Bt,interrupted

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh’s decision to advance the government’s verdict on the commercial release of Bt brinjal to Tuesday evening was as abrupt as it was baffling. There would be a moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal,he said a day ahead of schedule. The announcement capped weeks of fractious public “consultations” in which a familiar array of sceptics held the stage. It also comes upon remarkably unambiguous obstruction by state governments,which argued that trials to assess the genetically modified crop’s effect on health and ecology had not been conclusive enough. At the snap press conference called on Tuesday evening,Ramesh appeared to heed this caution. “There is no over-riding urgency to introduce it (Bt brinjal),” he said. “When the public sentiments have been negative,it is my duty to adopt a cautious,precautionary and principle-based approach.” The decision,he added,would be on hold till “independent scientific studies” settled the questions about safety.

Given the rocky experience with genetically modified crops,especially food,this seemingly reasonable approach is nothing but obfuscation. Public sentiment is an odd input to a decision that must be purely scientific. By invoking it,the minister abdicates his responsibility to carry forward the clearance process on the basis of fact,not hypothesis. And the facts are as follows: in October,the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee had cleared the commercial release of Bt brinjal. The GEAC is constituted in the ministry of environment and forests,and its clearance is supposed to abide by the highest degree of caution. Ramesh’s office puts the onus on him to detail exactly why the committee’s clearance has been so summarily sacrificed at the altar of “public sentiments”. By playing to the gallery,Ramesh has not only withheld from the farmer an option that could increase productivity and drastically cut pesticide use. He has also undermined the institutional mechanism that has sustained this country’s cautious introduction of GM seeds like cotton and that is in the process of clearing other food crops like rice,okra and tomato.

Unless there is a quick course correction,the Bt brinjal embargo could retard the pace of the “second green revolution” promised through the development,trials and introduction of GM varieties of crops to enhance producti-

vity and cut the use of water and pesticides,as the case may be. It would be most unfortunate if policy decisions were to be exposed to a miasma of conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated fear-mongering.