A day after India's bio-tech regulator GEAC gave its nod to commercial use of GM mustard, activists opposing the move today asked the government to reject the proposal and dissolve the GEAC immediately.
The 'Coalition for a GM-Free India', a platform of hundreds of organisations representing farmers, consumers, and scientists, wrote to Union Environment Minister Anil Dave expressing "disappointment and shock" over the approval by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC).
They demanded the regulatory body be immediately dissolved given its "repeated unaccountable functioning".
Meanwhile, Environment activists Vandana Shiva asserted that GM mustard will lead to "genetic contamination" of pure organic mustard and pollution of food.
The GEAC, India's GM crop regulator, had yesterday recommended the commercial use of genetically modified mustard in a submission to the environment ministry amid opposition by anti-GM groups, including RSS-affiliated bodies.
Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave now has to take the final call on approval of GM Mustard.
Ministry sources told PTI that although they were expecting the approval from the Minister today itself, the process has been delayed by a week.
"By clearing GM mustard, the GEAC has shown itself to be anti-science, anti-farmers, anti-environment and anti- consumers.
"We appeal to you (Dave) to summarily reject the application for approval of GM-Mustard. We also urge you to dissolve the GEAC immediately, given their repeated unaccountable functioning," the Coalition said in the letter written to Dave.
The Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants (CGMCP), Delhi University South Campus, had submitted an application to the GEAC for the environmental release of GM mustard (Brassica juncea) hybrid DMH-11 and the use of parental events (varuna bn 3.6 and EH2 mod bs 2.99) for the development of a new generation of hybrids.
With its green signal, the GEAC has pushed the hybrid plant developed by scientists at the Delhi University closer to becoming the country's first edible GM crop.
"The GEAC is a compromised body, which works only for corporate interests. Every word of their safety dossier was prepared by corporations.
"And in fact most of the members of the GEAC have been directly associated with corporates and lobby groups and now are only serving to promote their corporate interests," Shiva said in a letter to Dave.
The Coalition also said the GM HT Mustard is a "hazardous" herbicide-tolerant food crop, which has adverse impact on a large number of Indian farmers, agricultural workers and consumers.
It said that previously, it has shown, through rigorous analysis of all available materials that how it will increase chemicals in food and farms and how regulators should have never allowed it to proceed this far.
"The appraisal was shoddy while the tests were rigged and many tests not taken up. The need for GM mustard was never questioned and answered.
"The GEAC has ignored all the many valid questions raised by scientists and others and chose to function in an unscientific and biased fashion. Importantly, there was no integrity apparent in the processes adopted," the Coalition said in a statement.
It said when the rest of the world is shunning GM crops, India would be "foolish" to rush into GM mustard commercialisation.
"There is absolutely no reason, not a single one, why the GEAC should have recommended this for approval. Herbicide Tolerant crops increase chemical usage.
"Our conservative estimates show that even 25 per cent adoption of GM mustard in India's mustard cultivation area will lead to more than 4 crore employment days being lost by poor women in mustard growing areas, which are mainly BJP- ruled states," the Coalition said.
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