NEW DELHI: Genetically modified (GM) mustard is back in the news, this time because of the Centre’s attempt to wriggle out of its oral commitment to the Supreme Court on putting its environmental release on hold. On October 18 last year, the government approved the country’s first environmental release of a GM mustard variety, Dhara Mustard Hybrid (DMH-11), for a period of four years. However, activists saw in it a possible attempt towards commercial release and moved the Supreme Court. On November 3, 2022, a bench of justices Dinesh Maheshwari (now retired) and B V Nagarathna ordered the suspension of its environmental release after getting the Centre’s assurance.
The Centre recently approached the SC to release it from the undertaking, saying the mustard sowing season was approaching. The case went to a new bench comprising justices Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan, but it refused to accept the government’s request. “If we discharge you, then what remains in the matter? You cannot be allowed to release it into the environment… The environmental harm cannot be reversed,” the bench said.
In 2013, a technical expert committee set up by the SC had advised against the release of transgenic crops citing severe environmental and health impacts. One of the members of the committee, Prof Pushpa M Bhargava, warned that the cultivation of GM mustard would be disastrous, adding it would eventually open doors for multinational corporations to control India’s agriculture. Environmentalist Vandana Shiva had earlier written to MPs, cautioning them against GM mustard’s commercialisation.
As for another GM food crop, Bt brinjal, an indefinite moratorium was placed on its cultivation in 2010. It was claimed that its cultivation had a negative impact on animals.
Genetically modified crops
Genetic modification involves the manipulation of genes to get the desired traits in a crop. Transferring genes between completely unrelated species, such as bacteria and corn, gives the product a new trait.
The only approved GM crop in India is Bt cotton. In it, genetic material from a soil bacteria, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), is inserted into cotton seeds to make them resistant to the pink bollworm. Bt cotton was further made herbicide tolerant through the manipulation of another gene, named ‘Cp4-Epsps’ from another soil bacterium, Agrobacterium tumefaciens.
As for the indigenously developed GM mustard DMH-11, it contains two alien genes – ‘barnase’ and ‘barstar’ – isolated from a soil bacterium called Bacillus amyloliquefaciens. In another indigenously developed GM crop, Bt brinjal, a gene Cry1Ac from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis has been inserted into brinjal to make it resistant to insects such as fruit and shoot borers.
Harmful effects of genetic modification
GM technology bypasses the natural breeding process, which could result in unintended and unpredictable effects in plants, such as new toxins, allergens or reduced nutrition. Such products require rigorous biosafety study before permitting their production on a commercial scale. In contrast, traditional breeding is safe and predictable because it is based on natural reproductive processes, which improved by and over thousands of years of evolution.
Another concern is that the genes of GM seeds are manipulated and designed to suit certain pesticides. If given a free run, a few multinational corporations in the GM sector that monopolise the production of seeds and their pesticides, would by extension control the country’s agriculture. In other words, it could compromise food sovereignty. As for Bt cotton, field studies have shown that it has failed to increase crop productivity.
GM's introduction
India’s tryst with GM technology began with deceit. In 2001, when an official field trial of Bt cotton was on, it was found that Bt cotton was already being commercially cultivated illegally in thousands of hectares by farmers in Gujarat. Local seed manufacturers supplied the illegal seeds. A year later, the government commercially approved Bt cotton cultivation in India, allegedly without adequate biosafety study. Experts say its seeds were first smuggled from other Bt cotton-growing countries and secretly multiplied in Indian states. A similar pattern is allegedly emerging in the case of HTBt cotton and Bt brinjal. Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar admitted in Parliament in 2019 that a few incidents of suspected open cultivation of Bt brinjal and HTBt cotton were reported in Maharashtra, Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.
Import substitution
India imports around 60 per cent of edible oils — mostly palm oil, soya oil and sunflower oil. It is the most imported commodity after petroleum and gold and accounts for 40 per cent of the agricultural import bill and 3 per cent of the country’s annual import bill. The import of edible oils reached USD 18.70 billion in 2021-22, up from USD 10.92 billion in FY21, putting pressure on the exchequer. Besides, the productivity of rapeseed mustard in India is the lowest among the major countries that cultivate it. As against the world average of 2,144 kg/ha, the Indian average yield is only 1,161 kg/ha. It prompted the government to release the DMH-11 variety for field trials. Though biosafety dossiers related to DMH-11 are not in the public domain, the government claimed that DMH-11 will increase productivity by 28 per cent.
Why is DMH-11 controversial?
Since mustard is a self-pollinating crop, it is difficult to cross-pollinate it with the desired male parental line. The two gene systems, barnstar and barnase, introduced into transgenic mustard lines, prevent self-fertilisation and promote heterosis breeding – a type of hybrid breeding where characteristics are enhanced in terms of size, growth rate, fertility and yield over those of parents.
The barnase gene induces male sterility and the barstar gene acts to restore the ability of the plant to produce fertile hybrid seeds in DMH-11, simplifying the process of cross-pollination to derive new hybrid varieties. An East European variety, Early Hira-2, along with an Indian variety, Varuna, are two parental strains used to develop DMH-11.
Scientists who closely monitored the DMH-11, say a third herbicide-tolerant bar gene was introduced to parental lines for herbicide resistance. It will make it tolerant to the use of Glufosinate Ammonium, a lethal herbicide. The herbicide could end up killing non-GM plants and potentially cause the emergence of super weeds, contaminate non-GM seeds and impact the bee population.
The flip side
However, Dr. Deepak Pental, who developed DMH-11, says the Indian gene pool of mustard is very narrow, hence the need to tweak it. DMH-11 is a hybrid between an Indian and an East European line. Its pollination control system provides hybrid seeds with high purity with the help of three transgenes, barnase, barstar and bar. Hybrids with higher yield than DMH-11 are already in the pipeline. The three genes used in mustard have been used in rapeseed extensively grown in Canada (1996), the US (2002) and Australia (2003). No ill effects have been reported so far either on the consumer health or on the environment of the growing countries, he said.
Coming up
Interviews of Suman Sahay, founder of the Gene campaign, and Dr Deepak Pental, who developed the DMH-11, in the next edition of Xplore Environment