Stay with science, go slow on GM crops:
✅Transgenic technology, unlike other technologies, is uncontrollable and irreversible after environmental release.
✅Therefore, any deliberate environmental release has to be only after thorough, independent, peer-reviewed assessment of long-term implications.
● Need to be wary of GM crops:
✅Unpredictable & irreversible outcomes: manifesting in highly complex living systems.
✅Difficult to eliminate: not a single one of 330 invasive species in India has yet been eliminated.
✅Expanding adverse impacts of herbicide tolerant crops: cause ecological damage & human health impacts for consumers.
● Traits in GM crops:
✅Herbicide tolerance: where crop plants are modified to withstand large amounts of toxic weed-killing chemicals
✅Insect resistance: pesticidal toxin, usually Bt, is produced inside the plant.
● Issue of DMH-11:
✅Claimed that it is not an HT crop: but due to the Bar gene being present in both parental lines, it can withstand application of a toxic weedkiller, glufosinate & should therefore have been assessed as an HT crop.
✅Absence of regulatory protocols for HT crops: Still, a crop with an HT trait is being released in the environment.
✅Exposed lapses and inadequacies in bio-safety testing: by technical expert committee (TEC) appointed by SC & 2 parliamentary standing committees.
✅Issue of independent testing: No independent health expert participated in the committees that looked at GM mustard safety.
✅No independent scrutiny: Biosafety data of GM mustard has not been posted on the regulator’s website for independent scrutiny.
✅False claims of yield increase: claims of a higher yield were based on comparison with a non-hybrid variety – several higher-yielding mustard hybrids should have been the comparators.
✅No scientific comparison with other countries: countries with highest yields in the world do not use this GM HT technique.
● Conclusion:
✅For mustard yield improvement, safe agro-ecological solutions such as the “system of mustard intensification” are showing significant yield increases.
✅This technology should be promoted, not GM HT mustard of dubious yields and safety.
