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Dr. Suman Sahai
Gene Campaign
Phone:+91 11 29556248 Email:
genecamp@vsnl.com
21 May, 2008
India Submits false data on Biosafety in International
Negotiations
Gene Campaign representatives Dr Suman
Sahai and Ms Indrani Barpujari who attended the 4th
Meeting of Parties of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety , in
Bonn, Germany from 12 to 16 May, said it is shocking that
Indian officials have submitted false data in their report on
the government´s implementation of the Cartagena Protocol. The
report prepared by the Ministry of Environment and Forests is
full of untruths which attempt to show that India has complied
fully with the requirements of the Biosafety Protocol, which
is the international body that sets the compulsory compliance
standards for dealing with Genetically Engineered Organisms (GEOs)
like transgenic plants.
Dr Suman Sahai, convener of Gene Campaign
said on her return from Bonn that it is most unfortunate that
in trying to delude the international community about its
performance with respect to biosafety, India is condoning
shoddy regulatory systems at home, which will actually end up
harming its rich biological diversity and jeopardising the
health of its people.
Because the regulatory system in India is
not up to international standards, Gene Campaign had filed a
Public Interest Litigation in 2004, in the Supreme Court ,
asking for a more stringent and technically competent
regulatory system that could be relied on to safeguard
environmental and health safety. In the ongoing hearings on
the PIL, the honorable Supreme Court had recently responded to
Gene Campaign’s request and directed the Government to make
public the data on the allergenicity and toxicity tests
conducted on food crops like Bt Brinjal and Bt Okra which are
awaiting release. The government had earlier refused to do
so.
The current agriculture situation in India
is fragile and globally the world is facing a food crisis. At
this time more than ever ,the challenge for us is to secure
agriculture, food production and the food security of the
nation, along with the livelihoods of its farmers. There is
simply no space to make a mistake. It is crucial that the
government exercises extreme caution to ensure that no GM
seeds and plants are created at home or brought in from
elsewhere, that could have an adverse effect on the country´s
agriculture security and the health of its people.
It needs to be remembered that the
international scientific community and UN organisations like
the FAO and the WHO acknowledge that genetic engineering is
capable of creating dangerous compounds in the cell. It is
therefore necessary to subject genetically engineered plants
and other organisms to careful bio safety testing before they
can be approved for use. That is the reason why an
international agreement, the Biosafety Protocol has been made
mandatory and binding for all member countries that wish to
engage with genetically engineered organisms. The purpose of
the Protocol is to ensure that efficient systems are put in
place to safeguard the environmental and health safety of the
people/ countries in the countries where such GEOs are being
produced.
Giving a few examples from the ´National
Report on the Implementation of the Cartagena Protocol on
Biosafety´, which is full of incorrect claims, ( it can be
downloaded from the website of the Ministry of Environment and
Forests), Dr Sahai pointed out the following :
I. the Govt claims (under ‘obligations for
provision of information to the Biosafety Protocol´), :
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·
No GEOs have entered India unintentionally or
illegally. This is incorrect. From 11 Sepetmber, 2007 when
the Government had removed all regulation over the import of
GE foods till 25 February 2008, when it had to reintroduce
regulation after Gene Campaign filed a second PIL (October
3 2007), all kinds of GE foods are likely to have entered
the counry since there were no restrictions on imports. That
is why Greenpeace was able to find GM corn in a packet of
imported corn chips.
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·
With respect to the
information that has been provided to the Biosafety Clearing
House, the Govt claims that all information on risk
assessment and environmental reviews has been provided. This
is incorrect. No data have been provided on allergenicity
and toxicity tests conducted on GM foods. No environmental
review of Bt cotton has been conducted, nor have any data
been generated. None have been provided.
II. Under Article 2- General Provisions of
the Biosafety Protocol, the Govt claims that it has fully
introduced all “legal, administrative and other measures for
implementation of the Protocol “. This is incorrect.
·
Contrary to its claims in the
report that all competent authorities are in place, the Govt.
itself has admitted in response to a question under the RTI
Act, that many State level and District level monitoring
committees were not set up. In a blatant lie, the government
report claims that these non-existent State and District level
bodies, “ play major roles in monitoring and enforcement
mechanisms”.
·
In a further untruth the
report claims that India’s Customs Department enforces
compliance of the country’s GMO Rules at the point of entry.
Spot surveys by agencies like Gene Campaign have ascertained
that government staff in various departments, including staff
at airports and train stations have never heard of GMOs, let
alone have any knowledge of what is required of them.
·
On the subject of
difficulties in implementing the Protocol, the Govt report
does not admit any obstacles or impediments, implying that
everything was running smoothly. This false assertion
deliberately denies the barrage of questions directed at it
under the RTI Act and the several contests between civil
society and government departments in the office of the Chief
Information Commissioner. It also denies the many legal
actions brought against the government by Gene Campaign,
Greenpeace Rodriguez and company and the Andhra Pradesh Ryot
Sangha.
III. Under Article 16, the report claims
that the Govt has adopted appropriate measures to prevent
unintentional entry of GMOs into the country. This is not only
incorrect, it is a deliberate untruth.
·
Far from taking any measures to prevent the
entry of GEOs, the government itself issued a notification in
August 23 , 2007, lifting all controls over the import of
genetically engineered foods. With this notification,
importers of GE foods were exempted from taking permission
from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) , they
did not have to get their imported foods tested , nor were
they required to lable any imported GM foods. This
notification opened the floodgates for the entry of anything
and everything under the sun to be brought into the country ,
because it removed all regulatory oversight.
**But in what is perhaps its most
breathtaking audacity, the
government claims in its report that an appropriate domestic
regulatory framework is in place , fully compliant with the
provisions of the Biosafety Protocol. Nothing is further from
the truth.
The Government’s regulatory framework has
been widely considered grossly inadequate and has been
challenged by scientists, intellectuals and civil society
organisations. Gene Campaign had filed a PIL in 2004 in the
Supreme Court , pointing out the gaps and contradictions in
the rules and regulations governing GMOs in India and asked
for an improved regulatory framework sensistive to India’s
needs and vulnerabilities. The 2004 PIL had in fact asked that
as a first step, India’s regulatory framework should atleast
be compliant with the provisions of the Biosafety Protocol.
The Government in its rejoinder to the PIL had said it was in
the process of bringing in the changes required to ensure
compliance with the Biosafety Protocol and that this would be
completed at the earliest.
After the Gene Campaign PIL of 2004,
another PIL filed in 2005 by Rodriguez and others repeated
these requests. It is now mid 2008 and the government has
still not revised its regulatory framework, which is still not
compliant with the Biosafety Protocol.
Despite this, the government has falsely
submitted to the Compliance Committee of the Protocol that
India has a framework fully compliant with the Biosafety
Protocol.
Dr Suman Sahai pointed out the main areas
where the Indian regulations do not comply with the minimum
standards set by the Protocol:
·
The most outstanding
violation of the Protocol and an issue raised repeatedly by
Gene Campaign and other civil society groups has been the
issue of public participation. According to Article 23
of the Biosafety Protocol…all member countries have to include
the public in decision making on the subject of GEOs.
The Indian government has
consistently refused to consult the public on any aspect of
GEOs. Despite the requirements of the Biosafety Protocol and
the Aarhus Convention on Public Participation, the government
has not allowed members of the public to participate in any of
the decision processes; despite repeated requests from civil
society and writ petitions , it has refused to allow anyone
from the public to be a member of any of the regulatory bodies
related to genetic engineering. In other countries, the
Philippines for instance, NGOs are members of regulatory
bodies.
·
The government also refuses
to answer any questions or share any information. When
questioned under the RTI Act, they do not readily provide
data, preferring instead to challenge the RTI provisions
·
A second requirement of the
Protocol is to assess the social and economic impacts of GE
crops. Contrary to claims made in the official report, the
India government has not conducted any such studies. Not only
was no study done BEFORE the introduction of Bt cotton, to
predict its likely impact, no review of the Bt cotton
performance has been done even after the 6 controversial years
of its cultivation. There is no govt. report yet that assesses
the socio-economic impact of Bt cotton on the farmers and
rural communities but new Bt cotton varieties continue to be
released .
·
No socio-economic studies
have been done on the social and economic impact of Bt
Brinjal, Bt Okra and above all, Bt Rice. These
crops are being readied for commercial release in the next
months.
·
The country still does not
have a law on Liability and Redress that will allow the
government to fix liability for damage caused by GEOs. Today
if something goes wrong, and farmers suffer, as happened with
Bt cotton in Vidarbha, there is no law to ensure compensation
to farmers that have suffered losses and damage to their soil
or their livestock.
·
The country still does not
have a policy on genetic engineering crops for which it is a
Center of Origin.
India is the birthplace of rice and several other crops like
legumes ( mung and urad), vegetables ( brinjal, okra, bottle
gourd) and fruits (mango, melons). The Biosafety Protocol
urges extreme caution when considering genetic engineering in
crops for which a country is the center of Origin, since the
maximum genetic diversity of such crops exists in these
regions nd the maximum damage can be inflicted here if
something goes wrong.
·
Following the Precautionary Principle suggested
by the Protocol, Mexico, the birthplace of corn, does not
allow GM corn. China the country of Origin of soybean has a
ban on GM soybean, Peru the home of potato , does not permit
GM potatao. Yet, India the birthplace of rice and of brinjal,
is marching ahead with GM rice and GM brinjal.
·
There is no provision in place for labelling GE
foods as yet even though the government is moving rapidly to
introduce GE foods like Bt Brinjal , Bt Okra and possibly Bt
Rice. Yet, the Government continues to profess a commitment to
mandatory labelling of GE foods at every international
meeting, including the Biosafety Protocol.
·
The Indian regime makes no provisions to
accommodate the Precautionary Principle in any of its
regulations. It seems to be following the highly criticised US
system which is opposed to labelling and which claims that
there are no risks associated with GE foods which according to
it , are substantially equivalent to normal, non GE foods.
·
As mentioned earlier, not all State Level and
District Level Committees have been set up. Even when they
exist, they have no idea what they are supposed to do.
Instead of trying to look good in front of
the international community on the basis of a fairy tale and
,by presenting a pack of lies, the Indian government would do
well to follow the best practices available in other countries
and at the very least follow the minimum standards prescribed
by the Biosafety Protocol.
At the moment the
US itself is
in the process of revising its regulatory process to respond
to the advances in science and the new hazards that have been
created, like plants engineered to produce vaccines, plastics
and industrial chemicals. Canada
underwent a similar process some years ago;
Australia and New Zealand
are currently undergoing revisions, as is
Europe. The
Indian government on the other hand continues to insist that
its antiquated rules of 1989 are the “ best in the world”.
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