Norms were not adhered to in the field trial of GM corn
5 Feb, 2013The environmental NGO Greenpeace India has stated in its report that the field trials of the Genetically Modified (GM) corn developed by US biotech giant Monsanto were allowed without the bio safety studies being completed. The data regarding the bio safety studies and the field trials of the stacked gene GM corn (MON89034xNK603) were provided by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) under the provisions of Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005.
The reply states that the said GM corn with bacterial genes for pest resistance and herbicide tolerance has been released several times for field trials in the past four years. These open field trials were permitted based on bio safety data generated by Monsanto itself in its own laboratories in the United States. The analysis of these bio safety data, as done by a separate agency Testbiotech, reveals that the bio safety data are incomplete. Apart from this, the analysis also found that the data pertained to the parent lines with the single genes and no study was conducted on the stacked gene corn which was applied in the fields.
The NGO has demanded that the field trials of such GM corn be immediately stopped as this could contaminate the food and seed supply chain and also lead to health and environmental hazards.