Protesting farmers have forced the authorities of Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agriculture University (HAU) in Kurukshetra to set ablaze a field where trials of Monsanto’s GM corn were being conducted.
Gurnam Singh, state president of Bharat Kisan Union told this newspaper that over 200 farmers had stormed into HAU research station on Thursday insisting that the open air field trials of GM crops be halted.
The university authorities had promised to do so but on Friday, when they were trying to remove the corn cobs from the actual site, the farmers insisted that not a single cob of corn be taken out.
They also insisted that the original data sheet about the GM crops be destroyed.
Explaining this extreme action, Gurnam Singh said, “We suspected that HAU universities would give them a favourable report and we did not want that to happen.”
This came close on the heels of the recommendation of the Supreme Court Technical Expert Committee to put a ten year moratorium on all field trials of GM crops in India.
Meanwhile a group of international experts led by Prof. N. Chandrashekhara Rao from the University of Delhi have issued a statement claiming that that the anti Bt cotton reports highlighting that Bt cotton had not benefited poor farmers and has contributed to farmer suicides is false.
They further stated that the parliamentary panel report on GM crops was not objective.
“These reports contradict the scientific evidence on the benefits of Bt cotton in India which have been published in studies by national and international scholars,” their statement said.
“The scientific literature shows that Bt cotton adoption has shown that farm household incomes and living standards have increased as a result of Bt cotton adoption significantly reduced chemical pesticide use in India while increasing farmers yields and profits,” the statement added.
The signatories included Sangeeta Bansal, associate prof. at JNU , Seema Batla associate prof. JNU and Mondira Bhattacharya associate fellow , Council for Social Development, India.