A protest in Delhi against GM food

Lucknow, Nov. 7: Two FIRs have been lodged against a Maharashtra company for violating guidelines on field-testing of genetically modified (GM) crops in Gorakhpur and Allahabad after an outcry by Greenpeace and a farmers’ group over possible health hazards.

Last week, Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) found a site each in Gorakhpur and Allahabad where such tests were being carried out. The trials have been launched in four more places in Uttar Pradesh — two in Varanasi, one each in Kanpur and Agra — over the past year on modified strains of rice, mustard seed and ladyfinger.

Field trials on genetically modified crops have been approved by the Centre, but with severe restrictions aimed at preventing possible health hazards for farmers. Even in such cases, permission from the state government and the state agriculture research units is a must. The ban on their commercial use is still in place.

BKU activists have alleged that in some places, the GM products are being mixed with ordinary seeds. In Rudrapur village, near Gorakhpur, where such trials have been under way, 10 quintals of GM rice were found stored in a house. These crops should have been destroyed.

“The insect-resistant trait in GM rice being developed contains Cry genes, whose potential impact on human health needs to be guarded against,” said Rajesh Tikait, the BKU’s national spokesperson.

Greenpeace representative in India, Rajesh Krishnan, who flew down to Gorakhpur from Bangalore to monitor the tests, said: “In India, we have adopted a permissive approach to the issue while there is a need to embark on a cautious approach while doing the field testing.”

“Greenpeace has now decided to increase stakeholders and involve farmers, consumers and local bodies so that they are sensitised about the possible impact of such experiments,” Krishnan told The Telegraph.

The panchayat, local farmer committees and the district administration in the areas of Uttar Pradesh where the field trials are being carried out have no idea about them.

The state’s minister of agriculture, Ashoke Vajpayee, said he was not aware of the trials. The director of the Uttar Pradesh Council for Agriculture Research, Chandrika Prasad Yadav, also complained about not being intimated. The testing needs to be preceded by elaborate clinical trials to avoid health hazards,” he said.

However, Maharashtra Hybrid Seed, the company at the centre of the row, said the trials in Uttar Pradesh come three years after such experiments were first done on cotton seeds in Maharashtra. Tests in Uttar Pradesh, it claimed, were only aimed at collection of data. “ The possibility of hazardous effect is ruled out. We will face the cases filed against us,” said Ajay Panchvai, a scientist with the company.

Greenpeace is worried about “unintended effects”. It cites the case of a seven-year-old boy, a farmer’s son, who developed a serious eye infection after exposure to GM seeds in Rudrapur. Similar incidents have been reported from a recent GM rice trial in Karnal, Haryana.