Why do we need GM crops?

Gilles-Eric Serilani  is a professor at the University of Caen in Normandy in France. Two years back, in 2012, he published a research paper that created a scientific uproar across the globe. In this landmark study, he fed rats for two years, which is the normal lifespan of rats, with genetically modified corn treated with a popular weed killer Roundup. The result was shocking. These rats developed mammary tumours, much bigger in size than what we normally see, and also liver and kidney diseases.

This was the first time a study had been conducted on rats for their full lifespan, which corresponds to about 80 years in human life. Normally, scientific feeding trials are conducted for 90 days, like in India, which corresponds to about 20 years of human life.

The path-breaking study was vociferously contested by pro-GM scientists. All kinds of charges were framed against Dr Seralini so much so that he was even accused of tampering with the results. This study was subsequently withdrawn by the scientific journal which first published it. But the catch here is that it was retracted only after a Monsanto person joined the top editorial team. Nevertheless, the study has since then been republished by another scientific journal Environment Science Europe.

At a time when studies now show that the harmful impact of chemical pesticides are passed on from generation to generation, I have never understood how could the regulatory bodies feel satisfied with feeding trials lasting for only 90 days in rats, which means about 20 years in a human life. A more recent study now tells us that your kidney problem can be related to the pesticide exposure your grandmother had. 

In a study: https://news.wsu.edu/2014/07/24/pesticide-linked-to-three-generations-of-disease/#.U-C5lKOJWRM researchers say ancestral exposures to the pesticide methoxychlor may lead to adult onset kidney disease, ovarian disease and obesity in future generations. Michael Skinner, Washington State Uinversity professor and founder of the Center for Reproductive Biology at the University, and his colleagues document their findings in a paper published online in PLOS ONE (http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102091). The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

If this is true with pesticides, shouldn’t longer feeding trials be held in case of GM crops to be doubly sure? Why are the scientists therefore in a hurry to push GM crops to unsuspecting populations?

The argument that I hear in the print media and TV channels is that if we don’t allow GM crop field trails how will we know of the performance of these crops? But what is not being told is that all across the globe it is through field trails that GM contamination has spread in the wild. GM plants carry an alien gene that can escape into nature by wind or by cross-pollination. In America, because of the GM contamination ‘super weeds’ have erupted in 100 million acres requiring more potent chemicals to kill these weeds. ‘Super weeds’ become resistant to all kinds of chemicals and often require hand weeding.

Shouldn’t India therefore first conduct long-term feeding trials of GM seeds before these are tested in crop fields? No one is against scientific testing, but considering that GM genes escape into nature and also in the absence of tight regulatory control, the GM crops do get mixed up and get into the food chain, why can’t Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar first direct the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), the nodal inter-ministerial body that approved the GM crops for cultivation, to conduct long-term trials to know the impact on human beings. After all, in a country where combating disease and health disorders remains a challenge why add on to the prevailing crisis?

But the moment you bring up the question of the need for long-term impact on human health, you will find a chorus that is often repeated ad nauseam is that the Americans have been eating GM foods for almost 20 years now and there have been no fatalities. What is however not being told is that since the GM industry does not allow human clinical trials to be conducted how will we ever get to know the health impacts of GM foods. So far there has been only one human clinical trial in which GM created problems for lab rats. After that the GM industry has ensured that no human clinical trials are conducted.

Ever since the first GM crop – a GM tomato – was introduced in the United States in 1994, there has been a remarkable spurt in diseases. There is a 400 per cent increase in allergies; 300 per cent increase in asthma; 1500 per cent increase in autism to name a few diseases. I have been often saying that the US is the sickest nation among the developed countries. There is certainly no evidence of a direct link, but also there is also no evidence that this may not be linked somehow.

And finally, let us look at one of the tall claims of the GM industry. These crops were supposed to reduce the use of chemical pesticides and thereby make environment much cleaner. Washington State University researcher Charles Benbrook has shown that between 1996 and 2011, farmers in US are applying an additional 400 million pounds of pesticides. In 2012, on an average 20 per cent more pesticides were applied by GM farmers as compared to farmers not growing GM crops.

In Latin America, Brazil and Argentina are two major cultivators of GM crops. In Argentina, the application of chemical pesticides has risen from 34 million litres in the mid-1990s when the GM soybean crops were first introduced to more than 317 million litres in 2012, roughly a ten times increase. On an average, Argentine farmers use twice the quantity of pesticides per acre than their American counterparts. In Brazil, which has recently taken over Argentina as far as the spread of GM crops is concerned, pesticides use has gone up by 190 per cent in the past decade. 

In China, which has been promoted as a silver-bullet case, the bubble burst when a 2006 joint study conducted by Cornell University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences showed that  seven years after the introduction of Bt cotton, Chinese farmers were spraying 20 times more pesticides to control pests. Why then do we need GM crops, especially when they don’t even produce more than the existing crop varieties. According to US Department of Agriculture, crop yields of GM soya and corn are lower than the non-GM crop varieties. # (Some portions of this article have appeared elsewhere also)

The Hindi version of this article appeared in Nai Dunia, Aug 5, 2014. 

किसे है जीएम फसलों की जरूरत?

http://naidunia.jagran.com/editorial/expert-comment-who-needs-gm-crops-155245

Also, in Orissa Post, Aug 7, 2014.
No need to rush for GM crops
http://www.orissapost.com/epaper/070814/p8.htm

After China, it is now the turn of India. Bt cotton 'silver bullet' bites the dust.

As Prof Glenn Davis Stone points in his blog post, Indian farmers are responsible for not turning the Bt cotton tide in favour of Mahyco-Monsanto. They don't know how to adapt to the GM technology. 

The Bt cotton controversy refuses to die down. Before Bt cotton was introduced in India, in 2004, we were flashed with the China story. China had an upstart and had already brought in some 5 million farmers to cultivate Bt cotton, we were told. The genetically modified cotton was projected as a 'silver bullet' for the Chinese small cotton producers, and so how could India afford to miss the technological revolution?

India did bite into the bullet. The media strategy to show how China was racing ahead of India certainly paid dividends. The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (as it was then called) gave a green nod for commercialisation of Bt cotton, in 2004. In fact, GEAC was ready to allow the entry of Bt cotton in India's cotton field even a year earlier in 2003, if it was not for the opposition by a few of us who challenged the scientific data. Nevertheless, the approval came.

It has been roughly eight years since Bt cotton was introduced, and we are repeatedly bombarded by industry drones of how successful the introduction has been for the farmers as well as the country. But surprisingly, if you noticed, the Chinese success story has disappeared from the headlines. If Bt cotton in China was a classic case of a 'silver bullet' before 2004, there should have been an unprecedented boom in cotton production in China. By now, considering all the promises made in increasing 'productivity', China should have emerged as the global supplier of cotton. On the contrary, no one talks of China's foray into GM cotton anymore. There must be some reasons.

In 2006, a study conducted by Cornell University along with the Chinese Academy of Sciences showed that after seven years of introduction Chinese farmers had to undertake 20 times more pesticides sprays to control pests. "The study -- the first to look at the longer-term economic impact of Bt cotton -- found that by year three, farmers in the survey who had planted Bt cotton cut pesticide use by more than 70 percent and had earnings 36 percent higher than farmers planting conventional cotton. By 2004, however, they had to spray just as much as conventional farmers, which resulted in a net average income of 8 percent less than conventional cotton farmers because Bt seed is triple the cost of conventional seed." (Joint study shows genetically modified cotton less profitable in China, People's Daily, July 26, 2006. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200607/26/eng20060726_286925.html). 

The magic bullet had bitten the dust in China.

In India, the Corporate media kept the story alive. Every now and then I find edit page articles being published detailing the promises of GM crops. More often than not these are based on wrong facts. If this is not enough, GM industry ensures that it packs a few 'participants' in every conference/seminar organised by the civil society or farmer organisations. Recently while I was speaking at the Indian Merchant's Chambers in Mumbai, two farmers -- one from Rajasthan, and another from Warangal in Andhra Pradesh -- got up to say how successful the technology has been for the farmers. Incidentally, both farmers happened to be passing through the city when they heard of the conference !

Returning back to the Bt cotton controversy, I draw your attention to an excellent (and provocative) analysis by Prof Glenn Davis Stone of the University of Washington. In a blog post entitled: GM cotton failing in India; blame the farmers! (See the link: bit.ly/Y1lKc0 ), he writes: If you follow GMO debates you will have heard several years of kennel barking about how these figures show a remarkable success." But as I have pointed out (in my blog and in EPW), most of the rise in productivity had nothing to with Bt cotton; in fact it happened before Bt cotton became popular. 

He then goes on to explain. "Check it out: the biggest rises were from 2002/3 to 2004/5, when yields rose 56 per cent from 302 to n470 kg. But by 2004/5, only 5.6 per cent of India's cotton farmers had adopted Bt. Do the math: if those 5.6 per cent of planters were really responsible for a 56 per cent rise in yields, then they must have been harvesting 3,288 kg/hectare."

This incisive analysis by Prof Stone is what I would like the business journalists to read. For the policy planners and politicians, who are habitual in having faith in foreign writings (in addition to policy approaches), let me tell you that this analysis too comes from an American anthropologist. I am sure your faith will not be diluted or corrupted.

Dr K R Kranti, director of the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR), the institute that monitors cotton cultivation in India, has said: "No significant yield advantage has been observed between 2004-2011 when area under Bt cotton increased from 5.4 to 96 per cent." Shouldn't this statement alone put the entire controversy at rest? Why is that the GM industry and its drum beaters continue to rake false facts again and again to mislead the nation? Well, it is the powerful stakes involved that gains more when more confusion is created.    

Whatever be the reasons, I think it is important to rest the controversy on Bt cotton once for all. Let the cotton farmer emerge out of this deadly trap, and lead a decent life. Spare the thought for him. #

See also, Dr K R Kranti's paper:
http://www.cotton247.com/news/?storyid=2160 (part I)
http://cotton247.com/news/ci/?storyid=2159 (part II)
http://cotton247.com/news/?storyid=2171 (part III)