Monday, May 4, 2009
Our food will be made toxic and our seeds contaminated for all time if GM food crops are approved for commercial planting
"If only 1 in 1,000 of exposed people later gets ill, or has an underlying illness made worse, then over one million Indians would be ill and requiring treatment. This would result in a huge cost to the Indian government and community" (Carman).
It will also be a social cost and health scam of an unimaginable magnitude that will make 'chicken-feed' of every other scam in the country including the Satyam scandal and it will continue without any possibility of reversal. A trade off of any kind is unimaginable.
The GM MYTH of High Intrinsic Yields
"No currently available transgenic varieties enhance the intrinsic yield of any crops. The intrinsic yields of corn and soybeans did rise during the twentieth century, but not as a result of GE traits. Rather, they were due to successes in traditional breeding".
"We had locked our farmers into the volatility of global cash crop prices, rigged and controlled by a handful of corporations. Add to this the obscene subsidies that the US and EU threw at their corporations and growers. In the US, subsidies made up two per cent of total farm income in 1974. By year 2000, they made up 47 per cent of total farm income. In item after item, US-EU subsidies destroyed millions of livelihoods, not just in India but across the world.
In India, we made no effort to raise duties to halt the dumping of highly subsidised US cotton on this country. Sharad Pawar was not in the least interested. Cotton was not his baby. The subsidized US cotton was grabbed by our textile magnates. They were getting it virtually free. No prizes for guessing what this did to the cotton price for Vidharbha farmers. Maharashtra’s suicides are perhaps unique. In that state, farmers have written suicide notes addressed to the prime minister and chief minister on the issue (while many experts ponder about why these people are taking their lives)"
Subject: Your News Item dated 1st May ‘09
“Poverty More Dangerous than GM Side-effects: SC”
Sir,
I write to express my astonishment at the choice of headline on the outcome of yesterday’s SC hearing of the PIL where I am the lead Petitioner; that it passed the Times of India’s editorial screening.
I am not questioning the veracity of your report about the comment made by the Chief Justice (CJ) of the Supreme Court. But it was a comment and your paper has elevated that comment and instead given it the gravitas of a pronouncement of the Supreme Court Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India. I am therefore, questioning the objective of a national daily of importance suggesting to your reading public that such is indeed the benefit of GM crops (that GM crops will feed the poor with their high yields). Since GM crops are unquestionably a question of national security, (both food and critically India’s biodiversity) I’m constrained to say that it fell short of responsible reporting and is to the detriment of your reading public and the national interest.
This comment of the CJ has no basis in the deliberations and the evidence given to the Supreme Court in the four years since this case was filed. What the public need to know is that the factual scientific issue is that GM crops give no intrinsic yield gains. It is also a fact that we have record-breaking farmer suicides in the Country, levels never approximated in history. In the case of Vidharba these have been linked by the MUMBAI HIGH COURT through its amicus curiae, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences to the inappropriateness of GM crops in a rain-fed region and because of their high input costs. The latter is a point of relevance for farmers everywhere.
The most rudimentary research uncovers the fact that the ‘Industry’ led by Monsanto has contributed to the recent food crisis because of steep price rises sourced in the diversion of food crops to GM biofuel crops. Monsanto has also been docked for hounding farmers in Canada and the US in court cases for patent infringement when their farms were inadvertently contaminated by GM seeds and pollen from other farms. These are companies who exist to promote their bottom line, not feed the poor. Let’s be very clear about this, both as a reality on the ground for farmers and the poor and the science of the present state of GM technology, which does not provide yield gains.
I would be happy to submit an article to your paper detailing the dangers India faces with GM crops and asking the all important question:
Why in heaven’s name is our government prepared to risk the health of one billion Indians in perpetuity by forcing untested and & unsafe GM food onto our plates?
Aruna Rodrigues
(Lead Petitioner to the SC in a PIL
for a moratorium on GM crops pending comprehensive and transparent safety-testing in the national interest)
Saturday, May 2, 2009
VJAS urged Indian Supreme Court to know the fact that GM food is most dangerous to poor than food security
VJAS urged Indian Supreme Court to know the fact that GM food is most dangerous to poor than food security
Poverty more dangerous than GM side-effects: SC
Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) farmers advocacy group apposing introduction of GM seeds in Indian after vidarbha reported more than 5000 cotton farmers suicides since June 2005 when Govt. allowed commercial trials of Bt.cotton seeds , has been shocked to see media report that the Supreme Court of India has observed that GM seeds could possibly be a means to eradicate hunger and poverty. Poverty is probably more dangerous than the side-effects of GM seeds but it is not true as per research reports it is internationally known fact that GM food has caused a series of health problems including adverse effects on growth, impaired immune system, and organ damage that can be carried over generations and the pertinent danger that inadequately tested GM could pose to consumer health, agriculture, environment, and even revenues earned from food exports.
some experts observed that “We will survive without GM (Genetically Modified) food but we will never be able to survive the change unleashed by the tide of modification that is called Genetic Engineering” hence in a letter to hon,ble chief justice of supreme court India VJAS president Kishore Tiwari has urged SC to go in to details of all aspects of unsafe GM food as any SC observation may lead to major health and ecological problem before the nation.
It is reported in Times of India dated 1 May 2009 that
I QUOTE
Hearing PILs seeking stringent regulatory mechanism and advanced testing for the toxicity of the genetically modified organisms (GMOs), a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices P Sathasivam and J M Panchal said the GM seeds capable of dramatically increasing productivity could be an answer to the hunger and poverty in
"There is intense competition between GM seed marketing agents. We are a little suspicious of the literature they put forth. GM seeds could possibly be a means to eradicate hunger and poverty. Poverty is probably more dangerous than the side-effects of GM seeds," the Bench said.
Countering the perception of the apex court, advocates Sanjay Parikh and Prashant Bhushan argued that when the country's regulatory regime was lax and there were no advanced laboratories to test the toxicity of the GMOs, open filed trials of such genetically modified seeds could result in an irreversible catastrophe.
They suggested intense reworking of the existing regulatory regime and setting up of a National Centre for Assessment of GMOs, as suggested by a member of the expert committee, Dr P M Bhargava.
The Bench asked the Centre to submit its response by the end of August regarding setting up of a separate the National Centre for Assessment of GMOs and also the need for constituting a separate expert committee to chalk out a comprehensive regulatory mechanism with regard to GMOs.
UNQUOTE
Vidarbha has been facing lot of heath problems after the field trials GM cotton seeds and
health and environmental impact studies conducted by expert NGOs has already reported major damages to rural life of west vidarbha including multiple issues of mealy bug’s wide spread in forest damaging lot of plants in total and fresh attacks of new viruses like chikungunia creating massive health problems in tribal part of vidarbha and much more health damage to rural masses hence introduction of GM food in vidarbha needs more stringent regulator to monitor ecological disorder due to toxicity of GM food as reported through out the world .
“Eradication of poverty and hunger is must in
.
Please release this pres note
Thanking you,
Yours faithfully, For VIDARBHA JAN ANDOLAN SAMlTI
KISHORE TIWARI
PRESIDENT
contact-09422108846
No comments:
Post a Comment