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India’s Farmers Reject GMOs – Global Public Don’t Want GM Food 

Colin Todhunter

Many scientists lobbying for the deregulation of agricultural biotechnology ‘new genomic techniques’ (NGTs) in the European Union have either direct or indirect interests in commercialising and marketing new genetically modified organisms (GMOs). They have patents or patent applications or other connections to the seed industry.

That is the conclusion of a September 2022 investigatory report commissioned by the Greens/EFA in the European Parliament – Behind the smokescreen: Vested interests of EU scientists lobbying for GMO deregulation. These scientists will benefit financially or in terms of career development, either personally or through their organisations.

FOAM Organics Europe, an umbrella organisation for organic food and farming, notes that a group of 91 international scientists and policy experts have released a public statement opposing the use of the term ‘precision breeding’ to describe gene editing, on the grounds that it is “technically and scientifically inaccurate and therefore misleads parliament, regulators and the public” because gene editing is neither precise nor is it breeding.

FOAM quotes Claire Robinson, from industry watchdog GMWatch, who says:

It is not only misleading but also dangerous, as deregulating these new techniques will have serious socio-economic consequences as well as potentially serious impacts on health and the environment.”

The European Court of Justice recognised this in 2018, ruling that organisms obtained with new genetic modification techniques must be regulated under the EU’s existing GMO laws. But there has been intense lobbying from the agriculture biotech industry to weaken the legislation: the industry had by late 2021 spent at least €36 million lobbying the EU.

The push for GMOs and their newer NGT versions is relentless – despite the risks and despite most of the public not wanting them. That is according to research by Pew Research Center conducted between October 2019 and March 2020.

For instance, in Russia, 70% of the public regard GM foods as generally unsafe to eat. The figure is 62% in Italy, 58% in India and 57% in South Korea.

In reviewing research findings into public perceptions of GMOs, GMWatch concludes that many consumers do not want GM (including gene-edited) foods and a large majority want to see gene-edited foods assessed for safety and labelled.

The case for GM is weak, despite incessant industry PR about GM being necessary to feed the world.  GMWatch notes that GM crops do not increase intrinsic yield and, in some cases, they decrease it (noted in the book GMO Myths and Truths). Moreover, world hunger is not caused by a lack of agricultural productivity but by poverty and an inherently unjust globalised food system.

Yet, around the world, the industry’s drive to get GM crops into fields persists. In India, the country’s apex regulatory body recently sanctioned GM mustard for cultivation. This would be India’s first GM food crop.

This, despite a public interest litigation (PIL) before the Supreme Court to prevent cultivation and the widespread rejection of GM mustard by farmers’ organisations. Something not lost on Ashwani Mahajan, national co- convenor of Swadeshi Jagran Manch, a body that promotes self-reliance and associated with the country’s ruling BJP.

He states on Twitter:

WHAT AN IRONY! Government is yet to find a respected farmer leader of repute to support GM Mustard and they say that they are bringing GM Mustard in farmers’ interests.”

Ashwani refers to a letter written by farmers leaders to PM Modi urging him to immediately put a stop to GM mustard.

The concerns set out in the letter by farmers’ leaders have been elucidated in the numerous affidavits as part of the GM mustard PIL before the Supreme Court (the online article Prominent Lawyer Prashant Bhushan Urges Indian Government to Stop Commercialisation of GM Mustard provides an overview of some of the key evidence).

The letter objects to the decision of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee to approve the environmental release of GM HT Mustard, hybrid DHM-11 and its parental lines. These parental lines will be distributed to private and public sector researchers to develop other hybrids.

The farmers leaders say to PM Modi:

The farmers are already in distress! This HT (herbicide-tolerant) mustard will further coerce them towards the usage of a deadly herbicide (glufosinate) which will only benefit large agro-chemical corporations like Bayer, the producer of this herbicide. Your Ministry’s regulators have made various ‘claims’ in favour of the release of DHM-11, all of which lack logic or science.”

The letter states that independent scientists have exposed claims about yield increases through GM HT mustard to be hollow and unfounded. Data has been rigged and manipulated and protocols have been severely compromised:

It is unscientific that the Government of India and its regulators are parroting the false claims of the crop developers… yields are going to decline if this GM mustard is approved – that is because this GM mustard is a low-yielder compared to other non-GM varieties and hybrids in the market.

It is often stated that this GM mustard is an Indian creation. But the letter makes it clear it is a Bayer construct, a patented technology of Bayer Crop Science, and this has been concealed from the people of India.

Independent experts who have looked into the biosafety data submitted by the crop developer at Delhi University have clearly pointed out that GM mustard has not been tested rigorously and adequately and has never been tested as a herbicide tolerant crop.

The farmers’ leaders say:

What is also important to note is that glufosinate is a dangerous herbicide, like glyphosate. It is irresponsible for the regulatory body to recommend environmental release, and then ask for testing to be done post-environmental release, knowing fully well that GM technology is a living technology, irreversible and uncontrollable.”

Supporters of GM mustard say it will help reduce the edible oil import bill of India. But India is nearly self-sufficient when it comes to mustard demand and supply. The letter also discusses adverse trade implications of allowing GMOs to contaminate India’s food supply.

PM Modi is also made aware that GM crops like DHM-11 will contaminate neighbouring crops by outcrossing. He is asked: How will the purity of seeds and crops be maintained and protect organic certification? And given that GM Mustard is herbicide tolerant, there is the strong possibility that farmers will end up on a financially costly health- and environment-damaging chemical treadmill.

The letter states that GM technology is unproven and heavily dependent on agro-chemicals. It says GM crops will be an unnecessary addition of pressure into a system that is already squeezing the farmer dry, adding to the riskiness in farming.

Moreover:

GM crops clearly are a relinquishment of our sovereignty to corporate interests that will threaten our food supply and our ability to control our own food chain.

India is a centre for diversity for mustard and several high-level official committees have time and time again recommended against transgenic technologies in crops for which the country is the centre of origin or centre of diversity.

The letter concludes with the warning:

If the Government of India does not put the interests of ordinary citizens like us in policy-making around such hazardous technologies, we will be forced to step up our struggles to protect our interests.

Such action is necessary because farmers and the public are rejecting GMOs but compromised scientists and policy makers are promoting a risky technology with unproven need to help boost industry profit by facilitating market capture and the displacement of indigenous systems of production.

Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture and is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal. You can read his “mini e-book”, Food, Dependency and Dispossession: Cultivating Resistance, here.

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niko
niko
Dec 8, 2022 10:31 PM

Bombshell. India’s “Shock” and Sudden Excess Mortality (April-July 2021), Caused by Covid Vaccine Rollout In its Early Stages?

S Cooper
S Cooper
Dec 8, 2022 7:02 PM

comment image

“Sie mussen den Kakerlaken essen”
comment image

“Lecker! Sie sind gut und gut dich.”

mgeo
mgeo
Dec 9, 2022 7:16 AM
Reply to  S Cooper

Some of the poly-unsaturated veg. oils are refined using petro-chemical solvents. Chitin in insects will kill or sicken many,

McMurhpy
McMurhpy
Dec 8, 2022 1:46 PM

Support your local farmers in the fight against globalist psychopaths by buying direct:
http://www.produceandprovide.co.uk

Bill
Bill
Dec 8, 2022 12:59 PM

Don’t issue patents for genetic modifications, so no company can sell it exclusively and earn tons of dollars!

mgeo
mgeo
Dec 9, 2022 7:19 AM
Reply to  Bill

Enforcement consists largely of protecting the wealthiest and most ruthless, and their real or claimed wealth. Eliminating criminal patents entails a revolution.

Veri Tas
Veri Tas
Dec 7, 2022 9:34 PM

This is a bit old but …

Monsanto’s GM Bt corn is equipped with a gene from soil bacteria called Bt or Bacillus thuringiensis. This produces the Bt-toxin in the corn. The pesticide breaks open the stomach of certain insects and kills them.This Bt corn was introduced into the food supply in the late 1990’s and problems have been occurring ever since.

Monsanto and the EPA swore that the genetically engineered corn would only harm insects. They stated that the Bt-toxin produced inside the plant would be completely destroyed in the human digestive system. They said it would not have any impact on the health of consumers.

Unfortunately they have been proven wrong, because not only is Bt corn producing resistant “superpests”, researchers have also found that the Bt-toxin can badly affect human health.

In 2011, doctors at Sherbrooke University Hospital in Quebec found Bt-toxin in the blood of:- 93 percent of pregnant women tested- 80 percent of umbilical blood in their babies, and- 67 percent of non-pregnant womenAuthors of the study speculate that the Bt-toxin is likely consumed in the normal diet of the Canadian middle class, as genetically engineered corn is present in the vast majority of all processed foods and drinks in the form of high fructose corn syrup.

Scientists also suggest that the toxin may have come from eating meat from animals fed on Bt corn. Apparently most livestock raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFO) or so-called factory farms, are fed on this corn.

This raises the scary possibility that eating Bt corn might, in fact, turn your intestinal flora into a kind of “living pesticide factory“, which essentially manufactures Bt-toxin from within your digestive system on a continual basis.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/326208

Gary Wilson
Gary Wilson
Dec 8, 2022 1:43 AM
Reply to  Veri Tas

It’s ok for use in organic farming:

http://www.bt.ucsd.edu/organic_farming.html

Bt proteins are allowed in organic farming as a insecticide because Bt is a natural, non-pathogenic bacterium that is found naturally in the soil.

mgeo
mgeo
Dec 8, 2022 4:59 AM
Reply to  Veri Tas

There is no need for the involvement of intestinal microbes. Perhaps Bt toxin can harm through foods made from the GMO flour, HFCS or the meat of GMO-fed animals. I wonder if there is any evidence that cooking destroys Bt toxin.

The big fuss earlier over gluten allergy could have been a part of the misdirection.

Brought to you by the same benevolent overlords who provided the covid jab.

Veri Tas
Veri Tas
Dec 8, 2022 5:53 AM
Reply to  mgeo

It’s both! GMOs cause gut problems and, therefore, immune issues and gluten also has deleterious effects on our health.

For a good overall look into the GMO – both legal/political and health-related – I recommend the book: Altered Genes, Twisted Truth by Steven M Druker.

As for research into gluten, it appears to point to staggering amount of evidence that it causes gut inflammation and excessive permeability in both the gut lining and the blood-brain barrier with dire consequences for our health.

Note that any abnormal presence of microbes triggers the release of the protein zonulin, which widens the junctions between cells in the gut (“gap junctions”) so that water can seep into the intestine and flush out bacteria via loose bowel movements. Probably because it is mistaken for a microbial molecule gluten stimulates zonulin release and a gluten-free diet has been shown to reduce both zonulin levels and gut permeability.

In all of us, zonulin increases the permeability not only of the intestinal wall, but also of other no less interesting barriers – notably the blood-brain one. 
A toxin mimicking zonulin is actually being studied for its ability to enhance delivery to the brain of drugs such as anticancer agents.

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
Dec 8, 2022 10:39 PM
Reply to  Veri Tas

Great posts, thank you.

Science Joe
Science Joe
Dec 8, 2022 5:03 AM
Reply to  Veri Tas

Maybe the Bt is from Bt pesticide used in organic agriculture

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
Dec 8, 2022 11:04 PM
Reply to  Science Joe

Term Organic is from organic Chemistry imo. organic or not because there is soo much of it. It’s pioneered as universal biomass fuels, and food to conteract US fast food, plus overall consumption obsession over the last 40 odd years., rising obesity condition., lowering movement.
Psychologically all of our information on health is delivered by someone Stood Still. various gobshites and clowns in suits sat on their fat bottoms.

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
Dec 8, 2022 10:03 PM
Reply to  Veri Tas

Studies on human extremities essentially lower limbs from corn, paste and syrup would be interesting. Americans movement is nonexistent without transportation from a to b. By Middle Elderly age over the previous 40yrs they can hardly walk jog run.
Re syrup it’s more likely corn syrup subtitutes for ‘sugar’ post World War Two.

WillianHill
WillianHill
Dec 7, 2022 5:22 PM

Its a shame Americans don’t have the balls Indians do.

mgeo
mgeo
Dec 9, 2022 7:22 AM
Reply to  WillianHill

Modern slavery in food production begins with (a) subverted farming officials and judges (b) debt.

Straight Talk
Straight Talk
Dec 7, 2022 4:41 PM

Patent profits have destroyed much of the rich top soil of our planet. How anyone can sincerely make a case for “synthetic biology” is beyond lunatic, yet this is Big Ag’s answer for our future:

Can You Redesign The Food System? | Michael Macolino | TEDxUNISA

Tom Larsen
Tom Larsen
Dec 7, 2022 2:23 PM

The quote below seems to have endless applications now:

Capital eschews no profit… just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent, will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent certain, will produce eagerness; 50 per cent, positive audacity; 100 per cent will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both.

Karl Marx, Capital Vol.1, Chapter 31

Hemlockfen
Hemlockfen
Dec 7, 2022 2:13 PM

Story in the “news” (I heard it on the Daily Wire.) that Biden wants to follow Holland’s lead on farm closures. He has targeted 1,000 privately owned farms located in “sensitive areas”.

Remember the line from the Mel Gibson movie, “Signs”?: “It’s happening”. The “aliens” have begun to harvest the idiots that are afraid to fight back.

We need to grab hold of the bat on the wall and “swing away”. Fucking pound their asses into a pulp. (figuratively) Fuck you NSA………

Sensitive areas would be defined as those farms located near an “island” of space that is ecologically significant. The ultimate goal is to physically connect the islands of natural areas scattered across the continent by buying all the farms located between them. All while killing our food supply which which is going to be replaced by Bill Gate’s protein vats. As if Methane, Nitrogen and Carbon are really an issue. They’re not. We know it.

I know. Old news. But it’s happening and no one seems to care. I am beside myself. Keep this in mind; I am a retired natural area management planner. It was clear decades ago (and still is) that many of the species we were protecting are doomed. People come first. Period. At least they used to.

This is a pie-in-the-sky attempt to restore the ecology of the continent back to it’s original condition. It will never happen. Water is key. The hydrology of the continent is so so so fucked up. The cost, in terms of money alone, puts this concept far far far out of reach. Then there is the cost to our way of life which can’t be measured.

Has anyone performed an “impact statement”? I would love to see it. It’s time to start asking questions and trusting but verifying rather than blindly following the plan created by the United Nation’s oligarch funded “studies”. We have so many good people that could tear this world plan to shreds. People who have not been bought by oligarch backed grants.

Extremism is demonstration of ignorance. It’s clear the idiots pushing for these crazy ideas have no clue what is really happening.

Just because you can does not mean you should.

Meanwhile, more bird flu was supposedly discovered and we are whacking more chickens.

Idiots.

Grafter
Grafter
Dec 7, 2022 10:25 AM

Aren’t they quite insidious these white coated scientific “experts” falling over themselves to do the bidding of the Monsantos of this world and all for money with a complete disregard for the wellbeing of their fellow humans. Scumbags the lot of them.

October
October
Dec 7, 2022 10:01 AM

Thank you for these regular updates. With luck (and determination on the part of the farmers), the “oligarchs’ lackey” as he was described then will meet the same resistance as he did against his earlier bills.

mgeo
mgeo
Dec 7, 2022 7:23 AM

The mass of synthetic agro-chemicals, large-scale mechanisation (including runoff), frankenstein crops and monoculture all destroy the bountiful soil. Scientific/modern agriculture or Green Revolution (“We experts know more than you illiterate peasants”) is a sick joke.

Fortunately, the return to traditional farming techniques – with no input from outside the village, but using animal dung and biodynamics – seems to be gathering steam in India. A few farmers in neighbouring countries – disillushioned by cancer, etc. – have adopted their ways.

China is still trying the scientific route. E.g., drones to reduce biocides sprayed. After the Ukraine affair, I hope they wake up to the fact that even the supply of agro-chemicals – especially phosphate fertilizer – is unreliable.

Helen
Helen
Dec 6, 2022 11:04 PM

They already tried Gm potatoes in Ireland in the 1850s and it caused a famine killing 5 million people: Gsk had to be rebranded as IG farben in the wake of the disaster.

Nuno
Nuno
Dec 7, 2022 10:53 PM
Reply to  Helen

Reading a comment like this, it’s impossible to know whether the commenter is just completely clueless (there was no genetic engineering in the 1850s – the role of DNA hadn’t even been discovered) or whether it’s a satire on the hysterical anti-GMO movement.

mgeo
mgeo
Dec 8, 2022 5:08 AM
Reply to  Nuno

“Helen” usually attaches a video of her favourite singer.

martin
martin
Dec 9, 2022 2:03 AM
Reply to  Nuno

Sam Fogarty was wonderful. an education, I was taught the “famine” was Laisser-faire taken to an extreme..

As to the inane post maybe they are taught a general method to discredit truth is to serve it up with rubbish. Some are not very good at it!

hotrod31
hotrod31
Dec 6, 2022 10:50 PM

At first they set it and then they give themselves permission to re-set it. Wouldn’t that equate to the same people doing the same thing, again, and expecting different results?

wardropper
wardropper
Dec 7, 2022 12:11 AM
Reply to  hotrod31

It’s worse than that.
Insanity sometimes cannot be helped, but this is something else.
It’s unbridled greed.

dom irritant
dom irritant
Dec 6, 2022 9:29 PM

Monsterinsaneto
genetically modified arrogance
nature in-balance
billioned scumbubbles
wannabe creators
ming for brains
mange merde
think shit
be crappy
agent purple
or there abouts
wolf bayer
sheep clothed
breeding hatred
reaping pseudo
not fit for cockroaches
next on the menu

May Hem
May Hem
Dec 6, 2022 9:29 PM

The WEF is clearly wanting to end Christianity and all religions. They are now aggressively pushing their “One World Religion” which is a lead up to their planned “One World Government”. We will worship at the alter of climate change and “the science”. Many will agree not realising their real agenda.

In the video these men claim they are gods and that we are “hackable animals”. Their egos are growing so large that in their blindness they will trip over them at some stage! They claim they are now divine. In fact they are weak, vulnerable and full of illusions.

See for yourself – before facebook censors this.

https://www.facebook.com/100082980656362/videos/1256994278193295/

ophiaps
ophiaps
Dec 7, 2022 8:13 AM
Reply to  May Hem

The WEF is clearly wanting to end Christianity and all religions.

Doesn’t take a genius to work out that is a stupid statement!!
All your religions especially Christendom closed during covid and they told you to get vacc’d especially Christianity !!!

Placental_Mammal
Placental_Mammal
Dec 7, 2022 8:26 AM
Reply to  ophiaps

True. I prefer to use the word convid.

May Hem
May Hem
Dec 7, 2022 11:30 AM
Reply to  ophiaps

Many Christians are resisting the new world order. Try reading some of the inspiring articles by Archbishop Vigano, for example.

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
Dec 9, 2022 1:02 AM
Reply to  ophiaps

Jesus didn’t want chopstick snoz,, drumstick bottom.

Placental_Mammal
Placental_Mammal
Dec 7, 2022 8:23 AM
Reply to  May Hem

Christianity was the first one world religion. It’s predecessors – Graeco Roman paganism- were persecuted and delegitimised and the new branch of another older religion was made compulsory.

Paul Watson
Paul Watson
Dec 6, 2022 9:28 PM

An inverted and perverted world.
We are in need of a Great reset….just not the one designed by corrupted psychopaths.

Paul Prichard
Paul Prichard
Dec 6, 2022 9:12 PM

Your alternative update on #COVID19 for 2022-12-05. Cancers up 10k%. All animal studies since 1989 failed. Doctors tell patients side effects common, serious? (blog, gab, tweet).

Veri Tas
Veri Tas
Dec 6, 2022 8:59 PM

Global public don’t want to ingest GMOs … but they’re readily took the gene shots.
Hmm. What to make of that.

Bob the Hod
Bob the Hod
Dec 7, 2022 11:07 AM
Reply to  Veri Tas

Maybe not the whole of the global public, Africans on the whole were reticent to take the poison, the Chinese didn’t use gene shots, many Eastern Europeans saw sense and avoided it and even in countries where it pushed very hard and most of the public are docile normies, around 1 in 4 seem to have swerved it. The likes of my mum baffled me though. She’s been anti GM all her life, eats organic, practices organic, no dig permaculture with her own crops and yet willingly took the first 3 clot shots, despite me and my brother telling her that they were everything that she’s always told her kids to avoid. She’s seen sense now, but too late. Once you’re modified, you can’t be unmodified. All the organic food in the World won’t make a difference.

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
Dec 9, 2022 2:01 AM
Reply to  Bob the Hod

I agree on individual choice. I understand organic is important. It’s just a shame two of my favourite shops in the US apparently closed with the Health food/organic Thing going on with large chain Stores. Course I’am going back to the mid ’90’s.

dom irritant
dom irritant
Dec 9, 2022 9:46 AM
Reply to  Veri Tas

nothing vegan about the snake oil either

Rob
Rob
Dec 6, 2022 8:58 PM

GM crops are actually the reason why they need so much pesticides.

normal crops don’t need as much…

GM ones need more because they’re purposely weakened.

that’s why any politician that is pro GMO is obviously ignoring the science in favor of sucking the dick of corporations

Gary Wilson
Gary Wilson
Dec 6, 2022 10:28 PM
Reply to  Rob

Actually, whether the crop is GMO, hybrid or open pollinated, the reason they need so much pesticides is the ability of the soil to produce protein is insufficient to create a healthy crop. Healthy plants are not destroyed by insects.

Gary Wilson
Gary Wilson
Dec 6, 2022 8:52 PM

I am against hybrids. Any organic farmer who grows hybrids has no interest in nutrition.

WorkingClassHero
WorkingClassHero
Dec 6, 2022 7:27 PM

One should be paying attention to anything you put in your body. If it has an ingredients lists it’s processed, it just a matter of how bad it is for you. Most if not all preservatives, stabilizers etc, are carcinogenic.

In regards to the GMO vs Organic debate one does not need a white coat, only a little logic. If I had two apples in front on you and I sprayed one with fly spray which one would you eat? Some ague the difference in cost, well that’s also a choice you have to make.

What is irritating is when one gets sick from consuming all the additives, pesticides, synthetics, pharmaceuticals and then washing it down with methylated spirits. They carry on like they have been dealt a bad hand in the health department. Next they ask us all to wear a ribbon and run a marathon to help.

I’ve said a few times here, the establishment don’t need to bump us off, they just hand you the rope to do it yourself.

Jack Bean
Jack Bean
Dec 6, 2022 6:38 PM

GMO is simply a ruse to get Government support to destroy another competitor to them. Its simply creating a monopoly and Gov is keen as it finances them. AKA fascism.