With its first biopiracy lawsuit, the country hopes to set a precedent for introducing biotech crops while conserving biodiversity and local community rights
Every inch of the auditorium at Bangalore’s Central College campus was filled. Outside, it was nothing short of a spectacle, with protestors armed with brinjal cutouts and faces painted purple. Inside, the then environment minister Jairam Ramesh was fielding a barrage of questions, as he held a public consultation on the release of the genetically modified Bt brinjal on February 6, 2010. Questions were flying fast and furious that day. In the midst of all that, the minister suddenly made a phone call to his office. He wanted to check if Bangalore NGO Environment Support Group’s (ESG) allegation that the Indian Biodiversity Act of 2002 had been violated was valid. Soon after the call, he quashed the allegation saying there was no violation and moved on. ESG’s point was that to develop Bt brinjal, multinational biotech firm Monsanto, Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company (Mahyco) and their collaborators used several local varieties of brinjal without taking approval from any national or local biodiversity authority. The Act lays down a rigorous process of approval to
(a) protect loss of biodiversity through misuse, theft, or contamination from transgenics (where genetic material has been transferred from another organism, like in Bt brinjal); and
(b) to safeguard the interests of farmers by ensuring they get a share in the benefits as per the internationally applicable Access and Benefit Sharing Protocol.
More than a year later, ESG has a case. It’s pending before the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA). This was made public by the NBA on August 11, 2011. Barely a month later, on September 6, the minister of state for environment and forests, Jayanti Natarajan, in a reply to questions in the Rajya Sabha said: “NBA has decided to proceed as per law against the alleged violators on the basis of reports of the State Biodiversity Board (SBB) for accessing and using the local brinjal varieties without prior approval of the competent authority.”
The ball is now is in NBA’s court, which took more than a year and four reminders from Karnataka SBB to take up this case. An inconspicuous regulatory body, which has had several senior bureaucrats at its helm but none choosing to exercise its power and jurisdiction, NBA today is facing the heat. It has a test case to prove that India, one of the 12 mega biodiversity countries, can protect its bio-resources. With this case, it can set a deterrent for future violations and ensure transparent commercialisation of products derived from local bio-resources.
As one of the architects of the Bio-Diversity Bill and noted agricultural scientist, M.S. Swaminathan, says, “It is a wake up call for India to set its house in order.”
That task rests with the new NBA chairman Balakrishna Pisupati who took charge in mid August in a significant career move from the United Nations Environment Programme. “You sometimes need, unfortunately, such cases for people to sit up and realise that there are important provisions in the Act to be followed.”
The Case
Bt brinjal was developed by inserting a gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis into the genome of various brinjal cultivars. It can withstand pests and therefore give better yields.
In 2009, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) cleared Bt brinjal for commercialisation. Soon after, ESG co-founder Leo Saldanha was approached by the Karnataka Organic Farmers Association. Farmers feared the Bt crop would contaminate the regular varieties of brinjal.
Saldanha was aware of similar cases of contamination involving Bt cotton, where export consignments of organic cotton were rejected by France and Germany. He then began investigating if the local farmers knew which varieties of brinjal were chosen by the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad for genetic modification with technology support from Mahyco, and whether they approved of this. Saldanha says he wanted to ensure that farmers, who conserved the varieties over generations, got their due under the access and benefit sharing provision of the Act.
Bt Brinjal was developed by ABSP-II (Agricutural Biotechnology Support Project), a consortium of public and private sector institutions funded by the United States Agency for International Development and led by Cornell University. It was formed to develop and commercialise bio-engineered products in developing countries. Mahyco, Sathguru Management Consultants, Hyderabad, and UAS are collaborators of ABSP-II.
It turns out nobody thought it necessary to take approval from the local farmers’ group or the apex body, NBA. Under the Act, no permission is required if varieties are chosen for conventional breeding. But if a local variety (folk varieties and land races that have been conserved by farmers over generations) is chosen for modification, whether for research or commercial use, it needs approval from the local biodiversity management committee or the NBA.
Monsanto, which has licensed the Bt gene to Mahyco and is a 26 percent stakeholder in the latter, says it has not violated any law. “We have not been notified by the NBA or any other authority of any case filed by the said ESG,” says Gyanendra Shukla, director, cotton-traits and corporate affairs, Monsanto India.
Mahyco says it has only transferred the gene in its lab to the varieties provided by UAS. The Bt brinjal seeds, which are pro-poor varieties, have been returned to UAS which will distribute it to farmers at “cost price” and Mahyco has not made any money on it, says Usha Barwale Zehr, chief technology officer of Mahyco. She says the Bt brinjal variety that is on hold following a moratorium by Jairam Ramesh, is a different product altogether, made from Mahyco’s “proprietary germplasm”.
Ground Realities
(This story appears in the 21 October, 2011 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)