Apex court panel for ban on GM crops trial

A Supreme Court appointed technical panel on genetically modified (GM) crops has advised a complete halt in conducting field trials of GM crops, particularly food crops, till the government put in place a credible, robust and independent regulatory and bio-safety assessment mechanism.

The technical expert committee (TEC) said there were major gaps in the regulatory system, which needed to be addressed before issues related to tests can be meaningfully considered. “Till such time it would not be advisable to conduct more field trials,” four of the five members of the panel said in its report submitted to the apex court on July 3. The expert panel was set up by the SC, which is hearing a petition against GM crops.

The fifth member of the panel R S Paroda–a former director-general of Indian Council of Agriculture Research–had a different opinion, which the TEC submitted separately to the court.

Paroda was inducted into the panel after TEC submitted its interim report to the court in October in which it recommended a ban on field trials for 10 years.

Paroda’s appointment by the apex court was criticised by anti-GM activists who cited “conflict of interest” issues.

The TEC came down heavily for experimenting with staple food crops like rice even though the safety of Bt technology is yet to be established beyond doubt.

The single largest number of applications for field trials to Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) under the Union Environment Ministry are for Bt transgenics including food crops such as rice.

Such transgenic crops produce their own toxin because of the genetic tweaking, which reduces the need for pesticides. The safety of Bt transgenics with regard to chronic toxicity has not been established and this needs to be done before it can be considered safe.

“By far the largest deployment of transgenics worldwide is in soybean, corn, cotton, and canola, all of which are used primarily for oil or feed after processing. Nowhere are Bt-transgenics being widely consumed in large amounts for any major food crop that is directly used for human consumption. The TEC could not find any compelling reason for India to be the first to do so,” the panel said. There should be a moratorium on field trials for Bt in food crops intended for commercialisation until more definitive information from sufficient number of studies as to the long-term safety of Bt in food crops, it said.

On herbicide tolerant crops, TEC found these genetically engineered crops would most likely exert a highly adverse impact over time on sustainable agriculture, rural livelihoods, and environment, and is completely unsuitable in India.