Harish Damodaran’s preposterous argument, claiming environmental groups like Greenpeace and environmental marauders such as Monsanto to be serving the same agenda (“Strange bedfellows”, Business Line , July 5), is at a street fighter’s level of quality.

Because in a street fight, one does not, and many a time need not, get into any level of detail. Nor do street fighters need to be sensitive to the logical worth of their arguments. One can go on and shout such arguments that drown themselves in the din of the fight, rather than in the minds of the discerning.

The question that Damodaran and others pose, then, degrades to “who are fighting?” and not “what are they fighting about?”

A poison is a poison…

While endosulfan was recognised as a problem chemical in Kerala in 2001, the country home to the company that developed it — Germany — had banned it even as early as 1991. There were at least 3,000 studies that demonstrated the hazardous effects of endosulfan.

The last two decades saw hundreds of other studies and global assessments from various governmental, independent and UN bodies on the effects of these kinds of chemicals.

Today, under the Stockholm Convention, many of the pesticides of the class to which endosulfan belongs are being globally banned, as efforts to phase out chemicals that are causing environmental and health problems. But look at regulatory status in India. In 2001, the Ministry of Agriculture to a question in Parliament said that “34 pesticides banned in other countries continue to be used in India”. In 2010, the Ministry’s reply to a similar question was that the number of pesticides banned elsewhere but still being used in India was 67!

Now, how do we interpret this, other than it being clearly symbolic of the complete breakdown of the regulatory mechanism in India, partly due to a grossly useless Indian Insecticide Act, 1968?

Meanwhile, even developing countries such as Indonesia have done away with most of the hazardous pesticides, while still protecting their farms and farmers.

Why are we using the pretext of the “poor farmer” to keep using those hazardous chemicals that have been globally rejected?

Why should we continue to impose these on our “poor farmer” and the poisoned consumer, simply because it suits the interests of a few companies and a retrograde Indian regulatory system?

Aren't their residues now showing up in the vegetables and fruits Indians use?

And what about the huge rejections of our export consignments — the latest being basmati rice shipments by Europe — and traders blaming the Government for the pesticides detected in them? Globally, regulatory systems have changed with the advancement of science.

Many countries have accordingly improved their regulatory mechanisms, while recognising those chemicals that are causing hazards to the environment and health of their people. In the spirit of being “responsible to science and responsive to society”, they have either phased out or banned them.

Today, we have an estimated 121 pesticides in the ‘highly hazardous’ category still in use in India. Shouldn’t it concern us that many of them are surely finding their way into our food products, soil, water and environment?

Does it make any difference here if endosulfan is produced by Excel Industries or by the public sector Hindustan Insecticides Ltd? Does it matter if it is a rich European farmer or poor Indian farmer who is using it?

But it does matter when some one makes profits or some public-spirited person sticks to his antique ideology — and in the bargain kills a farmer, poisons a consumer or pollutes a water body. This is more so, when safer, non-pesticidal, low-cost alternatives are already a rage among farmers across India.

The GM debate

Now, let us come to the issue of genetically modified (GM) crops. What Damodaran misses out is a fundamental difference between what the Coalition for a GM-Free India or Greenpeace do and what Monsanto or public sector scientists developing GM crops do.

We have never shied away from the fact that a ban of GM crops would affect public sector research in this area as well. That’s because it, indeed, should.

The public sector is today being driven by an agenda set by the same multinationals, specifically funded by USAID and other sources such as the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative. These clearly skew the Indian research and extension agenda into adopting the agenda set by US companies.

We saw this in Bt brinjal, which was actually part of a Agricultural Biotechnology Support Programme (ABSP) funded by the US Department of Agriculture and USAID, with support from multinational seed giants such as Monsanto. ABSP also has as its stated objective to influence the regulatory systems in Asian and African countries.

Hence, it was not a surprise when the Indian Government came up with a Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill, which was only to smoothen the approvals of GM crops in the country.

What is unfortunate is how even a section of public sector agriculture scientists and some so-called promoters of publicly funded research overlook this nexus. Are they in convergence with these interests?

Otherwise, how can they close their eyes to hundreds of peer reviewed science publications that point to the potential threats of GM crops to human health, environment or the farm economy?

The Coalition for a GM-Free India recently published a compilation of more than 400 of the above studies.

A technology that has mauled the life out of the Indian cotton farmer, polluted half of US agriculture lands with super weeds they are finding it impossible to manage, clearly linked to so many health and environment impacts, driving a monopoly system and dragging farmers to court for intellectual property violations in the US, and has now damaged the global trade interests of US wheat and rice farmers — does it matter who develops and promotes it, be it an MNC, an ‘indigenous’ seed company or a public sector institution ?

Let’s get it straight. Whether it is a Monsanto-bred GM Maize shown to cause tumours in rats or a Bt brinjal produced through public private partnership that poses threat to internal organs, it shouldn’t matter who makes it.

The real convergence

Let’s finally come to ‘convergence’. The real convergence we are seeing today is the one between civil society, farmer unions, state governments as well as political parties cutting across ideological lines.

They have all come together to oppose GM crops. We saw this with Bt brinjal and now with the opposition to the BRAI Bill. Even the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture is on the same side! As a result of this ‘real convergence’, the Ministry of Environment and Forests has now stopped field trials of GM crops. Only the biotech seed industry and a section of scientists are crying hoarse.

The divergence between us and them is fundamentally evident. Let’s not miss that.

(The writer is Member, Steering Committee, Coalition for a GM-Free India)

Also read: >Basic questions unanswered

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