Would You Like Curry with Your GMOs?
Testing Eggplant (USDA photo)
Frankenfoods are back, and in a surprising place: India, one of the countries that has benefited the most from genetically-modified crops. The Green Revolution, the forerunner of today’s genetic modification science, saved India from mass starvation fifty years back, but last week Jairam Ramesh, India’s Minister of Environment and Forestry, resurrected the Frankenfood arguments of a decade ago. Mr. Ramesh has stopped commercial cultivation of a GMO eggplant that has been tested for ten years and approved by a commission of Indian scientists.
Mr. Ramesh says he wants to “build a broader consensus” so that India “can harness the full potential of GMO technology“. India is already the world’s second largest producer of eggplant and could produce even more if farmers weren’t losing 40% of their crop to pests the new strain is designed to control.
It is hard to know what is actually happening. Bucking the advice of his own scientists, there seems little evidence that Mr. Ramesh has scientific backing for his position. I have seen politicians give in to populism and use “safety” as an argument to limit participation by foreign companies. I think both are in play now in India. You see, the new strain of eggplant was developed by Monsanto with its Indian partner, Mahyco. Monsanto is the world’s top producer of GMO seeds and, as such, it automatically attracts suspicion. It doesn’t help that Monsanto is a big American company. Monsanto and the Indian scientists say that the new GMO eggplant is safe, and that increased production will lower prices on Indian markets where eggplant is often a food for the poor.
India’s Centre for Science and the Environment, an NGO in New Delhi, has rallied to Mr. Ramesh, announcing that this is “a question of public health, which can’t be compromised at any cost.“ Nice sentiment, but pity the Centre staff never took Econ 101. Amazing how many people don’t realize that perfect public health (or security, or anything) requires infinite cost. Even the BBC falls for such arguments; their radio report of the eggplant controversy included only one interview – with a British anti-GMO organization. Talk about one-sided. Now Greenpeace has jumped on board, calling for India to ban 41 other GMO crops. Mr. Ramesh has expressed fears about “Monsanto controlling our food chain“. I wonder if he would have said this if an Indian firm had developed the new seeds independently. Doubt it.
There is another side of the story – and probably several sides I’m not aware of. The Indian scientists who approved the GMO eggplant, the Genetically Engineered Approvals Committee, issued their approval last fall, an event that launched a coalition of consumers, farmers, state governments, medical groups, Hindu nationalists and Communist parties to stop the nefarious plant. They say that India’s biosafety regulations are insufficient and that studies about the new eggplant’s long-term effects had been ignored. That could be; I’m not in a position to know. The Economist reports that Monsanto organized a farmers’ demonstration against banning the GMO eggplant – only they weren’t farmers. They were landless workers who had been bussed in for the day, likely without a clue as to what they were protesting. Foolish.
So where does that leave us? Ten years of scientific research and testing down the tubes. Opposition that may or may not have a scientific basis. Foreign companies more reluctant than ever to invest in India. Consumers suspicious of all new developments. All due to a question that can never be answered. Mr. Ramesh has set a standard that requires that developers of a new variety be able to prove absolutely that there is no potential for damage to human health or the environment. Much as we might like to have such assurance, this is impossible to guarantee, because perfect (you fill in the blank) requires infinite cost.
