The caretaker-farmer was asked by the company to harvest the crop on his own. He threshed the crop in the open using a stick ( since volumes were small) , causing the seeds to fly around to neighboring areas.

9. Scientists of the Birsa Agricultural University in Ranchi had refused to monitor the rice trials since they were not involved from the beginning of the trials but were asked to monitor the fields at a late stage. Senior scientists said that they were not informed about the details of how the trials were conducted.

Scientists said that there was no way of knowing whether Mahyco was spraying its trial fields to show that pests were controlled in the Bt rice.

10. The harvested seed has not been secured in any way. The Mahyco staff has not taken it away even now ( Sept 16) . The harvested seed is kept in cloth bags  in the caretaker’s  house. (see fotos) The straw has been fed to his animals .

11. In its letter to the DBT, Mahyco has stated that the rice trials have been harvested and everything post harvest has been burnt. This is a lie. After the harvest, the farmers said  straw or crop/ field residue was not burnt.

12. Post harvest crop stumps have been left standing in the Trial Field. These have thrown up tillers and seed has already set in the tillers. ( see fotos) . These rogue Bt rice seeds will start the process of contaminating other rice crops in the region as they  multiply  in each crop cycle.

13.The caretaker/farmer will  keep the harvest of the paddy grown from the tillers arising from the Bt rice Trial Field, ensuring another source of contamination.

The Bt Rice has not undergone safety tests so no one knows whether it is safe to eat. 

14. Nobody from the company has come back after 11 August to either collect the harvested Bt seed or see the state of the field post harvest. The caretaker farmer proposes to use up the harvested Bt rice if no one comes.

Gene Campaign is appalled at the manner in which Mahyco, violating every rule in the book, has conducted the field trials of Bt rice hybrids.  Gene Campaign has spent the last several years, collecting and conserving the traditional rice varieties of these regions in village level Seed Banks , in order to save the genetic wealth and diversity of rice and return it to farmers fields. The Gene Campaign Banks now have about 1900 samples of traditional rice and roughly 600 samples of other traditional crop varieties to save and conserve the crop genetic diversity getting lost from farmer’s fields. Reckless conduct by companies like Mahyco could end up contaminating such rice germplasm. Continue...