How can India learn from the EU's experience in approving GM products?

We must comprehensively evaluate the long-term impacts, both beneficial and adverse, of the technology before granting approval.

The Supreme Court of India recently asked the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFFCC) to develop a national policy on genetically modified (GM) crops. The skeptics have been able to block the entry of GM crops in the country for the past two decades, and they are likely to again oppose it tooth and nail. Last week, farm union leaders from 18 states organised a national convention on GM crops and its effects on the environment, trade of goods, agricultural diversity and human and animal health. They were unanimous in their opposition to GM crops.

India is struggling to form an appropriate and acceptable policy regarding GM organisms. The European Union (EU) has wrestled for long to restrict the entry of GM products/seeds in its member countries. The EU has been able to form a fairly good, though not perfect, policy on GM organisms and that offers lessons for India.

The history of agricultural growth tells us that the world has witnessed three ‘Green Revolutions’ so far:

1) The first started in the 1930s in Europe and North America. It brought quick yield increases in maize and other temperate-climate crops with increased, intensified and effective use of fertilisers, pesticides, crop species, machinery and farm management.

2) The second one took place in the 1960s and 1970s — including in some Indian states — and it passed almost the same technologies to the developing world and crops grown in the tropics. Of course, these technologies were customised to suit local conditions by using local applied research and extension networks.

3) GM products, especially the seeds produced by using genetical engineering in agriculture, appeared in the 1970s and were commercialised in the 1990s, mainly in North America. Advocates of this technology claim that it would result in another enormous increase in agronomic productivity and provide qualitative improvements in the food supply.

The big differences between the first two Green Revolutions and the third one is that the latter has not been received with conclusive inquisitiveness. There is persisting skepticism about the long-run negative effects of GM technology on human, animal and plant health.

EU countries have framed severe regulatory restraints on GM products, whereas the US, Canada, Argentina and Brazil have allowed most of the agri-biotech applications. Most of the other countries, including India, are struggling to find the right path.

European countries were the first to confront this technology and adopted a severe GM-restrictive policy. Most of the European governments and the EU embraced the precautionary approach (called the ‘better safe than sorry’ principle), keeping in view uncertainty about risks associated with GM organisms.

The US claimed that under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, particularly those enshrined in the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, required a strong ‘sound science’ evidence to restrict the import of ‘like’ products (‘like’ product is a directly competitive or substitutable products). It means the potential importers or recipient countries must provide irrefutable scientific evidence that a GM seed/product (if a like product) in question is unsafe for human or animal or plant health.

Interestingly, the onus was not on the GM seed/product exporters to provide evidence that the seed/product was ‘safe’ but on the importers to prove that the seed/product was ‘unsafe’. In other words, it was the responsibility of the buyer to prove that the product was unsafe rather than on the seller to prove that it was safe. So, all countries must assume that any GM seed/product is perfect unless proved wrong. Therefore, in the free trade regime that is accepted and endorsed by the WTO, the EU cannot restrict imports of GMs from the US in the absence of ‘sound science’ evidence. Disagreeing with the US perspective, the EU used all available means to restrict the import of GM seeds/products by its member countries, starting with a moratorium on approval of GM crop varieties (1998-2004).

Irked by the moratorium, the US, Argentina and Canada initiated a lawsuit in the WTO against the EU’s regulatory policy for GM products in 2003, claiming that the EU’s GM policy was creating illegal trade restrictions. The WTO Dispute Settlement Panel issued a verdict in September 2006 in favour of the complainant countries and asked the EU to bring its GMO approval process in line with WTO rules.

The EU changed its decision-making process even before the WTO decision and that has remained very complex till today. The risk assessment is done in close consultation with member countries’ scientific bodies. The opinion is made accessible to the public for open consultations. As per EU regulations, a member state has the right to opt out, prohibit or restrict the cultivation of the crop based on a wide range of grounds, such as environmental or agricultural policy objectives, town and country planning, land use and socio-economic impact.

Resultantly, very few agricultural biotech applications have been approved for commercialisation in the Europe.

Despite the WTO decision and the consistent pressure from the US Government, EU members and other European countries have continuously avoided according easy approval to GM crops and other products, especially those that are part of the food chain. The reluctance of the EU and other countries has weakened the WTO and the GM technology generators’ pressure on the governments. The deflated pressure puts India in a better position to choose its independent path.

The apex court has correctly assigned the task to the Centre of formulating a suitable and widely accepted policy on GM organisms. Indian policymakers should closely study the European approach in this regard. Previously, the adoption of Green Revolution technology led to a remarkable surge in agricultural productivity and output, albeit with some long-term adverse consequences. This time, we must thoroughly evaluate the potential long-term impacts—both advantageous and detrimental—of GM technology before granting approval.