Environmentalists, civil society groups and scientists working with marginal farmers have welcomed recommendation of the Supreme Court appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) placing a 10-year moratorium on field trials of GM crops in India. The TEC freeze advice includes field trials of Bt transgenics in all food crops which are used directly for human consumption. (See links below for the actual report and more details) The TEC, which was appointed in...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Myths about industrial agriculture -Vandana Shiva
-Al Jazeera Organic farming is the "only way to produce food" without harming the planet and people's health. Reports trying to create doubts about organic agriculture are suddenly flooding the media. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, people are fed up of the corporate assault of toxics and GMOs. Secondly, people are turning to organic agriculture and organic food as a way to end the toxic war against the earth and...
More »Big mart dream spurs debate-Sanjeev Kumar Verma
-The Telegraph Patna: Farmers in Bihar have set their sights on foreign funds for a change in their fortune though economists have cast a doubt on it. Ask Nitish Kumar, a farmer of Darveshpura village in Nalanda district, who hogged the limelight a couple of months ago with record production of potatoes. Nitish had no one by his side when he was forced to go for distress sale of the same potato, which...
More »Unless we put an end to baseless fear of GM crops, we will not be able to feed our growing population-P Chengal Reddy
-The Times of India The parliamentary committee report on genetically modified (GM) organisms is an attempt to give a quiet burial to biotechnology in India. On behalf of the farmers of India, let me say that this report totally fails to reflect farmers' aspirations, and distorts the scientific significance of biotechnology - including genetic engineering - for the national economy. Instead, it echoes persistent canards by some environmental NGOs. Indian farming suffers...
More »A ban on the use of crops with transgenic traits is unscientific and India needs new technologies to raise farm yields-Deepak Pental
Science and technology hold the key to developing low-input, high-output agriculture. The challenge is to use new technologies creatively and to make evidence-based decisions on the deployment of new technologies. Crop breeding is carried out to meet two broad objectives: one, to increase yields of a crop per se and, two, to protect the yield potential by developing crops resistant to diseases, pests and environmental extremes. Both yield-enhancement and yield-stabilisation are...
More »