Elections win over hunger

 Suman Sahai

The problem of correctly identifying BPL beneficiaries is a real hurdle to getting food to the poor. How does the ordinance aim to address this?

Politics has won over concern for the poor and the government has pushed the Food Security Bill through an ordinance. Images of the Congress top brass are flooding TV screens, shyly taking credit for this great bonanza for the poor. Congress leaders are making non-stop statements about how the Congress Party, under the leadership of Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, has fought all odds (read the Bharatiya Janata Party) to get food to the poor. It’s been a political coup and the BJP must admit that it has been sledge-hammered by its own brand of ninny politics.

While there have been supporters of the Food Security Bill in civil society, notably the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council, many others have opposed the bill, calling it opportunistic, political gimmickry and plain unworkable. The well intentioned Right to Food Campaign was unwilling to extend the contours of the bill and include the production of food in its demands, so even those who challenged the government draft restricted themselves to the distribution of food, which is only what the Food Security Bill is all about.

According to the ordinance, five kg of rice or wheat or millets per month will be given to a beneficiary at subsidised rates of `3, `2 and `1 respectively. A family of five will therefore be entitled to receive 25 kgs of grain per month under the food law. The Bill aims to cover 75 per cent of rural India, of which 46 per cent lives below the poverty line (BPL), and 50 per cent of urban India, of which 20 per cent is BPL. According to the government, 67 per cent of all Indians will be the priority group for the Food Security Bill, which means close to 85 crore Indians will be entitled to avail subsidised grain.
Far from taking pride in this figure, we should be shocked that the government is willing to put so many people on dole to win an election but is not willing to take steps to support farmers, strengthen agriculture and food production and make people self-reliant.
At a meeting some months before the ordinance, minister of state for consumer affairs, food and public distribution K.V. Thomas stated that about 65 million tons of foodgrain will have to be procured to implement the bill. Taking all factors into account, the total cost to the government at current prices would be about `1,40,000 crore since the state governments are passing on the transportation costs and commissions.

Mr Thomas conceded that storage capacity was not adequate to hold the procured grain and would need to be increased. If all goes according to plan, the ordinance will roll out in six months, but will the storage space be available by then, or will we again be shocked by mountains of grain rotting in the open?

A major problem of the current food support schemes is the large number of bogus registrations under the BPL category. Correctly identifying BPL beneficiaries is the real hurdle. How does the ordinance aim to address this problem? A Planning Commission report says that “about 58 per cent of the subsidised food grains issued from the Central pool do not reach the BPL households because of identification errors, non-transparent operation and unethical practices in the implementation of targeted PDS”.
The government’s spokespersons say that once the Aadhar programme comes into play and Unique Identification Numbers (UIDs) are allotted, the problem will be fixed. But how? All we may get to know is that these numbers or those did not get the rations they are entitled to. How will implementing the Aadhar scheme ensure that the people in the BPL list are those who are genuinely in need and not the favoured of local politicians? BPL lists are notoriously false.

In Jharkhand, a Gene Campaign study showed how muddled and biased the situation is with respect to those entitled to receive food support. Many of the poorest and infirm were unaware that they were entitled to food allocations; they were simply left out because they could not press their case. The lists sent up by the panchayat included the names of family members and political supporters, people to be granted favours. How will the UID fix this problem? Or how will it stop the hijacking of food or the hoarding and black-marketing of grains?

As several policy inputs have recommended, the only realistic way of tackling the leaking public distribution system is to decentralise procurement and distribution, increase public participation and transparency. This can be best done by procuring the grain (and other foods) locally. The closer the procurement centre is to the distribution centre, the greater the possibility of people’s vigilance and, therefore, diminished opportunities for pilferage. But in the current scheme, grain procurement will still be done from “surplus” states like Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana and shipped thousands of kilometers away. The long transport route will continue to leak food all the way and Aadhar or no Aadhar, it will be difficult to plug the pilfering. So wastage of grain is likely to remain high during procurement, storage, transportation and distribution and there is nothing apparent in the food ordinance that will tackle these problems.

There can be no question that the government must do all it can to provide food security to the poor and handicapped, but this cynical bill, with its eye on the 2014 polls, is not any answer to the problems of hunger and malnutrition. The people of India are entitled to a better deal than this politically opportunistic bill. If the government is unwilling to listen, can the Opposition force the new ordinance back to the drafting board and give people an opportunity to draft another, better law?
The writer, chairperson of Gene Campaign, is a scientist and development activist. She can be reached at mail@genecampaign.org

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Source The Asian Age; 09 July 2013,

http://www.asianage.com/columnists/elections-win-over-hunger-576

THE FRACTURED MOUNTAIN/ ATLEAST THE TEHRI DAM STILL STANDS

Suman Sahai

Many of us who live and work in Uttarakhand have seen this disaster coming. Environmental groups have tried, unsuccessfully, to warn of the coming tragedy but no one was listening. Iam not sure they are listening now either. Their eyes glazed over with the prospect of billions to be made from the rape of the Himalayas and the destruction of the livelihoods of the mountain people, the builders, contractors and their partners in crime in Dehradun and Delhi are not deterred by this blip of human and environmental catastrophe .

Those in Delhi can take solace in the fact that the Tehri dam , that swollen grenade waiting to burst its casing, is still standing. It may not be standing in its quiet corner for very long  in the youngest, most fragile mountain of the world,  if the  relentless assault on the Himalayas  continues. The fractured rocks of this young and still emerging mountain range, considered exceedingly fragile and unstable by geologists, will not be able to withstand  the instability caused by repeated blasting of the mountains to make roads, resorts and installations. The day the Tehri  dam collapses, the waters, it is anticipated, will reach Delhi, totally submerging Haridwar and Rishikesh  and sweeping aside everything  in its path.

A friend described a  trip to Uttarkashi  where they had gone to make a collection of botanical specimens last year . As they rattled along in their government issue jeep,  they heard a rumbling, then sounds like thunder claps and in seconds a river of rocks and stones poured down the hillside. They were in the way and it was because the driver practically  stood on the brakes that the jeep stopped a whisker short. What shook the travellers was the speed and velocity with which huge boulders and rocks came down. It was the speed with which the rocks and slush poured into Kedarnath this time  that left no time for escape.

 The contractor who had nearly killed this team of scientists came running to apologise.  He admitted that they would be blasting at several  sites and was shaken enough to confess that no safety norms were adhered to,  to cut costs. He added that by the time he had greased palms from top to bottom, to get the contract, his operating budget was considerably reduced and if he did not cut corners, he could not complete the work and make his (substantial) profit . We know this modus  from many other schemes and projects where bridges and houses collapse, roads get washed away and people lose their lives.  In this grotesque  business scheme where an unscrupulous nexus of the ungodly rake in milions , loss of human lives and property is par for the course.

Tubewells are being dug through the fragile geological layers in Uttarakhand  in perversely designed programs to provide drinking water. The current administration has refused to listen to geologists who have warned that fracturing layers of  rock , going down several hundred feet in this manner  was a recipe for disaster since the drilling would destabilize the formations and cause instability.

I am filled with apprehension  when I read that Rs 1000 crore have been allocated for the rehabilitation of Uttarakhand and appeals have been sent out in the name of the Chief minister’s Fund, the Prime Minister’s Fund  and so forth. The people of this country have begun to pour in contributions to help the people of Uttarakhand  rebuild their lives. On the other hand, speculation is already on about how much of the 1000 crore grant  will be siphoned off along the chain of bureaucrats , politicians and their partners in crime, with estimates  going  up to 800 to 900 crores!  Some fat cats are going to get fatter and the lives of the poor mountain people will not improve. Some roads  will be patched up to get washed away next monsoon, some families will get a tenth of their entitlement to rebuild  a room or two in their houses. Fake registers will be filled up to show relief materials have been delivered to ‘beneficiaries- that dreadful word. And the sleazy and powerful in India will continue to build empires on the misery  of the poor.

Indigenous knowledge is a form of science — don't ignore it

Suman Sahai

3^rd June, 2013

It is time to stop discounting traditional expertise and make use of this vast and valuable resource, argues Indian scientist Suman Sahai.

Science and technology have always been an important part of growth and development plans. But accepted 'scientific expertise' is Western, standardised and homogenous. From this viewpoint, the vast body of scientific expertise developed in diverse societies and cultures is discounted and ignored.

Referred to as indigenous or traditional knowledge, this is a knowledge system distilled from generations of scientific work anchored in rural and tribal communities. It is different to the Western system of empirical, lab-based science — but is equally valid and efficacious.

It is time to recognise that there are different kinds of sciences and scientific expertise, and that all of them should be used for development and problem-solving.

SPEED READ

• Indigenous knowledge has been fine-tuned over millennia, but developing countries ignore it
• It is myopic to rely on just one form of scientific expertise
• China and India are leading the way by supporting both traditional and Western medicine

 The Knowledge that evolved

Indigenous knowledge has developed from understanding and documenting the processes in nature. An iteration of practices over time has led to products and processes that are based on sound scientific principles.

Take plant extracts for example. Observing that animals did not eat certain plants and assuming that this was because they were toxic, communities took extracts and tested them for a range of uses. Many were, and still are, used as pesticides in agriculture, in bait to catch fish or to treat maggot infestations in livestock.

Because plants differ across ecological zones, each region has developed products and uses based on their regional flora. Indigenous science is diverse, and it is efficacious in the particular context in which it is used.

Similarly, in indigenous medicine, the plants used in traditional Chinese medicine will be different to those used in India, Indonesia or Myanmar — but all these healing systems will cure many diseases effectively. Even today, almost 80 per cent of the population of some Asian and African countries rely on indigenous systems for primary healthcare. [1]

Indigenous knowledge is not a panacea, but it offers as valid a route for treatment as any other. Just as Western medicine cannot cure a common cold or many chronicdiseases, traditional medicines may not be as effective as antibiotics in rapidly controlling infections.

But it has some advantages. Antibiotics lead to side effects (which could range from allergies and rashes to more serious effects like toxicity) and bacteria can ultimately become resistant to them; traditional healing is more broad-based and holistic, designed as much to prevent disease as to cure it.

Practical approach to problem-solving

Indigenous knowledge includes knowledge accumulated over thousands of years, making it particularly useful for problem-solving. Communities have vetted solutions and knowledge systems over time, retaining only the efficacious ones.

When the December 2004 tsunami struck the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India, it was feared that local tribal communities would have perished. But this was not the case: they had correctly read the signs of an impending tsunami and retreated to high ground. [2]

In foodproduction, the hallmarks of traditional science include knowledge of genetic diversity, the suitability of crop varieties to different land and soil types, and the use of agronomic practices to minimise risk of crop losses. There are various options available for growing food under almost any agro-ecological condition.

It is a pity that this knowledge is rarelyused. Instead, most research establishments support the dominant system of food production that involves resource-intensive agriculture, which may work for well-off farmers on large farms, but comes at a huge ecological cost.

If rural and tribal communities in India have developed and conserved almost 100,000 varieties of rice based on knowledge of their properties, or the communities of the Andean highlands have developed thousands of varieties of potato, or those in Mexico several thousand varieties of maize, then it is because there is a strong empirical basis to this endeavour.

Policy disconnect

But governments and policymakers, even in developing countries that are home to indigenous scientific expertise, accept only Western-style science as the basis of evidence-based policymaking.

A colonial past has nurtured a 'look West' elite who take their Western inclinations into policy formulation. The education, lifestyle and ignorance of these leaders, even their rejection of indigenous traditions, have a cost for countries that confine their ability to solve problems to Western science.

It is in the global community's interest to examine all available forms of scientific knowledge and expertise. It is myopic to rely on just one approach when several are available.

Developing countries, in particular, do themselves a great disservice by neglecting the problem-solving and enriching potential of their own traditions of science, which are locally valid and accepted.

Despite India having a vast repertoire of indigenous medicine, its healthcare system is based on Western-style medicine, which is expensive and difficult to take into remote villages. The logical approach would be to rely largely on indigenous medicine and include the Western system where needed. After years of neglect for traditional medicine, this is finally beginning to happen, with efforts to include it in healthcare systems.

China has charted a different course, with the government supporting the development of both Western and traditional medicine in its healthcare system through research on what is called 'integrative medicine'. [3]

Why should systems of science be standardised, and why should academics and policymakers demand this? A scientific system's validity lies not in its being credible everywhere, but in its being credible in the culture where it was developed and where it has provided solutions.

Countries that are repositories of indigenous scientific expertise should make this mainstream. Investing adequate resources in indigenous science and expanding the base of education and training in traditional knowledge systems will help to neutralise the bias against them and assist their inclusion in official policy.

People and governments have to move away from the narrow thinking that the Western style of science is the only science there is.

Suman Sahai is founder and chair of Gene Campaign, an organisation dedicated to the conservation of genetic resources and indigenous knowledge, and to working towards ensuring food, nutrition and livelihood security for rural and tribal communities. She can be contacted at mail@genecampaign.org

Source :

(http://www.scidev.net/en/health/traditional-medicine/opinions/indigenous-knowledge-is-a-form-of-science-don-t-ignore-it.html)

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References:

1.       1] WHO Traditional Medicine (WHO, 2008)

[2] Bhaumik, S. Tsunami folklore 'saved islanders' (BBC News, 2005)

[3] Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine doi: 10.1007/s116550–110–601-x (2011)

GET RICE OUT OF PUNJAB

Suman Sahai

I traveled to Ludhiana not so long ago to deliver a lecture at a well known academic institution there. My talk was about how climate change threatened our agriculture and food security and how urgently we needed to make agriculture sustainable. The discussion threw up many predictable responses about how taking steps towards “sustainable” agriculture would reduce farm incomes and could not be done. The farmers of Punjab are on a treadmill of targeting higher and higher yields, with no intention of getting off , never mind the cost. Their scientists are not giving them much help either, to break from destructive practices and get off the poison path.

The Punjab farmer is self destructing and harsh as it sounds, the cause is his greed, his unwillingness to settle for less. For the last 50 odd years, the farmers have mined all the nutrients from Punjab’s soils in unrelenting cycles of wheat followed by rice, followed by wheat cultivation. The non stop two and even three crop cycles per year ensured that the soil was never allowed to recover, yoked as it was to constant output. When all the nutrients got used up and the organic matter disappeared from the soil, the amounts of chemical fertilizers put into the soil, rose steadily every year, killing any semblance of  natural biological balance in the soil. The soil became hardened and died because all the good bugs and friendly worms that keep the soil alive and healthy, fell prey to overdoses of chemicals. When that happened , the application of urea , phosphates and potassium (the prescribed NPK formula) increased even further and the dead soil became merely an  inert matrix that held the chemicals which the growing plant could suck up. 

If the fertlisers killed the soil, the chemical pesticides slowly began to kill the farmers and their families. Enough has been carried in the media about the horrific phenomenon of the Cancer Train, the Abohar- Jodhpur passenger that takes cancer patients to Bikaner for treatment . Dealers of seeds and chemical inputs are selling ever increasing amounts of pesticides. In Abohar alone, dealers sell about 500 litres of pesticides every day. The tragic result is that there are on average, four to five cancer patients in every village in this region. Children struck by cancer are being taken for chemotherapy on the cancer train but the use of pesticides does not stop. The farmers of Punjab cannot dream of giving up the prosperity that their farms brought them, they do not seem to care about the cost.

My exasperation in the discussions with farmers there was with their attitude. True, debts are mounting because of the resource intensive agriculture they practice but even after seeing their families destroyed by disease and death, their attitude was that there is no choice. The vicious cycle has to continue because the farm must continue to produce more and more. Faced with such calamities as they are, one would imagine they would have the courage to break with business as usual, however hard that might be, and try to find a new way. But stepping back and taking a cut does not seem to be an option. The land must yield profits and it is expected of the government to find solutions.

One of the most perverse developments in Punjab  has been establishing rice as one of the two principle crops of the region which is a semi arid region where no rice was cultivated till well after independence. This region simply did not have enough water. Rice is essentially a crop of the wetter ,eastern part of the country which is also the birthplace of rice, its Centre of Origin. Then came the Green Revolution with its high yielding varieties and the Punjab farmer moved to make the most of this opportunity. Misled by their scientists who should have known better and by their politicians , all of whom were sons of the soil and should certainly have known their agricultural history, Punjab adopted rice and cultivated it with ground water. Its political leaders negotiated with Delhi that Punjab’s grain would be lifted for the central pool , thus ensuring a market for the produce.

Punjab which has less than 2 percent of India’s arable land, now produces almost fifteen percent of the country’s food grain. This is achieved  through a relentless wheat – rice double cropping pattern, with no rest for the fields to recover. There is a high, almost staggering  level of  inputs which the Punjab farmer pours into his fields in every crop cycle. This includes fertilisers, pesticides and water. The use of water in this essentially semi arid region has been a recipe for disaster but nobody in policy making seems to care or to have the gumption to do some straight talking to the Punjab farmers to move out of rice.

The water guzzling rice, a crop which was not even cultivated in this area till 1950, and should never have been allowed to be cultivated here, has become Punjab’s main kharif crop, soaking up groundwater at unsustainable rates , as it provides a large surplus for the central grain pool. Today, several studies show that Punjab is overdrawing its ground water by almost 50 percent every year. The groundwater is depleting rapidly, by as much as one meter every year in some areas. 

It is not just the kharif rice crop, Punjab has for years cultivated summer paddy which was planted in the blistering heat of summer much before the monsoons came. This crop could only be cultivated with an almost criminal level of groundwater use. Not surprisingly, this led to several blocks of groundwater in the Punjab being declared ‘black’ or irretrievably exhausted. It is only in the last few years that the cultivation of summer paddy has been  banned in Punjab, due to grave water concerns. It might have been done too late.

Punjab farmers will have to understand the trap they have created for themselves by committing themselves to the rice- wheat cropping patterns. They must work together with scientists, policy makers and farmers from other parts of India, to find solutions to the situation they find themselves in. Global warming and climate change are all set to destroy the wheat crop over the next decades. Wheat being an extremely temperature sensitive crop is particularly vulnerable to temperature rise. Its productivity will decline unless temperature tolerant cultivars are developed and deployed soon. This does not appear to be happening, or at least not fast enough. 

Diversifying the crop base and the kinds of varieties deployed must assume urgency. There can be no further cultivation of rice, not at least in the current manner. Biodiverse agriculture resting on a broad genetic base and investment in improving the severely degraded natural resource base must assume priority. Punjab farmers will have to step back from the intensive, ‘without- a- pause’ type of agriculture they have practiced these last 50 years and allow their land and water to recover . If they can scale back and build a new model of agriculture that is sustainable, they can enjoy a new lease of productive farming. 

THE ROLE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN OUR LIVES

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

Suman Sahai

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Questions & Answers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Climate Resilient Sustainable Agriculture: Adapting for Change in India

Suman Sahai

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

Rejecting the Dominant Unsustainable Agricultural Model

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

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

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

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

Climate Resilient Sustainable Agriculture

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

Water conservation and harvesting

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

Conserving the genetic diversity of crop plants

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

Reducing water use and agricultural waste

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

Bio-organic substitutes

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

Food and nutrition gardens

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

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

Questioning genetically modified (GM) crops

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

Conclusion

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

 

Comments on the Technical Expert Committee’s report on GMOs

Suman Sahai

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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