GM FOOD IN INDIA: GREAT EXPECTATIONS?

Expectations were great towards a humble vegetable that was about to make a ‘secret entry’ to the food markets in India, amidst the well networked out-cry and campaigns from anti-GM protestors that make it an event watchful among the greenish think-tanks of the world. The much expected guest was a genetically engineered food crop, being the first, to be introduced into India- the much proclaimed Bt-brinjal. However with the Union Government's declaration on 10th of this month, everything subsided. It is not the first time that a genetically manipulated agricultural product grabs an attic highlight in the ardent public media in India, the nettles of Bt. Cotton are already there. But, what is more disturbing is that, Bt. Brinjal is a food crop, and once it is in the slanting panoplies of our nearby market, we can’t say which one is gene-pulled and which one is not. The Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company-Mahyco which has developed this “magic-wand” for the farmers of India says that it is enough catering an equal stand up with conventional brinjal fruits. A labeling intending to distinguish the gene-modified was mandatory as per the consumerists.


GM- The Science
The ‘GM’ stands for ‘Genetically Modified’ and ‘GMO’ for the ‘genetically modified organism’,both coming from the biotech industry through the ingenious application of ‘GE’ which is ‘Genetic Engineering’. Thanks to Henry Harris and John Watkins of Oxford who found that viruses can fuse cells of different kinds into hybrid forms, in 1965, though not knowing that they were watching the prelude of a future revolution (Anonymous, 1989). When they tried to re-do this with dead and live viruses, they got ‘cellular hybrids’. And to be more surprisingly they found that the coalesceing cells need not be from single species, there can be interspecific hybrids also. Later, this technique became more perfected, in the sense that specific genes could be transferred. It occurred to scientists that even the evolutionary Fathoms could be crossed, passage of genes from bacteria to higher organisms being possible. Historically, we Indians can be proud that Har Gobind Ghorana dramatized the situation by creating the first artificial gene from different tethered genetic segments. He then introduced the new genetic make up into a bacterium called E. coli, showing that it is easy to produce multiple copies of a manipulated gene. In the early 90s, the genetic techniques became more ‘crazy’ than omnipotent, that Pam Dunsmuir and her colleagues at DNA Plant Technology Corporation, a biotech company in California, put a fish gene into a tomato! Though a fish was never ‘smuggled’ into a
vegetarians table top, it unleashed a possibility- the wizardry offered by the trans-gene technology. However, as the techniques stumbled out from the laboratories to industry, it lost its many faces. Since the intentions were purely profitdriven, they cared little for the environment,little for the humans and least for the harmony between. Thus the dark ages began in the field of GM-research which often muffled the truth or baffled the masses with mantled field trial reports.


Bacillus thuringiensis


Bacillus thuringiensis is a soilbacterium, the name of which is usually abbreviated as ‘Bt’. It is a gram-positive bacterium which was first identified in Japan by Ishiwata in 1901. The insecticidal activity of Bt was first discovered in 1911, by Ernst Berliner, a German scientist. In 2000, a team of microbiologists from University of Oslo proposed that Bascillus thuringiensis is closely related to two species of the genus Bacillus, such as Bacillus cereus and Bacillus anthracis. Bacillus cereus is the common cause of food poisoning and Bacillus anthracis is the causative organism of the fatal disease called Anthrax. The only difference between Btand the other two is that Bacillusanthracis and Bacillus creus are an extra ring of DNA called plasmid that produces a toxic protein called cryprotein. The gene that enables Bt toproduce the cry protein is called the crygene. The cry-proteins are toxic to insects belonging to the orders such as Lepidoptera (Moths and Butterflies),Coleoptera (Beetles) and Diptera (Flies and Mosquitoes).


The Wild and the Sown
The first genetically engineered whole food to reach the market was ‘Flavr-Savr’ transgenic tomato brought out by Calgene, an American company in 1994. Actually, the term‘transgenic’ would be a misnomer, as the plant contained no foreign gene, but a silenced gene for fruit-ripening. The Polygalactouranase Gene or the ‘PG’ as it is usually mentioned was in fact flipped by the researchers and put in the reverse order. This resulted in delayed ripening in the ‘Flavr-Savr’ tomatoes, making it a suitable commodity for distant delivery. As per Belinda Martineau, who wrote the book: “First Fruit: The Creation of the Flavr Savr Tomato and the Birth of Genetically Engineered Food”, the increased shelf-life made ‘Flavr-Savr’ to be sold out as hot
cakes(Martineu, 2001). There were even a waiting list of grocers wanting to stock the GMtomato.
Unfortunately, the Calgene had incorporated a ‘marker gene’ enabling easy identification of modified samples, in their laboratory and this was an antibiotic-resistant gene segment. The resistance conferred was for Kanamycin, a mild antibiotic, but it was proposed that there was a risk of new bacterial strains emerging which are resistant to other major antibiotics also. Since it raised an issue of future impact on public health, the ‘Food and Drug Administration’ (FDA) reconsidered the approval of Flavr Savr, eventually leading to the bankruptcy of Calgene. It is interesting to note that Calgene was literally absorbed by Monsanto, the biotech giant which is now licenced with Mahyco, on the release of Bt-Brinjal. The same Kanamycin-resistant gene is there as marker-tag in the Bt-Brinjal also.


Bt-Brinjal
It is the first genetically modified food crop to be cultivated in India, but don’t be confused that it is not the first genetically modified agricultural crop in varieties cultivated in Tamil Nadu and six varieties cultivated in Maharashtra. Since these 6 M-varieties will be subjected to specific pricing earlier, the farmers are believed to get them at competitive rates. The second controversial GM crop introduced was ‘Round up Ready Soybeans’ tactfully marketed by Monsanto among the soybean-growing belts of American states. It was counter-product intended to protect the market sustained by a weedicide by name ‘Roundup’, topped by one billion dollars in worldwide sales. Round up, discovered by the Monsanto chemist John Franz was patented by them in early seventies and was the most popular weed-killer in the world, ever since its inception. It was a broad spectrum herbicide but, leaving no discrimination over weeds and crop plants. Roundup’s action was through the blockage of the amino acid metabolism, affecting respiration and killing the plant within a week or two (Funke, et. al,2006). So, it caused great problem for the farmers though they didn’t complain, as there was no efficient alternative to it. Fearing a rival from other biotechs, Monsanto was eagerly researching to make Round up more specific but largely in vain. India, it is Bt-Cotton, which was permitted to be commercially cultivated in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu in 2002. Both Bt-Cotton and Bt- Brinjal were introduced into India by the Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company, popularly known as the Mahyco, the Indian arm of the American multinational, Monsanto. Bt-Brinjal is inserted, with a gene taken from the soil bacterium called Bacillus thuriengiensis,which is denoted by the singular - Bt. This gene is supposed to give resistance to the brinjal plant against the fruit and shoot-borer pests. Presently the gene has been incorporated into four conventional
the test results by hiring some research laboratories in US, such as the ‘Industrial Biotest Laboratories’ and the ‘Craven Labs (Schneider, 1983). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the United State referred to the study reports of these private labs as “routine salsification of data” for which one of the companies was fined by 15.5 million dollars and its chairman, five years imprisonment.


The Bt Controversy
GM crops were in the central spot of discussion during the late ninetees, with a wide variety of ‘Bt-crops’ enviably spreading the world. ‘Bt’ refers to a bacterium Bacillusthuringiensis, from which a particular ‘cry-gene’ was incorporated into the crops. The gene could produce a protein which when ate by the insects could paralyse their digestive system and kill them. The protein can trigger a series of chemical changes only in the high-alkaline pH,customary to the insect midguts alone and sono possible threats to other animal life was anticipated (Betz et. al., 2000). Though the first Bt gene was reported to be cloned to bacteria in early eighties, the real ‘Bt-s’ in the form of Genetically Modified Crops appeared only in 1990s. (The first attempt was done by theBelgian company- Plant Genetic Systems which produced Bt-tobacco in 1985). Bt-com first went on sale in 1996, followed by the Bt-cotton which within a daring span of ten years spread to
281,500 km2 in the world. Bt-varieties were sold by Monsanto mainly, but also by Syngenta,
 Aventis, Mycogen and DuPont. Using the Environmental Impact Quotient-EIQ, it was shown that, over this ten year period, the use of insecticides was reduced by 24.4%. Another study showed that the insecticide use on corn It was then they thought about making the crops tolerant to Roundup and by the end of 1988 they succeeded in developing Roundup tolerant soybeans, primarily with the help of Ganesh Kishore an youngster working in Monsanto lab. The gene was from a familiar bacterium- Agrobacterium and a series of
Roundup Ready crops resulted - AlFalFa, Canola,Cotton, Corn, Lettuce, Potato, Strawberry, Sugarcane and Wheat apart from Roundup soybean. Following the same technology, they developed yet another series by name ‘Liberty’ which could tolerate another herbicide based on a compound called Glufosinate. Canola, Chicory, Corn, Cotton, Rice, Soybean, Sugar beet, Tomato and Wheat were modified to beGlufosinate-tolerant.
It was double benefit for Monsanto which derived dual profit from selling the weedicides much better than before and making the farmers bound to buy the tolerant varieties. Monsanto was claiming that, since theweedicides affect the metabolism of three amino acids specifically such as Phenylalanine, Tyrosine and Tryptophan - which are synthesized by plants alone, animals are spared from its deadly action. However, later research showed that the weedicide chemical can affect other plant enzymes and enzymatic pathways in animals. In 1996, Monsanto was accused of false advertising by presenting ‘Roundup’ as ‘biodegradable’ and leaving the soil unaffected after use. In January 2007, Monsanto was convicted of this crime and the environmental compaigners succeeded in making European Union to declare ‘Roundup’ to be classified under “dangerous for the environment”. On the other hand, Monsanto was trying to falsify and cotton during this ten year period was reduced by 35.6 million kilograms which is roughly equal to the amount of total insecticide usage in European Union, in an year. These initial years of Bt, however, was not free from protests. Within the same year of the introduction of Bt-corn, in May 1999, Nature magazine published a one-page letter from John Losey and two colleagues in the Entomology Department of Cornell University, stating that the pollen from Bt-corn could kill the larvae of the Monarch butterflies (Losey et. al., 1999). The letter was inflaming, creating wide media response across the world because Monarch butterflies are considered as the ‘Fluttering Pandas of the insect world”. Apart from their peculiar defense mechanism towards the bird, predators, they were considered a “national emblem” for undertaking a heroic migration,
each year, from Canada and the United Statesto a patch of forest in Mexico where they cluster in brilliant colours of orange and bright black. Losey’s letter led to a multiple of follow up studies and it was found that the risk comes when the Bt-corn pollen falls over a Milkweed leaf which is the natural food of the Monarch butterflies. Milkweed was a common weed among the corn fields and the hazard, pointed out by Losey was a damn possibility. So, it really mattered a question when “Friends of the Earth” asked: “If these deadly toxins that kill butterflies are introduced into your food, what effects these toxins would have in you and on your family?”. This was being answered by many instances, as the 2007. Greenpeace study which suggested the possibility of liver damage in rats fed with Bt-food. In 2008, an Australian study reported reduced fertility in mice fed on Bt-treated corn food. However, there is still a fraction in the scientific community which believes that these are overstatements of the cases concerned.


Another debate that received a rather sensationalized publicity on GM-food around the world was the ‘Starlink corn controversy’, StartLinkcom’ was a Bt-maize that was genetically engineered against the insect pest called European Corn Borer. It was patented by ‘Aventis Crop Sciences’, headquartered in France
and received the approval by US regulatory authorities in 1997- to be commercialized as an animal feed. It was modified with a Cry9C gene, producing a protein that was suspected to be a potential allergen (Chilutt & Tabahnik, 2004). The company wanted to popularize the brand as animal feed first, then upgrading as human food. However, the farmers who brought them to fields, were not properly informed about the forage grade of that crop and so they sold it along with normal corns to industrial firms, making corn flakes and other corn-based items of food. It is not clear whether the company wanted an “unintentional” human trial, but soon after ‘Washington Post’ reported the contamination of corn-food with Starlink corn, many complaints on allergic reactions were submitted before the ‘Centers of Disease Control’, in US. Meanwhile, the southern parts of the US had planted the greatest amount of StarLink corn and the company claimed that it had asked the farmers to plant a 660-foot “buffer strip” by another crop, other than corn to avoid genetic contamination. It was an argument to render the farmers as the soulculprits,but the State Attorneys of the 17 states representing the farmers argued it, favouring a negotiation of reimbursement to farmers.Aventis offered to purchase all the StarLink harvest, but there was a massive outcry again when the food-aid sent to Central African nations by the UN and US was found to contain the StarLink allergens. The nations involved refused to accept the aid also. Aventis Crop Sciences voluntarily cancelled the StarLink registration and the cancellation came to effect from 20th February, 2001.


Are they safe to eat?
On August 10, 1998, Arpad Pusztai, a protein scientist from Rowett Research Institute, Scotland, was interviewed on a popular British Television show by name - “World in Action”.In his 35 years at Rowett, Pusztai had studied ‘lectins’- a sugar-binding protein found in plants. Because of his expertise, he had been asked to test the safety of a potato variety, genetically engineered to produce ‘lectin’ as a pesticide. The lectin gene was taken from another plant, the snowdrop. In the television interview, Pusztai told the audience that while he fed the genetically modified potatoes to rats, they showed stunted growth and damage totheir immune system. He said that if he was given a GM-potato, he won’t eat it and stated that “it is very,very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs”. The interview made headlines around the world and shortly after the broadcast, the Director of Rowett Institute, Philip James, received devoid of two phone calls. One was from Monsanto, the world’s largest producer of GM crops and the second from the office of Tony Blair, the then British Prime Minister. It is said that Bill Clinton, the then president of US telephoned Blair and Blair’s office ringed Philip James. The initial reaction of Rowett Institute was that it was not doing any research on 6 M-crops, and Pusztai was suspended from his job, his data was confiscated and all the experimental potatoes were destroyed. Pusztai was forbidden from talking to press and he was legally gagged, along with his wife and colleague, Susan Bardocz. And, Pusztai’s whole work was put under investigation by a committee, but it was bizarre that it was an Audit Committee! Irrespective of all these pressures, Pusztai published his findings along with another researcher, Stanley Ewen, in the journal ‘The Lancet,(Ewen & Pusztai, 1999). This paper still remains as an unquestionable evidence of the health hazards of GM-food.


Bt Coming to India
We can wonder that irrespective of these tarnished chronologies, Bt-technology got a whole hearted welcome to the farm fields in India. The Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company got the permission from Department of Biotechnology, Government of India on 27th July, 1998, for Field trials of Bt-cotton in 25 locations in India and approval for a second set of trials at 15 locations was granted on 5th August, the same year. In May 2000, the company got permission from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), the supreme statutory body regarding GMOs in India, to plant Bt-cotton in 85 hectares and seed production in 150 hectares as part of large scale field trials. Approval for the commercial release of Bt-cotton was granted by the 32nd meeting of the GEAC, on 5th April 2002, resulting in Bt-cotton plantings in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu (Zora, 2006). food. However, the farmers who brought them to fields, were not properly informed about the forage grade of that crop and so they sold it along with normal corns to industrial firms, making corn flakes and other corn-based items of food. It is not clear whether the company wanted an “unintentional” human trial, but soon after ‘Washington Post’ reported the contamination of corn-food with Starlink corn, many complaints on allergic reactions were submitted before the ‘Centers of Disease Control’, in US. Meanwhile, the southern parts of the US had planted the greatest amount of StarLink corn and the company claimed that it had asked the farmers to plant a 660-foot “buffer strip” by another crop, other than corn to avoid genetic contamination. It was an argument to render the farmers as the soulculprits, but the State Attorneys of the 17 states representing the farmers argued it, favouring a negotiation of reimbursement to farmers. During the harvestseason of 2003-04, an i n d e p e n d e n t initiative called ‘Deccan Development society’ undertookthe first ever performance study of Bt-cotton in three districts of Andhra Pradesh. They found
that the Bt-seeds costs 230% more than the non-Bt cotton seeds while the net profit from Bt-cotton was 9% less compared to the conventional farming practices. Mahyco and Monsanto had claimed 15 quintals (1500 kilos) yield per hectare, but it was found to be 4 quintals, in subsequent years also. A Cost-Benefit Analysis carried out by an NGO (Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology-RFSTE) found that the Bt-cotton farmers were incurring losses of Rs.6400/- per acre, on an average. Hence, it was so natural that the farmers in the Vidharbha region of Maharashtra preferred suicide to life at the rate of two to three per day, since June 2005. Though other reasons were cited later on, Vidharbha lingers in public consciousness as an icon of theunacceptable Face of GM technology.


GM Biosafety Regulation in India
India is among the first countries to formulate a legislation towards research, manufacture, release and use of genetically Modified Organisms. It is notified under the Environmental Protection Act of December 1989, issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forest, Government of India. The rules under the act order statutory clearances and safeguards through the following authorities, defined in section 4 of it.


1) Review Committee on Genetic Modification (RCGM) - considers applications asking for permission towards field-trials of genetically modified crops.


2) Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) - assesses the field trials and decides
whether to commercialize the genetically modified crop.


3) Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC) - monitors field trials, assesses the biosafety and evaluates the cropyield.


Apart from this, the Biotechnology Department has made a proposal for a National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority (NBRA) in 2008. Besides, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has accepted the recommendation of the Indian Council of Medical Research, to amend Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules of 1955, asking for separately labeling the GM-food/crops in the market.


The Brinjal Story
Bt-Brinjal in India was cleared for field trials by Genetic Engineering Approval Committee(GEAC) in 2006. After field trails by the manufacturer of this GM-crops, original licencee Mahyco from Monsanto, filed the results before GEAC for formal approval, demanding commercial release. At that time, some environmental NGOs in the country asked for a copy of the field trail report submitted before the GEAC, through the “Right to Information Act”. GEAC, refused the request, arguing that companies are entitled to protect their intellectual property. The NGOs, however, went to court and in March 2008, the Delhi High Court ruled that GEAC should provide the details of Bt-Brinjal Fieldtrials to them. The NGOs sent the results to several scientists around the world and got back two responses. The first report was from an NGO in France - ‘Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering’, authored by Gilles-Eric Seralini, its biochemist, describing the serious health risks posed by Bt-Brinjal on man and other life-forms. The second response was from Judy Cormen, The Director of the ‘Institute of Health and Environmental Research’ another NGO, which found errors in Mahyco’s research methodology. In addition to these, research done by Indian NGO groups found that Bt-Brinjal could induce liver damage in goats, anemia in rabbits, increased blood glucose in chicken and liver-weight decrease in rats. In Mahyco’s research, the  longest period of toxicity test was 90 days and so the possibility of long term effects such as tumours and cancers were not considered. These findings, along with the Seralini and Carmen Reports were submitted to 6 EAC when hey met on January 14, 2009 to give the final nod to Bt-Brinjal to India. The decision was to suspend the release, enabling a sub-committee of GEAC to evaluate the reports. Now everything has come to an end, it seems. But, Union Minister for Environment and Forests, Mr. Jairam Ramesh has said that it was indeed a hasty decision. Still we dont know what will be the plight of GM Food in our country.

References


1. Anonymous (1989) - Special Issue, The New Harvest:Genetically Engineered Species, Science 244: 1275-1325.


2. Betz. F.S. et. al. (2000) - Safety and Advantages of Bacillus thruringiensis - protected plants to control insect pests,Regulatory Toxicol. & Pharmacol. 32:156-173.


3.Chilcutt, C.F and B.E. Tabahnik (2004) - Contamination of refuges by Bacillus thuringiensis toxin genes from ransgenic maize. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 98: 11937-11942.


4. Ewen, S.W. and A. Pusztai (1999) -Effects of diet ontaining genetically modified potatoes expressing alanthus nivalis lectin on rat small intestine, Lancet 354:1353-1354.


5. Funke, T. et. a.l (2006) - Molecular basis for the herbicide esistance of Roundup Ready Crops”, PNAS 103: 13010- 3015.


6. Losey, J.E. et al. (1999) - Transgenic Pollen Harms Mnarch Larvae. Nature 399:214


7. Martineau, B. (2001) - First Fruit: The Creation of the Favr-Savr Tomato and the Birth of the GeneticallyEngineered Food, McGraw-Hill, New York.


8. Schneider, K. (1983) - Faking it: The Case againstIndustrial Bio-Test Laboratories, The Amicus J. 14-26.


9. Zora, P. (2006) - Vidarbha Farmers in the Press - extractsfrom article. Shiva, Vandana (Dr.) (2006), “Farmers Suicide and the Vidarbha Package”-letter to the Prime Minister, BIJA, Monsoon 2006.