Debate on GMOs Luxury to Developing World

By Elen Eubanks

Food is at the bottom of the pyramid of human needs according to Maslow’s hierarchy, yet global hunger is extremely prevalent in developing nations and contributes significantly towards mortality and morbidity. Starving children in Africa seems especially ironic when compared with the obvious trend in child obesity and eating disorders in the United States. However, developed nations have the luxury of free time that nourishes innovations, and collaborative efforts between these countries are mandatory to find quick yet enduring solutions to solve hunger crises.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are currently a heated topic among both scientists and politicians, but for the inhabitants of the sub-Saharan Africa, this rhetoric is completely irrelevant. Impoverished countries are given the best opportunity if sustainable agricultural methods are introduced, but naturally there are a variety factors that cause impediments to progress. Perhaps one of the most viable concerns with the utilization of genetically modified (GM) food crops is the chance that the transgenic organisms may cross-hybridize with neighboring farms or with the natural vegetation. Plants are often quite amenable to crossing with even distantly related species; therefore this would be one of the most important considerations in growing GMO’s.

There are a variety of proposed methods for addressing the problem of cross-hybridization, but one that is both feasible as well as controversial is through the use of terminator technology. Terminator technology involves the use of modern recombinant DNA techniques to produce seeds that are only able to grow a single season. Transgenic plants would be sterile upon maturity while still maintaining the same nutritional content. Three genes are incorporated into the plant genome to produce this result: a gene that encodes the tetracycline repressor, a recombinase protein gene, and a gene which is turned on in late embryogenesis that leads to sterility. These genetic manipulations are relatively basic and widely employed in the field of molecular biology. Therefore, while the fear may be that terminators place too much power in the hands of the distributor, competition from industrialized economies would keep prices low and provide incentive for high quality products. Through the use of terminator technologies in combination with crops bearing other genetic enhancements, available land and resources could be efficiently put to use for human consumption while also protecting the surrounding vegetation.

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Control of Bt Cotton Seed Price by the Government of Andhra Pradesh, India

By Dr. C Kameswara Rao
FBAE Biotech Blog
June 30, 2007

The Government of the State of Andhra Pradesh (AP) is issuing an Ordinance restricting the maximum sale price of 400 g of Bt cotton seed required for an acre to Rs. 750. The package also includes 50 g of non-Bt cotton seed to plant the refugium. This Ordinance is being bought in to ostensibly protect the farmer, after the Central Government removed cotton from the protected list of essential commodities.

The Ordinance applies to the whole State, but the focus is on the Warangal District, the fountain head of all anti-GE activism. In the climate of appeasement politics, the State Government gains some brownie points from the Ordinance, but in effect this does not help the farmer much. The AP Government should be doing several other things for the benefit of the farmers. More….

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Bt Cotton in Warangal district, Andhra Pradesh, India: The farmers’ story

By C Kameswara Rao
Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education
May 24, 2007

We met about 20 Bt cotton growing farmers from different villages such as Kadipikonda (Hanumakonda Mandal), Kapulakanaparthi (Sangyem Mandal), Dharmaram (Beejakonda Mandal), Uggonipalli and Ustarapalli (both in Atmakur Mandal), and Yellampalli (Chityala Mandal) in the Warangal District. Three or four farmers we met have abandoned their non-Bt crop in the face of very severe pest infestation, though this was a low-pest pressure year. Rain fed crop allows only two pickings while the irrigated crop provides for at least three pickings. The acreage of each farmer varied from one to five, though a few cultivate 10 acres or more. Not being properly guided and not being sure of what to choose, in the face of several Bt varieties, the farmers planted a different variety on each acre, in the hope of choosing the best for the next year.

Almost no one planted a refugium. Three pesticide sprays being the norm, one did not spray any pesticide at all, while one sprayed eight times in an anxiety to ‘provide greater protection to the crop’. Untimely rain damaged the crop in several places in the District. There were problems of germination, some varieties were susceptible to virus disease or the grey mildew and there was a higher incidence of jassid and white fly in some areas. They expect an income of Rs. 6,000 (rain fed) to 10,000 (irrigated) per acre and seemed satisfied with it. Some farmers are cultivating even the illegal Bt bought in Maharashtra in the hope of realizing an unrealistically high yield of up to 15 quintals. Farmers do not believe that sheep died out of eating Bt cotton and asserted that no farmer committed suicide on account of Bt cotton.

One farmer owning 12 acres grows cotton on eight acres. On three acres, he is growing Bollgard II (the two gene stacked BGII). He bought the seed in Nanded, Maharashtra, as BGII was not approved for AP and is very happy with this variety. On one acre he is growing Bt cotton variety Brahma, and on another MECH 12, both of which also were not approved for AP.

The farmers have no thought of crop rotation and intercropping that would have reduced pest damage, as they hope to earn more from continuous cotton cropping.

One serious complaint was that the banks which advanced crop loans deducted some amount as insurance premium but did not pay compensation for crop losses, an unfair practice. Another complaint was that some dealers mislead farmers by telling that their Bt seed does not need any pesticide spray.

We have also visited the Yaenabaavi village, widely publicized for its management of agriculture without chemical inputs and without Bt cotton, discussed on this blog earlier (January 25, 2007).

The Bottom Line
There have been certain instances of suboptimal performance of Bt cotton in the Warangal District and elsewhere. The causes for this lie not in the Bt technology per se, but in management. All the important players such as the Government (not controlling illegal and spurious seed and no seed certification policy), Bt event developers (not choosing appropriate varieties for specific regions), the seed dealers (insufficient post-sale guidance and crop monitoring), and the farmers (cutting edges and not adopting appropriate cultivation practices), have contributed to certain deficiencies in the crop outcome. The NGOs play on these problems of management and project an over blown picture of Bt cotton disaster to the world. What the farmer ultimately earns depends not on just the crop yield but on the market forces on the day of sale of cotton. The Government should ensure that the farmer gets a fair price which necessitates the elimination of middlemen.

In the semi-arid Telengana region and similar areas, the most important negative factor is growing cotton in red soil and that too as a rain fed crop. This is in spite of the advice of the AP Department of Agriculture which had cautioned against the practice a long time ago, particularly in areas where the annual rain fall was less than 60 cm and not distributed uniformly during the crop season. There is a very striking difference between Bt cotton grown as a rain fed and irrigated crop, as between Bt and non-Bt crop. Whatever the enthusiasm of the farmer, cotton cannot be grown profitably everywhere.

Compulsory registration of Bt seed developers and their seed plots, permitting the sale of only authentic Bt cotton seed exclusively through Government recognized outlets and providing for adequate and appropriate farmer education would immensely improve the situation.

In the ideological and political campaign against Bt cotton, truth and facts are the prime casualties and the ultimate sufferer is the farmer, for whose benefit every one claims to be working.

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Bt cotton in Warangal district, Andra Pradesh, India: The perception of the establishment

By C Kameswara Rao
Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education

At Hyderabad, we visited the Andhra Pradesh State Seed Certification Agency. We met with Scientific Officers of the Warangal Research Station of the Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University of AP., the Officers at the District Office of the Government Department of Agriculture, Warangal and the dealers of Seeds and Pesticides, Warangal.

1. Andhra Pradesh State Seed Certification Agency, Hyderabad

The Seed Certification Agency of the Government of AP is totally out of the picture as Bt cotton seed was not officially notified. Certification of any seed is voluntary and no one applied for certification of Bt cotton seed. While there are facilities with the Agency for testing genetic purity including the Bt event, most of the time seed certification is confined to seed viability and germination studies. Only six to eight parental lines, some imported from Russia and Cambodia, seem to be involved in the production of over 200 cotton hybrids in the country. With no information on the pedigree of most of these varieties, there appears to be some confusion in understanding and distinguishing varieties and hybrids.

2. Scientific Officers of the Agricultural Research Station, of the Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University of AP, at Warangal

The Scientific Officers of the Agricultural Research Station, ANGRAU at Warangal, informed us that public institutions did not go all out to recommend Bt cotton, nor spoke against it, as they do not wish to get involved in any kind of public controversy. In addition, the level of understanding of transgenic technology, even among the agricultural scientists, is often far from desirable.

Officers know that most farmers, not being sure of any, used two or three different Bt varieties. Generally, refugium was not planted as farmers do not want to lose that much of the crop and also because there is a considerable area under non-Bt around the Bt cotton fields, which they inappropriately considered as the refugium. Since 2006-07 was a low pest pressure year, chemical inputs on Bt crop were considerably lower than even the previous year. In the Warangal district, cotton was recently afflicted with a) the black arm bacterial disease, b) grey mildew and c) the tobacco streak virus, rarely known in earlier years. A soil borne root rot disease affected not just cotton, but also maize, red gram and chillies. The Scientists do not relate any of these diseases to the Bt gene.

3. Warangal District Office of the Department of Agriculture

The Officers of the District Agricultural Office (DAO), Warangal, told us that the seed sellers inform them about the Bt seed varieties being marketed. One Joint Director and four Deputy Directors monitor cultivation. The DAO confirmed that for the past two years 95 per cent of cotton in the Warangal District was Bt and that chemical pesticide application came down by over 50 per cent. The yield averaged eight quintals per acre of Bt while it was two to three quintals from non-Bt varieties.

The DAO does not consider that sheep death can be attributed to Bt cotton as sheep used to die even before, may be due to pesticides.

A local agriculture correspondent of a vernacular daily also told us that he does not believe that the Bt crop failed or sheep die due to foraging on Bt cotton stubble.

The DAO has records of payment of compensation on claims of cotton crop failure to the tune of Rs. 3.27 crore, at the rate of Rs. 1,400 per acre, during the past couple of years, of which the Excel Company alone paid Rs. 2.5 crore. With such a big incentive, most of the protests appear to be orchestrated and even those farmers, who did not suffer crop losses, either willingly or under pressure claimed compensation or got it.

In the Warangal field trials of several varieties of BGI and BGII (with two Bt genes) are going on with appropriate check varieties.

4. Seed and Pesticide Dealers

We met about a dozen Seed and Pesticide Dealers on the Station Road in Warangal. Bt cotton seed required for one acre, was sold at Rs. 750. Farmers have preference to certain Bt cotton varieties.

During the 2006-07 crop season chemical pesticide sales were down by 60 per cent, to about Rs. 3 crore from Rs. 7 to 8 crore. The health of the farm workers has certainly improved on account of reduced exposure to chemicals.

The dealers are not averse to regulated development and sale of Bt cotton seed to eliminate black market, which is dominated by the fly-by-night operators.

The dealers do not consider that sheep died on eating Bt cotton stubble. They are also certain that no farmer committed suicide on account of Bt cotton.

The Scientists of ANGRAU and the Officers of the DAO are very much concerned with the problems the farmers face. They certainly know what should be done to help the farmers in maximizing the benefits out of cultivation of Bt cotton. However, NGO backed controversies and political complications at the State Governmental level, deter them from participating actively.

The co-operation of the Seed and Pesticide dealers is the key factor in ensuring that only authentic seed is available to the farmers.

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Bt cotton in Warangal District, Andhira Pradesh, India: The NGO charge sheet

By C Kameswara Rao
Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education
May 24, 2007

Lately, the Warangal District, in the semi-arid Telengana region of the State of Andhra Pradesh (AP), India, has become the epicenter of everything going bad in the cultivation of Bt cotton. Reports of phenomenal failure of Bt cotton, farmer distress, death of sheep, death of cattle and alleged farmer suicides have show cased the Warangal District as an example of all that could go wrong with modern agriculture. Anti-tech activism has extrapolated all this to the other parts, in and out of AP, such as Vidharbha region of Maharashtra. A rational and scientific assessment does not support such an intensely negative outcome from Bt cotton cultivation. To assess the ground realities first hand, Professor Ronald Herring, Cornell University, Ithaca, Dr S Shantharam, Biologistics International, of USA, and I, have visited the Warangal District for about a week in the middle of December 2006.

Before going to Warangal, we visited the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), Hyderabad/ Secunderabad and the Andhra Pradesh State Seed Certification Agency, Hyderabad, for a first hand assessment of opinions and reports.

Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA)

The CSA are the main anti-Bt cotton activists in AP. The two functionaries of CSA we met raised the following issues against Bt cotton:

a) Economical and technical features not up to the mark: What is the mark and whose mark? There is certainly no serious deficiency in basic technical features and performance of Bt cotton. Achieving maximum economic benefits from a crop’s potential depends upon several local factors, such as the soil type, irrigation facility, weather conditions in a particular season that influence pest pressure, and the awareness of the farmer in adopting appropriate cultivation practices. There has been a phenomenal increase in the acreage under Bt cotton, year after year, even in Warangal District. The Bt cotton acreage increased from 2.27 lakh in 2005 to 8.30 lakh in 2006 in the AP, from 6.23 to 18.40 in Maharashtra, and from 1.27 million to 3.8 million in the country, during the same period. The horror stories of failure of Bt cotton in AP and Maharashtra do not reconcile with statistics from diverse sources.

b) Promises on reduction of pesticide use, yield increase and higher profit not realized: No evidence was offered other than perceptions and opinions. This is contrary to all reports, and feed back from the farmers, which indicate that Bt cotton, did substantially reduce pesticide use, increased yield by preventing loss due to bollworm, which enhanced profits, all reflected in the increase of acreage.

c) There was no environmental and socio-economic impact assessment: Studies prior to commercialization in India and elsewhere for over a decade, have not indicated any adverse environmental impact. The socio-economic impact is rooted in a tension free cultivation and higher financial returns, which were realized by the farmers to a great extent, when the cultivation conditions and practices were right and the expectations were not unrealistic. If the farmers from any part of the country suffer losses, they would immediately dump any technology and this has not happened.

d) Spurious seed in authentic packaging: This is a serious problem of marketing throughout the country. Some greedy farmers and unscrupulous dealers have sustained a vast market for illegal and/or spurious Bt cotton seeds, which has affected all others. Scientists of the Agricultural Research Station (ARS), of the Acharya NG. Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU, Hyderabad), at Warangal, also expressed concern over this issue. The Governments in different States have taken remedial measures, but there was some laxity on account of political compulsions.

e) No authentic information on cultivation practices: This is partly true, as the seed dealers did not always provide adequate and appropriate post-sale monitoring and guidance in most places. There were mistakes in choosing the Bt varieties suitable for a particular area. A large proportion of the farmers did not plant refugia, which should have been enforced. The Officers of the ARS, ANGRAU at Warangal, also feel that the farmers need regular guidance on the choice of seed varieties and on crop cultivation methods.

f) No studies on the efficacy of Bt technology in controlling bollworm: This is totally baseless. Bt cotton was mainly developed to control bollworm and its efficacy has been demonstrated all over the world and so in India too.

g) All India coordinated field trials only on agronomical parameters: Not true again. The mandatory all India coordinated trials were conducted by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. Both agronomical parameters and biosafety issues were evaluated during different field trials, which were accepted by the Review Committee for Genetic Modification (RCGM), before recommending to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) for commercialization.

h) Andhra Pradesh has neither State nor the District Committees mandatory under the regulatory regime of GE crops: This is an administrative lapse, though AP is not alone in this. Cultivating any genetically engineered crop without these committees to oversee and monitor is highly irregular. Nevertheless, it is hard to form scientifically competent committees at the State and District levels. It seems necessary to review the purpose, need and practicability of such committees.

i) Death of sheep: At the time of our discussion, death of sheep was the major issue and the number of dead sheep mentioned was 120, but not in thousands. The death of goats and cattle on account of consuming Bt cotton leaves, and farmer suicides on account of cultivating Bt cotton, was not yet made an issue. The death of cattle in the Warangal District was discussed on this blog earlier (March 14, 2007). However, like Professor Herring, one would be amazed to note that the number of both dead cows and dead sheep became 1600, which also seems to be the number of dead cows mentioned on a poster in Delhi, in a different context.

j) The undercurrent: The strongest undercurrent behind the tirade against Bt cotton is the anti-Monsanto campaign. The NGOs have a tongue-in-cheek admiration for the performance of Navabharath’s illegal Bt cotton, which contained the stolen Monsanto’s Cry 1Ac gene. Almost every other Bt cotton variety contains the same sublicensed gene. If Monsanto’s Cry 1Ac dominates the Indian Bt cotton scene, the fault lies more with the public sector which has not yet released any of the promised Bt cotton varieties.

There is a certain element of truth and genuineness of concern in what the NGOs say, but distortion of facts, exaggeration of problems and scaremongering ruin their case. The anti-tech activists are stretching them too far from science to pursue their political agenda of ‘GM-Free India’, and in the process are throwing the baby out with the bath water.

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