1.Let's not barter away our food security for GM crops
2.Policymakers yet to reach consensus Sowing of Bt cotton was unauthorised

GM WATCH COMMENT: As Pakistan is pressurised down the GM route, it's encouraging to see such a thoughtful article (item 1) in the Pakistani press.

As the article notes, "The ISAAA's growing influence in Pakistan is apparent." And, unfortunately, most of Pakistan's media is failing to ask questions about the hype they're being fed by this industry group.

Over and over again we read about the danger of Pakistan being left behind as other Asian countries enjoy bountiful harvests and race ahead with GM. But almost every element of this picture is either false, incomplete or misleading.

Here's a classic example of this from the second article:

"The [ISAAA] report said that Bt cotton has contributed significantly to the yield increase in cotton in India... In turn... Bt cotton has been a major contributor to increased exports from India... Thailand [is] worried about falling behind its global competition, much of Asia is rushing forward with the development and cultivation of genetically modified crops. The three most populous countries in Asia - China, India and Indonesia - are already planting millions of acres of genetically modified cotton."

FALSE

Far from Indonesia "planting millions of acres of genetically modified cotton", Monsanto's Bt seeds had to be withdrawn from the country after it proved a disaster. And a sustained campaign of corruption of officials by Monsanto was subsequently shown to have occurred.
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=58&page=1

And as the first article notes, India's apparently improved cotton harvests owe more to the weather than Bt cotton. In fact, ISAAA's own data shows the attribution of any improvements to Bt cotton is completely bogus.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7433

INCOMPLETE

A lot of Bt cotton has been planted in India and China but that hardly reflects the technology's success. In India's case there's good reason to conclude that it reflects a massive campaign of hype impacting, as a just published study shows, on farmers who've become highly vulnerable to agricultural fads. (Effect of genetically modified crops on developing countries) http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7490

(THE MARKETING OF BT COTTON IN INDIA)
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5741

And a study of Bt cotton cultivation in 2004 in China showed non-Bt cotton farmers were making more money than Bt cultivators, who were suffering from major problems with secondary pest infestations.
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=86&page=1

MISLEADING

As for Thailand missing the GM train, that may have been a concewrn of the former Thai Prime Minister but that concern hasn't been reflected in the rest of Thailand, quite the reverse, a fact which forced the PM to back-track on lifting Thailand's GM ban. And the Thai rice industry has recently been celebrating the fact that it has kept clear of GM rice as it is benefiting ecenomically from the crisis inflicted on the US rice industry by GM contamination following field trials.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7337

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1.Let's not barter away our food security for GM crops
We need to have a strategy that benefits our farmers
By Kamal Siddiqi (Editor Reporting) The News - International (Pakistan), January
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=40655

KARACHI: Important decisions are being made about Genetically Modified (GM) technologies, which aren’t covered in our media or even in our parliament. Journalists and parliamentarians either lack access to information about GM crop trials or do not understand the issues at stake.

Meanwhile, biotech corporations are pressing ahead, leaving decisions that will affect millions of Pakistanis unexamined. After the privatisation of our important public sector entities, the new frontier seems to be our farms and food security. From what was once called the granary of the sub-continent, Pakistan can be reduced to what some are calling a client food state which will have to comply with the whims of Western biotech companies or face famine.

Earlier this week, Kausar Abdullah, member Planning Commission on Agriculture told a news conference that efforts were underway for approval of all BT (Bio-technology) varieties "as soon as possible" to adopt them in an organized manner for cultivation all over the country. This is bad news as it comes without any debate on the issue.

In Pakistan's business-friendly climate, biotech and GM issues are not a priority and are often mentioned in a polarized manner. In the absence of in-depth knowledge and specialization, it's either a business story - technologies are reported as good for food production and export markets - or it’s a story about NGO protests.

This is ironic because some experts feel that the media in developing countries will have to increasingly deal with GM issues in the future.

"...Facing a political climate that is generally hostile to agri-biotech, companies have grown pessimistic about their commercial future in Europe and have begun moving their plant biotechnology divisions elsewhere," said an editorial in the Scientific American magazine in August last year.

According to some experts, multinational companies engaging in crop-improvement programs have taken a stronghold in developing countries through locally influential personages and companies.

In 1998 Monsanto bought a 28 per cent equity stake in Mumbai-based MAHYCO (Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company), an Indian firm. MAHYCO is headed by Dr Raju Barwale, a top scientist who has been decorated for his pioneering work in non-GM seed development. His influence in the government spreads into almost every sector of agriculture and biotechnology, and even the environment ministry.

Monsanto is not controversy-free. Its field trials with genetically modified Bt cotton sparked NGO protests between 2001 and 2003. The department of biotechnology in India gave it permission to produce the seeds even before trials were completed and the company did not make the trial results public.

One claim that Pakistan has to deal with is that GM crops will alleviate poverty and hunger in the developing world. Making the claim, among others, is a non-profit organization with global clout - the International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotech Applications (ISAAA). With a mandate to aid technology-transfer from rich to poor countries, and a high-profile board of current and past members, the ISAAA was represented at the press conference in Islamabad by its chairman Clive James.

In a 2004 report on the global status of biotech crops, ISAAA chief Clive James says that 90 per cent of beneficiaries of the increase in acreage of biotech crops have been poor farmers "whose increased income from biotech crops contributed to the alleviation of poverty."

The ISAAA's growing influence in Pakistan is apparent. It also claims that these technologies would bring about the "next green revolution" in Pakistan.

The ISAAA, which conducts media study tours and symposia, says a country like India saw a 400% rise (500,000 hectares) in Bt cotton hectareage in 2004 and that 11 per cent of cotton farmers adopted Bt seeds. Only a handful queried such claims.

But the increase in acreage that the ISAAA refers to is minuscule compared to India's 10 million hectares of cotton cultivation, say analysts. Just because farmers are experimenting with GM crops in order to assess their benefits does not mean they have accepted the technology. This is true of Pakistan as well.

Sometimes it is also a question of making use of available data. India's Crop Weather Watch Group argue that the country’s bumper cotton crop in 2004 was more due to deficient rainfall - low humidity discourages pest-breeding - than to the widespread use of Bt technology as claimed by the ISAAA.

But GM crops have made considerable inroads into traditional agriculture over the last ten years. Major biotech crops to have been successfully commercialised include cotton, corn (maize) and soybean. But is this for the better?

After a decade of commercialisation, global area under biotech crops has expanded to 90 million hectares in 21 countries covering 8.5 million farmers in 2005.

Herbicide-tolerant soybean continues to be the mostly widely adopted trait, accounting for 60 per cent of total global area. Varieties with stacked traits are growing in popularity, accounting for 10 per cent of global area, the ISAAA report pointed out.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that food output must increase by 60 percent over the next 25 years to keep up with demand.

In a report on the bioengineering of crops written for the World Bank and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in October last year, a group led by Henry Kendall, chair of the Washington DC-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said that transgenic crops could improve food yields by up to 25 percent in developing countries and could help to feed an estimated additional three billion people over the next 30 years.

Whether or not the rest of the world falls in line with the US in accepting life patents, researchers predict that with advances in biotechnology there will be a switch in centres of production away from the developing world, accompanied by loss of export income. This is cause for worry.

Farmers in the US are expected to plant twice as much GM soybean in 2008 as in 2007, and with resistance to GM soy in Europe, there are concerns that it will be dumped in countries like Pakistan. <br><br>Corporations that patent crop plants often don’t allow nations, where these crops are indigenous, to benefit. The central, over-arching debate (or lack of debate) concerns ownership of resources and how to reconcile the rigid, individualistic patenting system of the developed world with the community-held knowledge systems of poorer countries.

If foreign researchers and TNCs can patent indigenous crop plants without making recompense to the communities who provided them, there are fears that farmers will end up paying royalties on the products of their own knowledge, products on which they rely for survival.

In September 1997, the US company Ricetec, Inc., was granted a patent on Basmati rice. The patent is for a variety achieved by the crossing of Indian Basmati with semi-dwarf varieties, and it covers Basmati grown anywhere in the Western hemisphere.

Ricetec can also put its brand on any breeding crosses involving 22 farmer-bred Basmati varieties from Pakistan and, according to RAFI (Rural Advancement Foundation International), on any blending of Pakistani or Indian Basmati strains with the company’s other proprietary seeds.

Ricetec also claims the right to use the Basmati name. The Indian government has challenged Ricetec’s claim, arguing that the patent jeopardises India's annual Basmati export market of around $277 million, and threatens the livelihood of thousands farmers.

Monsanto, a biotech firm, does not allow farmers to save seeds, forcing them to continually buy more Monsanto seed. The ability of farmers to save seed is seen as crucial to food security especially in a country like Pakistan.

According to RAFI, up to 1.4 billion poor farmers in the developing world depend on saved seed and seeds exchanged with farm neighbors, and up to 50 percent of soybean in the developing world is planted with farmer-saved seed.

TNCs such as Monsanto require farmers who buy their GM seeds to sign contracts agreeing not to save seed. In March 1998 RAFI reported that Monsanto had taken legal action against more than 100 soybean growers in the US, and had hired Pinkerton investigators (hired police) to identify those saving seeds.

In 1998 the US Department of Agriculture and the Mississippi-based Delta and Pine Land seed company were granted a patent on the so-called "terminator technology", which involves engineering seeds so that they do not germinate if planted for a second time.

What does all this mean for the Pakistani farmer? On the one hand, GM seeds and crops promise an increased yield. But the catch is that the farmer cannot re-use the seed. This makes the farmer a client of the biotech company for life. There is no more self sufficiency.

GM crops also have other hazards attached to them and sometimes do not get the results that they promise. All this needs to be considered by Pakistan before it opens the way to bio-technology.

To every cloud there is a silver lining. If our parliament is heavy with agriculturists, this is the platform for us to debate whether we are better off with our crops and techniques or should we adopt technology that barters away our food security. Time for some deep thinking and hard questioning.
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2.Policymakers yet to reach consensus
Sowing of Bt cotton was unauthorised
By Fida Hussain
The Daily Times (Pakistan), January 27 2007
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C01%5C27%5Cstory_27-1-2007_pg5_2

ISLAMABAD: As most countries in North and South America and considerable number of countries in Asia have made a significant progress on introducing biotech (Bt) crops for increasing productivity, the policymakers in Pakistan are still to reach a consensus on the adoption of the new technology in the country, a senior government official told Daily Times on Friday.

Most of the initiatives being taken by different government organisations are working without any co-ordination due to which there are differences among the policymakers, which include the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL), the National Commission on Biotechnology (NCB) of Ministry of Science and Technology and Planning Commission (PC).

The recent development of Bt cotton, which has already been grown in different areas of the country, has become a bone of contention among various stakeholders as no farmer has sought any permission from the MINFAL to grow this variety of crop. Under the present rules and regulations, the sowing of Bt cotton was illegal.

"There is set mechanism which must be followed for the introduction of new technology. The new varieties of genetically modified of seeds must undergo various tests before permitting the sowing of new crops at a mass scale," a senior government official said. He said that MINFAL was going to introduce IRFH 901 variety of cotton, which has been developed by the country's own research institutions, this year. According to him the permission of Bt crops was a risky issue, as the MINFAL must make sure that no variety is the carrier of any lethal diseases. Despite having spent millions of rupees, the research institutes failed to curb or eradicate the Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV) in cotton.

Despite the fact that the NCB and the PC were striving to introduce more Bt crops in the country in 2007, the MINFAL has not been formally informed by the concerned organisations.

According to the official, before the introduction of Bt crops, every variety must be tested for longer period. It takes two or in some cases three years to approve the new variety of seed. So far, the concerned organisations provided no variety in this regard, the official said.

According to a recent report of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Application (ISAAA) more than 20 million farmers will plant 200 million hectares of biotech crops in about 40 countries. The growth during 1996 to 2006 is equivalent to an unprecedented 60-fold increase, the biggest adoption rate of any crop technology.

The report indicated that the growth of biotech crop adoption was substantially higher in the developing world at 21 percent versus the industrialized nations where adoption grew by 9 percent. Developing countries now account for 40 percent of the global biotech crop, the report said.

The report said that Bt cotton has contributed significantly to the yield increase in cotton in India from 308 kg lint per hectare in 2001-02 to 450 kg lint per hectare in 2005-06. In turn in yield from Bt cotton has been a major contributor to increased exports from India, which soared from 0.9 million bales in 2005 to 4.7 million bales in 2006. Thailand, worried about falling behind its global competition, much of Asia is rushing forward with the development and cultivation of genetically modified crops. The three most populous countries in Asia - China, India and Indonesia - are already planting millions of acres of genetically modified cotton.