Big push for GM crops

Devinder Sharma
Food & agriculture specialist

The US filed a fresh complaint against India at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) last week. In its submission, the US sought withdrawal of India’s import restrictions on genetically modified (GM) foods, including rice and apples. It said the demand for a non-GM certificate was disrupting American agricultural exports. This comes at a time when for no apparent reason the Ministry for Environment, Forests and Climate Change has given an ‘environment clearance’ for a low-yielding GM mustard variety.

WTO seems more concerned about protecting US trade interests rather than ensuring safe and healthy food requirements of developing countries.

India is not alone. The US is spearheading a global assault to force developing countries to open up to unwanted imports of GM crops as well as GM technology. Besides the European Union and India; Mexico, Kenya, and Indonesia are on the radar.

Such has been the continuing pressure that Mexican President Adres Manuel Lopez Obrador had in a press conference reiterated that Mexico would not import GM corn: ‘We do not want GM ... We are a free and sovereign country.’ Earlier, through a presidential decree on January 1, 2021, Mexico had announced the gradual phasing out of GM corn and also the harmful glyphosate herbicide by 2024. This is expected to hit annual exports of 17-million tonnes of GM corn from America. Two US Senators, meanwhile, have requested the US Trade Representative Katherine Tai to take the issue to dispute settlement under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to force Mexico to rescind the order.

But not every country is as determined as Mexico to resist ‘agrarian capitalism’, as author Aniket Aga, an Associate Professor at Ashoka University, calls it. In Kenya, the Cabinet Trade and Industry Secretary, Moses Kuria, shockingly admitted a few days back: ‘Being in this country you are a candidate for death. And because there are so many things competing for death, there is nothing wrong in adding GMOs to that list. That is why we have deliberately decided to allow GMOs into this country.’ And then, dutifully lifted a 10-year ban on import of GMOs, announcing duty-free import of GM corn and non-GM corn for the next six months. This announcement was quickly followed by a visit of a 32-member US trade delegation to Nairobi. The expectation being that perhaps Kenya will be able to absorb some of the GM corn supplies that US farmers are left saddled with after the Mexico ban.

In Indonesia, amid protest from farm groups, President Joko Widodo wants the country to grow GM soybean, and if necessary, import GM seeds to augment falling soybean production.

Let’s return to India. First, instead of forcing India (and also other countries) to amend the food safety laws framed under the country’s Environment Protection Act to allow for the import of unsafe and risky GM foods, why doesn’t the US set its own agriculture in order? If the US wants to grow GM crops for its own people, it’s fine. But why can’t it start growing non-GM corn, rice and apples to meet its export obligations? Why should the EU, and the developing world be forced to drop the guard against harmful GM foods and contentious crop seeds, which being largely herbicide-tolerant, end up increasing the sale of toxic herbicides? In India, after the entry of Bt cotton in 2002, cost of pesticide for cotton has increased by 37 per cent per hectare.

The WTO needs to know that some non-GM farmers in the US have already announced that they can meet Mexico’s requirement for non-GM corn. In fact, I am sure if India too stands firm on banning GM food imports from the US, it will send a strong signal to US farmers to switch over to cultivation of non-GM crops. That’s what the world needs. Moreover, why should the WTO be more concerned about protecting US trade interests rather than ensuring safe and healthy food requirements of the developing countries? Every country should have the right to say no to what it doesn’t want. This is the primary reason why the WTO is losing steam, and more and more countries are moving away into a protective shell.

Not only with GM food, the US agri-business industry, which has been slapped with billions of dollars in fines, and still faces thousands of law suits linked to its herbicides allegedly blamed for causing cancer, is desperately looking for an export market. No wonder, the questionable GM technology is getting a renewed push, including in India, Indonesia and Kenya. Take, for instance, the environmental clearance for a low-yielding GM mustard variety in India, a junk variety, which some agricultural scientists claim will meet the shortfall in domestic production of edible oils.

India currently imports nearly 55 to 60 per cent of its domestic requirement of edible oil. With imports touching 13 million tonnes or so, it has in the recent past emerged as the world’s second biggest edible oil importer. Not because we couldn’t produce enough edible oil but because of misplaced policies, drastically cutting down import tariffs to allow cheaper imports, India dismantled the Yellow Revolution that had brought the country to near self-sufficiency in 1993-94.

The low-yielding GM mustard variety — DMH-11 — carrying a set of three genes is a herbicide-tolerant crop. Against the yield potential of 2,626 kg per hectare for DMH-11, there are already five crop varieties, including DMH-4 variety with 3,012 kg per ha, yielding 14.7 per cent higher. Worst still, the GM variety has been tested against a still low-yielding variety, Varuna, to claim an increase of 25 to 30 per cent. One fails to understand why misrepresentation with false data is often required to promote GM crops.

Using the System of Mustard Intensification (SMI) production technique with available mustard varieties, Madhya Pradesh has produced a record 4,693 kg/hectare, double than what GM variety claims. A nationwide drive by agriculture scientists and officials is required to promote and expand SMI production system to rebuild Yellow Revolution.