The Government has at last shed its ambiguity on researching genetically modified (GM) crops by allowing ‘confined’ field trials in a host of transgenic cotton, rice, castor and maize lines, developed by a clutch of multinationals, Indian seed firms and public sector research institutions. But the entire exercise has been needlessly shrouded in secrecy that will only provide fresh fodder to those fundamentally opposed to the technology. The Government, to start with, took nine months to reconstitute the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), the official biotech regulator, after the existing panel’s term ended last June. The reconstituted GEAC met for the first time in almost a year on March 22, when the decision to clear several pending field trial applications ahead of the new kharif planting season was taken. That this information has been kept out of the public domain for nearly three months gives the impression that the Government is so apologetic about its action that it prefers it be revealed as a fait accompli.
This sort of cloak-and-dagger approach is totally unwarranted, especially when the 53-odd applications piled up before the GEAC were all only for field trials of new GM crop candidates and not for cultivation in farmers’ fields. Although the previous Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had, in February 2010, announced a ‘moratorium’ on the commercial release of Bt brinjal – India’s first ever GM food crop – there has been no such official prohibition in granting permission for conducting pollen flow studies or testing out candidate plants in isolated one-acre plots. By neither allowing commercialisation nor reconstituting the GEAC, the Government had willy-nilly declared a moratorium on GM research without explicitly saying so.
Now that it has made its stance clear at least as far as research goes, the Government needs to put in place a more transparent, independent and professionally competent regulatory mechanism for approving further field trials and commercial release of GM products. A country struggling to meet the food, feed and fibre requirements of its population, which is set to overtake China’s in the next 15 years, cannot afford to say no to any technology: In this case, it happens to be one whose utility Indian cotton growers will certainly vouch for. While the likes of Monsanto, Bayer CropScience and BASF have obvious reasons to promote GM technology, the fact is that there is no dearth of interest among Indian seed companies and state-owned institutions in developing transgenic breeds of cotton, mustard, rice and potato. It is the latter who will stand to suffer the most from a regulatory regime that imposes heavy costs in terms of time and money. This aspect – of the multinationals being in a better position to play the waiting game – is something that the Government needs to consider seriously while instituting a regulatory system that balances the interests of both the consumer and the farmer.