Government order: from January 1, 2021 only GM-free major food crops are to be imported

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has issued an order that, from January 1, 2021, importers of 24 major food crops will have to declare that the products are not genetically-modified and that they also have a non-GM origin. The date was later revised to 1 March.

Key Highlights of the Order

• The 24 food crops include apple, eggplant, maize, wheat, melon, pineapple, papaya, plum, potato, rice, soyabean, sugarbeet, sugarcane, tomato, sweet pepper, squash, flax seed, bean plum and chicory.
• The importers will need to declare that the product is ‘of non-GM origin, does not contain genetically modified organism, and is also not genetically modified’.
• It aims to ensure that only non-GM food crops are imported into India.

In an order released on Friday, the FSSAI said that it had decided that every consignment of these imported food crops should be accompanied with a non-GM-origin-cum-GM-free certificate issued by the competent national authority of the exporting country and importers will need to declare that the product is ‘of non-GM origin, does not contain genetically modified organism and is also not genetically modified’.

Kavitha Kuruganti of the Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture said that to successfully implement the order, the FSSAI needs to take up widespread testing and accept the assistance of alert citizens by acting on information related to suspected GM.

At the end of March, Livemint reported that the US, Brazil, Russia, and Japan, among other countries, had raised objections to the regulation, contending that it would create a trade barrier and add to the cost borne by exporters but countries such as Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, and Italy have started issuing non-GM certificates, while Turkey, Poland, Iran, Serbia, and Brazil have also agreed to comply with the regulation, according to an FSSAI official who spoke under condition of anonymity.

Agriculture expert Devinder Sharma, described the FSSAI order, which covers almost all major crops,” as ‘very important” adding: “It is remarkable that the FSSAI took this decision despite pressures from strong lobby groups”, reported in the Hindu Businessline (paywall).

 

 

 

o

Forty-six farmers spraying Monsanto’s GM Bt cotton died after inhaling the pesticide

Pradip Maitra, Hindustan Times, reports that in Vidharba, 46 farmers growing Monsanto’s Bt cotton died after inhaling poisonous pesticide whilst spraying the crop.. As pests had become resistant to pesticides formerly used, stronger formulations were being used with little or no protection – as Devinder Sharma points out in an earlier post.  

Most of the deaths were reported from Yavatmal, a major cotton-growing district that has often been in the news for farmers’ suicides.

More than 500 others have inhaled the poisonous spray and fallen sick, and are admitted in various hospitals. A few have already lost their vision, hearing or speech. More may die during treatment. As the death toll continues to rise, the chief minister Devendra Fadnavis ordered an inquiry under a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the matter.

The Quality Control of the state’s agriculture department on Wednesday raided 12 different godowns of pesticide companies and sealed those stocked to prevent further sales, seizing pesticides worth Rs 14.31-crore from Akola in western Vidarbha.

The Maharashtra State Agriculture Mission chairman Kishore Tiwari demanded a ban on chemical farming and encourage organic farming in the region. Tiwari, who is camping in Yavatmal after the incident, dubbed the entire episode as “genocide” and demanded to book the concerned multi-national manufacturers and concerned department, in this regard.

Tiwari has appealed to the state government to stop the use of harmful products to put an end to farmer fatalities and give compensation of Rs 5-lakh to the victims’ families. He alleges that the deaths are due to the vested interests of the regulatory officials in the agriculture department and administration’s negligence.

 

 

 

b

“Playing with poison” – pesticides in India and Europe

The report on the sustainable use of pesticides adopted today by the Commission takes stock of progress made by the EU Member States in applying measures to reduce the risks and impacts of pesticides. It covers a wide range of topics such as aerial spraying, information to the public or training of professionals. The report indicates insufficient implementation of the Directive on the sustainable use of pesticides and Integrated Pest Management systems, in which various control methods are combined to limit the use of chemicals.

Commenting on the report, Vytenis Andriukaitis, Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said: “I know first-hand that citizens are concerned about the impact of the use of pesticides on their health and the environment. We take these concerns into consideration and we are working with the Member States to achieve sustainable use of pesticides in the way we grow and produce our food. I will continue encouraging and supporting Member States in their task of implementing the measures to reduce risks derived from the use of pesticides”.

A few days earlier Devinder Sharma (New Delhi), writing in the Orissa Post, remembered a field trip in the 1980s, organised by the Pesticides Association of India:

“Taking me around the crop fields, they showed me the protective gear that the pesticides industry was providing to farm workers engaged in pesticides spraying. It was so reassuring to see farm workers spraying the crop dressed up in protective clothing – hand gloves, face mask, a cap and in gumboots”.

Nearly 40 years later, he has been shocked to read a news report of 50 farm workers dying of suspected pesticides poisoning and another 800 admitted to various hospitals in Maharashtra. About 25 have lost their eyesight, and an equal number are on life support system. After activists highlighted the tragedy, the Maharashtra government has belatedly launched an inquiry. It has also announced an ex-gratia grant of Rs 2 lakh to the nearest kin of the deceased.

 Sharma: the next time you see a farm worker spraying the crops, just stop your vehicle and watch. Chances are you will see him without any protective gear/clothing. 

The Maharashtra tragedy primarily occurred because the Bt cotton crop had failed to resist the dreaded bollworm pests for a couple of years now as a result of which farmers resorted to sprays of deadly cocktails to curb the insect menace.

“This poisoning adversely affects the poorest of the poor, often leading to fatalities or permanent disabilities, and society is not even remotely bothered”, Sharma comments.

Since the sprays are invariably done by daily wage workers, very few farmers ensure that the labourers take precaution. They push the labourers to complete the job as quickly as possible, and are least bothered about the safety and health of the workers. The pesticide residues that seep into the body take time to show the harmful impact, and by that time the labourer has finished the job, taken his money and gone. Most of the time, pesticides poisoning is not even considered as a possible cause when these labourers have to be taken to the hospital.

After describing the most favourable times and conditions for administering pesticides and advocating that companies which already provide hand gloves, should also place a cap and protective face mask in every package. Sharma adds that farmers should be directed to purchase gum boots for the labourers. And that pesticides companies and agricultural departments should be directed to jointly organise training camps every fortnight on the use and application of harmful pesticides.

International standards recommend three grades of full body protective clothing (left), to suit the danger levels of the pesticide being applied.

Most importantly he believes that agricultural scientists must now shift the focus to crops which require less or no application of chemical pesticides.

For example, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, considered to be a Mecca for rice research, has established that “pesticides on rice was a waste of time and effort in Asia“ and has gone on to suggest that farmers in the Central Luzon province of the Philippines, in Vietnam, in Bangladesh and in India have shown that a higher productivity can be achieved without using chemical pesticides.

He ends by asking, in view of these findings, why haven’t agricultural universities recommended a complete end to the use of chemical pesticides on rice, commenting that this failure to act defies any and every scientific logic.

 

 

 

b

Fifty years of ‘green revolution’ productivity entailed excessive use of fertilisers, pesticides and insecticides

Extract: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w-09kz0TRc

See the long and interesting film: Sonia Singh’s discussion with the Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar, former special Ambassador (under UPA government) of PM on climate change Shyam Saran, agricultural analyst Devinder Sharma and environmentalist Sunita Narain, here.

Fifty years of increased ‘green revolution’ productivity has entailed excessive use of fertilisers, pesticides and insecticides leading to a slow accumulation of toxins within the water, soil, food and ultimately people, of the Punjab region.

In 2009, a Greenpeace report carried out by scientists from the University of Exeter, found that water from local wells in Faridkot contained dangerously high levels of nitrates, suspected to be from the overuse of synthetic nitrate fertilisers in surrounding agricultural land.

A year earlier, another study, ‘Metal exposure in the physically and mentally challenged children of Punjab, India’, by scientists from the Micro Trace Minerals Laboratory in Germany, also found elevated levels of a wide variety of heavy metals in local children. Two years later, the Pulitzer Centre’s website again focussed on a report from scientists who believe that excessive pesticide use in the region over the past 30-40 years has led to the accumulation of dangerous levels of toxins such as uranium, lead and mercury which are contributing to increased health problems in rural communities.

Devinder Sharma points out that Stanford University, in collaboration with the China Agricultural University, has compared prevailing farming systems with alternative approaches.

Laura Seaman reports on the Stanford Report, September 8, 2014, which was conducted for three years between 2009 and 2012, and spread over 153 locations in the intensively-farmed regions of Eastern and Southern China.

Led by Professor Peter Vitousek, the study provides a route to reduce the contribution of agriculture to raising global temperatures. Its findings support Devinder Sharma’s repeated contention that the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, which accounts for 25% of the total emissions, is to change the existing cropping systems to more ecologically sustainable farm practices. Sharma concludes:

“I see no reason why we can’t have an agriculture which does not devastate soil health, which does not contaminate the ground water, which does not lead to drying of water aquifers, which does not cause environmental pollution, which does not create super weeds and super bugs, which does not contaminate the food chain, which does not lead to global warming . . . It is certainly possible. All it needs is a political will”.

After India’s ban on GM trials, BJP and Shiv Sena MPs head for Monsanto-funded study tour

Devinder Sharma (right) recalls: “In the mid-1980s I was agriculture correspondent with the Indian Express. I had followed the claims Pepsico was making to re-enter the vast Indian market . . . promising a second horticultural revolution. The studies and reports Pepsico presented were not so convincing and I had repeatedly questioned them. Pepsico was certainly not happy with my reports . . . and invited me and my wife for a fortnight visit to the US to see the remarkable agricultural research being conducted . . . and to Venezuela to show me the success they have achieved in potato cultivation . . . I was told they were also taking a senior bureaucrat who was not very enthused with Pepsico’s proposals to the US . . . he did visit Pepsico’s headquarters and once he returned he became a diehard champion for Pepsico which eventually entered Punjab in the late 1980s”.

Visiting one of Monsanto’s seed processing facilities in Hungary

 This incident came to his mind when he read the news report in the Business Standard which said: “A group of members of Parliament from BJP and Shiv Sena are heading to the US on a week long study tour sponsored by global seed giant, Monsanto. The group departs on Saturday.”

It quoted a Monsanto spokesperson’s admission that this is in line with industry practice. The visit would cost approximately $ 6,000 per head for accommodation, food and travel, which would be entirely borne by Monsanto.

Within hours of the news report appearing, social media went berserk. The BJP responded by saying that none of its members would be part of the junket. The Monsanto spokesperson said the trip bore no relation to the ruling party’s decision to put GM crop trials on hold.

Monsanto is not the only company to sponsor study junkets – it is a lobbying practice frequently adopted by big business and somehow the media goes along with it. In the past Monsanto has taken scores of journalists, farmer leaders, scientists and officials of the Department of Biotechnology on study tours. A good research area:

• discover how many junkets have been organised by Monsanto in the past,
• name those who went
• and record what they wrote when they came back.

Sharma insists that this malpractice must stop: “Enough damage has already been done by manipulating the public discourse by sponsored visits”. He concludes:

“Just as the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has put an end to the malpractice of carrying an entourage of journalists on his visits abroad, and has also directed ruling party MPs to take his permission before travelling abroad on such junkets/study tours, it is high time for the Indian media to set an example by putting an end to this malpractice”.

–

Read the full article on Ground Reality, 8/22/2014

–

Monsanto’s stocks rise as India’s Prime Minister ignores the facts and openly bats for risky GM crop technology

Soil scientist and analyst Devinder Sharma writes today on his blog, Ground Reality, that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has stirred a hornet’s nest when he warned against succumbing to ‘unscientific prejudices’ against genetically modified (GM) crops. Speaking at the 101st Indian Science Congress at Jammu, he claimed that biotechnology has great potential to improve yields and his government remains committed ‘to promoting the use of these new technologies for agricultural development’ . . .

The day after Prime Minister openly came out in support of the dangerously risky GM technology, Monsanto stocks rose by 5.45 per cent.

The stakes are very high. For the multi-billion dollar industry, India’s refusal to accept GM crops can spell a death knell. Considering that many State governments have refused permission for holding field trials of GM crops, and the opposition from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture and the Supreme Court appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC), the industry has been mounting pressure through the back channels.

A summary of Sharma’s rebuttals of the so-called ‘scientific’ claims of the GM industry:

• Increased yields? It is now 20 years since the first GM crop was introduced in the United States, and US Department of Agriculture’s own studies show that the yields of GM corn and Soybean are less than that of conventional varieties. In India, the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) Nagpur, which monitors the cotton crop, has admitted: “No significant yield advantage has been observed between 2004-2011 when area under Bt cotton increased from 5.4 to 96%.”

• The argument that the world needs GM crops does not hold true. But acording to the USDA estimate for 2013, the world produced enough food for 14 billion people – twice the existing population. The real problem is that  nearly 40% is wasted. In the US alone $ 65 billion worth of food is wasted, enough to meet the food requirement of the entire sub-Saharan Africa. India, has close to 250 million people going to bed hungry – not because of a shortfall in food production. In June 2013, India had a record food surplus of 82.3 million tones. It has exported 20 million tonnes and there are plans to export another 20 million to reduce the carrying cost of stored food.

• The promise of reduction in pesticides usage has not been fulfilled; researcher Charles Benbrook records that between 1996 and 2011, farmers in US applied an additional 181million litres of chemical pesticides. In Argentina, the application of chemical pesticides has risen from 34 million litres in the mid-1990s when the GM soybean crops were introduced to more than 317 million litres in 2012. In Brazil, pesticides use has gone up by 190% in the past decade. Chinese farmers are spraying 20 times more pesticides to control pests. In  2005, Rs 649-crore worth of chemical pesticides was used on cotton in India. In 2010, when roughly 92% of the area under cotton shifted to Bt cotton varieties, pesticides usage in terms of value increased to Rs 880.40 crore.

• More worrisome is the emergence of hard-to-kill weeds. Estimates show that in US over 100 million acres is now infested with super weeds. Besides using a cocktail of chemical pesticides to control it, some US States are going in for hand weeding since chemicals are no longer effective. In neighbouring Canada, more than 1 million acres are infested with super weeds. Studies show that 21 weeds have now developed resistance after GM crops came. Insects also are now developing immunity against GM crops. In India, Monsanto has already accepted that bollworm pest is becoming resistant.

Beneficial changes ahead?

In fact, all evidence now points to an end of the era in industrial agriculture. With soils poisoned, underground water mined ruthlessly, and with the entire food chain contaminated by chemical pesticides and fertilizers leading to more greenhouse gas emissions, the focus is now shifting to ecological agriculture.

As Businessline reports, in Andhra Pradesh, nearly 3.5 million acres today are being cultivated without the use of chemical pesticides. Farmers do not use even fertilisers in 2.0 million acres. Production is steadily rising, pollution has come down, soil fertility is rising, farmer’s income has gone up and there are no suicides.

Isn’t that a model of farming that the Prime Minister should be advocating?

If it can be done in 35 lakh hectares I see no reason why it cannot be practised in 350 lakh hectares. That’s where the future lies.

.

As further problems with superbugs and superweeds are reported, DEFRA minister Paterson is to call for a fresh debate on GM crops

Yesterday Alistair Driver reported in the Farmers Guardian, that DEFRA Secretary Owen Paterson will call for a fresh debate on the use of genetically modified (GM) crops in the UK in a speech on Thursday.

He noted that the UK Government has always been one of the biggest proponents of the GM crops within the EU, adding that Paterson, “an outspoken supporter of the controversial technology”, will highlight the need for a new direction in GM policy.

Superweeds

Devinder Sharma (a Delhi analyst, trained in plant breeding & genetics) notes, “ever since genetically modified (GM) crops have been commercialised, the pace at which insects and weeds are developing resistance has hastened”.

He highlights agribusiness research consultancy Stratus report that nearly half of US farms report superweeds and reproduces its line chart adding that the problem has now spread to Canada, quoting the Manitoba Co-operator’s review of the Stratus survey:

“More than one million acres of Canadian farmland have glyphosate-resistant weeds growing on them.”

.

Superbugs

Nature Biotechnology summarises the findings of a team of experts at the University of Arizona: “Analyzing data from 77 studies of 13 pest species in eight countries on five continents, the researchers found well-documented cases of field-evolved resistance to Bt crops in five major pests as of 2010, compared with only one such case in 2005. Three of the five cases are in the United States, where farmers have planted about half of the world’s Bt crop acreage”. Its chart:

Dr Sharma concludes:

“For the industry, the development of superbugs and superweeds across the globe provides an immense business opportunity. GM companies are asking farmers to spray more stronger and potent chemicals . . .The top three GM companies now control over 70% of global seed sales and also dominate the pesticides market . . . .

“With millions of acres under GM crops being infested with superweeds and superbugs and the acreage growing with every passing year . . . (in time) superweeds and superbugs will turn into mankind’s biggest challenge”

He believes that this will happen, not in the distant future, but in our lifetime.

.

Creating superweeds? Bt brinjal and its spread to ‘wild relatives’

Delhi’s Devinder Sharma sends the news that the research done by John Samuels of the Novel Solanaceae Crops Project, Penzance, Cornwall, UK,, commissioned by Greenpeace has now been published in Trends in Biotechnology (Vol 31, Issue 6, June 2013).

.

Citing various reasons like inadequate experimental methodologies and erroneous nomenclature of the parent species, John Samuel tells us that the biosafety implications of hybridisation remained compromised. He writes:

.

“There is insufficient evidence that GE brinjal will remain uncontaminated, and this risk needs to be evaluated (Andow, 2010).

.

“The possibility of ‘impinging upon the right of farmers for safe and sustainable use of indigenous agro-biodiversity’ (Yadugiri, 2010) is a concern, whereby the genetic resources of many traditional cultivars and landraces could be compromised by transgene transfer.

.

“Certain traditional systems of medicine in India employ brinjal or some of its close relatives (Anand, 2006; Kameswara Rao, 2011) and there is further concern over genetic compromise of these much-valued treatments. Some would argue that brinjal itself is not a significant component in such preparations (Kameswara Rao, 2011), but nevertheless several close relatives, interfertile with brinjal, ostensibly are.

.

“At the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP10) in Japan in October, 2010 a new ten-year Strategic Plan with 20 targets was constructed. Target 9 is geared towards preventing the introduction of invasive species,whilst Target 13 relates to conserving the genetic diversity of crops and their wild relatives (CBD, 2010). In accordance with COP10 guidance, and whilst the Indian moratorium continues, it is proposed here that more detailed and thorough consideration is given to the implications for plant biodiversityof the commercialization of Bt brinjal”.

.

Sharma writes:

.

“Looking through the research data now available, he says that six wild relative species and four cultivated species have the potential to crossbred with the transgenic Bt brinjal. I have taken this table out from the article for an easy understanding. 

“Hope the scientists as well as the science administrators are listening. Especially in the light of latest revelations that show how superweeds are becoming a nuisance in United States and Canada.” 

—
Posted By Devinder Sharma to Ground Reality at 5/28/2013 05:35:00 PM

Why did this Bt cotton field have an inherent “yield advantage” ?

Devinder Sharma highlights another factor in assessing reports of the success of GM crops. He quotes from a blog by Glenn Stone, a professor of sociocultural anthropology and environmental studies at Washington University in St. Louis:

A Warangal woman farmer who was an early adopter of Bt cotton hand-waters her recently planted seeds.

Normally hand-watering is unheard of, but like most early adopters, she lavished extra-ordinary attention on the field with the expensive Bt cotton seed.

Such a field was then reported by economists as evidence that Bt cotton has an inherent “yield advantage” (Smale, et al. 2010; Smale, et al. 2006; Stone, 2011).

Sharma’s comment:

“I now realise how correct he is in his observation, and assessment. I have seen this happening around me. Farmers tend to take more than adequate care of anything that is expensive. Why only farmers, even at our homes, we tend to be more careful and protective of anything that comes from a distant land (and of course is more expensive). It deserves special attention. This is how it has been, and still continues to be.

Read the article at Ground Reality at 1/11/2013