No scientific evidence to prove GM crops harmful, govt says

[Free Karma]

No scientific evidence to prove GM crops harmful, govt says - The Times of India

There is no scientific evidence to prove that genetically-modified crops would harm soil, human health and environment, the government said on Thursday.

Environment minister Prakash Javadekar's response came to queries in Rajya Sabha over the recent controversial decision of biotech regulator — the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee's (GEAC) — granting approval for experimental field trials of 12 GM crops for the purpose of generating biosafety data.

The 12 crops ready for field trials include cotton, rice, castor, wheat, maize, groundnut, potato, sorghum, brinjal, mustard, sugarcane and chickpea.

Javadekar said GM crops particularly GM corn, canola, soybean and cotton are being cultivated and consumed by human beings as well as animals in many countries the world over as food, feed and processed products.

"There is no scientific evidence to prove that GM crops would harm soil, human health and environment," the minister said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

"GM crops have beneficial traits such as insect resistance and herbicide tolerance, stress tolerance, fungal resistance, disease resistance, salt tolerance, drought tolerance, enhance yield and nutrition etc, that may help in food security," Javadekar said.

He said in view of various concerns related to the safety, efficacy and agronomic performance of transgenic seeds, extensive evaluation and regulatory approval process takes place before any GM plant is approved for commercial cultivation.

The minister's statement came even as two RSS-linked outfits have sought a ban on field trials of genetically-modified crops, cleared by the GEAC.

Representatives of Swadeshi Jagran Manch and Bhartiya Kissan Sangh had met Javadekar in July after the GEAC had cleared proposals for confined field trials of rice, brinjal, chickpea, mustard and cotton.


The Manch and Sangh members had told the minister that it is "not advisable" to allow GM crops without proper scientific evaluation about their probable long term impact on human health and soil.

Last week, Javadekar had informed the Lok Sabha that there is no ban on GM crop field trials either by the government or the Supreme Court.

So seems like govt will go ahead with GM crops. What do people here think? I have no opinion on this, I havent read much about it, and what little I have read seems to be super biased against one side or the other.

 

[ezsasa]

GM crops should not be discussed as a single item. The pros and cons differ from strain to strain.
But irrespective of which strain most of them are create dependency of the farmer on company selling the seeds. We have to remember even around 20 years back farmers would store some of the crop every year as seed for next year with GM crop this is unlikely to happen.

 

[pmaitra]

We cannot make a sweeping statement that GMO is bad. There are GMO that are insect resistant, and are necessary to ensure crop yield.

I think what is needed is a detailed examination as to what specific GMO is harmful for consumption.

 

[Sambha ka Boss]

GM crops means to increase food production and solve hunger problem. Some GM crops can have negative effect but its not good to blame all of it.