A trial field with connecting paths to other fields

New Delhi, Sept. 17: A field trial of genetically-modified rice conducted earlier this year on a farm in Jharkhand’s Ranchi district flouted rules, a non-government agency campaigning for better regulation of biotechnology has claimed.

The New Delhi-based Gene Campaign on Tuesday accused Mahyco, a Mumbai-based seed company, of planting an experimental GM rice on a farm in Saparong village without physical isolation of the trial area from neighbouring farms.

The trial field was located in the centre of an agricultural area, surrounded on all sides by cultivated fields of other farmers, Gene Campaign said.

After the crop was harvested in August this year, the post-harvest crop stumps were left standing in the trial field instead of being incinerated as required under the rules that govern field trials of GM plants, it said.

“It’s scary, how someone can blatantly violate regulations,” said Suman Sahai, the convener of Gene Campaign, a 15-year-old organisation working for the protection of India’s biodiversity and improved monitoring of trials of GM crops.

The rules require isolation to reduce the risk of the flow of genetic material from the trial field to neighbouring crops. But during this trial, farmers could walk without any restrictions from the trial field to other fields, Sahai said.

Mahyco denied the allegations. “We have fully adhered to all conditions required to be followed,” said Mahendra Kumar Sharma, a company spokesperson. “The crop was isolated as required from other crops and it was incinerated after harvesting.”

The company said the GM rice crop was harvested on August 11 this year and then burnt on August 15.

But Sahai on Tuesday released photographs of the trial field taken in September which, she said, show post-harvest crop stumps standing in the field.

Sharma said any photographs taken in September would only show non-GM rice planted in the trial field. “After harvesting and burning the crop, we have planted fresh, non-GM rice there,” he said.

“We have photographs to show that the trial was conducted only with the proper isolation required between the trial field and the neighbouring fields and that it adhered to all rules. State authorities were informed about the trial,” Sharma said.

A senior official in the department of biotechnology — an agency that tracks and supports agricultural biotechnology — said the local state agricultural university — Birsa Agricultural University in Ranchi — had refused to monitor the trial. “There was no monitoring team available for this trial,” said official Krishna Kumar Tripathi on Tuesday. “We had asked the company to remove the crop, uproot it at whatever stage it was.”

In a letter sent to the department of biotechnology in July, the university’s research director B.N. Singh said the institution would not allow its scientists to visit open field transgenic trials “for various scientific reasons”.

“Instead the university would like to conduct such trials first within the university campus under containment facilities for which the university should be provided with sufficient fund(s),” Singh said.

Tripathi said the biotechnology department has decided to set up a central monitoring team that would be asked to monitor trials of new GM crop experiments.

In the past, government regulators have been accused of turning a blind eye to violations of rules on GM crop trials. Greenpeace, the international environmental organisation, had two years ago said one farmer in India had sold GM cotton after a trial instead of destroying the crop.

A Hyderabad-based organisation claimed that a farmer in Andhra Pradesh had admitted to having cooked and eaten GM okra.