State science, risk and agricultural biotechnology: Bt cotton to Bt Brinjal in India

Abstract

Agricultural biotechnology has been a project of India's developmental state since 1986, but implementation generated significant conflict. Sequential cases of two crops carrying the same transgene – Bt cotton and Bt brinjal (eggplant/aubergine) – facing the same authorization procedures produced different outcomes. The state science that approved Bt cotton was attacked as biased and dangerously inadequate by opponents, but the technology spread to virtually universal adoption by farmers. Bt aubergine was approved by the same Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), but the decision was overruled, the GEAC downgraded and a moratorium imposed on the crop. Resultant conflicts engaged international networks, expanded the domestic arena in which science is contested and instigated restructuring of institutions for governance of genetic engineering. Divergent trajectories of the two crops corresponded to global patterns, but also reflected differences in agro-ecologies and state interests. In Bt cotton, state and cultivator interests dominated precautionary logics; in Bt eggplant, politics of risk dominated questions of agro-economics. The cases illustrate both the inherent vulnerability of science in politics and specific vulnerabilities of science embedded in particular institutions. Differences in institutional specificity of state science matter politically in explaining variation across countries in adoption and rejection of genetically engineered crops.

Keywords:

• agriculture
• biotechnology
• India
• Bangladesh
• politics of science
• Bt cotton
• Bt brinjal
• Bt eggplant (aubergine)
• bio-safety
• risk
• GMO
• regulation
• food safety

Acknowledgements: Many people helped me; only a few can be mentioned: Deepthi Kolady, Chavali Kameswara Rao, N. Chandrasekhara Rao, Channapatna S. Prakash, Anthony Shelton, Sivramiah Shantharam, Justus Wesseler, Aniket Aga, Klaus Ammann, B. Choudhary, John Harriss, Milind Kandlikar, Phil Oldenburg, P. Balasubramanian and anonymous reviewers for JPS. Of course none shares responsibility for errors.

Notes

¹See James (Annual). Besides the problematic categories, this counting explicitly excludes ‘stealth seeds’, and is certainly a conservative estimate, but is commonly considered authoritative.

² Solanum melongena. Brinjal is an Indian-English word; baingan is the common Hindi name. West Bengal is the largest producer, with 30 percent of production, followed by Orissa, Gujarat and Bihar. For a description of the transformation, see Choudhary and Gaur (2008); Kumar et al. (2011).

³Over 80 percent of the Bt cotton seed sold in 2011 was the more expensive two-gene implementation, though the original cry1Ac single-gene hybrids are available; non-Bt hybrids are produced as well, but mainly used for refugia. Underground markets now have illegal stacked Bt gene implementations plus a gene for glyphosate tolerance, called locally ‘flex Bt’.

⁴Annual Reports of the Department of Biotechnology carry this theme consistently.

⁵Studies naturally vary in coverage and detail, but behavioral indicators such as adoption rates and farmers' stealth tactics in diffusion of Bt cotton strongly indicated agro-economic success. For conclusions from a large number of field studies, see Gruère et al. (2008); Gruère and Sengupta (2011); Herring and Rao (2012). For representative studies, see Bambawale et al. (2004); Gupta and Chandak (2005); Naik et al. (2005); Bennett et al. (2006); Gandhi and Namboodiri (2006); Narayanamoorthy and Kalamkar (2006); Patil and Hanchimal (2007); Roy, Herring, and Geisler (2007); Subramanian (2007); Sadashivappa and Qaim (2009); Subramanian and Qaim (2009, 2010); Rao and Dev (2010); Kathage and Qaim (2012). For an argument that these studies are systematically biased, see Stone (2012, 2013).

⁶On illicit Bt cotton diffusion, see Shaik (2001); Sahai (2002); Gupta and Chandak (2005); Mehta (2005); Shah (2005); Roy (2006); Scoones (2006); Roy, Herring, and Geisler (2007); Ramaswami, Pray, and Lalitha (2011).

⁷The most detailed account is that of C. Kameshwara Rao (2010), as acknowledged even by his critic Visvanathan (Financial Express 2010); the two dialectically lay out the contours well.

⁸See Shiva et al. (2000); Shiva and Jafri (2004); Shiva (2006); Gruère et al. (2008); Herring (2009).

⁹See representative studies contrary to these claims in note 5 above. On the dispute itself, see Stone (2012, 2013); N.C. Rao (2013); Herring (2013).

¹⁰Dr. Sahai's comments were carried on the front page of The Hindu under the title ‘Supreme Court order on GM food items “a breakthrough”’, 13 April 2008. See also Sahai in RAS (2011).

¹¹On transgenics and environmental risk specifically, see Thies and Devare (2007).

¹²The report is officially Ministry of Environment and Forests, Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (2009) Report of the Expert Committee (EC-II) on Bt Brinjal Event EE-1 Developed by: M/s Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company Ltd. (MAHYCO), Mumbai; University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad; and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore. 8 October (New Delhi: Government of India). It will be cited as MoEF 2009 GEAC EC II.

¹³The Expert Committee of the GEAC cited a range ‘up to 60–70%’ based on the scientific literature. See MoEF 2009 GEAC EC II Section 1.2.1; also Dhandapani, Shelkar, and Murugan (2003); Kolady and Lesser (2008, 2011).

¹⁴Section 9(3) of the Insecticide Act of 1968, as on 28 December 2006, lists as approved bio-pesticides products containing Bacillus thuringiensis (var. kurstaki); one of these is LIPEL, recommended for use against ‘Helicoverpa (the cotton bollworm and common pest of eggplant), spodoptera and other caterpillar pests’. AGRI LIFE, the producer, is an ‘ISO 9001-2008 Certified Company’ approved for products used in organic agriculture, for both national use and export. Dozens of firms foreign and domestic are registered for distribution of Bt-k formulations up to 18 k IU per g wettable powder (Dr. Venkatesh Devanur Managing Director Agri Life, pers. comm.). See also www.agrilife.in

¹⁵Data generated by Mahyco and independently by ICAR during the multi-location research trials (MLRTs) 2004–2006.

¹⁶For LST data on marketable yields, see Table 25 in Choudhary and Gaur (2008).

¹⁷For explanation of arrangements, and ex ante analysis of potential outcomes, see Kolady and Lesser (2008).

¹⁸Bt cotton proved an exception; farmers in Gujarat effectively used F2 (second generation) seeds of hybrids that expressed the cry1Ac protein when Navbharat 151 was banned by the GEAC (Roy, Herring, and Geisler 2007).

¹⁹Jairam Ramesh, letter reproduced in MoEF (2010) Decision on Commercialisation of Bt-Brinjal MOS(IjC)E&F 9 February 2010 (New Delhi: Ministry of Environment and Forests) I.2. para. 29.

²⁰The Tamilnadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, had planned to release its OPVs at cost through post offices and small shops for wide availability and use in kitchen gardens. Interviews 14 October 2010.

²¹The Committee cited guidelines from the Ministry of Science and Technology (2008), as well as guidelines of the Indian Council of Medical Research for foods derived from genetically engineered plants which refer to the international standards of Codex Alimentarius Commission as adopted by the RCGM and the GEAC.

²²Greenpeace Germany is acknowledged by Séralini as a funding source for the earlier work on organ toxicity in Bt maize; Greenpeace India is acknowledged for the paper used in the petition to the Supreme Court to block release of Bt brinjal.

²³Prof. Em. Klauss Ammann of the University of Bern is one of the founders of ASK-FORCE, a network of scientists for contesting claims about biotechnology. Prof. Em. Dr. Marc Van Montagu of Ghent University is the founder of the Institute of Plant Biotechnology for Developing Countries, and President of the European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) and of the Public Research and Regulation Initiative (PRRI) in Delft, The Netherlands.

²⁴ Hindustan Times (India) 14 February 2010. There is no question that the Minister's statement was a response to mobilization of national and international scientists. Pers comm. 22 January 2014.

²⁵Quoted in Indian Express, February 15, 2010. On the cabinet split, see also Jayaraman (2010).

²⁶Their report reproduced some material from the Department of Biotechnology; an amended report with additional references was still held suspect for ‘plagiarism’. The matter was widely covered in the Indian and some international press; see for example AgBioWorld (2010).

²⁷This specification is more common in the economic policy literature but has been used by Franz Seifert to explore variance over time and space across Europe in mobilization against biotechnology (pers. comm.).

²⁸See Sahai (2002); Mehta (2005); Shah (2005); Herring (2006); Roy (2006); Scoones (2006).

²⁹See MoEF (2010 Annexure II: Letters from States/MPs, 85–108). Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh gave no official communication of a decision (93–4). For analysis, see Rao (2010) and Jairam Ramesh (Current Science 2011).

³⁰My discussion with a party leader and cabinet minister in the state government of Kerala reflected three reasons: most important, multinational capital in agriculture; second, food and safety concerns; third, biodiversity (Thiruvananthapuram, 16 December 2009).

³¹The normal practice of farmers who grow brinjals is often diversification, not specialization. Indian Horticulture Data Base (2006); Choudhary and Gaur (2008, Ch 4).

³²Kishor Tiwari, leader of the Vidarbha Jan Adolan Samiti campaign, stated: ‘ Bt.brinjal is being sold in Maharashtra without any permission’, Narendra, 7 February 2010. Underground production of OPV Bt brinjal seeds is far easier than Bt cotton hybrids. Many anecdotal reports of stealth plantings have been conveyed to me, but without hard evidence. Mahyco tested one report, but it proved false (interview, Usha Barwale, October 2011).

³³Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture and FAO/IAEA Agriculture and Biotechnology Laboratory, Seibersdorf, of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna (http://www.iaea.org).

³⁴Press reports from multiple sources; e.g. Business Standard, 2014. The two Ministers disagree on the implications of the pending Supreme Court case. The situation is currently unstable and will remain so until at least after the elections of 2014. For analysis, Gupta (2011).

³⁵Shukla (2010). About INR 9,700 crore was raised in 2007–2008 by foreign contributions, more than half of total social sector expenditure by the state in the XI plan, underscoring the critiques of several ministers of undue foreign influence. See Cooley and Ron (2002) on NGO dynamics.

³⁶European Commission Directorate-General for Research (European Union (EU) Research Directorate, 2010, 16). A more recent review is Nicolia et al. (2013). A sampling of national academies is provided by the Genetic Literacy Project: http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2013/08/27/glp-infographic-international-science-organizations-on-crop-biotechnology-safety/#.Uo_I4ihOS-J

³⁷See annual reports of the DBT, which covered a wide range of aspirations and included a nominal provision for poverty alleviation, though the means were unclear.

³⁸Jairam Ramesh, pers. comm., New Delhi, 22 January 2014.

³⁹Though Bt rice had spread as a stealth seed since at least 2006, discovered in exports to the EU, Japan and New Zealand.

⁴⁰See note 14 for details. Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki is used against caterpillars in vegetable crops, especially the diamond-back moth, sometimes in IPM in cotton. The Directorate of Oilseed Research of ICAR – Government of India -- has developed a dossier for registration and has licensed dozens of small firms for Bt bio-pesticides.

⁴¹Press accounts from India, e.g. Hindu Business Line, 29 October, and Hindustan Times, 3 November 2013. Logic, development and projections follow those examined in Kolody and Lesser (2008).

Additional information

Ronald J. Herring is Professor of Government and International Professor of Agriculture and Rural Development, and formerly Director of the Einaudi Center for International Studies, at Cornell University. He teaches agrarian political economy, political ecology and politics of science at Cornell. His interests have been in agrarian reform (e.g. Land to the tiller), class politics (e.g. Whatever happened to class, with Rina Agarwala), ethnic politics and development (e.g. Carrots, sticks and ethnic conflict, with Milton Esman), agricultural biotechnology (e.g. Transgenics and the poor) and other things. Ron is editor of the Oxford handbook of food, politics, and society and a Fellow of the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. Email: [email protected]