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The AgBioIndia Bulletin
http://www.agbioindia.org

Presenting the Real Picture
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6 May 2003

Sub: Pests, Pesticides and GMO regulations

The US Environmental Protection Agency, which claims to be the strictest regulatory authority, is in trouble. It has bypassed the recommendations of its own scientific panel on the size of the 'refuge' crop for Bt corn. The disquiet over the refuge decisio
n and the panel's makeup belies deeper problems about the regulatory process for transgenic crops -- which by all accounts will get trickier as new technology and stacked versions of approved products hit the market.

In India -- the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) -- too is maintaining a complete silence over its failure to regulate its own recommendations pertaining to 20 per cent 'refuge' crop for Bt cotton. Looking at the way the regulatory authorities
, whether in the US or in India, are going out of the way to help the biotech seed companies to flout the recommendations, there is no need for any more evidence for the fraud that is being perpetuated in the name of science.

In another piece, Devinder Sharma reports and analyses the acceptance by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) of its biggest folly while promoting green revolution technology -- pesticides were unnecessary. Three decades after the world was to
ld that there is no escape but to use harmful chemicals on crops, IRRI is learning its lessons the hard way. What is the guarantee that a decade later the same questions are not asked about the genetically modified crops? Who will then pay for the environm
ental damage already inflicted? The 'polluter pays' principle therefore needs to be extended to cover agricultural institutions, including CGIAR.

Contents:

1. Notice Board -- Philippine hunger strike update
2. Pests, Pesticides and Modern Science -- Devinder Sharma
3. Concerns over refuge size for US EPA-approved Bt corn -- Nature
Biotechnology

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NOTICE BOARD

1. Philippine hunger strike update

DA Compound (May 6) - More environmentalists have come in to express their support of a hunger strike against genetically-engineered corn, on its 15th day today.

Four hunger strikers started a water-and-juice fast since April 22, calling on the government to withdraw the permit for the commercial sale of Bt corn. The strikers have camped in front of the compound of the Department of Agriculture along Quezon Memoria
l Circle.

Zero-waste advocate Leonarda Camacho urged President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to issue a moratorium on the sale of Bt corn, saying impassionedly: "Nasa iyong kamay ang kaligtasan ng mamayang Pilipino!"

Marikina congressman Delfin de Guzman said he would support a resolution before the House committee on agriculture to stop the sale and planting of Bt corn.

University of the Philippines professor Oscar Zamora challenged Monsanto's willingness to be accountable in case Bt corn failed. He said that farmers have increasingly resorted to ecological approaches in controlling the corn borer pest. He said that scien
tists are still debating on the safety of Bt corn.

Other supporters who came to express their support Monday were Sr. Aida Velasquez, OSB, Antonio Claparols of the Ecological Society of the Philippines, movie actor and environmental advocate Roy Alvarez, artists' groups, and representatives from Pabinhi, M
iriam Peace, GRAIN, Haribon, Mother Earth, Columban Fathers, and SEARICE.

The four hunger strikers, namely Luisita Esmao, Arma Bertuso, Mark Cervantes and Roberto Verzola, vowed to pursue their hunger strike.#

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2. Pests, Pesticides and Modern Science

By Devinder Sharma

It took three decades for the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to realise the gravest mistake of Green Revolution - pesticides are unnecessary. But by the time the mistake was realised, pesticides had polluted the environment, poisoned the fert
ile soils, contaminated the ground water and taken a heavy human toll.

Not far from where IRRI is located, rice farmers in Central Luzon province in the Philippines, had gradually got disenchanted with the indiscriminate use of pesticides. From a peak insecticide use in the mid-1980s, it is now at an historic low. Contrary to
what agricultural scientists and the chemical industry had maintained all these years, the decline in insecticides use has been accompanied by an increase in productivity from an average of 2.75 tonnes to 3.25 tonnes per hectare in 2002. It also resulted
in savings on an average of up to 1,000 pesos per hectare for these farmers.

Equally significant is the scientific courage with which IRRI's director general, Dr Ronald Cantrell has accepted the reality: "It shows that the mistakes of the Green Revolution - where too much emphasis was sometimes put on the use of chemicals for pest
control - have clearly been recognized and corrected, " adding, " because of their toxicity, insecticides really should be used by farmers as a last resort, and we are very pleased to see that farmers have realized this for many years, especially here in t
he Philippines." His colleagues at IRRI are now equally critical of the extent and use of pesticides. Says Gary John, an ecologist: "The simple fact is that, in the rest of Asia, most insecticide use on rice is a waste of the farmers' time and money."

The Philippines is not the only country where farmers have proved the scientists wrong. In Vietnam, almost 2 million rice growers in the Mekong Delta have been persuaded to cut back on using harmful and unnecessary farm chemicals. The campaign - which was
a joint effort of a team of Philippine and Vietnamese scientists - has sharply reduced pesticide misuse, and won the collaborative effort the US$25,000 Saint Andrews' Environmental Prize for 2002. The prize money is now being used to extend the campaign to
another million rice farmers in the Red River Delta.

"What we hope to learn next is why the farmers of central Luzon have learned these lessons so much more quickly than farmers elsewhere," adds Dr. John. First launched in 1994 in the Mekong Delta - long one of the great rice bowls of Asia - the research and
subsequent campaign marked a milestone in rice production for two reasons. IRRI says that first it clearly identified the damage caused by insecticide overuse, which kills off friendly insects and so encourages the pests they would otherwise help control,
and it also developed a completely new way of communicating important information to farmers.

The basic premise of integrated pest management (IPM) is that no single pest-control method can be successful over a long period. Therefore, a mixture of biological, physical and chemical methods must be considered and integrated into a cohesive strategy d
esigned to sustain a pest-management system. The ultimate goal of IPM is sustainable agricultural systems with minimal or no pesticide use, says an IRRI press release. One wonders when will this new found understanding be applied in cotton, which alone con
sumes more than 50 per cent of the total pesticides used.

Well, if that is true, isn't it a fact that agricultural scientists had misled farmers all these years? Isn't it a fact that because of the over-emphasis on the use of chemicals to control pests, more problems have been created rather than being addressed?
Isn't it a fact that besides polluting the environment, insecticides have changed the pest profile turning many minor insect species to emerge as major pests? Does it not mean that if scientists had learnt from farmers, probably they could have found simp
le time-tested technologies that wouldn't have destroyed the fertile lands?

For instance, in the State of Tamil Nadu, situated in the southern part of India, more than 8,000 farmers in some 10 districts have been using herbal pest repellents. Such has been the mental conditioning that no agricultural scientist, graduating from the
land grant colleges, will ever accept the efficacy and utility of such an herbal spray. The result being that while expensive and unwanted pesticides are being promoted and pushed by the scientists and extension workers, farmers are looking for safe and e
cological alternatives. While Philippino researchers say one of the key factors continuing to influence Philippine farmers is the return of fish, frogs and edible snails to their farms, confirming the positive environmental impact of IPM strategies, it may
take some time for Indian agricultural scientists to see the writing on the wall.

A Karikali-based group in Tamil Nadu, prides in calling itself a university with multifarious ecological roles -- Vazhviyal Multiversity. Its herbal pest repellent is based on traditional knowledge listed in the scripture -- Vriksha Ayurveda. The repellen
t is prepared from the leaves of five plant species that are not eaten by cattle. These can vary from a place to place, but would ideally have neem, tulsi, and datura. The leaves are collected, cut into pieces and then pounded. The biomass is then put in a
n earthen pot filled with cow urine. The pot is kept in a compost pit for ten days, during which period it gets fermented. Filter the fermented solution with a cotton cloth, add ten times the quantity with water, and the herbal spray is ready.

The only catch being that the herbal spray is applied before the insects appear. Such simple technologies unfortunately do not find any mention in the agriculture textbooks and curriculum. The reason is simple: there is no industry behind it.

Numerous such technologies have been in vogue. But with the advent of modern science, which began to view everything traditional as backward and sub-standard, the collective wisdom of generations of farmers was lost. Such was the massive campaign to discre
dit everything that was time-tested for ages that modern science, its blind adoption, and extensive application became the essential ingredient for classifying farmers as 'progressive'. The chemical industry, which gained commercially from the surge in wid
espread use, very cleverly used agricultural scientists as its promoters. By the time the scientists realized, and thanks to a concerted campaign by some civil society groups and organizations, the damage and destruction had been done.

The chemical industry has meanwhile moved into life sciences. The same industry now decries pesticides and sings virtues for the new 'promising technology' - genetic engineering. Pesticides are now being replaced with genetically modified crops, which perf
orm the same functions. The tragedy is that agricultural scientists are being once again used as promoters of a technology, the negative impact of which have not been fully studied. Once again, agricultural scientists appear more than keen to take the farm
ing community on a faulty garden path. And like the pesticides imbroglio, it may take decades before the disastrous implications of the cutting-edge technology, as genetic engineering is fondly called, become visible.

But then, who is responsible for and should be directed to pay for the clean-up operations to restore the sustainability of the lands and environment? Why shouldn't the 'polluter pays' principle be applied to the Consultative Group on International Agricul
tural Research (CGIAR), which governs the 16 international agricultural research centres, and of course the multi-billion dollar chemical industry to pay for the environmental damages? It is time agricultural science is made accountable. It is high time th
at the CGIAR is directed to cough out the real cost of the environmental destruction its technologies have wrought. Modern science cannot be allowed a free play for un-necessary experimentation that does irreparable damage to the land and water that feeds
the world. A beginning has to be made, the sooner the better. #

(Devinder Sharma is a New Delhi-based food and trade policy analyst. Email: )

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3. Concerns over refuge size for US EPA-approved Bt corn

By Kendall Powell
Nature Biotechnology
May 2003 Volume 21 Number 5 pp 467 - 468

As a new transgenic corn hits US fields for this year's growing season, it's no surprise that controversy swirls about its stalks. The dispute centers not on the plant itself-which even opponents say is likely to be safe and beneficial to the environment [
This is nonsenses. see: Monsanto's Submission Raises Major New Concerns in 'Comments Submitted to Docket Number OPP-30509' - Union of Concerned Scientists: http://www.biotech-info.net/Cry3Bbfinal.pdf] - but on the crop's potential sustainability.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA; Washington, DC), which approved the corn in February, finds itself at odds with its own scientific advisory panel over the question of how to manage pest resistance to the crop. The unheeded scientific advice, and
other decision-making glitches, left critics wondering whether EPA regulation is firmly grounded on the best scientific advice.

"The EPA is calling for science-based regulation, but here that does not appear to be the case," says Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) member David Andow, a corn entomologist at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul. Panel members convened by the EPA in A
ugust 2002 were mystified and frustrated when the agency bypassed some of their major recommendations. Other technical experts say they were asked to give their opinion on the corn, then blacklisted from the advisory panel later.

US growers will plant an estimated one million acres of Monsanto's (St. Louis, MO) YieldGard Rootworm corn this year. The crop expresses a Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) protein that is toxic to rootworm larvae, which cause an estimated $1 billion in lost rev
enues annually. Another Bt corn targeting the European corn borer was approved in 1996.

Monsanto estimates 12-15 million acres will eventually be planted to replace heavily infested acres now treated with broad-spectrum insecticides. Those insecticides include organophosphates and carbamates rated among the most harmful to the environment and
human handlers. The EPA and SAP members agree on the benefits of reducing chemical use and the specificity of the built-in pesticide.

The major disagreement, however, is the size of the transgenic crop 'refuge,' or adjacent nontransgenic plants. The refuge provides a pool of unexposed insects to mate with any resistant insects, diluting resistance genes. Thwarting resistance is key to su
staining use of the crop. The SAP majority recommended a 50% refuge be planted, meaning the same amount of nontransgenic corn must be planted beside or within transgenic crops. The EPA required a 20% refuge in the 3-year registration, the size Monsanto and
another group of experts recommended.

[For the full report, click on http://www.ngin.org.uk]


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The AgBioIndia bulletins are an effort by the Forum for Biotechnology & Food Security to bridge the yawning gap in our understanding of the politics of food. We believe these bulletins will create wider awareness and understanding of the compexities of the
crisis facing Indian agriculture and food security. We will keep you posted on the intricacies and games being enacted in the name of eradicating hunger.

It is a non-commercial educational service for non-profit organisations and individuals. Subscribers are welcome to contribute information.

You can view previous issues at http://www.agbioindia.org/archive.asp

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