Date:09/01/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/01/09/stories/2006010904820400.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Agricultural University, USAID collaboration causes concern

Staff Reporter

SAGE says USAID has long been identified as an agency that affiliates itself with efforts to introduce genetic engineering in poor countries

BANGALORE: The collaboration of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore (UAS) with the funding agency USAID, on "biotechnology approaches for alleviating malnutrition", has sent the alarm bells ringing among farmers' organisations, scientists and academics and consumer groups from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

Ahead of an international symposium to discuss the specifics of this collaboration, the network of groups from these States, South Against Genetic Engineering (SAGE) organised a workshop last week to articulate the shared concerns against the introduction and promotion of genetic engineering in agriculture.

SAGE convener P.V. Satheesh and joint convener P. Babu said USAID had long been identified as an agency that actively affiliated itself with efforts to introduce genetic engineering in the poor countries.

USAID's role in trying to push genetic engineering food to African nations, where the United Nations was running a programme to provide food for its starving millions, had been well documented, they pointed out.

The stated vision of USAID, according to SAGE, was to expand in the global agriculture market by providing avenues for genetic engineering multinationals.

With the European Union having rejected genetic engineering foods repeatedly, Asia and Africa were the only option where genetic engineering products had a chance.

Farm policies

What is more alarming, according to SAGE, was that agriculture policies in India continued to favour genetic engineering, as had been seen in the form of Bt cotton, Bt okra and Bt brinjal, and several other crops which could be already under trial clandestinely in academic institutions such as the UAS, and farmers' fields.

Manmohan's speech

To make matters worse, they fear that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speech at the National Science Congress in Hyderabad, hailing the role of large multinational corporations and seed companies and inviting them to join the Second Green Revolution, would open a Pandora's box.

Track record

USAID's track record in Africa, they warned, had seen them intervening increasingly on behalf of the U.S. agriculture industry.

"Pharming", or the notion that biotechnology can provide nutrition and health through genetic engineering, was an idea that had been rejected everywhere, including India after the failure of Bt cotton.

The latest instance is of Switzerland, where a referendum on admitting genetic engineering crops into the country says the people overwhelmingly voted out the proposition.