It is heartening to note that a moratorium has been issued in the case of introducing ‘BT Brinjal’. A wise move indeed. Though I am all for science and the benefits it bring to individuals, I am concerned about the effects of Genetically Modified Organisms being introduced in the Food Chain and the environment.
This is a scenario where it is impossible to get a consensus from all stakeholders. The Minister Jairam Ramesh has rightly said, no matter what the decision is, 50% of the people will be happy and 50% will be unhappy. To me this is an ethical issue where the decision should provide happiness to most stakeholders.
The key stakeholders in this debate is the Government, who are answerable to the electorate, the Company (Monsanto and Mahyco), who are answerable to their Shareholders, the Scientists, who apply their scientific knowledge to the debate, the farmers, who tend to gain or lose from the decision and of all the most important stakeholders, we the public who are the consumers. Unfortunately, the most important stakeholder has been conveniently left out of the debate. One can argue that humans are a subset of all the other stakeholders, but the other stakeholders have different objectives when compared to the humans.
I am writing this note purely as a prospective consumer of BT Brinjal. To me the biggest concern is the safety of my family and my environment. I have two questions,
1. Can the producer of the seeds guarantee that there will be no ill effects from the consumption of BT Brinjal for the life of me and my children?
2. Can the producer of the seeds guarantee that there will be no ill effects to the bio diversity of the environment due to the introduction of BT Brinjal?
No amount of testing can assure one that GMO food is safe for human consumption. May be it is safe in the short-term, but what about the safety in the long term (generations).
I have read that there over a 1000 varieties of Brinjal grown in India alone, what will become of these varieties if BT Brinjal were introduced? How can one control cross pollination of BT Brinjal? May be BT Brinjal is inherently safe, but if cross pollination with other plant species might cause disastrous effects.
Many critical unanswered questions. My humble opinion is to use science in other ways to increase productivity for farmers and nutrition for the consumers. Do not mess with the Gene map of organisms. We have raped Mother Nature enough. Enough is enough.
