DEVELOPMENT-INDIA: Open Markets Let Imported GM Food in –Critics

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Jun 7 2001 (IPS) - Pressured by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to open its markets to imported food items starting April, India is now seeing genetically modified (GM) processed foods come in as well.

On Wednesday, the international environment group Greenpeace publicised results of laboratory tests which showed a popular brand of potato chips and a baby food brand imported from the United States testing positive for genetically modified ingredients.

“The United States refuses to segregate conventional crops from genetically engineered ones. Therefore items containing soya and corn from the United States is almost certainly contaminated,” said Michelle Chawla, genetic engineering campaigner for Greenpeace in India.

According to Isabelle Meister, science advisor to Greenpeace International, 60 percent of all processed foods contain soya or corn ingredients such as soya flour, soya lecithin so that food items processed in the United States are at a high risk of being genetically modified.

The Indian government has an ambiguous approach to genetic engineering arising out of a multiplicity of authorities.

Manju Sharma, who heads the Department of Biotechnology under the federal Ministry of Science and Technology, openly supports the introduction of GM crops into India.

Ignoring warnings from environmental and food security activists of possible contamination of conventional crops through cross-polination, she allowed the U.S. Monsanto Corp to carry out field trials of its genetically-engineered Bt-Cotton, though banned in the European Union.

“With 60 million acres of transgenic plants under cultivation worldwide, India cannot lag behind,” Sharma said.

She added that her department was alreading funding transgenic research in tobacco, rice, wheat and potato and that permission has been given to transnationals to begin field trials for GM mustard, tomato and cauliflower.

Existing Indian law clearly prohibits the import or sale of genetically modified food products without the approval of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) of the federal Ministry of Environment and Forests. The ministry has so far not cleared any GM food item for sale in the country.

Indian consumers, who have so far been protected by tight import restrictions on imported food items, are generally unaware of the risks from GM foods. Indeed, the concept is still alien in a country where traditional farming methods are predominant.

According to food security campaigner Devinder Sharma, many Indians are strict vegetarians but are unaware that GM foods are often spliced with genes taken from animals, viruses or bacteria. “If they knew the truth they would never buy these imported products,” he said.

Chawla accused Indian importers and foreign processed food manufacturers of “unashamedly violating the laws of the country and deceiving an oblivious public.”

While various environmental groups have been campaigning against the introduction of GM crops into India, the Greenpeace laboratory results mark the first time that anybody has scientifically proven food items, commonly sold in retail shops in India, to have genetically modified ingredients.

Greenpeace has made similar campaigns in other Asian countries, such as Thailand, in recent months.

“Scientists still do not know the long-term effects of releasing genetically modified organisms (GMO)s into the environment and into people’s diets. There is increasing evidence that GMOs might have harmful effects on the environment or to public health,” said Meister.

She pointed to the fact that hundreds of food products made from the Aventis agrochemical company’s genetically modified Star Link corn had to be recalled in the United States because it was suspected to be the cause of various allergies.

Meister said the U.S. government practised double standards by undertaking an expensive buyback programme at home while allowing export of contaminated Star Link corn abroad.

However, countries like Japan and South Korea have been quick to ban shipment of contaminated Star Link corn from the United States.

According to Bejon Misra, advisor to the New Delhi-based Voluntary Organisation in Interest of Consumer Education (VOICE), India’s laws on import of GM food items are strict but implementation has been wanting especially after this year’s lifting of import regulations.

“Existing infrastructure is inadequate to cope with the flood of goods in the market and there is a need to build up consumer awareness and get them to demand more information especially in the shape of proper labelling,” Misra said.

A recent survey carried out in the national capital by VOICE with support from the federal Ministry of Agriculture showed the markets awash with imported items that violated basic Indian labelling rules. They did not display the date of manufacture, list of ingredients, name of importer, weight of contents and price.

The first time GM foods surfaced in India was in the shape of consignments sent by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to victims of the October 1999 super cyclone which devastated the coast of eastern Orissa state.

A sample of the mixture of corn and soya sent to Orissa was forwarded by Vandana Shiva, a campaigner against GM food, to a laboratory in the U.S. which pronounced it as containing “significant levels of genetically-modified DNA.”

Shiva said that by opening up its markets to imported processed food under world trade rules, India is destroying the country”s largely, agricultural economy that is sustainable and produces cheap, safe and fresh food in abundance.

“There is no safety regime to monitor the quality of food which is now being dumped into our backyard by agriculture in the U.S. and Europe, which is heavily subsidised and which has created the mad cow disease,” Shiva said.

According to Shiva the real tragedy is that middle class Indians are rejecting the safe and fresh food produced by farmers in this country and taking to the junk food culture which the West itself is trying to shake out of.

Reacting to the developments, the leader of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Jana Krishnamurthy, admitted that by acceding to WTO provisions India’s agricultural economy may have been put in peril.

“There is a need to strengthen the monitoring function by the government with regard to adverse impact of WTO provisions on the domestic economy and take appropriate corrective steps immediately,” Krishnamurthy said.

“If required, the government should further enhance import duties on items which are under the threat of import and not in short supply,” he said.