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ROBERT VINT COMMENT: In the face of global mass opposition to GM crops from
farmers, consumers,
development and environmental organisations the advocates of biotechnology
are increasingly showing signs of insanity.
This article (below) by C Kameswara Rao of the "Foundation for Biotech
Awareness and Education" is in response to the burning of a rice trial by 400
Indian farmers and the landowner - who had not been informed in advance that
it was a GM crop.
Rao states that "rice pollen are viable only for about five minutes during
which they cannot be carried over more than a few meters and
after that period they cannot 'contaminate' any other rice variety" - he
says this at a time when most of America's rice exports are being returned home
because rice across six states has been contaminated by GM trials.
He claims that Monsanto (Mahyco) did not need to inform the landowner about
the nature of the trial crop. He believes that GM crop trials should be
carried out secretly behind high-security fences under 24-hour surveillance and
that GM seeds should be stored in bomb-proof bunkers. It is fairly obvious that
he also advocates mass 're-education' of the entire population.
Why not instead develop the kinds of seeds farmers and consumers want?
GM WATCH COMMENT: Robert's suggestion that C Kameswara Rao's article can be
put down to lunacy under duress may be overly charitable.
C Kameswara Rao has previously claimed that GM opponents are a "miniscule
minority" who "indulge in violence" and "create public suspicion and fear and
serve diverse vested interests" via "misinformation, disinformation and facts
used out-of-context".
And everything he claims in his piece below is consistent with such a
perspective but, somewhat typically, he makes his case through exactly the means he
attributes to others!
Take, for instance, his claim that, "In the event of Golden Rice, research
laboratories, trial fields and even scientific workers were attacked, striking
such a fear that led to hiding a handful of prototype Golden Rice seed in a
bombproof bunker in an unspecified place in Switzerland."
In monitoring the GM debate for GM Watch over the past 8 years, we've never
previously come across a single reference to any of these multiple attacks
Kameswara Rao claims struck such terror into the developers of Golden Rice.
Curious that.
And on top of the disinformation, we get the facts out-of-context.
When, for instance, he says that Danish anti-terror laws were deployed
against Greenpeace, he doesn't explain that this gave rise to considerable
controversy because their actual crime was the hanging of a banner on a corporate
headquarters!
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5240
Likewise, when C Kameswara Rao says a French court of appeal convicted 49
activists for destroying GM maize, he fails to mention that an earlier court
ruling found their actions justified because "the unbridled distribution of
modified genes... constitutes a clear and present danger for the well-being of
others".
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6692
But most ludicrous of all are his claims that India's GM trial conditions
are not being violated because (a) the trials are supposed to be monitored and
(b) Monsanto's partner Mayhco says they're sticking to the rules.
There's been repeated evidence that the monitoring is either non-existent or
dysfunctional and that the likes of Mayhco are totally failing to stick to
the rules. So much so, in fact, that trial crops are being harvested and sold
on into the food chain!!
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6309
And, according to a recent article in the Indian Express, the problems with
adequate monitoring are admitted to even "in the minutes of the meetings of
the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), the apex regulatory body
for GMOs".
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7241
But C Kameswara Rao is admitting nothing, preferring to project corporate
fantasies from within his reality-proof bunker.
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FROM VERBALISM AND VOCALISM TO VANDALISM: GRADUATION OF ANTI-AGRIBIOTECH
ACTIVISM IN INDIA
C Kameswara Rao
Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education, Bangalore, India
[log in to unmask], www.fbae.org, www.fbaeblog.org
A few years ago activists, allegedly belonging to the Karnataka Rytha
Sangha, the State farmers' organization, burned Mahyco's trial Bt cotton fields in
Karnataka, India.
On October 28, 2006, in Rampura village in Karnal, Haryana State, the
Bharatiya Kissan Union (BKU), a farmers’ organization, using some 400 local farmers
torched Mahyco's Bt rice under field trials. Mahyco suffers a loss of
Rupees one million, and needs to restart the process.
A BKU leader threatened to burn all such fields in the country where trials
are underway, and said that 'On Friday (October 27), we got a tip-off from
Hyderabad that such tests were underway in Karnal'. In all probability the
Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, an active anti-biotech group, could be the
source of the tip-off. BKU seems to have also sent a team to Gorakhpur (Uttar
Pradesh), where similar trials are going on in a field.
A source considers that 'it's plain and simple misinformation that led to
this'. But this is a case where ignorance is no bliss.
Though the Police were informed of the threat to burn the crop an hour in
advance, they seem to have reached the field an hour after the damage was done.
The destroyed rice crop was a Bt transgenic with Cry 1Ac gene, to control
the shoot-borer disease, where conventional measures have largely failed. The
trials are legal for two reasons: a) on July 11, 2006, the Review Committee
on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM) permitted Mahyco to conduct multi-location
limited field trials of this transgenic, at 12 sites in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh,
Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh, and b) Mahyco got on
lease a two-acre plot of farm land of a Haryana farmer for Rs. 15,000, to
conduct these trials.
The activists cited several reasons in defense of their action:
That the farmer who leased the land was not informed of what seeds were sown
and for what purpose, but one wonders if Mahyco was obliged to do this.
This farmer who joined the arsonists does not lose anything, as he gets his
lease money and gains the appreciation of the BKU for joining them.
The Haryana President of BKU said that the 'tests were being conducted in
violation of the rules'. What and whose rules were violated? Under the
statutory norms, the RCGM and other expert Committees monitor these trials for
compliance of regulations and results. Mahyco maintains that they adhered to
all precautions essential for conducting the field tests.
The BKU leader declared that 'such trials will be disastrous for the farmers
as they will not only contaminate the soil, but also adversely affect yield
from existing rice varieties'. If he meant that Bt proteins get into the
soil, he is ignorant that there is ever so much of Bt proteins in the soil, as
Bt is an ubiquitous soil bacterium. The leader certainly cannot explain how
the yield from the existing rice varieties would be adversely affected.
Another concern expressed was that ‘on-field GM trials in a region, which is
the Centre of Origin, are fraught with risks to the bio-diversity of that
crop and can contaminate the rice gene pool’. No part of India is the sole
Centre of Origin of rice. Except the north eastern part of India and remotely
possibly some districts in Orissa, no Indian region can claim to be the
Centre of Diversity. For the past several decades, all rice growing regions in
India have been growing different varieties of rice developed in the Green
Revolution packages, and the kind of change or ‘damage’ to the diversity feared
from GE crops, has already happened.
The statement that ‘its (the GM rice’s) pollen could contaminate other
non-GM paddy fields in the vicinity’ reflects sheer ignorance of the reproductive
biology of the rice plant. Field trials are carefully planned with adequate
separation distances and a refugium. The rice pollen are viable only for
about five minutes during which they cannot be carried over more than a few
meters and after that period they cannot ‘contaminate’ any other rice variety.
The farmers said multinational companies were trying to destroy Indian seeds
by bringing in GM seeds. GE crops are introduced into the country adopting
scientific and legal procedures and it was the private seed companies that
largely sustained Green Revolution, resulting in surplus production of food
grains in the country.
The statement that 'such trials were being done surreptitiously without
taking into account the consequences' does not mean anything, when the feared
consequences are not spelt out. Even when unadvertised field are destroyed,
what would be the fate of advertised trial fields?
GE crop vandalization occurred earlier also in Europe. In the event of
Golden Rice, research laboratories, trial fields and even scientific workers
were attacked, striking such a fear that led to hiding a handful of prototype
Golden Rice seed in a bombproof bunker in an unspecified place in Switzerland.
In the European Union countries, the Law often caches up. The Danish Terror
Law was invoked in May 2006 against Greenpeace and the French Court of
appeal convicted 49 activists for destroying GE maize in June 2006.
In New Zealand, in 1999 the Wild Greens Group destroyed a GM potato trial at
Lincoln. In 2002, protesters trashed three years of research on GM potatoes
by the Crop and Food Research (CFR). Whenever field tests were done, CFR
fences the area and keeps it under 24-hour surveillance. Tight security will
now be in place to protect field tests for GE vegetables.
This time in India, fortunately there is some reaction from the Official
quarters: a) about a 100 arsonists and their BKU leader were booked by the
Karnal District Police, on October 30, on charges of criminal intimidation and
damage to property by fire; b) Karnal Superintendent of Police said the role of
the police would also be probed and if they were found erring, action would
be taken; c) the Haryana Government stated on October 31 that it will inquire
into the burning of genetically modified (GM) crops by protesting farmers
near Karnal city; and d) the Chief Minister of the State of Haryana stated that
the incident of burning of the GM crops was unfortunate and it will be
probed.
When the GEAC ordered to burn illegal Bt cotton crop some years ago,
farmers' organizations prevented it, as any crop is sacred and cannot be destroyed.
Often farmers who are expected to respect a crop are instigated to vandalize
it. But destroying a legally grown private crop is a criminal act, which
should not go unpunished.
November 3, 2006
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