already paid up their license fees to Monsanto for using its Bt gene, the market is getting saturated . Monsanto has already milked the Bollgard I Bt gene construct substantially. In addition to this, is the problem of the spread of illegal / spurious Bt cotton hybrids flowing out of cottage industries in Andhra Pradesh, particularly Kurnool, which are eating into Monsanto’s profits, so its time to switch to something else.

Introducing Bollgard II ( the 2 gene Bt cotton) will bring in a new period of fresh license fees as companies are forced to license the stacked gene construct with two Bt genes from Monsanto. With stagnating profits from Bollgard I ( the one gene Bt cotton), the next boom in earnings from license fees will happen for Monsanto if Bollgard II is promoted as extensively as Bollgard I was. Monsanto’s statement about resistance is calculated to achieve this goal by persuading GEAC and other policy bodies that the Bollgard I has outlived its utility and it is time to shift to Bollgard II. Monsanto has already been boasting that Bollgard II is ‘ten times better’ than Bollgardd I.

There is however a real problem associated with introducing the Bollgard II cotton in situations like India. Scientific publications point out that the one gene Bt cotton and the two gene Bt cotton cannot be cultivated in the same region, that is, they cannot coexist. If they are made to do so, the development of resistance in the bollworm will be very rapid and the technology will fail even faster than has been estimated. Therefore scientists recommend that if Bollgard II is to be introduced, Bollgard I must be withdrawn from cultivation completely.

It would be practically impossible to do this in India. Where we have failed to check the spread of illegal variants, it is not realistic to expect that the existing legal and illegal one gene Bt cottons can be withdrawn from farmers fields. Then there are the companies who have licensed the expensive Bollgard I technology from Monsanto and have only just brought their hybrids to the market. It is unlikely that they would be prepared to abandon their investments and potential profits and have to license the new gene construct if they want to stay in the Bt cotton business.

In countries like the US , technology change is not difficult since the seed is replaced easily. Farmers do not save seed from their farms, they always buy new seed and are used to dealing with ‘packages’ from the company . The seed and the inputs required for cultivation, come together. In the case of GM crops like Bt cotton, they sign legally binding contracts with Monsanto that they cannot save seed for themselves, even when the seeds are true breeding varieties, and not hybrids, as is the case in India. In such situations, farmers simply receive a new package in which Bollgard I would simply be replaced by Bollgrad II. In the case of India, where there are hundreds of approved Bt cotton hybrids and hundreds of others that are spurious and not approved, getting Bollgard I out of the field before introducing Bollgard II will be near impossible.

Rather than get into the trap of replacing Bollgard I with Bollgard II and ending up with a bigger mess than we have today, we should take a step back and review our Bt cotton strategy. Following China’s example and promoting Integrated Pest Management (IPM) would be a good beginning. IPM was in any case the government policy for pest control until Monsanto came along with its Bt cotton.

THE BT BRINJAL CASE: OVERHAULING THE REGULATORY SYSTEM MUST BE THE FIRST STEP

2010-02-02T10:29:00.004+05:30

Suman Sahai
The Minister for Environment and Forests, Sri Jairam Ramesh deserves congratulations for the effort he is making to hear the public’s views on Bt brinjal. The range of public concerns that are being expressed by diverse stakeholders in different parts of the country will help form the Minister’s opinion about GM crops and the regulatory system in general.

According to the legal framework on GMOs, the 1989 Rules for the Manufacture, Use, Import, Export and Storage of Hazardous Micro organisms, Genetically Modified Organisms and Cells, (and subsequent amendments), the statutory authority to take decisions on the release of GMOs, rests with the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) which is India’s apex decision making body.

In the case of Bt brinjal however, the GEAC has taken the unorthodox step of referring the matter to the government for a final decision. After declaring itself satisfied with the bio safety data on Bt brinjal and giving it clearance in principle, the GEAC has passed the ball into the government’s court. This appears to have been done because the GEAC recognizes that there is opposition to GM crops as well as a trenchant criticism of the manner in which the GEAC itself and the rest of the regulatory system conducts itself, its lack of transparency and its refusal to engage with the public’s concerns.

Gene Campaign had filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court in 2004, asking for an improved regulatory system incorporating among other things, technical competence, transparency and the involvement of the public in decision making. The case is dragging through the Supreme Court in its sixth year with no signs of any resolution. In the meantime GEAC has preempted everything and given clearance for the cultivation of Bt brinjal. It took this decision despite the fact that there is neither a labeling system in place, nor a law on liability in this country. If some harm were to come from the commercialization of Bt brinjal, either to farmers ( poor crops or contamination of organic crops) or to consumers who ate the vegetable, there is no law according to which the Mahyco seed company could be held responsible and made to pay compensation and recall the offending brinjal from the fields, mandis, retail shops and vendors.

In the absence of a liability law, the Mahyco company would go scot free even if its product were to inflict damage. In the absence of a labeling law , (India’s official position is for mandatory labeling), the consumers would have no way of telling whether they were eating Bt brinjal or not. The freedom of choice guaranteed by the Consumer Protection Act of India has been taken away by the GEAC with its decision to allow Bt brinjal to be commercialized before a system of labeling has been put in place.

The GEAC’s actions, taking a decision in favor of the Mahyco company, at the same time passing the buck to the government to face the public’s opprobrium, reeks not just of cowardice but also manipulation. Quite apart from this unseemly action, a statutory body cannot simply shirk its responsibilities and pass the onus onwards when it does not want to be the bad guy, yet, step in aggressively to take decisions when it thinks it can get away with it. For this reason alone, the GEAC should be disbanded and another structure set up reflecting new scientific developments in the field and principles of good governance.

However it happened, by getting involved, Sri Ramesh has taken the initiative and given himself the opportunity to do something really useful and important. He could do a great public service by forcing an overhaul of the legal framework governing GMOs in India. The Minister should set up a committee including scientists from different disciplines, legal and technical experts, as well as public interest groups. This can be anchored in the Law Ministry particularly since after an evaluation done by them some years ago, they had declared that the current Rules could not with stand a legal challenge.

The mandate of the review committee should be to improve the regulatory system on GMOs, modernize it according to the current stand of knowledge, plug the loopholes and tighten the system to make it inclusive, technically competent and transparent. This would lay the foundation of a system that would enable the development of safe and relevant technologies serving the public interest. A stringent, transparent regulatory system would not allow dubious, poorly tested products to be foisted on the public. Because of the weak and ambiguous nature of the Rules of 1989, agencies wanting the release of their products can avail of shortcuts and pliant regulators assist in this indefensible activity.

Questions of utility and safety will continue to arise till the legal framework and processes remain ad hoc and arbitrary. The following require the attention of the review committee:

Improve the overall technical competence of the GEAC. The head of GEAC must be a technically competent person, not whoever happens to be posted as Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

Divide GEAC into an advisory body of experts from diverse science and social science fields and a statutory body of technically trained people who will do biosafety testing along the lines recommended by the advisory body for each crop variety.

Commercial release of GM crops should be held back till a proper regulatory framework with appropriate systems is in place. Research should continue.

India must develop a new, stand alone Gene Technology legislation with like other countries have done. We have copied the American system of parking our regulation under the Environmental Protection Act although our situation is entirely different.

A thorough Needs Assessment must constitute the first step before starting research on GM crops. Is Bt brinjal really needed? Which problem in agriculture does the transgenic crop attempt to address ? Are there alternative approaches? Has conventional breeding failed to solve the problem? GM seeds require testing, are expensive and raise safety concerns. The GM approach must be justified , not undertaken just because the Bt gene is available for licensing.

If the Bt gene is to be used, its use must be selective, only where it will have a clear advantage over other approaches. Currently almost 40 % of Indian transgenic research is based on the Bt gene. Overuse of the Bt gene and the planting of Bt crops in all crop seasons will ensure faster build up of resistance in the pest and collapse of the Bt strategy of pest control.

Invest adequate resources in biosafety testing and monitoring at various stages. Public sector agencies complain they get research grants for research on transgenics but not for risk assessment.

Create structures to enable public participation in decision making on GMOs. Do this after a stakeholder dialogue to determine the levels and nature of public participation.

The regulatory system must have an unequivocal requirement for assessing the socioeconomic impact of a new transgenic crop on traditional agricultural systems, agro biodiversity and the traditional knowledge of communities. This is required by the Biosafety Protocol.

There must be an unambiguous definition of what will constitute ‘Confidential Business Information’. Barring this, all other biosafety data must be available for public scrutiny.

India must invoke the Precautionary Principle ( as other countries like China, Mexico and Peru have done) and not allow transgenic version of crops for which it is a Center of Origin, most importantly for rice but also other crops like brinjal.

Crops in which India has trading interests, like rice, specially basmati rice, soybean, tea, spices etc must not be genetically engineered since this will result in lost export markets.

The program to genetically engineer medicinal plants must be stopped. These will be unacceptable in the international market. It is highly likely that rearranging of the genetic material could result in changes in the constitution and profile of plant metabolites that confer the healing properties.

Unless the advantage of hybrid vigor can be clearly demonstrated, transgenic crops should be produced as true breeding varieties, not hybrids. This will enable farmers to save seed for planting the next crop and not being dependent on the company.

The Herbicide Tolerance trait must not be permitted in India . As a chemical approach to controlling weeds, it will displace agriculture labor, especially women, who earn wages from weeding and other farm activities. Application of herbicides will destroy the surrounding biodiversity which is used by the rural poor as supplementary food, fodder and medicinal plants. It will also make it impossible to practice mixed farming.

A clear protocol of mandatory biosafety tests must be prescribed crop wise for agencies producing transgenic crops, so that tests are comprehensive and standardized.

A transparent and independent biosafety testing facility must be established under the supervision of scientists in the public sector to verify the data submitted by agencies developing transgenics. The same facility should be available to consumers wanting to have foods tested to confirm the presence of GM ingredients.

A state of the art testing facility for food safety testing and a roster of tests that must be conducted, is urgently required. Our current food safety testing procedures are ad hoc and highly inadequate.

A system of post release monitoring must be in place before permitting commercial release of GMOs. This will allow the monitoring of long term impacts of the GMO on the environment , human and animal health.

Provisions must be made for labeling before any GM food is introduced in the market. This must be preceded by a public education exercise so that the label is not merely a colored sign on the package but offers the opportunity for informed choice to the consumer. Labeling to make any sense, will have to be preceded by a system for segregation, traceability and Identity Preservation of GM crops.

The country must enact a law on Liability and Redress before allowing commercial release of GM foods, to put in place provisions for compensation, damage control and recall of the offending GMO.

Before any approval is given to a transgenic crop, a risk –benefit analysis should be conducted with public participation.

Dr Suman Sahai has a Ph. D in genetics and has several years of research and teaching experience at the Universities of Alberta, Chicago and Heidelberg. She can be reached at mail@genecampaign.org and http://www.genecampaign.org/

GEAC is the decision maker on GMOs

2010-01-21T18:21:00.002+05:30

Suman Sahai
The Indian Environment Minister , Sri Jairam Ramesh deserves congratulations for the efforts he is making to hear the public’s views on Bt brinjal. If nothing else, the range of public concerns relating to Bt brinjal will come to the fore and help form the Minister’s opinion about GM crops in general. However the fact of the matter is, that despite his good intentions, the Minister is not in a position to take any action in the matter of Bt brinjal. If he were to decide on the strength of evidence presented to him, that Bt brinjal were indeed undesirable, he would not have the power to act to stop its release. The reason is that in this case, the Minister of Environment and Forests has no locus standii. The statutory authority to take decisions on the release of GMOs, rests with the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) which is India’s apex decision making body.

In India, GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) are regulated under the Environment Protection Act 1986 . In addition the Indian biosafety regulatory framework comprises the 1989 Rules for the Manufacture, Use, Import, Export and Storage of Hazardous Micro organisms, genetically Modified Organisms and Cells" , followed by the 1990 "Recombinant DNA Safety Guidelines" (1990 DBT Guidelines) and the 1994 "Revised Guidelines for Safety in Biotechnology" (1994 DBT Guidelines) and the 1998 "Revised Guidelines for Research in Transgenic Plants and Guidelines for Toxicity and Allergenicity Evaluation of Transgenic Seeds, Plants and Plant Parts" (1998 DBT Guidelines). According to this legal framework, the statutory authority vested with the power to take decisions on GMOs, is the GEAC.

The Environment Minister could however make a signal contribution in the matter of GMOs after being informed by the exercise of public consultations. He should take steps to improve the regulatory system on GMOs, plug the loopholes and tighten the system to make it technically competent and transparent. This step alone would sort out half the problems. A stringent, transparent regulatory system would not allow dubious, poorly tested products to be foisted on the public. Because of the weak and ambiguous nature of the Rules of 1989 ( and subsequent amendments) , agencies wanting the release of their products can avail of shortcuts and pliant regulators assist in this indefensible activity.

Gene Campaign had filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court in 2004, asking for a National Biotechnology Policy and a vastly improved regulatory system incorporating among other things, technical competence, transparency and the involvement of the public in decision making. The case is dragging through the Supreme Court in its sixth year with no signs of any resolution. In the meantime GEAC has preempted everything and given permission for the cultivation of Bt brinjal. This has happened despite the fact that there is neither a labeling system in place, nor a law on liability in this country. If some harm were to come from the commercialization of Bt brinjal, either to farmers ( poor crops) or to consumers who ate the vegetable, there is no law according to which the Mahyco seed company could be held responsible and made to pay compensation . In the absence of a liability law, the Mahyco company would go scot free even if its product were to inflict damage. In the absence of a labeling law , India’s official position is for mandatory labeling, the consumers would have no way of telling whether they were eating Bt brinjal or not. The freedom of choice guaranteed by the Consumer Protection Act of India has been taken away by the GEAC with its decision to allow Bt brinjal to be commercialized before a system of labeling has been put in place.
The GEAC permission for the commercialization of Bt brinjal is highly questionable on these grounds alone.

By getting involved, Mr Jairam Ramesh has taken the initiative and given himself the opportunity to do something worthwhile. He could take the bull by the horns and do a great public service by forcing an overhaul of the legal framework governing GMOs in India. It is high time this was done. The regulatory framework stands on wobbly legal legs. An evaluation done by the Law Ministry a couple of years ago had suggested that the system would not stand scrutiny in a court of law. It is ad hoc and arbitrary and full of opportunities for misuse. Mr Ramesh could certainly get that sorted out.

Bt brinjal can awaken a sleeping poison

2009-11-06T11:39:00.000+05:30

Suman Sahai
What, you may ask, is common between potatoes, tomatoes, brinjal, chilli, datura, tobacco and the deadly nightshade (belladonna)? They all belong to a plant family called Solanaceae. The Solanaceae family contains a number of important agricultural plants as well as many psychoactive and toxic plants. Solanaceae species are rich in complex chemicals called alkaloids and contain some of the most poisonous plants known to mankind. They produce alkaloids in their roots, leaves and flowers. These alkaloids can be hallucinogens, stimulants or outright toxic. For example, when potatoes are exposed to light, a chemical called solanin is produced which appears as a green tinge. Green potatoes can be toxic, damage an unborn foetus and cause abortions. Other plants of this family known for their toxic qualities are belladonna, datura and tobacco.

Farmers have been working for thousands of years to domesticate wild plants like those of the Solanaceae family, to make them safe for eating. Much of this exercise involved breeding out the toxins contained in the wild plants. Scientists too have used careful, selective breeding to "clean up" crop varieties which had good qualities but contained toxins. Now brinjal, a member of this family, has been genetically engineered (GE) to produce a toxin to protect itself against a particular pest. This seems to be a process working to reverse several thousand years of efforts to detoxify natural plants to make them fit for human consumption!

Genetic engineering in plants has not been mastered enough to rule out the creation of dangerous new products in the cells when genes are muddled during the insertion of new, usually foreign genes. Several cases are known when new proteins and toxins were produced in plants which were genetically engineered. For example, when genetically modified (GM) peas were being developed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia to protect peas from the pest pea weevil, it was found that newly-formed proteins in the GM peas repeatedly caused immunity problems and lung inflammation when fed to mice. The experiments had to be abandoned. In another case, when mice were fed the genetically engineered Flavr Savr tomato, seven out of 40 experimental animals died within 14 days and the others suffered stomach lesions.

Genetic engineering in plants of the Solanaceae family could be dangerous since disturbing their genetic material through the process of inserting new gene constructs containing a battery of genes - including the toxin producing Bt gene - may trigger off metabolic processes that have been lying dormant. There are apprehensions that not only could new toxins develop but that old toxins that were removed by selective breeding may reappear.

Disturbing the cell metabolism (by genetic engineering) of species that are naturally genetically hardwired to produce toxins, is likely to call up old plant toxins in these species.

Testing for food safety is key in genetically engineered plants; it becomes more so with the Solanaceae family. At present biotechnology companies rely on the concept of "substantial equivalence" to demonstrate the safety of genetically engineered foods. In this method, the overall chemical composition of the genetically engineered food is compared to an equivalent conventional food. If there is no significant difference between the two, the GE plant is considered to be safe.

The Mahyco seed company has also tested its Bt brinjal in the same way. However, substantial equivalence is a highly contested paradigm, favoured by the biotech industry but rejected by most countries. This is because there is no mechanism in such an approach to detect unexpected or unintended changes like new toxic compounds in the cell.

Apart from the critical safety issues, there are other questions that arise with the impending release of India's first genetically engineered food crop. There is no system in place for labelling these foods. Indeed, how can one in the Indian situation label a vegetable that will be sold from farmers' fields, laden into trucks and taken to wholesale mandis? How will the vegetables on the vendor's cart or the corner shop be labelled as GM? The Government of India recognises the need to label GE food, and its position in the meetings of the Codex Alimentarius has been consistently in favour of mandatory labelling.

Accordingly, the ministry of health has drafted rules under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act to include labelling of GE food and food ingredients. But there is as yet no mechanism in place to label GE food, nor have any awareness programmes been conducted to explain the nature of GE foods and the need for labelling them. For most consumers, especially rural consumers, GE foods are a black box and unless they are made aware of the nature of GE foods, labelling would be meaningless. Despite these big gaps in preparedness, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has approved Mahyco's Bt brinjal for commercial production.

Does this mean that the consumer's right to informed choice about their food is about to be trashed? This right is enshrined in India's Consumer Protection Act and the GEAC approval will violate the provisions of this act. Further, labelling is not just about pasting a coloured sticker on a brinjal, it involves a rigorous process of segregation and identity preservation (IP) to keep Bt and non-Bt food segregated. IP is a complex and expensive process requiring separation of a GM food from non-GM food, starting from farmers' fields, all the way to vegetable shops. Without going through this process, labelling cannot be done. Or has the GEAC planned that all brinjals cultivated in this country henceforth will be genetically engineered?

And what about fixing liability for damage? There is no liability law in India. In the event of contamination of organic brinjal with Bt brinjal, what will be the process of recall? Who will be liable to the producers of organic brinjal? There are no provisions for monitoring the long-term impact of GE foods on the health of consumers. In case adverse health impacts are reported from eating Bt brinjal, who would be liable to pay compensation? How would the liability be fixed and what would be the quantum? In the absence of any kind of preparedness or safeguards, what would be the liability of the government for approving such food crops? And in the event of damage caused by Bt brinjal, will Mahyco be put in the dock?

GDP and India’s hungry underbelly

2009-09-14T14:06:00.001+05:30

Suman Sahai
Finally there is acknowledgement on the part of the government that the country is indeed facing a serious drought and a crisis in food availability. For months we were treated to the Met department statements predicting some shortfall in the rainfall, nowhere close to the calamitous situation that those who work on the ground could see developing. Until recently, the government also assured that all was under control, that the country had sufficient food reserves and there was no cause for panic. Only now have the powers that be admitted that there is indeed cause for panic.

And now that a full-blown drought is upon us, the Planning Commission has given us estimations that though the failed monsoon will shave off some points from the economic growth projections, the impact on the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) will not be significant. The Planning Commission is not overly exercised over the drop in farm output which translates into less food for the poor, more hunger all round, more anaemic mothers and a greater number of low birth weight children who will never grow up to be fully healthy adults. The human suffering that results from a drop in farm output is invisible on the paper on which the Planning Commission calculates that the current reduction in agriculture production will "have some impact but not a very large one" since agriculture contributes less than 20 per cent to the economy.

This cynical callousness is what is at the root of the problem. The real reason why droughts, floods, hunger and deprivation in rural India are year for year, treated with the disdain that we have come to expect from policy circles. Agriculture is neglected because it is not part of the charmed circle that contributes to nine per cent growth rates and to the "Shining India" that is getting ready to become a global power. Already, the government and its many economists have begun to introduce the "feel good" factor. Oh! OK! so the kharif crop has gone to the dogs… but the failed monsoon will not have any impact on the rabi (winter) crop. So now we can quit worrying because the rabi harvest will bring enough and we can stop being bothered with all these dull agriculture issues.

The fact of the matter is that in over 60 per cent of India’s agricultural belt, there will be, by and large, no rabi harvest. Regions which are termed rain-fed, still do not have any irrigation facilities, 60-odd years after Independence. The farmers there can grow only crop in the year, that is in the kharif season, when the monsoons come. If the monsoon fails, like it did this year, then the next crop will come only next year, hopefully when the next monsoon comes. In between there will be hunger.

The government has set up a National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA) with a head holding some important rank but the irrigation cover in Jharkhand is all of three per cent. This plateau region, largely rural and populated by adivasis, is one in which there will be no rabi crop in most areas. The poor in Jharkhand and other regions like it, in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Vidarbha and so on, which are dependent on monsoons, will know a worse hunger than they do in most years.

In these regions, it did not rain from June onwards. The farmers could not plant their rice or maize but because it did not rain, the famine foods that the rural poor come to rely on, did not come up either. The bitter gaithi, a tuber that dulls the worst of the hunger, did not grow, nor did the many green plants that spring up as weeds near the crop fields. Such leafy greens like chakor add a lot to rural diets, but they are largely missing this time.

In a survey that Gene Campaign is conducting currently in villages in Jharkhand, food stocks available with families will last another two months at the outside, if the family stretches the food. This usually means, the father eats some rice along with the starchy water it is cooked in, with some salt, the children get some of the rice with what little saag can be found and the mother, gets what is left over, not very much usually. The leafy weeds which are eaten as saag, are missing and there are no fish in the rice fields. Even the mud crabs and snails, which add protein to the family’s food, are missing this year because it has been so dry for so long. These families have not eaten daal for years , even when it was Rs 20 per kg. At the current prices of Rs 60 to 70 per kg, it is not even mentioned as a food.

A global power with such a large, vulnerable underbelly? Our policymakers must reflect seriously on the price the country will have to pay for the neglect of rural India. The disaffected youth that have abandoned the mainstream are not ideological maniacs, as yet. Most are just hungry and fed-up.

MISPLACED COMPLACENCY OVER BUFFER STOCKS

2009-09-14T14:04:00.000+05:30

Suman Sahai

It is clear now that the monsoons are severely deficient and have more or less failed in North India. Uttar Pradesh, particularly the western part of the state, Punjab and Haryana are very badly affected, with perhaps UP being the worst affected area. In Bihar only ten percent of the normal rice area has been planted this year. This normally rice surplus state will face an acute shortfall in rice production and the small and marginal farmers have a very difficult time ahead. In fact all the northern rice surplus regions barring Punjab, like UP, Bihar and Haryana have been able to plant only a fraction of their usual paddy area. This means a serious shortfall in rice production this year.

In rainfed areas like Jharkhand and Chattisgarh, many farmers have decided not to plant the kharif maize at all since the rains are late and insufficient. They do not expect to get anything from the sowing this season and have decided not to waste precious seed. This way they also save the money that would have to be spent on inputs like fertilizers and pesticides. In Jharkhand barely half the rice area has been planted. Having read the weather, almost before the Met Department, many farmers did not even prepare their rice nurseries. Those that did, have lost the seed. Farmers in these areas know there will be little food this year, and people have begun to migrate to the cities already, in search of work.

Thank God that despite the many plans afoot to do so, the government did not sell the grain reserves that are meant as buffer stocks for crisis situations like the one we are likely to face this year. We have sold buffer stocks before, at a fraction of the cost it took to produce and store the grain, even as people in the country remained hungry. The reason offered to dispose this food grain is that it is rotting in storage. Well, the answer to that is better storage so that the grain does not spoil, not throwing it out, especially when we still have persistent hunger

This time what is disconcerting is the sense of complacency that seems to emanate from the government, which is issuing statements that there is no reason for panic, that even if the monsoon fails, we will manage the situation since we have adequate rice and wheat in our buffer stocks. Fifty five million tons of food grain is not a whole lot of food if the food deficit is significant, as it threatens to be this time. Either the officials in the food ministry are completely ignorant about how many people can be fed, for how long, on fifty five million tons of food grain, or they are deliberately lying , to make the situation look better than it actually is. It is criminal to create this false sense of preparedness because it will lead to complacency in stepping up the efforts to mobilize as much food as possible, to face the crisis.

Depending on the final shortfall in food production, the current grain reserves of approximately fifty five million tons, could help make up some of the kharif shortfall and provide food aid to the most vulnerable for a limited period of three to four months till the winter rabi crop comes in. But this plan overlooks the fact that for all rainfed regions, that are essentially monsoon dependent, there is no rabi crop. The only season when they can grow food is the kharif. When that fails, people in such regions face a serious food shortage for the rest of the year, till the next , hopefully good, monsoon comes.

The buffer stock planning disregards the far larger crisis of livelihoods that will be created for a population with no options but dependence on farming and its allied activities. If the kharif crop fails , agriculture labor and landless peasants who depend on wage labour, will be hard hit. They are able to earn from agriculture operations like weeding, threshing, winnowing, packing and transporting harvested grain. When this is reduced, their earnings are reduced. Apart from wages, the men and women who do the weeding are able to collect many types of nutritious , edible leafy greens that grow throughout the season in and around the cultivated fields. The weeds also provide green fodder for their livestock.

The poor who migrate from Bihar and Orissa every season to work as agriculture hands in Punjab and Haryana, will lose this income opportunity if the rains fail. These earnings form a substantial part of the annual income of such families. A shortfall in the kharif crop also means less straw for fodder, thus hitting at the survival of livestock that marginal farmers and landless peasants are so heavily dependent on. Stover and woody stems from crops like maize and linseed provide fuel for the farm family. These fuel sources will become unavailable if the kharif crops do not provide crop residues for fuel use.

What is barely being mentioned is that if the rains are delayed and late planting is done…the kharif crop will mature late , which means it will push back the planting of the winter rabi crop. The untimely or delayed sowing of the rabi crop will impact the production of winter food grains. In addition to the deficit in rice production , a delayed or poor monsoon also means that the crops that are sown at the tail end of the kharif season , like short duration mustard and linseed, will also not be possible. These are planted either in the last stages of the rice crop or immediately after the rice is harvested, to take advantage of the residual moisture in the fields .This loss will further reduce the food available to farm families and diminish farm incomes still further.

Can the current failure of the monsoon be attributed directly to the climate change that is under way? Or is it the result of a seasonal phenomenon like the El Nino? Whatever the answer, the present crisis certainly highlights one fact quite clearly, that our government is thoroughly unprepared to handle the problems that will be created by disturbances in the weather, that will increase as climate change becomes more manifest. The ICAR system has failed completely to respond to the early warnings about the devastation that climate change would bring for agriculture in South Asia. Nothing was done on the ground, even as the top brass flew around the world, attending meetings on climate change . Climate change warnings have been there for a number of years but the ICAR leadership has still not managed to come up with a coherent strategy that can help farmers today, to cope with the turbulence that climate change will bring and the effect this will have on their crops and fields.

Government departments dealing with agriculture have been talking for a long time about climate proofing our crops, buffering our agriculture systems and supplementing rural incomes through on- farm and off- farm operations. Not much has been done so far. The current crisis underlines the urgent need to shut down the perennial talk shop and put in place systems to support food security and rural livelihoods, because weather shocks will increase, not decrease in the coming years.

Suman Sahai can be reached at mail@genecampaign.org

FARMERS RIGHTS AND CLIMATE CHANGE

2009-09-14T14:02:00.000+05:30

SUMAN SAHAI
India set itself apart from all other nations when it passed a unique legislation giving its farmers legal and formal rights over seed. The Farmers Rights law came after a hard won battle against the global and Indian seed industry which was backed by the IPR provisions demanded in the GATT/WTO. The latter required member countries to provide intellectual property protection in the form of either patents or plant breeders’ rights on seeds. Indian civil society refused to accept that the law would permit seeds to be patented, since this would hurt the interests of farmers. It demanded that not only plant breeders should be given rights but that farmers too must have rights in the law that would allow them to continue to have as much control over their seed as they always did. The Farmers Rights provision acknowledges the farmer as a cultivator, conserver and producer of seed. This independence as we will see , will become a crucial coping mechanism in the hands of farmers when confronted with the vagaries of global warming and climate change.
Had the farmers rights not come into being and India had accepted seed patents, we would gradually be flooded with seeds produced by companies. If these were under patents, the farmer would need to buy fresh seed for every season. This is not the case today. Apart from farm saved seed, Farmers Rights allow farmers to save seed even of varieties protected by Breeders Rights under the law. The company’s right over the seed is limited to the first sale ,after that the seed belongs to the farmers and they can plant it , share it with other farmers , even sell it in an informal arrangement as they have always done with other seed .
Climate change will bring unpredictable weather, there can be both droughts and floods, high and low rainfall and uneven distribution of what rain comes . All the agriculture practices that have been developed over time, in consonance with the local weather and the region’s climate, will probably be made to stand on their head. New responses will have to be found , both , on the part of scientists, but more so , from within the farming community, to find strategies to continue agriculture and food production when faced with the crisis of climate change. The greater the flexibility the farmers have with respect to the seeds they plant, the more able they will be to adjust their agriculture to floods or droughts, heavy or scanty rainfall. Farmers Rights ensures that farmers can select their seed at will. Their choices have not been eroded by the limited seeds that company’s could put out. A monoculture, promoted by the limited seed offer of commercial companies, is the most vulnerable type of agriculture and the least able to cope with the turbulence of climate change. Because we have so far deferred that situation, farmers can in fact go back to the mixed farming approach that has been a traditional strategy to minimize the risk from biotic and abiotic stresses that farmers always face. This is the exact opposite of monocultures where large swathes of fields are planted with only one type of seed. The farmer used to prefer to plant a mixture of seeds, say about 3 to 4 kinds of rice in the same field. These could include some that were high yielding, some perhaps not so high yielding but resistant to disease. If the farmer’s field was in an area that could get flooded occasionally, the farmer’s choice would include some seed that could tolerate standing water. In such a situation, regardless of flood or disease, the farmer would always get some harvest and some food for the family. In a good year, the harvest would be good but in a flood year, the harvest may not be that good but all would not be lost. This is exactly the coping strategy that farmers need today, as they prepare to face climate change. Farmers can even today plant such a mixture of seeds because they have the freedom to do so and the Farmers Rights law defends this freedom.
The importance of maintaining and strengthening Farmers Right is more obvious today than it ever was. Yet the efforts of the national and international seed industry, in complicity with elements within the government is to have the scope and strength of the Farmers Rights reduced, if not done away with altogether . The challenge to Farmers Rights comes essentially from the move to make India a member of the UPOV. This effort was made , prompted by the seed industry pressure, already in May 2002, just months after the Farmers Rights legislation was finally passed by Parliament. The attack has been renewed more recently through the bilateral treaties coming in the form of Free Trade Agreements. The bilateral trade agreement with the EU and with EFTA are both asking for India to harmonise its Farmers Rights law with UPOV. This will mean doing away with the comprehensive set of rights granted under the current legislation and the flexibility that the farmer has to chose seed and keep control over it.

Gene Patents: What lies ahead?

2009-09-14T13:34:00.001+05:30

Suman Sahai
During my summer at Princeton this year, two issues took up a lot of newsprint. One was the outbreak of flu, the other, an extraordinary law suit that challenges human gene patents. The gene patent story has lessons for India since our patent laws appear to be under a lot of pressure to allow the patenting of genes.

The gene patent challenge in the US deals with a breast cancer patient who took a genetic test to see if her genes also put her at higher risk for ovarian cancer, in which case she would have had to get her ovaries removed. The test was positive but the patient wanted a second test as a reconfirmation. She could not do so since the test had been patented by a company called Myriad Genetics, and would cost thousands of dollars. Myriad Genetics owns the patents for two breast cancer genes, BRCA 1 and BRCA2 and controls all aspects related to these genes including testing for their presence. Women, who carry mutations of these two genes, come into the high risk category for breast and ovarian cancer. Early detection is crucial to save lives.

Doctors can scan women with a family history and those found to have defective copies of the genes can be regularly screened for early detection of any cancers. Angered by the power of corporations to deny lifesaving diagnosis and treatment to people, the American Civil Liberties Union filed the unique lawsuit against Myriad Genetics. Plaintiffs in this unusual case include breast cancer patients and professional scientific and medical
organizations. The case was filed in the federal court in New York in May 2009 and the outcome is eagerly awaited by public interest groups who have been long fighting for a
fairer, more egalitarian healthcare system.

Scientists at the human genetics program at the New York University School of Medicine, which is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, say that many laboratories have the capacity to conduct BRCA tests faster than Myriad Genetics and at a cost that is a fraction of the $3000 that Myriad charges. The scientific community in general is of the view that
market forces should be allowed to operate in such cases, which would ensure better and cheaper BRCA gene tests. The court’s verdict in the case will decide whether testing for
fairly prevalent diseases like breast cancer will become more accessible to patients or whether they will continue to be shackled by patents and monopolies.

The United States Patents Office has maintained a pro active and aggressive stand on granting gene patents. The decoding of the human genome resulted in a flurry of patent activities chiefly in the US. After a few ups and downs regarding how much genetic material could be patented without knowledge of its functions, a less frenetic but nevertheless substantial patent activity has become the established norm. Almost three million gene related patents have been issued in the United States alone. Patents can be
taken out on genes, on gene mutations and any investigative or therapeutic procedures linked to these genes or their mutants.

Over 20 percent of the human genome has already been patented. This includes genes for Alzheimer's, colon cancer, breast cancer, asthma and some other diseases. The implications of these patents are that pharmaceutical companies and researchers in universities can control the kind of research can be done on those genes, the diagnostic
tests that can be developed from that research and how much those diagnostic tests and treatments will cost. The fall out of such patents has been to stifle clinical research on the genetic predisposition and early detection of breast and ovarian cancer leading to avoidable suffering for women and hugely expensive testing, out of the reach of the average person.

The situation gets worse when patent holding companies like Myriad Genetics licence out rights to other companies to extend the areas where their patents will operate. The Australian biotechnology company, Genetic Technologies, obtained the Australian and New Zealand rights to the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes from Myriad Genetics in 2003.

The company initially said it would not enforce its legal claim over the gene, and described it as their “gift to the Australian people”. But this has changed. Unable to resist the lure of profits, Genetic Technologies is now charging $2100 per scan of the breast cancer genes.

India's healthcare system is fragile to begin with and the poor already find it very difficult to get medical care. We must ensure that further injustice is not done to patients in the name of promoting innovation. Gene patents should not be permitted in our IPR system. In fact such patents should be deemed illegal, unconstitutional, obstructive of scientific
progress and violative of human rights.

Norway takes high moral ground on IPR issues

2009-09-14T13:32:00.000+05:30

Suman Sahai
Norway has become a more frequent destination of my travels in recent months than the other European countries that I used to visit more regularly. On a recent trip, I visited the permafrost Gene Bank in the Arctic region of Svalbard. This Gene Bank set up by the Norwegian government is termed the 'doomsday vault'. It is a place where seeds of major food crops have been stored in rooms cut out of an ice mountain. The doomsday vault is meant as a safeguard against catastrophes, a situation when so much damage has been inflicted on earth that agriculture and food production will have to start afresh

Most of my other visits to Norway were related to advocacy meetings with civil society organisations and members of the Norwegian government on issues relating to intellectual property rights (IPR). There is an ongoing bilateral trade negotiation between India and EFTA, the India-EFTA Free Trade Agreement, in which EFTA has made demands for stronger IPR protection than is currently provided by Indian legislation. EFTA, which is the European Free Trade Association, consists of Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Lichtenstein. It wants India to provide a higher level of protection for seeds (plant varieties), more specifically, the kind of protection that is contained in the UPOV contract of 1991.

India’s sui generic legislation on seeds, the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Act, has consciously kept away from UPOV style legislation because the latter does not have any concept of farmers’ rights. It just has breeders’ rights. Civil society groups in India have fought very hard since the Uruguay GATT Round introduced IPRs for seeds to craft a legal regime that has greater equity for farmers than the UPOV permits. This long-drawn battle saw three changes in the government in Delhi and two joint Parliamentary Committees, where issues were raised and heard from the seed industry, scientists and civil society. This process lasted about seven years, till 2001, when Parliament finally passed the law. The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Act grants equal rights to plant breeders and farmers.

In my meetings in Norway, I explained why the IPR demands made in the EFTA bilateral will hurt Indian farmers and Indian food security; why acquiescing to UPOV style legislation, especially the 1991 contract, which practically amounts to seed patents, will strike at the reliance of farmers as both seed producers and seed consumers. I also explained that not acknowledging farmers’ rights will be unjust, given the enormous contribution they have made to the creation, refinement and conservation of valuable crop diversity. During these meetings with government officials and civil society groups, I had the opportunity to explain the nuances of India’s farmers’ rights legislation and that the Indian law was the only one in the world in which farmers had legal rights.

It was, therefore, with great satisfaction that I read about Norway’s decision to withdraw its demands on the IPR part of the EFTA negotiation. The government of Norway, through its Ministry of Trade and Commerce, announced that Norway had withdrawn from negotiations on patent rights in the ongoing FTA. In her statement, the State Secretary of Trade and Commerce, Ms. Rikke Lind, said “we have chosen to withdraw from the negotiations. We have a different policy on this topic, compared to the other EFTA countries. It was not a major issue in recent negotiations, but in the agreement with India, it has turned out to be a serious problem.”

With this action, Norway has seized a high moral ground and taken a principled stand in not forcing an IPR position on India that goes beyond what was agreed in the multilateral platform of the WTO. How this plays out with the other EFTA members remains to be seen.

Switzerland is known to be aggressive on matters of IPR and there can be problems within EFTA later on with respect to a joint position. But for now, Norway’s position has been greatly welcomed by those working for an equitable IPR regime.

India should play a leadership role in reversing the trend of bilateral negotiations, especially in sensitive fields where claims are being made in excess of WTO commitments. The gains made in the EFTA negotiations are a good start. The next step will be to lobby with our own government to insist on the removal of a similar IPR clause in the ongoing bilateral negotiations with the EU. The original demand for a UPOV 1991 style IPR for plant varieties was made in the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU. EFTA really modeled its demands based on the EU bilateral negotiations.

No winners in the global food crisis

2009-09-14T13:31:00.000+05:30

Suman Sahai
These days I often hear that the global food crisis is not bad for everyone. Whereas consumers may not be able to afford food, it is being suggested that farmers at such times will benefit because they will get a better price for their produce. This is a dangerous argument. When there is a crisis of food and its availability is starkly reduced, it is the poor who suffer the most. This includes the small and marginal farmers, who count among the worst victims of such a crisis, specially in developing countries. Perhaps bigger farmers can benefit from high prices of food staples like rice, wheat and corn, but they benefit anyway from agriculture because they have access to resources and know how to utilise the opportunities presented by the market. The small farmers usually have little surplus to benefit from such price surges and they are also consumers of foods they do not cultivate. These farmers suffer disproportionately when prices of food go up.

Recently, the Deputy Director-General of Africa Rice Center (WARDA) made a statement that the global food crisis which sent rice prices above $1,000 per tonne last year, is a great opportunity for Africans to improve their economic situation, because the price crisis has actually made rice farming profitable. As he made this assertion, there was no mention of the fact that if the farmers kept their rice for home consumption, there was nothing to sell and benefit from and if they sold the rice they needed to feed their families, they may get some cash, but what would they eat?

The fact is that there is a food deficit in sub-Saharan Africa which in anycase is one of the most vulnerable parts of Africa. This region imports about 40 per cent of its rice requirement from Asia, at an annual cost of around 2 billion dollars. The anticipated impact of climate change is projected to be particularly severe in Asia and it is likely that rice production could be negatively impacted. In this case, there may not be much surplus for export. Africa too is slated to be hard hit by climate change. Instead of drawing red herrings about the high market price of rice at a time of food shortage and the possibility of making big profits, policy makers and scientists should focus on increasing agriculture productivity at home and ensure that food production is stabilised to avert hunger.

Despite Africa’s favourable climatic conditions, it does not produce enough rice for its needs. This situation must change so that Africa can become selfsufficient in rice production. For this to happen, African governments must invest substantially in research and the international research community must be forthcoming with germplasm and technologies to improve yields on farmers’ fields. This is not the time to think of linking scarce food to the market. It is the time to keep a strong focus on joining hands across the world to stabilise food production in vulnerable areas and prepare strategies to cope with the impact of climate change so that food production does not become a major casualty of global warming and the changing climate.

So far the international effort has simply not been enough to minimise the global food crisis or develop mechanisms to prepare agriculture to cope with the impact of the changing climate. It is disconcerting to hear this ‘winners of the food crisis’ view at international meetings. Its almost as if the global community which has responded shamefully to the food crisis, is making out the case that it is actually not such a disturbing situation after all, and that there are in fact categories of the so-far deprived who will reap a bonanza from the food crisis.

Instead of this cynical hypocrisy, a mission mode intervention is needed to tackle this crisis. At the High Level Conference on World Food Security in June 2008, the UN Comprehensive Framework for Action estimated that US$25-40 billion per year in additional funding is required to restore global food and nutritional security. Given the scale of the crisis, this figure is woefully inadequate. Conservative estimates suggest that
at least US$60-70 billion per year would be needed for the implementation of an “essential minimum package” to effectively combat hunger worldwide.

Following the High Level Conference, world leaders pledged a mere US$12.3 billion to tackle the food crisis, but have donated only US$1billion so far. This is the lowest ratio of actual funds to funds pledged, of any global appeal in recent history. This disappointing
amount illustrates once again that hunger is nowhere on the global agenda. This is sending the dangerous message that the rich nations are not seriously concerned about tackling the food crisis. Serious effort and effective interventions to combat global hunger will need adequate funding and international coordination. This is an ethical and moral imperative.

Bt cotton or Organic cotton?

2009-09-14T13:29:00.000+05:30

Suman Sahai
A multi-agency group involving government departments and trading bodies as well as the industry has been set up under the aegis of the Textiles Ministry to promote organic cotton in the country. If the Textiles Ministry promoting organic cotton and the Department of Biotechnology promoting genetically engineered Bt cotton are at odds with each other and working at cross purposes, it should not surprise anyone, since it is the norm rather than the exception for government departments to work in isolation, without any coordination and in ways that contradict each other. This is not the first case in which the proverbial left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, nor will it be the last.

Organic produce and genetically engineered produce are mutually self excluding commodities. A country can chose to go either way for a given product but not both. But that does not stop the Government of India from bumbling along in two contradictory directions, one arm promoting a product that will cancel out the markets of the other. If Bt cotton were to contaminate traces of organic cotton, the consignments of organic cotton would lose the certification that would get them the premium price advantage and be rejected by markets interested in buying organic cotton.

Although coexistence of GM and non-GM produce has been mooted as a possible way to reconcile two contradicting situations, in reality it has never worked. The fact is that it is impossible to keep agricultural produce like cotton or rice or strawberries apart once they are ready for the market. Bt and organic cotton are as bound to get mixed up as are Bt rice and organic rice. Gene Watch, UK, and Greenpeace maintain a register of instances where genetically engineered crops have contaminated conventional or organic crops. The contamination cases run into hundreds across the world, often with grave economic consequences. Not so long ago, consignments of US rice exported to several countries had to be recalled because traces of GM rice was found in rice that was declared as conventional, non GM rice. The cost of recall was prohibitive but the greater damage was done to America's future rice exports. Once countries returned the contaminated US rice, other rice exporting nations like Thailand entered the newly available markets in Europe, Japan and South Korea and established themselves there.

The new organic cotton agency has set itself the task of preparing a road map to increase the production of organic cotton in the country, without taking a view on what is to happen to the promotion of Bt cotton, which it acknowledges to be inimical to the growth of the sector they are advancing. If government sources and Monsanto are to be believed, Bt cotton has taken over a very large percentage of the cotton growing area in India. So is the organic cotton agency a story without a future? Or should India stand back from Bt cotton and present a range of organic cotton products to the world?

India is home to a large diversity in cotton. It cultivates the arboreum, the hirsutum and the barbadense cottons. Not many would associate the North-East of India with cotton, but the famed arboreum cotton of the Garo Hills in present Meghalaya was well known for its large, elongated bolls and strong fibres. Apart from the genetic diversity, there exists a great deal of indigenous knowledge about the cultivation of cotton and the processing of the fibre into fabric. Remember, cotton is an ancient Indian product, its quality famed and desired through the ancient world. There have been attempts to grow cotton with naturally coloured fibres so that the fabric does not have to be dyed. This approach is in line with organic cotton. Cotton is well understood in India. Organic cotton would be its USP because of a combination of past and present skills. And then there is the market.

The Cotton Advisory Board has set up this special organic cotton group to take advantage of the rapidly growing market for textiles made from organic cotton. Such textiles command a premium price in countries of Europe and in the US and Japan. The global market for organic cotton is growing by as much as 150 per cent per year, going by last year's figures. India is the No.1 producer of organic cotton in the world, followed by Syria, Turkey and China. It would make sense for India to follow the route of organic cotton where it is already a market leader in a product for which an assured market exists already and is growing. The story of cotton in India must be scripted by the ground reality of the market.