Insufficient regulatory supervision prior to release of genetically modified crops for commercial cultivation in India.

(1) Do we need GM crops? No. We have far better alternatives such as integrated pest management (IPM), biopesticides and appropriate agro-practices including organic farming for almost all crops. IPM is a part of the country’s stated national agriculture policy. It has been shown to be effective but is not being used. (2) Was appropriate risk assessment carried out in the case of the Bt-cotton crops that have been released? No. For example, our present system of testing for allergenicity does not take into account recent work (e.g., papers in this area – a paper titled “Allergic potential of novel foods” in the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, volume 64, issue No.4, pp 487–490 of November 2005; a paper titled “Allergenicity Assessment of Genetically Modifi ed Crops – What makes sense?” in Nature Biotechnology of January 2008, volume 26, pp 73–81; a paper titled “Transgenic expression of bean alpha-amylase inhibitor in peas results in altered structure and immunogenecity” in Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry, 2005, volume 53, pp 9023–9030). The Annexure lists 29 tests relevant to the release of GM crops. Only a few have been done for Bt-cotton and GM crops in the pipeline, and that too inadequately (see item 5 below).