The Hindu : MPs seek answers on safety of Bt cotton

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 24, 2002

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National

MPs seek answers on safety of Bt cotton

By Gargi Parsai

New Delhi Feb. 23. There is so much anxiety over the transgenic (Bt) cotton that at the first meeting here on Friday of the newly-formed Parliament Members Farmers Forum, the Congress leaders, Manmohan Singh and Jaipal Reddy , sought answers from agricultural researchers on the issue.

"On the question of biosafety in Bt. cotton, do we have adequate institutional mechanisms to take decisions or is there a gap?,'' asked Dr Manmohan Singh.

"There seems to be differences on the application of biotechnology. How is it that different Ministries of the same Government are taking divergent views (in Bt. cotton)?,'' was Mr. Jaipal Reddy's question.

The questions were put to V.L. Chopra, former Chief of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) and now associated with the National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology. He was one of the scientists invited by the coordinator, P. Chengal Reddy, from Andhra Pradesh. Of the 36 members of Parliament who had given their consent to attend the `interaction', only six had arrived by the first hour.

Dr. Chopra admitted that all results of trials in Bt. cotton were not available "even to the scientific community''. "This is how doubts get magnified. Transparency is the critical issue here. We have the competence. It needs to be weaved into the mechanism.''

He emphasised that benefits and risks analysis of biotechnology and its application needed to be done by people who knew what was needed to be done. "The assessment should be independent, scientifically qualified, technologically accepted, quick and in association with stakeholders, under absolute transparency.''

Earlier, he said the rate of return on investment in farm research was the highest. The time for off-the-shelf technologies was now over.

The need under the WTO regime was for technologies sensitive to the requirements of ecology, provided for greater equity and protected the livelihood of a large numbers of people in rural areas.

The newer research would require a different scale of investment, most of which would have to be in the public domain, because the private sector has a different focus, with profit-making as the motive.

Future farm research will have to inspire confidence and be coupled with administrative reforms, he said.

The `interaction' was basically to sensitise parliamentarians on the issues being faced by the farming community . These were identified as lack of quality inputs, credit, extension services, protection against crop failures and marketing surveillance.

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