Who decides this course of action? What inputs go into the decision on the course of action? What drives Science and Technology Policy in Indian Agriculture? In order to answer this, we need to ask one critical question, can India have an independent policy on genetic modification of foods?
Agriculture in India is no longer a way of life. It is intimately linked to industrial interests, national, multinational and political interests. All stakeholders are not equal. Power is distributed unequally among the stakeholders. Industry is more powerful that the state government. It is left to the farmers to fight these powerful forces.
The approach paper to the 11th Plan says that our approach to Bio-technology should be "to create such tools and technology that address problems of the marginal sections of society. It should provide products and services at affordable prices and make India a globally competitive emerging bio-economy. It calls for developing a strong bio-technology industry and technology diffusion capacity.
The success of this vision over the next decade will be reflected by and depend on greater enrollment of students in the life sciences, higher education and skill development in this field, greater contribution to research in economic and social development, increased contribution of the system to life as well as bio-technology research.
The thrust of the vision is to industrialize agriculture -get in more and more industry participation in developing biotechnology, which can be transferred to farmers. The approach paper does not see any role of farmers in giving inputs or in decision-making regarding bio-technology. This has been left to the legislature, which is supposed to be representing the interest of the people. You know how the legislature sometimes acts under enormous pressure from industry and other lobby groups. The fifth point is strong international partnerships-which I shall talk about then there is increase in number of new companies, increase in SMEs, and finally to have a bio-tech industry with revenue of ten million dollars a year while creating substantially more jobs by 2010.
Thus the basic vision in this document is to involve industry and employ molecular biology tools and techniques. The vision talks about the need to provide adequate support for public-good research designed to reach the un-reached. It then says that public good research and private for-profit research should be mutually re-inforced. This will encourage public private partnership in the process.
As far as the international linkages are concerned, can India have an independent policy in agriculture biotechnology? Can we say no to bio-technology if we strongly feel we don’t want to have GM foods? Is it sustainable?
We need to examine what is happening across other countries on this issue. Today US is the leader in GM crops - Soybean, corn and other crops. The US Department of Agriculture agreed that consumers are interested in having access to more information about food and that food issues are more visible and discussed more frequently. However there were differences of opinion among members regarding labeling. One group felt that the American consumers have the right to know the origin and make up of ingredients of their food. According to the report, the members of this group said ‘they do not understand why the consumers cannot get that information’.
Perhaps this group is aware of the situation in Europe where labeling is insisted upon. However the other group felt there must be market driven voluntary action. And the group believed that mandatory labeling could send the wrong message regarding the safety of these products, potentially confusing the consumers. The US Food and Drug Administration follow the principle of Substantial Equivalence (SE), an internationally recognized standard that measures whether a biotech food or crop shares similar health and nutritional characteristics with its conventional counterpart. If a product is found not substantially equivalent then it is subjected to a broader analysis with the safety assessment focusing on the differences between the product and its conventional counter part.
In the US some people are practicing organic farming. For example a woman farmer, had at least fifty clients who were buying organic corn from her. But because of the gene flow from the genetically modified corn into her field she lost her clients. They said you have GM ingredients. So you can practice GM in one part of the country and not have it in other parts. It is like having prohibition in Andhra Pradesh and not having it in Maharashtra. I think we have had this experience, people from Hyderabad used to go 60 kms to the border town of Maharashtra and drink. The Europeans insist on labelling. They have also developed methodologies to determine the quantity of GM ingredients in the food products that are marketed.
In India there was a very strong influence on the government to introduce GM crops. For examples B T brinjals - nobody complained in India that there is a shortage of brinjals. We have long ones, white ones, and black ones. We have all kinds of varieties of brinjals but you see the interest, which forces the governments and regulatory authorities to introduce and permit this kind of GM crop.
As part of the agreement among Americans there is an elaborate document which says that there should be collaborative research between Indian and American Universities. The areas of research include the genetic make up of Indian water buffaloes. Why did they want to do that? Because they found that the fat content in the milk of Indian water buffaloes is very good. They would like to tap the genes of these buffaloes and put it into their cattle. Another example from this document is the interest in the goat population of India. Goats have certain genes which provide resistance to some very significant diseases which American sheep do not have. They would like to tap these genes from the goats and take it to the US. I think it is in this context that we should really understand what civil society organisations can do.
Agriculture in India is practiced in different climatic zones, diversity of soils and terrains and different crops. In this context how will we respond to the challenge? The policy framework has been put in place by the DBT and alternatives have been accepted by the government. This is where we should start influencing the policy process.