{"id":252686,"date":"2023-07-19T21:02:08","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T15:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=252686"},"modified":"2023-08-31T12:08:15","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T06:38:15","slug":"push-for-gm-mustard-disregarding-science-the-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/push-for-gm-mustard-disregarding-science-the-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Push for GM mustard disregarding science, the law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on an article\u00a0\u201cA push for GM mustard disregarding science, the law<\/strong>\u201d published in The Hindu <\/strong>on\u00a019th<\/sup> July 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: <\/strong>GS 3 \u2013 Science & Technology, Agriculture<\/p>\n

Relevance: <\/strong>concerns associated with GM crops <\/strong><\/p>\n

News:<\/strong> Environmentalists in the Supreme Court of India are engaged in a battle against Delhi University’s Genetically Modified (GM) Herbicide-Tolerant (HT) mustard<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What are GM crops? <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Read Here: <\/strong>What are GM crops?<\/strong><\/a> \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

What are the arguments against GM crops? <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Environmentalists, scientists, politicians, farmers, consumers, and the judiciary, have raised concerns about the safety, efficacy, and necessity of GM food.<\/p>\n

The experience with Bt cotton, India’s only approved GM crop, has raised concerns. Long-term research suggests that while Bt cotton initially provided some benefits to farmers, it ultimately increased cultivation costs and risks<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

However, two Standing Committees of the Parliament independently and comprehensively examined GM crops and food.<\/p>\n

The first one was the Standing Committee on Agriculture in 2012, and another was the Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Forests in 2017.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court also appointed a Technical Expert Committee (TEC)<\/strong> to study the GM crops.<\/p>\n

Must Read: <\/strong>Transgenic Crops in India: Need and Challenges \u2013 Explained<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

What were the observations made by these committees?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The two standing committees unanimously highlighted major weaknesses in the regulatory system<\/strong> and called for utmost caution before releasing GM food.<\/p>\n

The Committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Forests made a specific reference to GM mustard, and asked the government to conduct a thorough, independent, and transparent assessment of long-term biosafety, environmental risk and socio-economic impacts.<\/p>\n

In 2013, five out of six members of the TEC also identified serious shortcomings in the safety assessment of GM crops<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

They found HT crops are<\/strong> \u201ccompletely unsuitable in the Indian context\u201d and warned of serious harm to the environment, rural livelihoods and sustainable agriculture if they were released.<\/p>\n

Therefore, these observations raise concerns for release of any HT crop and emphasize the need for comprehensive regulatory strengthening before approving GM food.<\/p>\n

What measures are being taken by the government in promoting GM crops?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Despite the widespread political and technical consensus against HT crops, the Indian government is proceeding with GM mustard in a manner that disregards both science and law.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For instance,<\/strong> it has not placed the full biosafety dossier on GM mustard in the public domain, despite the terms of the Right to Information Act and a declaration to that effect by the Environment Ministry’s Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee.<\/p>\n

Even in the recent hearing of the SC, the government has argued that GM mustard should not be considered HT because the objective for developing it was to improve yields.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, from the science of biotechnology and ecology perspective, there is no doubt that GM mustard is an HT crop.<\/p>\n

What lies ahead?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Instead of engaging with the constitutional issues involving<\/strong> public health, environmental protection and agricultural livelihoods, the government is misleading the SC by presenting irrelevant facts in the support of GM crops.<\/p>\n

Hence, if the Supreme Court allows GM mustard to go through, it will likely pave the way for the release of other HT crops such as cotton, rice, and maize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on an article\u00a0\u201cA push for GM mustard disregarding science, the law\u201d published in The Hindu on\u00a019th July 2023. Syllabus: GS 3 \u2013 Science & Technology, Agriculture Relevance: concerns associated with GM crops News: Environmentalists in the Supreme Court of India are engaged in a battle against Delhi University’s Genetically Modified… Continue reading Push for GM mustard disregarding science, the law<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,242,10498],"class_list":["post-252686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-science-and-technology","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":5,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1698161432},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}