Three weeks after India's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) overruled field trials for 15 GM crops, members of Parliament are heading to the US on a week-long study tour sponsored by Monsanto
NOTE: Since the articles below were written, the Indian political party, BJP, has moved to stop its Party’s MPs going on this Monsanto-sponsored junket – presumably because it looked so bad!
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/bjp-mps-opt-out-of-us-junket-by-seed-giant-monsanto-580
1. After GM trial ban, BJP, Sena MPs heading for Monsanto-funded study tour
2. Industry-sponsored study tours are a malpractice
1. After GM trial ban, BJP, Sena MPs heading for Monsanto-funded study tour
Archis Mohan, Aman Sethi, & Sanjeeb Mukherjee
Business Standard (India), 22 Aug 2014
http://wap.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/after-gm-trial-ban-mps-heading-for-monsanto-funded-study-tour-114082200063_1.html
* MPs will first attend a "Farm Progress Show" in Iowa, then visit the Monsanto headquarters in St Louis, Missouri
Three weeks after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) overruled field trials for 15 genetically modified (GM) crops, a group of members of Parliament from BJP and the Shiv Sena are heading to the US on a week-long study tour sponsored by global seed giant, Monsanto. The group departs on Saturday.
The MPs will first attend a "Farm Progress Show" in Iowa, then visit the Monsanto headquarters in St Louis, Missouri. The trip will cost an estimated $6,000 (Rs 363,540) per head for travel, food, and accommodation, according to a Monsanto spokesperson, who confirmed the company would bear these costs.
"In line with industry practice, we have extended invitations to farmers, industry experts, media, and members of Parliament across the political spectrum to visit the show and experience for themselves the advances in agriculture all over the world," said the spokesperson. "Parliamentarians with interest in agriculture and seeking to advance their knowledge of agricultural technology, across party lines, responded to the invitation."
On July 29, Environment & Forests Minister Prakash Javadekar overruled the recommendations of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) and put a halt to the field trials of 15 GM crops, including of brinjal and rice, after protests from pro-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) bodies, Swadeshi Jagran Manch, and Bharatiya Kisan Sangh.
But, the Monsanto spokesperson said, the trip bore no relation to the ruling party's decision to put GM crop trials on hold. The "Farm Progress Show" is a three-day event that has been held in Iowa since 1953 and attracts thousands of farmers and delegates every year.
"The visit is from August 24 to 30. Monsanto has arranged this visit. We will visit their plant to see the latest technology related to the agriculture sector," Prataprao Ganapatrao Jadhav, the Shiv Sena MP from Buldhana, Maharashtra, said in an interview.
His party colleague in the Lok Sabha, Krupal Balaji Tumane, MP from Ramtek in Maharashtra, confirmed he was part of the group. "Apart from Iowa, we are also scheduled to visit Washington," he said. Tumane and Jadhav said others in the group included two MPs from Andhra Pradesh, one each from Gujarat and Rajasthan and four each from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Others in the group, such as BJP MP from Siwan Om Prakash Yadav and the party's Bulandshahr MP, Bhola Singh, were unavailable for comment.
However, BJP MP from Aligarh, Satish Gautam, claimed he had opted out of the visit. Gautam said party president Amit Shah asked all party MPs in Uttar Pradesh to prepare for the by-elections to a dozen Assembly seats in the state. "There will be a by-election to the Noida Assembly seat and I have decided to devote my time to election work," he said. The by-elections are unlikely before mid-October.
Monsanto declined to reveal the size of the delegation but said invites had been sent to "18 to 20 people". MPs were invited on the basis of their interest in the use of technology in agriculture.
When contacted, a senior agriculture ministry official said the ministry was not aware of the MPs' visit to the US. "If it is a private visit organised by a company for individual MPs, they are not required to keep us in the loop. Such visits need the agriculture ministry's approval only in cases where the government is involved," the official explained.
Earlier this month, junior agriculture minister Sanjeev Kumar Balyan said in reply to a Parliament question in the Lok Sabha that the government policy was to allow GM crops after full scientific evaluation of their bio-safety and impact on the environment and on consumers. This is also BJP's stated position, as stated in its election manifesto.
HIT & TRIAL
2010 Feb: Then environment minister Jairam Ramesh puts commercial release of Monsanto Bt Brinjal on hold; field test for other varieties and crops continue
2012 May: Supreme Court sets up expert panel to review the issue
Aug: Parliament's standing committee on agriculture demands moratorium on field trials of all GM food crops and a complete policy overhaul
Oct: SC's expert panel suggests a moratorium on GM trials; Centre opposes this, puts its nominee on panel
2013 Mar-Jun: Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee recommends trials for some GM food crops but the then minister Jayanthi Natarajan puts the plan on hold
Jul: SC panel's majority report advises moratorium; govt nominee bats for trials
Aug: Natarajan writes to PMO opposing trials of GM food crops; the then PM and agriculture minister bat for GM
2014 Feb: As environment minister, M Veerappa Moily renews lapsed clearances for food crop varieties
Jul 17: Under Prakash Javadekar GEAC recommends GM trials for 13 food crop varieties
Jul 29: Swadeshi Jagaran Manch and other RSS affiliates object; Javadekar puts final decision on hold
Aug 23: MPs from various parties, including BJP and the Shiv Sena, leave for the US on a Monsanto-funded study tour
2. Industry-sponsored study tours are a malpractice
Devinder Sharma
Devinder Sharma blogspot, 22 August 2014
http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/industry-sponsored-study-tours-are.html
In the mid-1980s I was working with the Indian Express. As the Agriculture Correspondent for the newspaper I had followed keenly the claims Pepsico was making to re-enter India. In the garb of bringing a 2nd Horticultural Revolution in the trouble-torn Punjab, Pepsi had its eyes set on the vast Indian market for its beverages. The studies and reports Pepsico had presented were not so convincing. In my columns I had repeatedly questioned the claims.
Pepsico was certainly not happy with my reports. I was contacted by a senior Punjab bureaucrat who wanted me to sit across with the Country Director of Pepsico to know the other side. As a journalist this is what I am supposed to do. So I readily agreed. The three of us met for a cup of tea and after a lot of discussions, Pepsico invited me and my wife for a fortnight visit to the US to see for myself the remarkable research that was being conducted on agriculture. I was also told that Pepsico would be keen to take me to Venezuela to show me the success they have achieved in potato cultivation. When I just smiled and said "thank you" (and perhaps sensing that I may not take it as an unethical practice), I was told they were also taking a senior bureaucrat (who incidentally was responsible for the development sector, and was not very enthused with Pepsico's proposals) to the US.
Well, the bureaucrat did visit Pepsico's headquarters (he had sought permission from the Punjab Govt to attend a family marriage in the US) and once he returned he became a die hard champion for Pepsico.
Pepsico did subsequently make an entry into Punjab in the late 1980's. But all I know is that after some 30 years, in 2014, when I look back there is no trace of the 2nd Horticultural Revolution the soft drink giant had promised.
This incident came to my mind the moment I read the news report, After GM trials ban, BJP, Sena MPs heading for Monsanto-funded study tour (Business Standard. Aug 22, 2014. http://bit.ly/1q095qc). The news report said, "A group of members of Parliament from BJP and Shiv Sena are heading to the US on a week long study tour sponsored by global seed giant, Monsanto. The group departs on Saturday." It also quoted a Monsanto spokesperson who admitted that this is in line with industry practice. The visit would cost approximately $6,000 per head for food, accommodation and travel which would be entirely borne by Monsanto. Considering there are no free lunches, you can just imagine the kind of indirect return the company was expecting for this visit.
Within hours of the news report appearing the social media went berserk. The BJP responded by saying that none of its members would be part of the junket.
Nevertheless, the fact remains this is not the first time industry has sponsored such study junkets. And also Monsanto is not the only company to have done so. This is a usual lobbying practice adopted by Big Business and somehow the media is game with it. Monsanto itself has taken in the past scores of journalists, farmer leaders, scientists, and officials of the Department of Biotechnology on study tours. It will be interesting to know how many such junkets have been organised by Monsanto in the past, and to know who all went and what did they write when they came back. No wonder you see a very spirited defense of the controversial genetically modified (GM) crops that are under consideration for commercial approval.
This also reminds me of a news report that has appeared in the national daily The Hindu some years back. A group of visiting scientists (for an International Science Congress in New Delhi) had gone and me the then Chief Justice of India inviting him and some senior judges on an 'educational tour' of the US to understand the virtues of GM technology. I later found out that judges from some 20 countries including India, South Africa, Brazil, and Egypt had traveled to an institute named after Albert Einstein. The basic objective of such education trips for the judges was to expose them to "the great potential of GM crops" so that they don't easily admit legal cases that would be filed in due course of time.
This malpractice must stop. Already enough damage has been done by manipulating the public discourse by such sponsored visits. Just like the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has put an end to the malpractice of carrying an entourage of journalists on his visits abroad, and has also directed ruling party MPs to take his permission before travelling abroad on such junkets/study tours, it is high time the Indian media too on its own announced putting an end to this malpractice. Media can't be standing on the high moral ground without first setting up an example.
Why only MP's[?] it is time the government also stops agricultural scientists, economists, sociologists, and also bar officials of the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Science & Technology as well as the Ministry of Environment & Forests from such sponsored studies. This is a corrupt practice and it must be put to an end.