AGRICULTURE-INDIA: Vigil Against Genetically Engineered Soyabeans

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Dev Raj

NEW DELHI, Aug 12 1998 (IPS) - A campaign against the landing of one million tonnes of soyabeans from the United States, suspected to be genetically engineered, got off Wednesday with a farmer’s rally in the capital.

The suspicions arise from the fact that soyabean consignments from the U.S have been found to be mixed with crops from the biotechnology giant Monsanto which has more than five million hectares under genetically engineered (G.E.) soya.

“What the Europeans have rejected due to environmental and health hazards is now being dumped on Indians who traditionally do not consume soya,” said leading activist Vandana Shiva.

Shiva said the campaign would begin by making farmers and consumers aware of the dangers from genetically engineered crops flooding Indian markets, threatening consumers’ health, farmers’ livelihoods and the environment.

India is yet to have laws requiring that G.E. products are suitably labelled to warn an unsuspecting public as in many other countries.

“If the government makes no move to stop the import, we will hold demonstrations in front of the U.S. Embassy here and at the port of Kandla in western Gujarat state where the consignment is due to arrive,” Shiva said.

Soyabean has already been shown to cause allergies among Indians but Monsanto’s Roundup-Ready Soya (RRS) carries three new genes derived from a bacteria, a cauliflower virus and a petunia designed to makes it resistant to Monsanto’s own broad-spectrum weedicide, ‘Roundup.’

“Monsanto has disregarded scientists’ fears that more allergies could be caused by the added foreign proteins – if we eat it we are going to be part of a giant experiment,” Shiva said.

Earlier scientists who tried to add a Brazil nut gene to soya beans had to withdraw the end product because it did cause allergies to humans.

“Nuts have well-known allergens could be easily tested for but the new genetic additives from micro-organisms may cause side-effects which will become evident only after they cause serious problems,” Shiva said.

In 1990, L-tryptophan a food supplement made from genetically engineered bacteria by the Japanese firm Showa Denko KK is believed to have caused 31 deaths and 1,500 injuries in the U.S.

The New England Journal of Medicine warned in 1996 against the use of micro-organisms rather than food plants as gene donors because “the allergic potential of these newly introduced microbial proteins is uncertain, unpredictable and untestable,”

Equally worrisome is Monsanto’s broad-spectrum herbicide which will selectively spare RRS but devastate weeds and, along with it, threatens the abundant diversity which Indian scientists and farmers are only now beginning to appreciate.

Monsanto’s own brochure for its bean and its herbicide sounds ominous. “Roundup Ready soyabeans express a novel protein which allows them to thrive even when sprayed with enough Round-up to control competing weeds.”

There are also fears that G.E. Soya will contribute to genetic pollution since the herbicide resistant genes can be passed on to local weeds and created super weeds which will be impossible to control without even greater use of toxic chemicals.

To such criticism, the government has made a small concession – the soyabean will be split on arrival at Kandla port so that it cannot be used for seed.

But other activists such as Devender Sharma, convenor of the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security says that the government is planning to do nothing about the weeds and viral diseases that have already been detected in the soyabeans.

Officials at the Indian Directorate of Plant Quarantine confirmed that up to five weeds and 11 viral diseases have already been detected in the soyabean samples from Monsanto but that they were powerless to stop the consignment.

According to Sharma, since the seed policy was liberalised in 1988 more than one hundred diseases and pests have entered the country especially. Imports of wheat from Australia, last year, resulted in the introduction of 44 exotic weeds, he said.

“India is already expected to spend millions to fight weeds like parthenium grass, lantana shrubs and phalarias minor that came through wheat imports from U.S in earlier years,” Sharma

said.

Sharma said the import of G.E Soya could destroy the livelihoods of Indian farmers because oil extracted from it could flood the market at the expense of other oilseeds traditionally grown by Indian farmers.

Such a situation could also affect traders and people who run small oil-presses because soybean oil can only be extracted at large mills, he said.

Over the coming weeks both Shiva and Sharma plan to explain at public meetings how imports of G.E. Soya could destroy agriculture while draining foreign exchange for an unessential and hazardous agricultural commodity.

“We have better oilseeds in the country including sesame, mustard, coconut and groundnut and the government should be promoting their cultivation to protect the livelihood of Indian farmers and the health of consumers,” Shiva said.