THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE
Dear Friends and Colleagues
India’s Swaminathan Criticises GM Crops as Highly Unsustainable
M.S. Swaminathan is known as the "Father of the Green Revolution in India". Although the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation has promoted GM crops since the early 2000s, in a newly published peer-reviewed paper he co-authored with P.C. Kesavan, Swaminathan criticises GM crops as unsustainable and questions their safety and regulation.
The authors state that none of the new agricultural technologies, including the Green Revolution, has been truly sustainable largely because of their adverse environmental and social impacts. They conclude that Bt and herbicide-tolerant crops are highly unsustainable. The authors state that Bt cotton has failed in India as a sustainable agriculture technology, failing to provide livelihood security for poor cotton farmers.
The authors draw attention to the "rising health concerns associated with Bt-crops", as well as evidence pointing to the conclusion that "Bt toxins are toxic to all the organisms, including mammals". They state that the Indian government was right to place a moratorium on Bt brinjal (eggplant) and call for a ban on Bt crops (except Bt cotton) in the country.
The paper is highly critical of India’s GMO regulators for endemic conflicts of interest, lack of expertise in GMO risk assessment protocols, including food safety assessment, the assessment of their environmental impacts, the lack of ‘need’ for expensive transgenic technology, and the lack of a socio-economic assessment of their farming impacts on small farmers.
The authors call for independent, rigorous oversight of GM crops, without any conflict of interest; persons of proven competence in genetic toxicology and safety analyses, able economists who will prioritize rural livelihoods and the interests of resource-poor small and marginal farmers rather than serve corporate interests and their profits; and ecologists of high competence and dedication to biodiversity conservation. They stress that scientific integrity and social responsibility are not negotiable.
The paper has sparked furious pushback from some Indian scientists. In response (see https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/12/under-fire-gm-crops-article-iconic-indian-scientist-clarifies-his-views), Swaminathan says what he wants readers to focus on is that scientists should think critically about new technologies and how their deployment will affect users. “The bottom line is the welfare of the farmers and the welfare of the consumers,” he says.
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Item 1
MODERN TECHNOLOGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY
P. C. Kesavan* and M. S. Swaminathan
Current Science 115(10)
25 November 2018
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/115/10/1876.pdf
Abstract
In the hierarchy of human needs, food is absolutely the most basic. As the human population was increasing at an accelerated rate with concomitant depletion of natural resources during the 18th century, Malthus was greatly concerned about the sustainability of food availability. Despite the fact that the human population has been burgeoning, a total collapse in food supply has not yet happened. This is because of new technologies emerging from time to time to boost agricultural productivity and preventing the onset of the Malthusian scourge. However, none of these technologies, including the Green Revolution of the 1960s, has been truly sustainable largely because of their adverse environmental and social impacts. It is expected that the Evergreen Revolution which eliminates the negative attributes of the Green Revolution would be more sustainable. Critical evaluation of the most modern technology, modern biotechnology, reveals that the Bt- and herbicide-tolerant-crops are highly unsustainable. In addition to causing environmental harm, these crops exhibit genotoxic effects. The original objective of reducing the need for application of chemical pesticides has also not been realized. There is need for basic research to understand the causes of ‘unintended effects’ associated with genetically engineered crops. It will be prudent to adhere to the recommendations of the Task Force on Agricultural Biotechnology, Government of India (2004) in the development and regulation of genetically engineered crops. These aspects are briefly discussed in this article.
Item 2
"FATHER OF GREEN REVOLUTION IN INDIA" SLAMS GM CROPS AS UNSUSTAINABLE AND UNSAFE
GM Watch
29 Nov 2018
https://gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/18623
The plant geneticist and World Food Prize winner M.S. Swaminathan is known as the "father of the Green Revolution in India", since he helped introduce into the country a new US-influenced agricultural movement focusing on modern high-yield varieties of wheat and rice – and their accompanying pesticides and fertilizers.
Since 1988 he has headed his own M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) in Chennai, India. In the early 2000s the Foundation saw GM crops, and biotechnology in general, not only as having immense potential but as "the only way we can face the challenges of the future". Given Dr Swaminathan’s role in the first Green Revolution in India, his promotion of GM crops was inevitably promoted as an ushering-in of a second Green Revolution.
And in 2009 Dr Swaminathan published an article in which he said that no scientific evidence had emerged from the ten years of commercialisation of GM crops to show any of the concerns about them were justified. He also said that all GM crops were subjected to stringent regulatory scrutiny and that India would soon "have in place a very effective, independent, credible, regulatory authority to ensure the safe release of GM products”.
But Swaminathan’s promotion of GM crops has also been increasingly marked at times by important caveats, reflecting a concern for sustainability, biosafety, and the impact of agricultural innovations on the rural poor. And those concerns would seem to underpin a remarkable newly published peer-reviewed paper that he co-authored with his colleague P.C. Kesavan, in which he condemns GM crops as unsustainable and says they should be banned in India. He is also severely critical of the performance of India’s regulators.
The uncompromising nature of his new publication marks his clearest departure yet from his previous broad endorsement of GM crops, and looks set to place him in the substantial line of scientific former-GMO-supporters-turned-critics, such as Dr Caius Rommens, Dr Belinda Martineau, and Dr Arpad Pusztai.
"No doubt" that GM Bt cotton has failed
On GM Bt insecticidal cotton in India, Drs Swaminathan and Kesavan write: "There is no doubt that GE Bt-cotton has failed in India: it has failed as a sustainable agriculture technology and has therefore also failed to provide livelihood security of cotton farmers who are mainly resource-poor, small and marginal farmers.
"That a plea has recently been made to Bt-cotton farmers to adopt the time-honoured traditional integrated pest management (IPM) system to sustain Bollgard II cotton points to the relative effectiveness of a traditional vis-Ã -vis modern technology. It is unethical to ask farmers to first adopt the highly expensive technology of Bt-cotton and when it subsequently failed, to then introduce an inexpensive traditional technology to protect Bollgard II cotton. Both Bt- and herbicide-tolerant (HT) crops are now proven to be unsustainable agricultural technologies. They have not decreased the need for toxic chemical pesticides, which was the reason for them in the first place."
Health concerns
In their paper, Drs Swaminathan and Kesavan recall that the Technical Expert Committee (TEC) appointed by the Supreme Court of India in a case brought by environmental campaigner Aruna Rodrigues recommended a total ban on GM herbicide-tolerant crops. Dr Swaminathan and Dr Kesavan, who was one of the experts appointed to the TEC, also draw attention to the "rising health concerns associated with Bt-crops", as well as evidence pointing to the conclusion that "Bt toxins are toxic to all the organisms, including mammals". Due to these factors, they demand that the recommended indefinite moratorium of the TEC in its final report on Bt crops must "translate into a ban" on Bt crops as well.
Although Drs Swaminathan and Kesavan exempt Bt cotton from this demand for a ban, they state that the Indian government was right to place a moratorium on Bt brinjal (eggplant). They note that when the biosafety dossiers on Bt brinjal were forced into the public domain by the Supreme Court, the court-appointed TEC "found several deficiencies in design, collection of data and their interpretations, and also noted that the important studies were not done".
The authors note some examples from history of unintended health effects from genetic engineering. These include Calgene’s Flavr Savr tomato, which was found to cause stomach lesions in experimental rats, and the L-tryptophan scandal, in which a food supplement manufactured using GM bacteria killed 37 Americans and sickened 1500 more.
They ask the rhetorical question of how GMOs can be claimed to be safe to eat when they are not even labelled in the US and thus any resulting harm cannot be traced back to the consumption of any GM food.
Herbicide dangers
Drs Swaminathan and Kesavan cite scientific evidence that the glyphosate-based herbicides, used on most GM crops, and their active ingredient glyphosate have been found to be genotoxic, teratogenic (causing birth defects), and carcinogenic. They also mention the recent court case in the US in which a jury awarded groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson USD 289 million in damages (subsequently reduced to USD 78 million by the judge) against Monsanto after finding that the company’s glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup could have caused his cancer and that the company had covered up the risks.
They state that the GM mustard tolerant to glufosinate herbicide that has been submitted to Indian regulators for commercialisation "must be banned", since "genotoxic glufosinate is at least as hazardous as glyphosate".
They also reference a study showing that the yield of GM crops in general has been shown to be no better than that of non-GM crops, adding that India has several varieties of mustard that outyield the GM variety.
Regulators slammed
Drs Swaminathan and Kesavan have nothing but criticism for India’s GMO regulators, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) and the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM). They write, "The functioning of the GEAC and RCGM has rightly come under severe criticism due to endemic conflicts of interest, lack of expertise in GMO risk assessment protocols, including food safety assessment, the assessment of their environmental impacts, the lack of â ‘need’for expensive transgenic technology, and which must include a socio-economic assessment of their farming impacts on resource-poor small and marginal farmers, etc. which is also absent."
They add that these bodies have been heavily criticised by three official government reports. They demand "independent, rigorous oversight of GE crops, without the least hint of any conflict of interest". What is lacking in India, they say, are "persons of proven competence in genetic toxicology and safety analyses" and "able economists who are familiar with and will prioritize rural livelihoods, and the interests of resource-poor small and marginal farmers rather than serve corporate interests and their profits".
They conclude, "We strongly believe that scientific integrity and social responsibility are not negotiable. No technology may be exempt from these values."
It seems likely that despite M.S. Swaminathan’s international renown and P.C. Kesavan’s highly distinguished record, they will now be subjected to the kind of vicious attacks that have rained down on other scientists who have flagged up serious concerns over GM crops and foods.