TITLE: Transgenics: US Team meets Chief Justice of India

AUTHOR: Gargi Parsai

PUB: The Hindu (India)

DATE: January 5, 2001

A new chapter was added today to the controversy on genetic engineering, when an American delegation of 10 judges and scientists met the Chief Justice of India, Mr. Justice A.S. Anand to impress upon him -- to the judicial fraternity, the benefits of biotechnology. This was revealed here today by Dr.Franklin M. Zweig, president of Einstein Institute for Science, Health and the Courts in the United States at the Indian Science Congress here. Asked pointedly, Dr. Zweig denied that the two-hour meeting was to "influence" the judiciary, but said it was to "educate" the judge(s) about the basic principles of public information for use of courts and court systems. The delegation invited the Chief Justice to the U.S. and offered to hold for the judges of the Supreme Court and the High Court "workshops" in America for educating them about transgenics, and safety protocols in biotech research. Mr. Justice K.T. Thomas was also present at the meeting. The delegation was accompanied by Dr. Melnick, Indian-born US Scientists. The US delegation explained about its intention to work out agreements between nations to set Ethical Guidelines on genetic engineering. Similar attempts had been made by the working groups of the Institute in the Philippines, South Africa, Israel, Italy, the UK, Netherlands, and Canada. The point about "a partnership with the legal system" was picked up by other panelists and the facilitator, Dr. Manju Sharma, Secretary of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT). India is working out a protocol on biosafety to safeguard against the risks involved in transgenics and Dr. Zweig said that the US was seeking scientific information from Indian academic institutions and the DBT on this.# This moves seems to be in response to the case filed by the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE) pending before the Supreme Court of India against Monsanto, MAHYCO and the Government of India. Pre-empting this hijack, RFSTE along with mass farmers' organisations organised the People's Science Congress to highlight the genuine problems of farmers and farming in the context of seed and agriculture monopolies. The Declaration of the People's Science Congress on Food and Agriculture Growing stocks and growing hunger India's food system is in deep crisis. 50 million tonnes of food grains are rotting in the godowns while 300 million people go hungry and lakhs face starvation in Orissa, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Chattisgarh. Even in spite of the crisis of hunger, the government has announced that it would dump two million tonnes of food grain into the sea to prevent spoilage and maintain high prices. The growing food stocks do not represent either over production or lack of storage capacity, but the lack of justice and the political will to defend the food rights of millions of Indians. Systematic dismantling of food security and farmersí livelihoods The polarisation of wasted plenty while millions starve is a result of the deliberate and systematic dismantling of the national food security system and peopleís food rights by the governmentís implementation of the World Bank/IMF Structural adjustment and the WTO's free trade policies. * Cost of production are rising as globalisation of the input sector increases costs of seeds and agrochemical, privatisation increases the cost of power and irrigation, and subsidies related to agriculture are withdrawn, forcing farmers into suicide, land alienation and sale of body parts. * Commodity prices are falling under the dual impact of the withdrawal of the government from procurement and failure to guarantee minimum support prices, as well as the dumping of artificially cheap and subsidised agricultural commodities through imports and the removal of quantitative restrictions. The prices of soyabean have collapsed from Rs.1300/qtl to 700/qtl. Mustard prices have dropped from Rs.1600/qtl to Rs.1000/qtl and coconut prices have collapsed from Rs.10 to Rs.2 per coconut. Rising food prices The governmentís attempt to cut food subsidies by increasing food prices in fair price shops has led to declining off-take and declining consumption. Instead of lowering food prices for Indian consumers, the government now wants to hand over this food cheaply and increase their profit. While the price of wheat in the fair price shop is Rs.9.60, and Rs.4.60 for people below the poverty line, the government is to hand over wheat for exports at Rs.4.10. The government has also announced that to handle the crisis of growing stocks it will allow 100% FDI in storage and distribution. Science and Technology India's food security has been based on the innovations, ingenuity and the wisdom of the small farmers. This sustainable indigenous scientific tradition was the inspiration for the founding of the Indian Science Congress. The Green Revolution ignored the needs of small farmers and the imperative of sustainable development and its only thrust was short-term high monoculture yield at the cost of the destruction of soil, water and biodiversity. At the beginning of the revolution the narrow goal may have been achieved, but after a span of two decades the farm productivity reached a plateau and is now showing a decline. Without learning the lesson that non-sustainable models of farming cannot ensure food security, the government is blindly promoting genetic engineering on the false ground that this will increase food production and nutrition availability. The new agricultural policy has exclusive focus on transgenics. The Bt cotton trials were undertaken violating all concern for environmental laws and biosafety. Genetically engineered "golden rice" is being promoted as a cure for vitamin A deficiency and blindness even though it is inadequate in meeting the vitamin A needs. Meantime, easily available, cheap and rich sources of vitamin A in our indigenous fruits and vegetables are being destroyed through the use of agrochemical, such as Monsantoís Roundup and the spread of commercial monocultures. The introduction of herbicide resistant Roundup Ready crops will make the situation worse. Resource alienation and commodification of common resources The incomplete agenda of land reforms is being reversed through introduction of land leasing and Corporate take over of land, as well as amendments in land acquisition laws. Indebtedness is also leading to large-scale land alienation and dispossession. The Ministry of Mines is seeking to remove all restrictions on the transfer of tribal and government lands in the schedule areas. Further Land Acquisition Act of the 1894 (amended in 1984) is further proposed to be amended for faster and smoother acquisition of land by private companies without properly resettling and rehabilitating the affected population. The privatisation of water resources and power is also transferring water rights from farmers to corporations. New intellectual property rights regimes are threatening to turn seed into corporate property and farmers into bioserfs. Globalisation and the marginalisation of the farmer The globalisation policies being blindly rushed into by government are part of a perverted paradigm that sees India only as a market for MNC products, and Indians only as consumers, and is blind to the millions of efficient small producers who have maintained Indiaís food security. These policies of trade liberalisation are creating massive rural unemployment leading to poverty and a total collapse of purchasing power. There has been a drastic decline in the number of cultivators while there has been a corresponding increase in the number of agricultural labourers. The marginal and displaced farmers and farm workers are thus being denied their fundamental right to food and livelihood guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. The government has already announced the privatisation of grain procurement. Food distribution will therefore be driven by profits and not by peoples rights to food and livelihood. Our Demands Farmers are the best agricultural scientists especially for their own farm. Scientist make their best contributions when the support farmers and build the farmers knowledge. Instead anti farmer science/ technology is being thrust upon the farmers of India. Science should be developed for the people and not vice-versa. Further science developed over the years by the farmers need to be honoured. The science that need to be developed should be aimed at more efficient resource use and not on farmers displacement. This resource depleting and livelihood-destroying paradigm of technology will and is resulting in mass unemployment, growing poverty and hunger. People's Science Congress therefore demands: * Food and agriculture must be squarely excluded from the WTO agenda. * The present Agriculture Policy, which is aimed at corporate takeover of Indian agriculture, reversing of land reforms and introduction of hazardous technologies like GMOs, must be scrapped, and must be replaced with a small and marginal farmer-centred agricultural policy. * Government must take the responsibility to guarantee procurement at minimum support price. Adequate budgetary provisions must be made for intervention in unjust and unfair markets to ensure minimum support price to farmers. * The government must stop unregulated imports, reintroduce QRs in farm commodities, and maintain them in others, in-act anti-dumping law and use both tariff and non-tariff protection for maintaining domestic food security and farmersí livelihood. * Wherever farmers are subjected to payment of compound interest rates, that practice must be strongly opposed. * The government must ensure social security systems for tribals, farmers and farm workers. * Disaster relief entitlements have to be identified and managed directly by Gram Sabha. This must be statutorily guaranteed. * The government should immediately lower the price of food in fair price shops. No exports of food grain should be subsidised to prices lower than its cost to the Indian consumer. * The PDS system must be strengthened through transparency and public accountability as well as public participation in procurement and distribution of all commodities. The PDS system must reflect the food diversity and crop diversity of the country. * The government should promote and strengthen cooperative and community storage systems in rural areas to ensure local food security. * The government should institute systems implementation to ensure peopleís food rights through schemes such as food-for-work employment guarantee schemes, which also build infrastructure that enhances ecological security and food security and provides public services. * The food and agriculture policy must be based on the efficiency and collective and cumulative wisdom of the Indian farmers. * The untested and inefficient genetic engineering technologies should not be rushed to the market place, either as seed or as food. * The violent and forcible collection of debts, which is forcing farmers into suicides and land alienation through auction and distress sale of land and property, must be immediately stopped. * The privatisation of water should be immediately stopped and all agreements related to this should be immediately nullified. * Seed business is farmersí business. Farmers' rights to seeds must be defended at all costs. There should be no monopoly in seed sector either through patents or plant breedersí rights. Indian farmers cannot be criminalised for seed saving and seed exchange. END top