According to a report of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, released in 2018, India ranks fifth in global cultivation of GM crops. Bt cotton is the only GM crop approved for commercial cultivation in the country. Approval of any new GM crop is given on a case-to-case basis after thorough scientific evaluation of health and environmental safety under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 and Rules, 1989.
What is GM Crop
Genetically modified crops (GM crops) are plants of which the DNA is modified in labs using genetic engineering methods. It is done to introduce a new trait to the plant, that is not found naturally. For this purpose, new DNA is transferred into plant cells, which are usually grown in tissue culture to develop into plants and these plants produce the modified seeds. Currently, corn, soybean, cotton, potato, alfalfa, canola, papaya, squash, apple, and sugarbeat are being produced in us, approved by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Advantages of GM Crops
Supporters of the GM technology say transgenic plants offer a range of benefits. It is suggested that such new technology offers more effective pest resistance of seeds and crops through genetic control mechanisms, which also reduces the need for pesticide use, leads to improved yield, improves tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress, and offers nutritional benefits in areas where traditional breeding methods have been unsuccessful. All this also means that such technology can reduce the adverse environmental impact by producing crops that tolerate cultivation in stressful conditions, introducing GM traits that control disease (especially root disease) and allow farmers to cultivate where reduced tillage is essential. On the crucial issue of safety, it is argued that GMOs have been tested and demonstrated to be safe prior to their reaching the market and their final consumption, and that they have been consumed for some years now in the US and there is no evidence to indicate that they are harmful.
Those who vehemently support the cultivation of GM crops put the following points.
(i) Over the past 16 years, the Bt cotton technology has retained its ability to control all bollworm diseases except pink bollworm.
(ii) The agricultural department does not have any scientific evidence for the likely impact of herbicide tolerant (HT) cotton seeds on crops and on the health of the farmers. The pro-GM supporters claim the crops are absolutely safe for consumption. Biosafety studies, conducted by the Indian council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) institutes indicate that there is no effect of GM cotton seed feed on animals, poultry, fishes, and goats. The farmers should be allowed to reap the benefits of modern technology to boost their income by earning better returns.
(iii) With use of GM technology, costs are reduced, insect-pest attacks are lowered, and the yield is higher.
(iv) GM seeds have been in use for over a decade in USA. cotton seeds oil cakes have been fed to cattle, poultry, and fish in the form of vanaspati, dairy products, and meat, but no danger has ever been proved. Over one trillion GM meals have been eaten in the US without damage.
(v) Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug condemns anti-GM activists as charlatans, ignorant of science. Similarly, science writer, Math Ridley, author of Genome, and Chengal Reddy, president of the Federation of Indian Farmers Association, says that GM is a must for farmers.
Disadvantages of GM Crops
The opponents of this technology argue that in any new technology, it is always possible that harmful side-effects may occur, and therefore there need to be long-term tests on health and environment before its implementation. Similarly, unlike traditional plant breeding methods, the new technology uses artificial laboratory techniques to combine genes that would never occur in nature, which really means altering genetic patterns that have developed over millions of years. Similarly, the pretesting of GMOs has generally been on laboratory animals rather than on human beings, and the effects may be quite different, especially over time. It is pointed out that the effects of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease) on beef consumption and their implications for human health also appeared after a very long time-lag and were not something that would have been evident through short-term laboratory tests, and therefore, that great caution needs to be exercised in this matter.
The new cultivation practices could lead to substantial loss of biodiversity and have negative impact on sustainable agriculture. Production systems using GMOs cultivate relatively few crop varieties on monocultures and rear a limited number of fish or domestic animal species. This leads to marginalisation of small-scale, diverse food production systems that conserve farmers’ varieties of crops and breeds of domestic animals, which form the genetic pool for food and agriculture in the future.
The anti-GM group has voiced the following concerns.
(i) There are hundreds of studies in the US and Brazil, which show the ill-effects of GM crops on human health. Even in India, an independent analysis has shown that Bt brinjal and GM mustard are not safe.
(ii) GM mustard has a cancer-causing chemical while Bt brinjal too has a poison that can have ill-effects on human beings if consumed. GM crops are killing not only pests but also humans.
(iii) Honeybees are getting killed by foraging on GM mustard crops. If they die, it will affect cross-polination, an essential part of farming.
Mahyco (Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company Pvt. Ltd.) Monsanto (the Indian arm of global seed major, Monsanto) got approval to commercially sell its Bt cotton (a pest-resistant variety), using Bollgard (BGI) technology, in India in 2002. Then in 2006, it released Bollgard II (BG II) technology with additional traits. Farmers reaped the benefits of GM seeds which required lower usage of pesticide and gave a sharp jump to the yield. But trouble began when certain kinds of bollworm showed high tolerance to the Cry2Ab protein which was a key component of BG II technology. Weed infestation of cotton crops increased. The GM crop then fell out of favour. between 2013 and 2016, Mahyco Monsanto applied for permission to sell BG II RRF seed (HT) cotton variety with resistance to bollworms but the panel of the Genetic Engineering appraisal Committee (GEAC), which is the apex body for deciding on production and use of GM organisms, did not act expeditiously.
In Jalna, Parbhani and Wardha districts, farmers defying the ban on HtBt cotton have challenged the government to take action against them. Police registered cases against at least 12 farmers. Therefore, Mahyco withdrew its application in 2016 owing to an uncertain business environment. This happened when several sub-licensee seed companies refused to pay trait fee on BG II technology. It has not approached the GEAC so far.
Facts and Figures
Use of Bt cotton resulted in a sharp rise in yield between 2002–03 and 2013–14. But thereafter, it lost resistance to pink bollworm and yield have been affected.
Year Area Yield Production
(in million hectares) (kg/hectare) (in million bales of
170 kg each)
2002–03 7.67 191 8.6
2010–11 11.24 499 33
2013–14 11.96 510 35.9
2017–18 12.43 448 32.8
Source: Ministry of Agriculture
Note: Yield for 2017-18 is estimated based on area and production numbers.
Till date, the Indian government has not approved BG II RF technology for commercial sale. But seeds are being sold illegally in the market for many years. In 2017 itself, about 35 lakh packets of illegal herbicide-tolerant (HT) cotton hybrid (BG II) were used, as per the reports by South Asia Biotechnology Centre, New Delhi.
Crisis in the Cotton Field
Farmers in the key cotton-growing belts, including Maharashtra, are planting HT cotton seeds in spite of it being illegal—with criminal punishment and a heavy fine. Cotton production is dropping every year from 35.9 million bales (of 170 kg each) in 2013–14 to 32.8 million bales in 2017–18. Farmers want better quality seeds but they are not available. Farmers also want to get benefit from the hike in minimum support price (MSP) for cotton and so they are sowing illegal seeds.
Cultivation of GM Brinjal
As per Bhartiya Kisan Union’s (BKU) Haryana unit president, farmers are preparing nurseries of GM brinjal in poly houses. Once the sapplings are ready, they are planted in fields.
In 2009, the relevant regulator GEAC had approved, after a 5-year scrutiny, commercial cultivation of Malycod Monsanto’s Bt brinjal, but it failed to win an approval at the political stage. A decision on Bt brinjal has been pending for over 10 years, after the GEAC cleared it in October 2009. However, lack of scientific consensus on its use has held back clearance. In 2010, the former Union Environment Minister put an indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal on the grounds that there was scientific and public disagreement on its safety.
Therefore, growing and selling Bt brinjal is a violation under the rules of the union Environment Ministry.
In 2017, the GEAC approved cultivation of GM mustard, a variety developed by University of Delhi, but that also met with the same fate. In response to a question from a parliamentary committee, the government said that, on average, a proposal from lab stage to decision-making on clearances takes at least 10 years.
Destruction of Bt Brinjal Crop
Besides HT Bt cotton, a farmer in Haryana, Ishar Saini, in Nathwan village, Fatehabad district grew Bt brinjal, another unapproved variety. As soon as the farmer who grew Bt brinjal came into limelight, he was forced to destroy the crop in the presence of local officials and activists at Nathwan village in Fatehabad district. The officials from the Haryana Horticulture Department collected samples in April following a complaint and forced him to destroy the crop. The samples were sent to National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) for testing. It caused the farmer a loss of ` 25,000 for sowing a new crop. Illegal GM brinjal saplings are sold at many times the price of ordinary saplings. When asked where did he buy the seeds from, he said that he bought them from a vendor who usually come during sowing season. The vendor assured him that the brinjal plant would be free from insects. It was not the first time, in Ratia block, Fatehabad had cultivated GM brinjal; it was the second crop of that particular transgenic variety grown in the same field. The difference between the normal variety of the brinjal plant and the GM variety cannot be made out by looking at the saplings or at the harvested crop. This makes identifying it difficult. Though it appeared that the cultivation many just be limited to his farm, it is not clear what the extent of illegal cultivation of this crop is. He said that government agencies should make sure that such seeds are not sold in the market openly and the origin of these seeds should be found out.
As soon as the plants reached the NBPGR, a committee of experts was set up by the Haryana government, chaired by the Vice Chancellor of Haryana Agricultural University, to analyse the NBPGR’s findings that it was GM brinjal, which were confirmed.
The test report on the Bt brinjal grown in Fatehabad showed that the samples were definitely GM as 3 of the 4 tests were positive for GM (based on screen tests for marker and promoter genes). However, they were different from what had been developed in India by Mahyco before an indefinite moratorium was put on its commercial release in 2010, as there was scientific and public disagreement on its safety. They are not Bt Cry 1AC transgene; rather, it appears that they may not be of Indian origin.
‘Civil Disobedience’ Movement Protesting Ban
More than 1000 farmers participated in a movement at Akali Jahagir village, in Akola district, Maharashtra, and sowed unapproved Ht Bt cotton in June 2019 to register their protest against the centre’s ban on GM crops. About 1,500 farmers came together and sowed unapproved HT/Bt cotton on a 2-acre plot in the presence of the police who took no action against them as the government had opted for a wait and watch strategy. Farmers across Maharashtra extended support to the ‘civil disobedience’ of Shatkari Sanghatana.
Saving HT/Bt cotton was already in practice in Maharashtra secretively but the farmers are now doing it openly. They have said that ‘vested interests’ were opposing Bt cotton and Bt brinjal. Tonnes of HT cotton seeds have been seized from various parts of the state, including the Vidarbha region, where farmer suicides are rampant.
As per sources, the HTBt cotton seeds were being supplied from Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh through a well-established network. The seeds are easily available, which had actually reached farmers in January 2019 itself waiting for the monsoon to come. Farmers in Haryana also extended their support to the protesting farmers in Maharashtra.
As per Gene Campaign, an organisation that has strong views on transgenic crops, the farmers have not only blatantly violated the law of the land, but also made the country breach the International Biosafety Conventions.
However, it is argued that the farmers took this drastic step because of the government’s inaction in saving their crops from pests and pathogens. Transgenic crops do not harm environment and the real problem is the government’s slow decision-making process.
In February 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture informed that the Department of Biotechnology had constituted a Field Inspection and Scientific Evaluation Committee to look into the production of Bt cotton seeds with unapproved genes. The committee, in its report, had stated that unapproved Bt cotton was cultivated during 2017–18, on an average, on 15 per cent of the cotton-cultivable areas in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh, and on 5 per cent of such areas in Punjab. Government data says that in the 2018–19 Kharif season, around 88 per cent of the over 122 lakh hectare cotton area was under Bt cotton. The states have been asked to deal with the offenders in a strict manner by filing FIRs, seizing stocks and issuing showcause notices to curb the spread of HTBt cultivation. The carrying, storing, selling, or sowing of banned GM crops invites fine and imprisonment.
Risks for Farmers, Consumers, and Environment
Though farmers in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Maharashtra are cultivating unapproved HTBT Cotton, defying the ban in a ‘civil disobedience’ movement, neither they nor the activists and others supporting them seem to understand the implications of sowing the HT seeds. There are certain risks involved in this.
(i) There is no guarantee that the seeds are HT and can resist bollworm attack. If it happens that they do not yield the desired results, then there is no legal provision to the farmer.
(ii) If any biotech crop is cultivated, proper crop management practices should be followed. It is the failure of this that led to the ban of BG II technology.
(iii) If farmers spray high dosage herbicides, or do not resort to non-Bt refuge planting around the HT crops, HT crops will fail. A super weed may develop and render HT technology useless in the country.
According to the Human Development Report 2001, the main types of risks posed by genetically modified organisms (GMO) can be classified as health risks and environmental risks.
Health risks
Allergies There is a worry that the introduction of novel gene products with new proteins will cause allergic responses. The expression of Brazil nut protein in soyabean confirmed that genetic engineering can lead to the expression of allergenic proteins.
Toxicity The possible introduction or increase of toxic compounds might increase toxicity. As novel proteins, produced in plants, have the potential to cause human toxicity, further test and scrutiny are needed.
Pleiotropic effects Previously unknown protein combinations may have unforeseen secondary effects in food plants. While further monitoring is needed, no significant secondary effects have been found from commercially available transgenic plants or products.
Antibiotic resistance Concerns have been expressed about antibiotic markers such as kanamycin that are used in plant transformation. These are still used to treat infections in humans, and increased exposure to them might cause infections to become resistant to antibiotics, rendering these medicines ineffective. While no definitive evidence has been found to support the theory that the use of antibiotic markers harms humans, alternatives are becoming available rapidly and are increasingly useful for food crop development.
Environmental Risks
Unintended effects on non-target species Although laboratory studies have reported damage to the larvae of monarch butterfly feeding on pollen from Bt plants, no studies have shown an actual negative effect on butterfly densities in the wild. Further research is needed.
Effects of gene flow to close relatives Pollen dispersal can lead to gene flow, but only trace amounts are dispersed more than a few hundred feet. The transfer of conventionally bred or transgenic resistance traits to weedy relatives could worsen weed problems, but such problems have not been observed or adequately studied.
Increased weediness Some new traits introduced into crops—such as pest or pathogen resistance—could cause transgenic crops to become problem weeds. This could result in serious economic and ecological harm to farm or wildlife habitats.
Pests developing resistance to pest-protected plants Insects, weeds and microbes have the potential to overcome most of the control options available to farmers, with significant environmental impacts. But management approaches can be used to delay pest adaptations.
Concerns about virus-resistant crops Engineered plants containing virus resistance may facilitate the creation of new viral strains, introduce new transmission characteristics or cause changes in susceptibility to other, but related, viruses. Engineered plants are unlikely to present problems that are different from those associated with traditional breeding for virus resistance.
Threats to biodiversity Gene exchange could spread to wild relatives that are rare or endangered, especially if the exchange happens in centres of crop diversity. Scientists must increase their awareness of these and other problems arising from potential gene flow from genetically modified crops.
Comments
As of now, the only GM crop approved for commercial cultivation in the country is Bt cotton; it was approved after extensive evaluation and fulfilling all regulatory requirements. The recent controversies have been a result of (i) a farmer growing Bt brinjal in Haryana which has not been approved for cultivation, and (ii) farmers in Maharashtra, under the umbrella of Shetkari Sangathana, planting the herbicide-tolerant (Ht) variety of Bt cotton (this variety has not been approved yet). The centre has not yet given a decision on GM varieties of brinjal and mustard, and HtBt cotton. This has irked farmers for long who feel that GM crops would benefit them. Clearly, farmers are ready to go for technologies like GM crop technology that offers more productivity and cost-effective solutions to pest attacks.
Farmers spray herbicides to clear the weeds but the chemicals in the herbicides cause damage to the crops, including the Bt cotton crop released by Mahyco Monsanto in 2006. Use of the weedicide glyphosate has been marred by controversy. In order to curtail its use to avoid harmful effects, farmers face rising pest attacks in a context of drought and climate impacts. of course, manual labour in weeding is a good solution. Income labour could help subsidise cost of manual labour in weeding. But farmers do not prefer manual weeding, as it is time consuming and costly.
They want Ht cotton seeds that will spare them the task of weeding.
The government’s stance on the issue of GM crops has come under harsh criticism.
It is argued that the government should have been more serious in addressing the issue. It should have undertaken an extensive strip testing of brinjal and map the extent of GM cultivation if it had been serious about protecting India’s biodiversity and consumer health.
It has been stated that if timely stringent actions are not taken by the government, the story of Bt brinjal grown by the farmer would be repeated. The government should compensate for the destruction of the crops and should not take action against those who were duped into cultivating these illegal seeds. However, supply network should be curbed forthwith.
There is a great danger of illegal GM brinjal cultivation proliferating if the State and Central governments do not act swiftly.
Apart from curbing illegal use of HT seeds, the government should pay attention to the problems of farmers. Indian agricultural universities or the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) should come forward to domestically solve the HTBt mess. States should be forced to conduct awareness programmes on danger to Bt cotton crops from pink bollworm and weed infestation. Integrated pest management methods should be imparted to farmers. Cotton farmers should go for shorter duration cotton crops, resort to crop rotation to decrease pest attacks and should use seeds only from registered companies. Farmers should be trained for integrated pest management system.
The centre should adept an open process that takes in the interests of the producers as well as consumers. There are more than 7 million cotton farmers in the country. So the government needs to address the issue of GM cotton in particular at the earliest. Public agencies may be involved in the task of conserving traditional varieties even as GM foods are introduced and monitoring adverse effects of GM crops. Production of benign alternatives to the controversial HtBt strains should be explored and public-funded research and development can lead in this direction. Bt cotton strains provide multiplied yields but at a cost. For the farmer, the immediate problem is attacks by pests and weeds. In order to step up output, the government cannot ignore long-term implication of GM crops. Importantly, there is the need for a distinction to be made between GM crops, as one rule cannot apply for all. GM mustard, for instance, is known to have a cancer-causing chemical. It has been noted that honeybees foraging on GM mustard crops get killed. Such effects not only harm the organisms but also processes like cross-pollination that are essential for farming, Bt brinjal has a component that can have adverse effects if consumed. Numerous studies, especially in the USA and Brazil and even in India, have shown that GM crops are not safe to consume, as they harm humans and not just pests. Experts have, thus, criticised the government for stating that GM cotton seeds are harmless. A statement by the Ministry of Agriculture in December 2018 said that ICAR institutes have indicated in their bio-safety studies that GM cotton seed had no effect on poultry, fishes, and animals that were fed on cotton seeds cake or green leaves.
It thus appears that the recent events of planting unapproved varieties of GM crops have been a result of ‘quasi-official’ leaks of these varieties to ensure that the government is ‘forced’ to take a decision and give clearance. As activists and academics point out, a similar thing happened when Hyderabad-based Navbharat seeds distributed ‘illegal’ Bt cotton seeds in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, which pressurised the centre in March 2002 to give clearance to cultivation of Bt cotton produced by Mahyco Monsanto.
Bt brinjal is grown in Bangladesh. The seeds grown in India are from spurious seed companies in the market, especially the Ht seeds.
Genetic modification is being seen as an important tool to feed the growing populations worldwide. It is seen as the ultimate solution in such a scenario, especially when beset by rising temperatures, increasing drought conditions scarcer water supplies. All this means more crops, that are more productive and more resilient to pests and climatic changes need to be produced. Some feel only GM crops offer the solution for now. It is also argued that it could be safe as Sainis, who are at the centre of the controversy on growing Bt brinjal, have been consuming it without visible adverse effects. However, it is important to note that while some harmful effects of GM crops have already been noted, other effects may become evident only on long-term consumption of these crops.
Though GM crops have not been approved due to bio-safety issues, it is ironical that GM substances have been allowed to get into the food chain by other means. For instance, Bt cotton cultivation is allowed but as a ‘non-food’ crop; however, oil is extracted from the seeds of Bt cotton crop and consumed in some places, especially in Maharashtra and Gujarat, as stated by the president of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, Haryana unit.
Thus, the best way forward is that the government should follow the leads given by regulators.
Only the ‘lateral flow strip test’ has been done on the brinjal obtained from the farm of Ishar Saini in Fatehabad, Haryana. The test that in conducted using a kit indicated that the sample were of GM brinjal. But the lateral strip method does not constitute a confirmatory test. The samples were then sent to the SGS Pvt. Ltd., a laboratory in Ahmedabad that is accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories. SGS confirmed that the samples were of GM brinjal.
Further tests should be done such as an ‘event test’. In such a test, by identifying the ‘event’ (the point on a chromosome where a genetic tweaking—an addition or deletion—has happened), scientists can state the line the crop came from.