| Why save Brinjal? |
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Indian food is about to change. The government is planning to approve genetic modification of our fruits and vegetables starting with Brinjal. They have however requested for public opinion before they take a decision in February. We can still save our Brinjal! Why should we save Brinjal from insertion of Bt gene? Why say NO to Bt Brinjal? 1. Genetically Modified (GM) crops are created by the unnatural insertion of foreign genes into host DNA of a plant, which leads to numerous unpredictable changes that are potentially dangerous for health. Bt Brinjal has been artificially created by insertion of a poisonous bacterial gene (Bacillus thuringiensis-Bt) to produce a toxin 24X7 inside the plant (and its fruit/vegetable) to target one pest—the Brinjal Fruit & Shoot Borer (it has to be noted that while many pests and diseases attack the crop, this technology is claimed as a solution to one such pest). If Bt were sprayed on the plant as a pesticide it can be washed before cooking, but now being inside the plants and vegetables no washing will remove it.
 2. India is the Centre of Origin/Diversity of Brinjal (more than 2500 varieties) and no GM version of any crop has been introduced in its Centre of Origin/Diversity anywhere in the world. This diversity is now under great threat from Bt Brinjal. In fact no country has so far allowed genetically modified fruits and vegetables to be introduced in their markets. In the US Bt Corn is grown as cattle feed but it is not eaten directly eaten by humans. GM tomatoes were introduced in the US and withdrawn due to health and environmental concerns raised. In no country can you get unprocessed GM Food items that people can directly eat. So far India has only permitted Bt Cotton and right not permitted Bt food items.
3. The way BT Brinjal is supposed to work is not by increasing the crops capability to produce more, but to be posionous to the pest and thereby increase the yield. However since several pests attack the crop and BT acts only on one pest, and there are other ways to manage pests as well, the effective increase in yield is not substantial. The field data of the studies submitted to expert committee is contradictory -- while they claim about 20% less damage due to pests for Bt Brinjal crops compared to ordinary Brinjal, the same studies in another section claim a 40-70% increase in yield. Moreover it is no ones claim that Bt Brinjal will address the hunger problem of India or the world. It is a needless experiment to subject a billion people to.
4. Health implications of Bt Brinjal—No independent research to prove the safety of Bt Brinjal exists. All decision-making happened based on the crop-developer’s (i.e. Monsanto/Mahyco’s) data. No substantial studies were done for adverse affect on animals -- the studies done for example were, feeding Bt Brinjal to 12 goats and a handful of other animals for health impacts and submitted to the official expert committee -- totally inadequate studies to confidently feed a billion Indians the Bt Brinjal. Even in these studies there are significant observations that have been glossed over that point to the adverse impact of Bt Brinjal when compared to ordinary Brinjal on animals. Further, no long-term (i.e., 90 days plus) or human feeding studies exist. This variety of Bt Brinjal for which permission is sought also contains anti-biotic resistant genes and poses serious public health concerns with the possibility of ‘horizontal gene transfer’. What’s more, independent analyses of the crop developer’s biosafety data concluded that this Bt Brinjal is unsafe and unfit for human consumption. With Bt Cotton (the only approved GM crop in India), there are several reports of adverse animal and health impacts (including animal deaths) that have not been systematically investigated. Further, from various studies, GM foods are known to cause allergies, immune system changes, damage to organs like kidneys and liver, affect growth and metabolism and impact reproductive health adversely. 5. If Bt Brinjal is approved, we, as consumers, will have no way of knowing whether the brinjal we consume daily is GM or not, as all brinjals in the market will look the same. This will be a violation of every consumer’s right to know, right to safe food and right to choose which food she/he wants to eat. Further, labeling cannot be a solution for India where the majority of consumption is of unpackaged foods in the open market and from local mandis. Further this will open the way for rapid approvals of other GM food crops. There are at least 55 plants being developed in India through genetic modification including rice, cabbage, bhindi, cauliflower, tomato etc. An approval to Bt Brinjal will open up the floodgates of other approvals and the GM industry is very keen on bringing in this Bt Brinjal as the Trojan Horse. For at least 10 reasons to say no to Bt Brinjal please click here.  |
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