Brinjals, or aubergines or eggplant, as they are variously called in different parts of the world, are the center of a major brouhaha over biotech crops and their introduction in India, one of the most lucrative markets for seeds in the world.
Bowing to the pressure of numerous activists and at least 10 state governments, the Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh has declared a moratorium on the introduction of the Bt Brinjal into the Indian agroproduct market.
Despite the concerns of the growing biotech industry in India, this moratorium is backed by no less a personage than Dr. M.Swaminatha one of the founding fathers of the 'Green Revolution' in India that did away with dependency on food imports. From The Hindu:
"Agriculture scientist and Rajya Sabha member M.S. Swaminathan on Tuesday described the government’s moratorium on commercialisation of Mahyco’s Bt brinjal until independent studies established its safety, as “a wise and appropriate decision.”
He said it was appropriate not to hurry and to look at the problems to the satisfaction of all. The government should utilise the time to put in place a credible, effective and transparent system for the benefit of the country and conduct tests in a manner that had public trust".
Other voices had been earlier raised in protest against what was termed 'inadequate research' of the effects of Bt Brinjal consumption in animal models, prominent among them scientist Gilles-Eric Selarini.
From the concluding lines in his report:
"This Bt brinjal release in the environment includes major risks. It is not serious to give to billions of people and animals for their entire life a food / feed that has not been tested more than 3 months with blood analyses. We do not know the long term consequences of the genetic modification itself nor the effects of the modified insecticide toxin produced at very high levels. Moreover there were clear signs of hepatorenal toxicities, among other effects, shown within 90 days by significant differences in Mahyco's toxicological subchronic tests in mammals: goats, rats and rabbits. These are not clear proofs because the tests are too short, but preoccupying enough to forbid Bt brinjal release at this stage."
While it's heartening that the Indian government is responsive enough to these concerns prior to full-blown introduction of the crop into the Indian ecosystem, it may have already made its way into existing varieties through improper isolation techniques for the test farms.
If the experience with Bt cotton is any indicator, this may be a case of a genie that has already escaped the bottle.
"When proper refugia standards are not followed, contamination can result from the cross-flow of pollen between Bt and non-Bt varieties. The result may be new genetic combinations that fail to express the Bt toxin enough for adequate protection from the bollworm.
Preliminary analysis by CICR in Nagpur, which has monitored resistance to the Bt toxin for the past five years, shows that one in every 667 bollworms in north India, one in every 440 in central India and one in every 400 in south India is resistant to Bt toxin." (emphases mine)
It will take a DNA battle of sorts between the existing varieties to determine the genetic victor of all the crosspollination and insect resistance evolution patterns. The results may not be anything we can predict.
I'm sorry, I can't read past the jargon to see what hazards this strain presents for humans - apart from a general suspicion of genetically altered foods. The Bt cotton article was just as opaque to me. Is the problem related to health or economics (as in future bondage to Monsanto/Mahyco)? Some translation might help.
On the other hand, I am generally suspicious of anything involving the irascible and unpredictable Mr. Ramesh.
Posted by: narayan | February 10, 2010 at 10:44 PM
The hazards may come further down the line, if the Selarini study is anything to go by: For instance (made up numbers here), assuming that one eats Bt brinjal in amounts equivalent to 10 times his body weight over a period of 10 years, there will be a 10% increase in the possibility that he develops a cancer of the kidneys. Of course, it's possible that a car crash may kill him next week, with a 1 in 2 million probability.
What this does add up to is: Ramesh looks good to his constituents and the public. Vandana Shiva can claim that she helped dispel the demon of GE crops with her activism. Mahyco will try again a couple of months later after the brouhaha has died down, marketing the seeds as 'Hybrids', less threatening than 'Genetically engineered' with 'chimeric DNA'. Farmers will see increased yields for a while, followed by decreased yields and increased desperation as the 'pest resistant' veggie strain no longer resists the pest, which is also itself evolving to defeat the toxin in the modified seeds.
That's about as far as I can manage with a Cliff's notes version, Narayan.
Posted by: Sujatha | February 11, 2010 at 06:13 AM
I'd assume this was the usual GM fear-mongering, but Swaminathan is a voice to take seriously. I agree with Narayan the news reports are woefully short of actual facts.
Posted by: prasad | February 11, 2010 at 07:51 AM
I think looking at the way the approvals were given by the advisory committee on genetically engineered crops (GEAC:
http://moef.nic.in/downloads/public-information/Report%20on%20Bt%20brinjal.pdf
lots of steps were missed (around pgs 25-30- bunch of 'not applicable', not considered necessary, couldn't do this because of refusal of institution to test. The only data available on some of the aspects like allergenicity, toxicity in large mammals was supplied by Mahyco, hardly a disinterested party.) Things like this would have given even pre-eminent scientists like Dr. Swaminathan pause in this rush to approve and release Bt Brinjal into the market.
There may be nothing to fear from a Bt Baingan, maybe you might even like the flavor better, since it won't need the pesticide sprayed on it to keep away the Fruit and Shoot Borer and a couple of other pests ( for others, pesticides will still be needed). But are you sure you would like to eat it regularly without having had the necessary toxicity/allergenicity studies performed on it by an independent research body?
Posted by: Sujatha | February 11, 2010 at 07:29 PM
Glen Davis Stone has written a few papers on BT cotton in India after spending over 50 weeks in 5 years in India. Some of his work is summarized by Andrew Leonard:
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/01/31/glenn_davis_stone/index.html
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/02/08/gujarat/
It may be interesting reread these.
Posted by: gaddeswarup | February 12, 2010 at 09:08 PM
Those were excellent papers indeed-thanks for the links to some very informative reading, Gaddeswarup.
As an agrarian anthropologist, Prof. Stone brings the human dimension into all these discussions of the pros and cons of GM crops, even if he occasionally falls victim to hype himself (vide glowing references to GM cassava as the savior of sub-Saharan Africa in his 2005 paper on the Science of Gray:
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/research/stone/Stone%202005%20Embedding%20Ethics.pdf.
Hindsight is definitely 20/20, as this article shows that of the 10 super-cassava varieties developed, only 2 managed to show any resistance to the viruses they were all supposed to resist. But Prof.Stone largely brings a sane voice and perspective to a very heated debate.
http://checkbiotech.org/node/23916
Notwithstanding, the Robin Hooding of the Bt Cotton seeds in Gujarat is precisely one of those Indian phenomena where the 'invader' is forced into an assimilation, much like has been done with all the different cultures that live and blend in the subcontinent.
Posted by: Sujatha | February 14, 2010 at 10:27 AM
Sujatha,
Thanks for the link to follow up on Stone's work. I liked his 'deskilling paper' but did not really follow up. A Telugu novelist Chanda Latha (her father started as a teacher, turned a farmer and then a seed merchant) has several posts on the topic. The posts are in Telugu; two of them mostly in English containing excerpts of letters from Indian scientists in USA. I linked them in a poat:
http://gaddeswarup.blogspot.com/2010/02/some-posts-on-bt-brinjal.html
The topic is too technical but blogs seem to help in keeping track to some extent.
Posted by: gaddeswarup | February 14, 2010 at 05:22 PM
Mother Nature strikes again: Bt Cotton no longer resists the Pink Bollworm.
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article183353.ece?homepage=true
Posted by: Sujatha | March 05, 2010 at 06:12 PM