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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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