Can Our Regulatory System Deliver Safe GE Foods: The Bt Brinjal case

Suman Sahai

No studies have been conducted so far to assess the socio-economic impact of Bt brinjal.

More over, nobody can predict whether consumers will accept the new type of brinjal.

The Supreme Court has passed an interim order directing the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) not to give any further approvals for field trials of genetically engineered crops and other products til further notice

This interim order will hold only until the GEAC has responded and when the Court will review their decision. Too much should not be read into this temporary restriction as the Supreme Court has made it very clear in its statement that it is not inclined to order large scale curbs on field trials.

This interim injunction has a bearing on the proposed approval for Large Scale Trials (LST)for Bt brinjal, which is poised to become India's first genetically engineered food crop. Civil Society Groups had raised objections to granting approval to a food crop because of safety concerns and the lack of clarity on the kind of safety tests conducted on Bt brinjal and their outcomes. The GEAC has withheld permission to the Mahyco seed company for LST until an expert committee has evaluated the comments sent in by concerned citizens.

According to the GEAC, the LSTs will be subject to several conditions even if they are granted approval. In fact, there are many issues that have not been addressed. For instance, though the GEAC has proposed the involvement of Gram Sabhas in the LSTs for which the state agriculture universities would provide the technical support, the module for such support has not been decided, nor is it clear how it would be provided and what it would include. If the gram sabhas object and do not approve of the trials, would their objections be considered? Would the gram sabhas be informed about the health and environmental implications of the GE crop, or about the gene flow and increased risk of weediness?

The only information available on the website of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF)is a brief background note on the development of Bt brinjal and presentations made by the Mahyco company. On the advice of Ministry of Environment and Forests, the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR)has conducted field trials of Bt brinjal independently, using its own protocol during Kharif seasons 2004-05 and 2005-06. But, the results of these trials are neither published anywhere nor placed on the Ministry's website for public viewing.

Similarly, the comments of the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee that monitored the field trials conducted by the company are also not placed on the website. In the absence of these reports, the claim of the company that Bt brinjal is very beneficial and useful remains purely one sided.

According to the information on the official website, the company would be required to conduct a number of additional studies including foliage toxicity study in goats, analysis of fruit dry matter to determine differences in yield from the agronomic traits and flavour analysis of Bt and non-Bt fruits. It is not clear what these studies will achieve but what is striking is the minimal involvement of our vast network of public sector research institutions in conducting any of these investigations. As it is, government laboratories were involved in only four of the large number of studies conducted on environmental effects, soil analysis, substantial equivalence, protein expression in cooked fruits, toxicological and allergenicity assessment and nutritional content. In future studies also, public sector institutions are not being involved, nor has GEAC recommended any independent public sector study on any of these aspects. The concerned companies themselves will provide data on biosafety and food safety.

The GEAC, in its meeting, considered the demand made by the civil society that prior to approving LSTs of Bt brinjal, biosafety data should be posted on the Ministry's website for 90 days to give people sufficient time to provide feedback. But GEAC decided to post the list of biosafety studies; the data generated by the company and proposed protocol for LSTs and seed production for only 15 days. In any case, the public's comments are not available on the GEAC website, nor is there any commitment from the Ministry that the objections raised by concerned people will be posted on the website for public viewing. This is not a good precedent and makes a mockery of public participation.

Because of the disastrous performance of Bt cotton in several parts of the country leading to the Andhra Pradesh government filing a case against Mahyco-Monsanto, the need to conduct a socio-economic evaluation of any new genetically engineered crop prior to its release is finally being acknowledged by regulatory agencies like the GEAC.

Undertaking socio-economic evaluation became mandatory at least since September 2003 when the Cartagena Protocol The Biosafety Protocol requires socioeconomic assessment of new genetically engineered crops, particularly on small farmers and traditional methods of cultivation, as well as on indigenous knowledge.

No studies have been conducted so far to assess the socio-economic impact of Bt brinjal. Mahyco has said that socio-economic studies will be conducted along with the LSTs of Bt brinjal, but in the meantime the company has tried to prove through studies conducted by some foreign Universities that Bt brinjal offers economic benefits over conventional brinjal cultivation. Two studies are quoted in support of socio-economic advantages, one by Mark Chong,a business management graduate from the Singapore Management University who conducted this study as part of his doctoral thesis in Communications! The other is a study done by Vijesh Krishna and Matin Qaim of the University of Hohenheim in Germany. This study was supported by USAID, an aggressive promoter of Agbiotechnology. Matin Qaim is the author of the infamous and widely quoted study on Bt cotton in India, which was conducted exclusively on the experimental fields of Monsanto- Mahyco and which (not surprisingly) showed that the use of Bt cotton led to an 87%increase in cotton yield in India. Qaim and Zilberman's dubious paper was condemned by a series of commentators across the world and the abysmal performance of the Mahyco-Monsanto Bt cotton,despite the premature accolades engineered by Qaim and Zilberman, ensured that its provisional release was not renewed.

Mahyco seed company has quoted these two studies to make the point that international scholars have demonstrated that the socio-economic impact of Bt brinjal is positive for farmers and that they will benefit from increased yields and lower use of pesticides.

Let us examine the two papers and see what they say about the socio-economic benefits of Bt brinjal. Chong's paper is an exercise in risk perception, not evaluation of socio-econom-ic impact. The title itself says that: "Perception of the risks and benefits of Bt eggplant by Indian farmers". The study is premised on the hypothesis that the moral aspects of risk provide a better explanation of risk perception than the psychometric paradigm or Cultural Theory. The study uses Bt brinjal as a case study to assess whether moral aspects of risk figure in the risk perception of Indian farmers or whether economic benefits outweigh the perceived risks.

The study is a rather simple exercise to elicit responses from 100 brinjal farmers who have been provided a certain text containing information they must respond to. Their responses have been interpreted as their perception of risk. The text given to farmers for response is reproduced below. Its suggestiveness is evident.

"As you know, brinjal farmers in Maharashtra such as yourself stand to lose a large portion of their crop each year to pests such as the fruit and shoot borer. These farmers -like you –have been trying to control the pests by spraying pesticides,but pesticide application has a number of disadvantages.

To address this problem,a private company and two public institutions in India are now working to develop a new type of brinjal seed.This new seed is expected to offer significant protection against the fruit and shoot borer. At the same time, farmers who use the new seed will not need to spray any pesticide against the borer, nor will they need to invest in new equipment, tools, or fertilizers. The scientists who are developing this new variety say that it will look, feel and taste just like the brinjals you are growing now.But unlike ordinary brinjals, the new variety is 'injected' with a soil microbe that gives the plant its provariety is Bt brinjal and it works in basically the same way as the Bt cotton that has been introduced in Maharashtra and elsewhere in India. Bt is not known to be harmful to human or animal health.

However, experts have also cautioned that there are some risks :Bt brinjal seed will cost a few times more than ordinary brinjal seed. Moreover, nobody can predict at this point whether consumers will accept the new type of brinjal. Climactic conditions can also influence the level of yield farmers get from using Bt brinjal.

There are also some environmental risks: farmers adopting the new seed will need to follow strict guidelines, such as setting aside a small part of his plot to growing ordinary brinjals. If not, Bt brinjal will lose its ability to protect itself against the borer after a few years and farmers will then need to use even more pesticides than before to control the damage inflicted by the pest. If not carefully managed, using Bt brinjal may also lead to the growth of "superweeds" and other unforeseen environmental problems. So, while there are benefits in using Bt brinjal, there are also some risks …"

Please share with me any thoughts and feeling you have about this new brinjal seed. Is there anything you find objectionable about the new seed?

This is a fairly straightforward study to understand how farmers perceive risk and what factors will influence them to accept or reject a new crop technology. It says nothing about the socioeconomic impact of Bt brinjal. The other study by Krishna and Qaim is another piece of fiction on allegedly proving the socio-economic benefits of Bt brinjal. Actually speaking, this study attempts to study not the socio-economic impact of Bt brinjal at all, but the dynamics of profit in a model of public-private research partnership.

The conclusion, not surprisingly, is that a research partnership of this kind, which aims to develop a transgenic variety out of a proprietary technology (Bt gene) that is licensed to the public sector, will result in profit reduction for the private sector even though ample profit margins will remain. The paper equally unsurprisingly concludes that farmers will benefit when the transgenic variety is made available through the public rather than the private sector.

The study has nothing to do with the impact of adopting Bt brinjal but a projection of who will gain and how much, if the private and public sector collaborate in this kind of research. These results would apply as much to Bt brinjal, as to any other proprietary product, a fan or light bulb or a vaccine, developed by private-public partnership. The point is that this study, like the other one by Chong, does not deal with evaluating socio-economic impact and so sheds no light on the likely impact on farmers, particularly small, resource poor farmers if an expensive and complex technology like Bt brinjal is adopted. Nor does it contribute anything to understanding the obvious aspects like consumer and market acceptance .or the trade implications of adopting a transgenic food crop.It is disingenuous on the part of Mahyco to pass off these unrelated studies as socio-economic validation of Bt brinjal and it is hapless of the GEAC to accept it as such.

The Indian experience of the first GE crop, Bt cotton has not been a very good one. Several studies have demon started that the Bt technology is economically unviable and has failed to fulfil its promise of decreased pesticide use and increased yield. In addition, the biosafety of the Bt cotton plant has been questioned. There have been reports of allergic reactions in people who have been in contact with Bt cotton plants. Mortality of cattle and sheep have been

reported from Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, where the animals have grazed on Bt cotton plants left in the field. No pathological studies have been done to determine the cause of death of the animals that died, nor are any studies being conducted on long term feeding impact. It is likely that Bt cotton has invoked both allergic and toxic response in humans and animals, the Bt gene is after all, one that produces a toxin, but this must be properly tested. Without evaluating any of the evidence available on the allergic and toxic aspects of Bt cotton, the GEAC is moving ahead to grant permission to two food crops, Bt brinjal and Bt okra, both containing the same toxin gene. Rushing ahead to promote GE foods with such disregard for safety considerations is indefensible on the part of the GEAC.

In its defense of Bt brinjal, Mahyco claims that the crop is substantially equivalent to non-Bt counterparts in its chemical composition and that no statistical differences between Bt brinjal and non-Bt brinjal groups were observed.

This claim is based on tests carried out almost exclusively in private laboratories and submitted by Mahyco to GEAC, which has elected to accept such tests at face value. There are demands world-wide, as also in India, that data on biosafety testing should be conducted by independent experts with public participation, rather than by commercial companies with a vested interest in the sector. There are a growing number of studies pointing to the negative health

impact of GE crops and foods. Monsanto's own experiments on its GE maize Mon 863,showed severe organ damage in rat feeding studies. The Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation (CSIRO),Australia recently abandoned its project to develop peas, genetically engineered to protect it from a pest called pea weevil. It found that a new protein was formed that caused inflammation in the lungs and increased serum antibody levels of the mice that were fed GE peas.

The government of India recognises the need to label GE food, and its position in the labelling 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 Genetically Engineered food and food ingredients. At the moment there are no mechanisms in place to label GE food and food products, nor have any awareness programs 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 GEAC is all set to approve the LSTs of Bt brinjal, which would soon be followed by the approval for its commercial production.

There is as yet, no convincing reason to include genetically engineered foods in our food basket, whatever the Agriculture Minister might choose to say .Conventional breeding is still providing adequate choices in all crops; plenty of alternative approaches are available to provide good, healthy food; Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is known to be the only pest management strategy that will endure in the long run. The collapse in China of the Bt cotton crops shows the flaws of the Bt approach to disease resistance which has folded in just a few years.

None of this seems to inform our policy planners and executors of GE technology. Gene Campaign's writ petition in the Supreme Court has asked for a technically competent, transparent and inclusive regulatory process that is capable of taking informed decisions in a sector that is of such crucial relevance to the future of 70 crore farm families in this agrarian country. Little has moved on that front. There is no national policy yet, no improvement in the technical competence of the GEAC, which remains a piece of bureaucratic insanity, and little inclination to involve the public in the decision-making process. This, along with the strong inclination towards the goals of commercial companies rather than its farmers, makes India's regulatory system incapable of taking decisions in the public interest.

GE CROPS: DRIVING FARMERS TO THE WALL?

Suman Sahai

Many crops of developing countries have a global value because of the special chemical compounds they contain like aromatic or other oils. If genetic engineering will modify common, commodity crops to produce these higher value chemicals, it will lead to displacement of the developing country products from valuable niche markets from where they can earn incomes, leading in turn to economic deprivation. Genetic engineering is providing alternative ways of producing commodities that have traditionally been supplied by developing countries. This has the potential of taking away the economic base of farmers who produce such products.

The production of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) from corn, a major GE crop bred for industrial applications like this, has undermined sugar prices and distorted sugar markets for cane sugar producers of developing countries like India. Surely, the massive agricultural subsidies of the EU and US for all agricultural products is a source of grave distortion in international agricultural trade but the creation of HFCS is also a major contributing factor in displacing cane sugar producers from the global sugar market.

Coconut is another victim of genetic engineering. Coconut provides high value oil used for edible and for industrial purposes. The main advantage of this oil is the high lauric acid that it contains. The US alone imports upwards of US$ 350 million worth of coconut and palm oil annually. Now genetic engineering is creating GE canola to produce the same special high lauric acid oil as coconut This research will have highly negative economic implications for farmers in coconut producing regions

Calgene has produced a high lauric acid rapeseed by using genes from the California Bay tree. This rapeseed will ultimately displace the coconut and palm kernel oil and deprive Asian farmers of revenues. The argument that coconut farmers could neverthelessl derive some income from other coconut products is being insensitive to the great difficulty with which developing country farmers are able to eke out a living. The loss of the coconut oil income, the farmers’ principal revenue opportunity in certain regions, will inflict severe economic hardship. This has to be understood in the context of the very limited opportunities for alternative or additional income sources in rural parts of Asia.

Intellectual Property Rights

The IPR issue, like much else in the GE story, is tailored for the corporations, not the farmers. It is an instrument that works against food and livelihood security and there is little evidence so far that it can contribute to increasing the production of food and removing poverty. Access to GE technology is largely impeded by the stringent IPRs that surround it.

Patent holders often refuse to license patents with broad claims to key technologies, to scientists and even to public sector institutions. Companies often seek patents not necessarily to conduct research themselves but to prevent research in areas that would threaten their monopoly. It is of concern that public research institutions are also getting into the patenting of plant technologies and research tools, further restricting access to genetic material and research data that are needed to cross complement research efforts.

Most of the basic technologies of genetic engineering are patented and the larger companies own these patents. These companies are reluctant to license many technologies to developing country organisations at an affordable cost. Patent laws do not require them to do so, so they are not obliged to grant any licenses if they prefer to control the technology themselves. This is part of the overall trend of corporate globalisation and it makes it very difficult for developing countries or public sector institutions to access new technologies or enter the research field.

Patents with an excessively broad claim are becoming increasingly problematic. They violate the ethical intent of patent law, which is to balance private gain with public good while leaving the way open for further innovation. Excessively broad claims like the one granted to Monsanto on all types of genetic transformation in all varieties of soybean (European Patent Number 301,749), are contrary to the original intention of patent law. They are monopoly instruments restricting useful research and therefore diminishing social welfare

The GURT technology

The Gene Use Restricting Technology (GURT) popularly known as the ‘terminator’ technology’ was kept in cold storage after widespread outrage at its anti-farmer focus but it is back on the corporate agenda and awaiting adoption.

GURT is an example of how genetic engineering has been used not to improve a crop or bring benefits to farmers but solely to enhance the control of the seed company over the variety they have bred. GURT is strictly speaking , the most stringent form of intellectual property rights, where the scientific process, not the legal, has been used to give the seed company complete control.

In the GURT technology two gene systems have been brought together to produce seeds with an in built mechanism that aborts development of the embryo so that germination can not take place and the seed is rendered sterile. The self -destructing seeds are actually hybrids produced by hybridising two transgenic plants, each containing one of the two gene systems. To control the induction sterility, a chemical switch has been built in. Soaking the seeds in a chemical like tetracycline can activate this switch. Once the tetracycline soaks into the seed tissue, it switches on one of the gene systems, which sets in motion the chemical process, which will abort the embryo. So in practice, the seed company can produce as much of the seed as they want and just before selling it to the farmer, they can treat the seeds with tetracycline to switch on the sterility inducing gene system.

When farmers buy this seed, they can grow one crop from it but the seed that sets in this crop on maturity, will not have the ability to germinate. The farmer will thus not be able to save viable seed from his crop for the next sowing and will be forced to return to the seed company for new seed. This establishes total control of the seed company on production and sale of seed. The terminator technology obviates the patent system in establishing the monopoly of the seed company on the new seed. The farmer is reduced to a helpless consumer.

Monsanto in the Dock: Appeals indictment by MRTPC

Suman Sahai

Monsanto's trade practices are under the scanner of the MRTPC for selling its Bt cotton varieties at very high prices

Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech India Ltd. (MMB) has been indicted by the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission for charging exorbitant rates for its Bt cotton varieties containing Monsanto's proprietary Bt gene and for exercising a monopoly in India. MMB has gone into appeal to the Supreme Court.

The introduction of Bt cotton by Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech in India has been marked by controversy that refuses to abate. Bt cotton was approved for the planting season in 2002 amidst objections by Gene Campaign and other civil society groups that the base variety used by Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech - the MECH cotton varieties - were rated at best as modest, not good performers. Subsequently in all the three years for which it had eceived provisional permission, the MMB cotton was found to fail in almost all the states where it was cultivated, its performance being particularly disastrous in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Farmers suffered huge losses and the extreme indebtedness of resource poor farmers that led to tragic suicides was exacerbated by the exorbitantly priced MMB Bt cotton. Reports prepared by State Agriculture Departments echoed the findings of civil society groups like Gene Campaign, which had produced the first report on the field performance of Bt cotton and reported that over 60 percent of the farmers had suffered such heavy losses that they could not even recover their investment. (See table below). The Agriculture Minister of Andhra Pradesh conceded that Bt cotton had failed the farmers.

As against 300 to 400 per 450 gm bag charged for superior local cotton hybrids, MMB priced its Bt cotton at Rs1650 per bag, which they later raised to Rs 1800 per bag. Of the Rs 1650, Rs

1250 went to Monsanto as license fee for the use of Bt technology. Perhaps the license fee was increased when the price was hiked to Rs 1800. This is the highest license fee charged by Monsanto anywhere in the world. They charge about one-tenth this rate in China and Brazil. MMB also produces its Bt cotton in India as a hybrid, not as a true breeding variety. This consolidates their monopoly.

Farmers cannot save seeds from hybrids and must buy fresh seeds every season. In the case of true varieties, they can save seeds from their harvest and plant the next crop. Thus, the financial burden on the farmer is lowered. Besides, the Bt cotton strategy for pest control works better in a variety that contains two Bt genes rather than a hybrid containing only one Bt gene and is therefore only half as effective as the true variety.

After the failure of the Mahyco Monsanto Bt cotton, Gene Campaign had written to the then Agriculture Minister Sri Ajit Singh, making the demand that an enquiry should be conducted into the performance of Bt cotton and MMB be made to pay compensation to those farmers who had suffered losses. This is provided explicitly in the Indian law - the PPV-FR. MMB flatly refused to pay any compensation and neither the Ministry of Agriculture nor the GEAC (Genetic Engineering Approval Committee) took any action

Comparative income from Bt and Non-Bt cotton
FARM TYPE	NON-BT COTTON			BT COTTON
	Farmers	Income/Acre	Net Profit/Acre	Farmers	Income	Net Profit/Acre
	(Per Cent)	(Rs)	(Rs)	(Per Cent)	(Rs)	(Rs)
Low yieiding	35	7,394	2,661	60	5,637	-79
Medium yielding	58	12,512	7,779	35	9,737	4,021
High yielding	7	20,475	15,742	5	15,375	9,659
Ref. : Gene Campaign; Economic and Political Weekly, July 26, 2003.

against them. Subsequently, the AP (Andhra Pradesh) Government also claimed compensation from MMB for losses suffered by the farmers, a demand that was also rejected by the company, with the GEAC looking on.

The AP Government then banned the sale of MMB Bt cotton in the state. In the meanwhile, MMB had licensed the Bt technology to several Indian firms. On their initiative, the AP Government asked MMB to reduce the exorbitant license fees they were charging to something more reasonable, so that the seed could be more affordable to farmers. The steep price of GM cotton seeds was recognised as a major reason why the economics of Bt cotton was not working for many farmers. When MMB refused to do this, the AP Government and two farmer organisations moved the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) against the company in January 2006 for charging "exorbitant" royalty for Bt Cotton.

On the instruction of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission, the matter was investigated by the Director General of Investigation and Registration (DGIR). The DGIR report stated that MMB had failed to provide any rationale for the exorbitant license fees it charged. As there was no competition, the company was in a position to charge for the technology arbitrarily and unreasonably, thus establishing a monopoly. In an interim ruling, the MRTPC had directed Monsanto to reduce its technology fee in India to the rate it charged in China. Anticipating this, MMB had unilaterally reduced its license fee to Rs 900 per bag, but the MRTPC ruling could require Monsanto to cut down its license fee still further.

Having been indicted by the MRTPC, MMB has moved the Supreme Court challenging the order of the MRTPC directing it to fix a reasonable price for Bt cotton. It claims that the Commission has no jurisdiction to adjudicate on the issue as Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues and licensing of technology do not fall under the classification of goods or services; since there was no trade in goods. It may be pointed out here that by introducing IPRs into trade via the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the WTO, the WTO has, in fact, made IPRs as tradable goods, so MMB's position is without substance.

MMB further contends that there can be no case against it since the license fee is being charged for Monsanto's technology and know-how, which the sub-licensees further incorporate into their own seeds. This contention is also baseless. The sub-licensee for this gene construct is Mahyco Monsanto Biotech India Ltd (MMB), a joint venture between Monsanto and Mahyco. This means that the company has licensed the technology to itself. Further, the case is against the price of Bt cotton sold by the name of 'Bollgard', which incorporates the specific Bt gene construct patented and owned by Monsanto.

MMB further claims that there was no rule or guideline prescribed in the Indian law to determine the prices that a technology provider could charge from its sub-licensees. This assertion of the company is easily struck down by the provisions of the Competition Act,

which specifically prohibits any agreement between enterprises engaged in similar trade of goods as Monsanto and MMB are, which directly or indirectly determine the purchase or sale price.

MMB asserts that nothing in the law prevents an inventor of a new and useful product from allowing a person to use his product on payment of a fee for such use regardless of whether the inventor held a patent under the Indian law or not. When the patent law is applied in the same spirit, which recognises intellectual property with or without a patent grant, Section 83 (c) of the Patent Act can be invoked, which states quite clearly that the protection and enforcement of patent rights must contribute to the promotion of the technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology to the mutual advantage of producers and users of technological knowledge and in a manner conducive to social and economic welfare, and to a balance of rights and obligations. Section 83 (d) further says that the patent granted should act as an instrument to promote public interest especially in the sectors of vital importance for socio-economic and technological development in India.

Both provisions make Mahyco-Monsanto's position untenable.

In a further desperate bid to fight its indictment, Mahyco-Monsanto Biotechnology has submitted to the Supreme Court that its technology is in the nature of undisclosed information or trade secret. This is a misrepresentation and absolutely incorrect. The Bt technology is no secret. On the contrary, its identity and composition is very well known. The Bt construct used in Monsanto's Bollgard has been patented; a fundamental requirement on the grant of a patent is disclosure of the patentable subject matter. So, all the details of the Bt technology used in Bollgard cotton, which is being used in India, is in fact in the public domain and cannot be considered "undisclosed information" or "trade secret" by any stretch of the imagination. Further, it has been licensed widely in many countries of the world so the Bt cotton know-how has been passed on several times to a number of parties. There is nothing undisclosed or secretive about it. A trade secret is where the composition of the product is completely secret. For instance, Coca Cola protects its special soft drinks formula by a trade secret and this formula is not licensed to anyone. The recipe is undisclosed information and no one knows what is in it. That is not the case with the Bt technology.

The Supreme Court will certainly be able to see that the Mahyco-Monsanto case is entirely baseless. A correct decision invoking the law, especially the public interest components of it, will hopefully set down the conditions for technology transfer in India and prevent greedy corporations from exploiting Indian farmers, under the guise of introducing superior technology.

PROTECT SOYBEAN FROM GENETIC ENGINEERING

SUMAN SAHAI

India is a very small producer of soybean. Its crop of about three to four million tonnes is miniscule compared to the large producers. The US alone produces over 32 million tonnes of Soya per year, Argentina produces about 28 million tonnes, and there are other cultivators like Brazil which are expanding their acreage of GM Soya rapidly. Exact figures are difficult to get for Brazil since much of the soya under cultivation is illegal and no figures are available. The difference between India and the large producers is that India is the only country in the world now whose soybean crop is guaranteed to be free of genetically engineered ( GE) soya. Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are major producers of soybean and they should have a say in framing the policy on what kind of soybean they would like to cultivate since the well being of a large number of their farmers who cultivate soybean, is at stake.

Seventy five percent of the 32 million tonnes of Soya in the US is genetically engineered; ninety eight percent of the soybean in Argentina is genetically engineered and it is assumed that the Brazilian soy is overwhelmingly GE soy as well. India’s entire soybean is GM free and by virtue of that fact it has an assured market in those countries that are opposed to genetically engineered foods, such as Japan and South Korea, both large consumers of soyabean. India’s soybean exports are in the vicinity of Rs 3500 crore per year. This figure is far in excess of the export earnings from Basmati rice which is approximately Rs 2000 to 2500 crores per year.

It would therefore be suicidal for India to adopt cultivation of genetically engineered soybean as the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) are promoting. It would mean the certain loss of the assured export markets that we have today. India’s USP is that it is the only country in the world that is producing 100% GM free soybean. Today all the soy that India produces is sold. Even if it were to increase its soy production several fold, all the Soya would still be sold because the international market is increasingly seeking GM free foods due to the growing rejection by consumers. Manufacturers of baby foods and convalescent foods and housewives in countries like Japan and Korea, large soy consumers, are strongly opposed to GM foods and prefer GM free Soya.

India should keep GE soybean firmly out of the country and in fact increase its cultivation of GE free soya to increase its export earnings. At the moment, the niche market for GE fee foods is growing and is likely to become the major market. It is in India’s interest to not just produce GE free soybean but also become a major producer of GE free foods.

In the case of rice, India exports not just Basmati, but non-Basmati rice as well, largely to Europe and West Asia but also to Africa. The total annual value of India’s rice export is in the vicinity of Rs. 6000 crores. The importers of Indian rice are countries where there is mounting opposition to GM foods. Indian rice enjoys assured markets today and there is a distinct upward trend in exports of both Basmati and non-basmati rice. Does it seem like an intelligent act to jeopardize this assured market and start cultivating GM rice? Who will make up for the revenue losses to the farmers that will result from countries declining the import of GM rice from India?

As against this push GM at all costs approach, it would be wise to take cognizance of the burgeoning organic sector and respond to it. The hill states have understood this simple logic. Sikkim, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Uttaranchal have decided to go organic rather than GM. The international organic market does not permit GM contamination in organic produce, so organic and GM free has to go hand in hand. This would appear to be the future that the markets are pointing to. India’s agricultural research policy must take note of this development. There would be little point in doing research on genetically engineered crops when there are no markets for it or when such an approach would jeopardize existing markets.

The Task Force on Agbiotechnology chaired by MS Swaminathan has submitted its report to the government. An important recommendation in the report is that India’s program for developing GM crops should acknowledge the reality of the market. One of the crops mentioned in the report as needing special attention, is soybean. This should be taken serious note of by the policy planners. India is a tiny producer of soybean but the crop is a foreign exchange earner because it can certify its soya to be GE free.

The overall situation with respect to genetically engineered crops in the country , is less than satisfactory. At the moment decisions on GM crops are taken in a non-transparent way, without either a risk or cost –benefit analysis and without involving farmers in the decision making process. It would be far better to conduct a broad based and transparent debate on what should constitute the nation’s policy on GM crops. It is indefensible that a country of this size and with once formidable skills, with such agricultural strengths and dependencies, is so arbitrarily planning its biotechnology agenda.

WHAT DOES THE INDO-US DEAL ON AGRICULTURE GIVE?

Suman Sahai

On his visit to the US, the Prime Minister made a deal on nuclear energy and another on agriculture. Because of the furor over the former, the latter seems to have gone unnoticed. It should not be. India has asked for US help to develop drought resistant crop varieties; reduce post harvest losses, take information about improved technologies directly to farmers and provide training in sanitary and phytosanitary standards. Training to improve food standards will be welcome since India is very poor in this regard .Indian exports are returned, sometimes because buyers use phytosanitary standards as a protectionist tool but also because the products are contaminated or substandard.

Phytosanitary training alone will not enable Indian farmers to participate more fully in global trade, as is projected. That will only happen if domestic subsidies and tariffs are reduced by the US and EU. The subsidy impediments to those markets are being negotiated currently, without any success whatsoever, in the agriculture negotiations prior to the December WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong.

Although not stated explicitly, the agriculture pact deals essentially with agricultural biotechnology. The US really does not have anything of relevance to offer Indian agriculture and small farmers. The technologies available in US laboratories are known and there is nothing of importance to Indian agriculture which is plagued by different problems, like lack of credit and crop insurance, spurious seeds and substandard inputs.

Then there is the problem of Intellectual Property Rights. Almost all products and processes in agricultural biotechnology are protected by patents and practically controlled by six multinationals. The technologies developed in American universities have also slipped into their hands thanks to the Bayh- Dole Act which allows universities to transfer technologies generated with public funds, to the industry.

A collaboration with the US would make sense only if technologies were to be available free of patents, if not, there is no need for a special deal. Monsanto’s Bt technology, for instance, is available to anyone who can pay their license fees. A deal to use US technology is likely to increase the pressure on India for introducing seed patents and removing the ban we have placed on the American terminator technology. The Americans favor patents on seeds as against Plant Breeders Rights which is the Indian legislation.

Regarding the special focus on developing drought resistant varieties, it is worth recalling that globally this research has been entrusted to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The principal mandate of the public sector CG system with its strength of over 8000 scientists is to develop drought resistant plant varieties for developing countries. If at all India needs to use the transgenic approach to drought tolerance, its natural partner is the CG system, not the US.

If it is post harvest losses we are concerned about, there are relatively straightforward solutions. We need scaling up of our food processing sector to add shelf life to agricultural produce. More and better warehouses for storing our buffer stocks and better transportation facilities,( less broken trucks that leak the grain as they transport it) are guaranteed to reduce post harvest losses. The main post harvest technology that the US has is the delayed ripening technology that was used to create the ‘Flavr Savr’ tomato. Flavr Savr was abandoned largely because of health fears after it was found that laboratory rats fed on the GM tomato died or suffered health damage. Flavr Savr has never been revived and we should be cautious that we do not become the dumping ground for failed and dangerous technologies.

The part that mystifies most is the assertion that the Indo –US collaboration will take information and know-how directly to the farming community. How does it propose to do this ? Given the fact that we have dismantled the agriculture extension service and the connections between the laboratory and the farmers’ fields have been snapped many years ago, through which mechanism will these allegedly beneficial technologies be taken directly to the farming community? The Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) , set up as technology absorption hubs in rural areas have long ago fallen into disuse and there is no provision to revive them.

The real problem in Indian agriculture today is the appalling state of the agricultural research system , which is moribund, lacking innovative capacity and engaged to a large extent, in copy cat research. Over a third of all the research being done on GM crops in the country is based on Monsanto’s Bt gene, as though the only problem we have in Indian agriculture is the bollworm (the pest against which Bt is partly effective).

The Indo- US deal will not solve our problems nor introduce the desperately needed spirit of independent scientific enquiry that seems to have abandoned the ICAR system. Instead, a radical overhaul of the country’s agricultural research is needed. Heads must roll, the stables cleaned up, the system revamped and good scientists, of which there are plenty, brought in to lead the world class research that our scientists are capable of. That, and not a dubious pact in agriculture is what the country needs today.

THE PM’S INDO-US DEAL ON AGRICULTURE

Suman Sahai

The Prime Minister took along a number of scientific and technical people on his visit to the US with the aim of entering into technical collaboration with the Americans. Apart from the much discussed pact on nuclear energy, there is also a ‘second generation collaboration on agriculture’. The relevant extract from the Prime Minister’s speech reads like this “ …. have decided to launch a second generation of India-US collaboration in the field of agriculture. The new initiative will focus on basic and strategic research for sustainable development of agriculture to meet the challenge of raising productivity in conditions of water stress. It seeks to take information and know-how directly to the farming community and promote technologies that minimize post harvest wastage and improve food storage. It will also help Indian farmers to meet phytosanitary conditions and enable them to participate more fully in global agricultural trade.

The key areas the Prime Minister’s advisors have decided to focus on for seeking US help, are sustainable agriculture; developing drought resistant crop varieties; reducing post harvest losses of agricultural produce by improving the shelf life of such produce; taking information about improved technologies directly to farmers and training in the WTO requirement of maintaining adequate sanitary and phytosanitary standards for agricultural produce. The last, training and capacity building in achieving hygiene and purity standards for agricultural produce that is globally acceptable will be welcome since India is very poor in this regard and could do with some international level training on achieving sanitary and phytosanitary standards in agriculture. Indian produce is often returned by international buyers, sometimes because they use phytosanitary standards as a protectionist tool to protect domestic producers but partly also because the products are contaminated or substandard.

It is when we take the phytosanitary point further that we realize that it is actually a blind alley which does not take us anywhere. According to the PM’s speech, collaboration on phytosanitary training will enable Indian farmers to participate more fully in global trade. Yet, there is no mention of the only factor that will enable us to export our goods and that is reducing tariffs and bringing down the large domestic and export agriculture subsidies which are the barriers to our participating in global trade. The astronomic agriculture subsidies in the US and EU make Indian products expensive and unviable in their markets.So, after training in phytosanitary standards we may end up with better agricultural produce ( a desirable enough goal), but let us not fool ourselves that this will open up American and European markets for us. The subsidy impediments to those markets are being negotiated currently, without any success whatsoever, in the run up to the Agreement on Agriculture negotiations prior to the December WTO Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong.

Now let us examine the rest of the agenda, which although not stated explicitly, deals essentially with agricultural biotechnology. Does the US have anything of relevance or importance to offer Indian agriculture and small farmers? The technologies available in US laboratories in the private and public sector are known since many years. There is nothing new there nor anything of terrible relevance to the problems of Indian agriculture. An important problem with using US technologies is the question of Intellectual Property Rights. Almost the entire spectrum of technologies in agricultural biotechnology is protected by patents. In fact, the technology can be said to be almost completely in the hands of six multinational concerns, Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow, DuPont, Bayer and BASF. The public sector technologies that were developed in American universities and research institutions have also slipped into the hands of the industry thanks to the Bayh- Dole Act. This legislation allowed universities to transfer technologies generated with public research funds, to the industry, resulting in public institutions granting (exclusive) licenses to the corporations, on almost all key technologies. So at best, the US can give us access to its patented and expensive GM technologies.

Any talk of Indo- US collaboration would make sense only if the technologies were to be available for free or on highly concessional rates. If we have to access a technology at market rates, there is no need for a special collaboration. Agbiotech technologies, like Monsanto’s Bt technology, are available to anyone who can pay the license fees that they charge. The other IPR question is that of seed patents. The Americans are known to favor patents as against Plant Breeders Rights which is the legislation that we have in India. The corporations (backed by the US) have been lobbying for a change in India’s patent laws that would make genes and seeds patentable. A collaboration to use their technology is likely to increase the pressure on India for introducing seed patents and perhaps removing the ban we have placed on the terminator technology. The terminator technology is jointly owned by the US government. None of these developments will be in the interest of Indian farmers or national food security.

Regarding the special focus that has been placed on the collaboration with the US ,to develop drought resistant varieties, it is worth recalling that this research has been entrusted to the institutions of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Instead of frittering small research grants in many laboratories, the international research community (including India) decided that the principal mandate of the CGIAR with respect to GM crops would be to develop drought tolerant varieties.

The CG system with its strength of over 8000 scientists and researchers is a public sector research agency whose mandate is to do publicly accessible research ( without being patented) to serve public causes and farmers’ needs in developing countries. If at all India needs to use the transgenic approach to drought tolerance research, its natural partner is the CG system, not the US.

It is quite another matter that experts in the field of water stress have pointed out repeatedly, that a plant’s response to water stress is far too complex and dependent on often unpredictable factors, to be fixed by a transgenic approach, shooting some foreign gene into a plant. There are far greater chances of success in going the conventional way; exploring the available genetic biodiversity of the particular crop, selecting promising varieties and breeding drought tolerant varieties which contain an optimal combination of genes that will help the plant to withstand water stress in a variety of ways. We need to remember that all drought tolerant crop varieties in existence today have been bred by conventional breeding. Nothing has yet emerged from the years of expensive transgenic research directed towards this goal.

Then we have the focus on reducing post-harvest losses and improving food storage. The only technology that the US has in this connection is the delayed ripening technology that they used to create the ‘Flavr Savr’ tomato, a tomato that would remain firm and not rot easily. This technology which looked promising failed for a variety of reasons, the most important of which were food safety concerns raised after feeding trials. Rats fed with Flavr Savr tomato in laboratory experiments showed health damage. Flavr Savr has never been picked up again, not even in the US and we should be cautious that we do not become the dumping ground for a failed and dangerous technology.

If it is post harvest losses we are concerned about, there are relatively easy solutions with no connection to Agbiotech. We need substantial investment and scaling up of our food processing sector, to add value to agricultural produce that otherwise rots under poor quality storage conditions or because it cannot reach markets in time. The Indo -US collaboration would be useful if it brought advanced food processing technology that would allow value addition of fruits and vegetables locally, increasing farm incomes.

This is a more realistic approach to reducing post harvest losses than a potentially dangerous, expensive and failed agbiotechnology from the US. More and better warehouses for storing our buffer stocks and better transportation facilities,( less broken trucks that leak the grain as they transport it) are guaranteed to reduce post harvest losses. The fact is that we know the causes of our post harvest losses and we also know the solutions. It is hard to see where a genetic engineering approach fits here.

The part that mystifies most is the assertion that the Indo –US collaboration will take information and know-how directly to the farming community. How does it propose to do this ? Given the fact that we have entirely dismantled the agriculture extension service and the connections between the laboratory and the farmers’ fields have been snapped many years ago, through which mechanism will these allegedly beneficial technologies be taken directly to the farming community? The Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) , set up as technology absorption hubs in rural areas have long ago fallen into disuse and there is no provision to revive them.

The real challenge before Indian agriculture is the weakened to the point of becoming defunct nature of the agricultural research system. The system is moribund, lacking innovative capacity and engaged to a large extent, in copy cat research. Over a third of all the research being done on GM crops in the country is based on Monsanto’s Bt gene, as though the only problem we have in Indian agriculture is the bollworm (the pest against which Bt is partly effective). Collaboration with the US will not solve these problems nor introduce the desperately needed spirit of independent scientific enquiry that seems to have abandoned the ICAR system. Many proposals have been made in recent years to overhaul the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and the agricultural universities, to make them responsive to the country’s needs. Its time to take action on those. Heads must roll, the stables cleaned up, the system revamped and good scientists (of which there are plenty) brought in to lead the world class research that our scientists are capable of conducting. No amount of Indo- Us collaboration will solve these problems, only resolute will and action will.

THE GREEN REVOLUTION AND THE GENE REVOLUTION

Suman Sahai

Agbiotechnology is presented in many forms; the most common being that it will solve world hunger. To reinforce this claim, there is an interesting word play at work. Agbiotechnology is referred to as the ‘Evergreen Revolution’ or the ‘Gene Revolution’; both terms are an attempt to link Agbiotech with the Green Revolution. In the view of most political leaders, policy makers, farmers and citizens, the Green Revolution was a positive happening that brought benefits. It did in fact increase food production, principally cereal production. It made India independent of food exports and firmed up its political spine. It ensured surplus grain that could be stored in buffer stocks to be rushed where need arose and it tried to ensure that famines were not a feature of the Indian reality.

These gains were so visible that the downside, the unequal distribution of the benefits, of land and water degradation, the accompanying loss of genetic diversity and the persisting endemic hunger and poverty, could not take the shine off the Green Revolution. Because of this positive image, the promoters of Agbiotech draw semantic parallels, invoking the earlier agricultural revolution. The subliminal message is, if the Green Revolution brought so many benefits, the Evergreen Revolution would bring all those in perpetuity. The word play has actually been quite successful. Political leaders and policy makers carry over the positive association with the Green Revolution to the Evergreen one. If the earlier version brought such benefits, the newer one (more precise, with greater possibilities, as the industry says) would surely bring even greater benefits to the farmers and the poor. Conveniently left out of this portrayal are the essential and crucial differences between the two ‘Revolutions’.

The Green Revolution was a publicly owned technology, belonging to the people. The research was conducted with public money to fulfil a public need, inadequate food production, and it created public goods to which everyone had access. There were no Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), no patents vested in multinational companies, no proprietary technologies or products. If there was ownership of the GR, it was vested in the farmer. Once the seed reached the farmers, it was theirs; they moved it where they wanted. Therefore despite its faults, the Green Revolution addressed farmers needs and India’s food production showed an upward curve.

The Evergreen Revolution is almost the exact opposite. It is a privately owned technology. Six corporations (Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer CropScience, DuPont , Dow and BASF Plant Science) control practically the entire research and output in the field of transgenic plants. Processes and products, including research methodologies are shackled in patents and the farmer has no say, let alone any control. The technology creates only private goods that can be accessed only at significant cost (a bag of Mahyco- Monsanto’s Bt cotton seeds in India costs Rs. 1600 as compared to between Rs. 300 to Rs 400 for superior varieties produced locally).

The seed belongs to the company, which strictly controls its movement. With the development of the popularly termed ‘terminator’ or sterile seed technology, the farmer is reduced to a helpless consumer, not a partner as in the case of the GR. The Evergreen Revolution has in its 20 years, not yet produced a crop variety that has any direct connection to hunger and nutritional needs. The most prevalent crops remain corn, Soya, cotton and canola and the dominant traits are herbicide `tolerance and insect resistance. Despite its other faults, the Green Revolution was able to put out a number of crop varieties in a short span of time that enabled direct yield increases, which brought immediate benefits to farmers. That in short is the contrast between the two Revolutions, so assiduously camouflaged by the Agbiotech spinmeisters.

India had participated enthusiastically in the Green Revolution and is on its way to equally enthusiastically embrace the Gene revolution or Agbiotechnology. Yet there is little debate in the country on whether any lessons have been learnt from the Green Revolution. There is even less debate between policy makers and other stakeholders about the path that Agbiotechnology should take in India. There is no consultation with the public like in many other countries, for example in Europe or any sharing of information, as is done in almost all countries that are implementing GM technology. The Department of Biotechnology has promoted research projects randomly in universities and research institutions, without any assessment of farmers’ needs and the best way to fulfil them; civil society has been uneasy with the lack of transparency and the lack of competence in regulatory bodies; the media is largely uninformed and political leaders remain unaware of the direction this new and controversial technology was taking in India and have no say in determining what it should or should not do.

It is time that the country gave itself a well thought out national policy on agricultural biotechnology. The policy should be framed after widespread consultations with a range of stakeholders. The process of consultations should be inclusive and transparent, allowing a range of expertise and insights to be brought into the decision making process. The greater the ownership of the outcome of the consultative process, the better will be the acceptance of the policy that is framed.