Dear
Friends,
The anti-GM battle in India has reached a crucial stage - soon, Mahyco,
the Indian avataar of Monsanto, would be walking up to the regulators
for permission for the second [and last] year of large scale trials
this Kharif [starting June 2008] of Bt Brinjal, the first food crop in
India and the first such GM vegetable crop with Bt gene anywhere in the
world.
Elsewhere in the world, especially Europe, more countries are clamping
bans on GM crops. More regions are declaring themselves GM-Free. In
India, the central government is steamrollering ahead, with its support
to the biotech industry and showing its lack of vision for Indian
farming again and again. Certain state governments are fortunately
taking a long term, holistic view on genetic engineering and are
appreciating the environmental, human health, political,
economic and socio-cultural implications of such a technology on
Indian farming and society. However, the Union of India is not
upholding even this Constitutional right of state governments and is
blindly moving ahead with its approvals of various crop trials and
experiments.
Bt Brinjal biosafety is questionable - in fact, we should not forget
that the results of genetic engineering itself are very unpredictable
and the very process of GE results in different unintended hazardous
consequences. With Bt Cotton, the experiences of farmers across
the country, as recorded by official sources too, range from newer and
increased number of pests and diseases to fatal impacts on livestock,
effects on human health and effects on soil with hardly any benefits as
claimed by the industry. The stress intolerance of crops like Bt Cotton
has also been recorded time and again. In this era of climate change,
is this the technology that we want to rest our food and nutrition
security on?
The regulators sitting in Delhi have also proven themselves to be
unaccountable, unscientific, wedded to conflicting interests and
apathetic to the real experiences of farmers on the ground. If we
continue to keep silent, more of this undemocratic thrusting down of
unwanted, corporate technologies will continue to smother Indian
farming as well as all of us - after all, you and I will not have any
choices left if Bt Brinjal and other GM foods is allowed in. No systems
of labelling will let you know if you are consuming Bt Brinjal or not,
in this country.
It is in this context that
we invite
all right-thinking, pro-farmer, concerned citizens to assemble at
Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on MAY 6TH 2008, for a one-day dharna. If
you want the government to take our message seriously, you should be
there to show that you are against GM crops too. Please block the date,
plan your travel straightaway and bring as many people as you can to
the dharna site. Try to get signatures of people endorsing a NO GMOs
message on a long banner and we will join all the banners for display
during the dharna. Also carry signature petitions with as many
signatures as possible.
Hope to see you in Delhi - remember, if we don't show our concern
strongly now, it might be too late later on.
Kavitha Kuruganti
Coalition for GM Free India
--
Kavitha Kuruganti
Centre for
Sustainable Agriculture
12-13-445, Street # 1, Tarnaka
Secunderabad 500 017
www.csa-india.org;
www.indiagminfo.org
Phone: +91-9393001550
