Indianexpress.com : comments : On a GM platter

On a GM platter

The debate on genetically modified crops is so prone to being hijacked by pseudoscience, alarmism and overstatement that delays have been built into the delivery to Indian farmers of new seeds that farmers in other countries take for granted. Two years ago, the Genetic Engineering Approval Comm ....Read more

Comments

Post comment

11 Comments |

Losing of Natural foodBy: VG Ranganath | Wednesday , 22 Jul '09 19:22:42 PM Reply | Forward In future people may lose natural food and they may depend coercly by initiatives of government on GM food. According to available reports in India, they is no appropriate machinery working on it. According to Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, panel on Genetically modified foods have been constituted. We have to wait and see how far they enforces and implements the provisions of Genetically modified foods. In india the required thing is proper storage for food but not production. Due to all these using and inviting the GM Food Trails we may face the environmental problems. In India even though we are having legislations to keep vigilance on all these but it is gloomy state and blind watch.

Foolish research on processing...By: Madhumita Chakraborti | Monday , 10 Aug '09 19:38:23 PM Reply | Forward Enhancing processing facilities and thereby the duration for storage would only cause a steep rise of hoarding activities by middlemen. Even modern technological institutions working on such issues are never bothered about such implications that can have a detrimental effect on ordinary people. Is technology there only to protect the selfish and greedy motives of middlemen ?

Its food, Do the right thing, not the quick thing.By: Aman | Thursday , 16 Jul '09 23:40:52 PM Reply | Forward Guys, step back and think about it. What kind of food will you want buy for your kids? Something natural and pristine or some X-Crop mutated by men in laboratories. Agreed taht we need to raise our food production, but are we going to serve poison on their platters? There are other alternative methods to increase food production - like diversity on farms, use of bio-fertilizers etc. Yes they are more elaborate and slow but they are the right thing. Its our food people, food that we eat. We better be right about it. And remeber, GM is a non reversible technoology. Once its in our ecosystem, its to stay and cross pollinate other species. Theres no going back. We should give it more thought as europe did.

Only the state of variables would change.By: CK Raju, Thrissur | Thursday , 16 Jul '09 22:57:53 PM Reply | Forward To me, the sequence goes like this. Yesterday, it had been on cash crops, today it is on food crops, tomorrow its going to be on animal life, and the day after it will be on human life itself. Everywhere the so called informed arguments will remain the same. Only the state of variables will be altered. The final victor would undoubtedly be the one who is calling all the shots now. Let us bow out.

GM crops are the way of the futureBy: Eddy | Thursday , 16 Jul '09 22:08:17 PM Reply | Forward I am a senior researcher on crop plant genetic resources at the University of California. I would like your readers to consider this: 1) Yields have reached their plateau with conventional plant breeding techniques; the only way to go forward is to use genetic engineering (biotechnology) or exploit other underutilized crops or domesticate new crops for food. 2) Altered genes from plants CANNOT enter the human body in anyway; hence GM crops cause cancer is a FALSE statement. 3) True, demand for organically grown produce is rising in the USA, BUT it is always much more expensive than non-organically grown fruits and vegetables and hence the demand is extremely small. Especially in these times of recession people buy those produce with the least price. e.g., if I see a head of organic lettuce for $2 versus another for $1.25 and both look alike then I will buy the $1.25 one. 4) True, some original taste is lost in GM crops, but that has to be weighed against people going hungry.

Lets start an INFORMED debate on GMO-2By: Jay | Thursday , 16 Jul '09 21:45:40 PM Reply | Forward There are some valid questions regarding GMO. Eg, many recent reports show that yield of transgenic crop is less (about 10%) under “normal” conditions. But useless rhetoric is suppressing valid questions against GMOs. Transgenic crops are safer in many ways as they are extensively tested before release. Most Indian vegetables and fruits contain high pesticides/herbicide residues; majority of our water sources including ground water is contaminated by toxic industrial waste and agricultural run off (pesticide and other chemicals used in cultivation). Those are more dangerous as compared to GMO, so far public health and environment is concerned. Lastly, if we had a limited world population and reasonably decent distribution of wealth, we would have avoided GMO. It’ll be foolish to boycott it for hypothetical dangers and embrace guaranteed starvation and/or huge hike of global food prices (and other commodities as well). India can not afford that luxury with its 1.2 billion people to feed

Lets start an INFORMED debate on GMO-1By: Jay | Thursday , 16 Jul '09 21:35:57 PM Reply | Forward Opposition to GMO is not always based on science but can be due to many facts, including corporate rivalry. We also should keep in mind that many big NGOs are huge corporate entities and follow almost same corporate structure as many other big MNCs. Almost all the big GMO producing companies are American while there are many big pesticides, herbicides companies in Europe. If Europe opens up more to GMO, those European chemical companies will loose a lot. Opposition to GMO in India may also be linked to such corporate rivalry. There is no reported case of human disease, so far, caused by consuming transgenic crop product, although many countries, including USA are using GMO for long.Many GMO opponents tell that using GMO with antibiotic resistance gene will lead to antibiotic resistance among human. This is ridiculous. We are eating plant products for millions of years; still we could not acquire the photosynthetic capability!

Need to re-think on GM food crops.By: Bijesh P | Thursday , 16 Jul '09 21:15:53 PM Reply | Forward Introduction of GM brinjal, tomato and cauliflower to India could bring unforeseen aftermaths in the biodiversity of this tropical country. Corporates working on the production of GM crops are mainly located in the new world (non-Afro-Eurasian parts of the earth). These corporates are oriented only towards profit motive. There cannot be concern by these corporates for the environmental impact which GM crops could bring in to the old world countries like India. We are host for a centre of biodiversity of a number of crops, on which more than 60% of our population depends. Many of our food crops have been imported and acclimatized by many developed nations to satisfy their needs. Now they are trying to satisfy their greed by exporting modified GM food crops or its technology, back to us. We are falling prey to a deliberate accident now. The transfer of foreign genes to its wild relatives is the major problem associated with GM crops. The study on environmental impacts of GM crops in our country will not be studied by the GM food producers. We will have to depend upon our own researchers, who are doing research on the production of GM crops. The outcome can be expected in advance, as our researchers are still working to find medicine for the filariasis, a disease found only in the developing countries.

A democracy for corporates, police for people and enjoyment for parliamentarians..By: CK Raju, Thrissur | Thursday , 16 Jul '09 19:25:12 PM Reply | Forward â¯India is all set to be the world's clinical backward for testing of genetically modified food on humans. And our government is subsidising global monopolies of GM food for this effort abusing public funds. As under privileged citizens of this country, how can we impress upon the govt to go in for a referendum on this issue? Will any parliamentarian take up our cause? If we were ruled directly by corporates we could have met them on the streets. Here, this avenue is also closed. What a pity for the civilisation to go down through a democracy that now works only for giant corporates? â®

Cancer Train in IndiaBy: ConcernedCitizen | Thursday , 16 Jul '09 18:18:06 PM Reply | Forward GM seeds maybe a boon for cotton and non-edible varieties, but that does not translate in safety for edible varieties. This article under IE is not objective enough to convey the message to everyone. This article does not mention anything about the extremely high cancer rates in all countries adopting GM seeds; It ignores the fact that taste of food is lost; It also fails to indicate that demand for organic produce has been rising in American and European countries.Also Please search for Cancer Train and read about the REAL effects of GM seeds

GM Seeds By: Dr. Ram Chander Sharma | Thursday , 16 Jul '09 6:46:03 AM Reply | Forward It is okay that the modern tools of science and technology are used for the welfare of the society but with the coution ,as the new plant varieties well protected and high yielding can always interfere in the ecology and the enviornment effecting the millions of years old plant species. Take the case of moanster congrss grass which has devoured the vast agricultural, pastures and forest land. The counterfiet GM Seeds are with the Indian farmers and the Govt control is just symbolic. In the west while the GM Seeds have revolutionised the farming practices but on the other side Scientists have warned the ill effect of the use of GM Food on human and animal health. The possible effects are the toxins present in the food derived form the bacterial gene and can be cancerogenic. In India we have plus billions mouths to feed and a burgeonic cattle population for animal food production ,the use of GM seeds can be a boon but the disturbing influence of multinational interests overweigh others.

Next1 2