ISLAMABAD: A Senate committee approved on Wednesday the controversial Seed Amendment Bill 2015 which the National Assembly has already passed.

But the controversy is likely to persist because the law allows the import and commercialisation of genetically modified (GM) crops in Pakistan, which many agricultural and environmental experts consider harmful for the country.

It was the controversy that made Senate chairman refer the bill to the Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security to address the concerns farmers, lawyers, civil society and seed company associations had about the legislation.

Critics allege that the government took advantage of a turbulent period when public attention was fixed on terror attacks to get the National Assembly pass the bill “unanimously”.

Chairman of the Senate committee Senator Syed Muzafar Hussain Shah also announced unanimous approval of the bill at the conclusion of three-hour long discussion on it in the committee on Wednesday.

However, one member, Senator Mohammad Mohsin Khan Leghari, did oppose passing the bill “in haste” and allowing GM crops into Pakistan without laying down the rules and procedures to regulate imported seeds.

He said the Ministry of Food Security and Research should guarantee that the imported GM seeds are free of disease and suitable for the local environment, and wondered “why are we pushing for passing the bill when nations from Asia to South America have had terrible experiences with GM crops?”

“Farmers in India are committing suicide because of poor results of growing Bt Cotton. There farmers are entangled in a web knit by multinational companies and their indigenous cotton seeds have been wiped out,” he reminded.

Senator Leghari believes that the Seed Amendment Bill 2015 is being passed in haste without analysing the consequences of opening our doors to GM crops.

An agriculture expert in Pakistan Agriculture Research Council described the legislative exercise as illegal.

“The National Assembly cannot discuss the bill since its subject is a provincial matter. After the 18th Constitution Amendment, the provinces have the authority to frame laws on the subject,” he said.

A government official, on the condition of anonymity, shared his belief with Dawn that the government misinformed the Senate Standing Committee that provincial assemblies of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh had passed resolutions under Article 144 of the Constitution allowing the federal government to make amendments to the bill.

The Punjab government sent only its comments on the bill, according to him.

Federal Secretary Food Security and Research Seerat Asghar conceded to the Senate committee that Pakistan lacked mechanisms and trained manpower to ensure checks and balances on genetically modified cotton, but said “this bill ensures checks and balances. It lays down a strict procedure to check and regulate GM crop seeds.”

“To satisfy the committee, the government will consult its members while making rules on imports of genetically monitored crop seeds to make regulations strict,” said the official, urging the committee not to delay the bill further for it had been hanging fire since 2007.

Pakistan is signatory to Cartagena Protocol on Bio-safety, which does not permit import and commercialisation of GM crops without bio-safety regulations and proper infrastructure in place.

Anti-GM lobby in the country says that 85 per cent of Pakistan’s cotton belt is already under genetically engineered Bt cotton and multinational seed and pesticides companies are pushing to introduce genetically modified corn and maize seeds.

Many agricultural and environmental experts have been arguing that GM crops threaten Pakistan’s food security.

Critics say the bill ignored the eight-year long trial period of imported GM crop varieties/hybrid in different locations to study its adaptability and assess diseases that could spread from sowing into the local environment and have hazardous impact on human health.

They also say that genetically modified cotton introduced in Pakistan has been a failure. Growers complain that use of pesticides has increased and yields gone down since the GM cotton seed arrived as pests have developed resistance to the variety sooner than expected.

These critics claim that the government is trying to introduce Bollgard II, the second generation of Bt cotton seed, after Bollgard I failed to deliver promised results over the past five years.

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2015

http://www.dawn.com/news/1187523

An abridged version of this piece was printed in the Finance and Business pages of Daily DAWN on March 13, 2015.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1175542/farmers-or-corporate-sovereignty

The Pakistan Senate, in the context of passing the Amended Pakistan Seed Act 2014, has much to think about. It is indeed fortunate that so many new developments with respect to genetic engineering technology are coming to light at this point which will provide the Senate easy access to the many pros and cons in evaluating acceptance or rejection of the draft Amended Seed Act 2014, which was accepted by the Pakistan National Assembly, just four days prior to the new findings provided by International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and organ of the World Health Organization (WHO).

IARC has stated that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” The news brief in which this statement was made by the IARC to assess the carcinogenicity of the organophosphate pesticides is of critical importance was published in the globally acclaimed medical journal The Lancet on March 20, 2015. The brief is a summary of the report that is to be published shortly as Volume 112 of the IARC Monographs.

According to IARC “Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum herbicide, currently with the highest production volumes of all herbicides. It is used in more than 750 different products for agriculture, forestry, urban, and home applications. Its use has increased sharply with the development of genetically modified glyphosate-resistant crop varieties. Glyphosate has been detected in air during spraying, in water, and in food.

Glyphosate is used in the Monsanto’s branded herbicide Roundup Ready which can be sprayed on crops that have been genetically engineered to tolerate glyphosate. In essence, Glyphosate is dangerous for human and animal health. But Monsanto is once again refusing to accept the WHO report. This has been the refrain that Monsanto has used for all scientific studies which point to the dangers of GM technologies.

For the Pakistan Senate, this news is of critical importance in deciding the fate of the Amended Seed Act 2014. For more than two decades, across the globe people’s organizations, farmers’ organizations and many credible scientists societies have been asking governments to follow the precautionary principle meaning only use a new technology when it has been proven to be safe. But gigantic corporations such as Monsanto have consistently blocked moves by governments to follow a more sustainable agriculture policy, especially policies which guard economic interests of small farmers as opposed to corporate interests.

However, to some extent genetically engineered crops and seeds and other GE products have steadily been facing mounting pressure from many sides. In this respect, one cannot forget the recent legislation passed in January 2015 in the European Union which has given its individual member countries to allow GM crop production in the country as per their own decision. This is basically due to the persistent position taken by European people in many countries especially Germany and France, that they consider GE foods and crops very harmful to human health and the environment, and did not want to be put to risk by consuming such products.

If such highly technologically advanced countries such as in the EU are opposing GE crops, is it not important for the Pakistan Senate to think about promoting such technology which could harm their own people? In Pakistan, the National Biosafety Committee is no more functional and hence there is no legal mechanism for approving new GE  seeds in the country. The issue under the 18^th Amendment is now a provincial subject, but the provinces have not taken any steps to take on this responsibility. In a recent news item by DAWN it was stated that according to Mr. Asif Shuja, former director general of the Environment Protection Agency, the country does not have the expertise to conduct safe trials of GM crops.

Further, the current EPA Director General, Mr. Khurshid has termed GM crops as ‘weapons of mass destruction’. Similar statements have been made by the Foreign Office, Pakistan who believes that GM seeds are a matter of national security and trade. No doubt, this is in context to the TRIPS agreement in the World Trade Organization (WTO); an agreement which was forced on third world countries to guard the profit-driven interests of advanced industrial countries. Paramount among them was the USA who was guarding the IPR interests of its agro-chemical, seed and biotechnology firms.

In Pakistan, many non-government organizations, and mass-based farmer organizations and associations have taken a principled stand against accepting genetically engineered seeds in the country. Recently, many farmer organizations and NGOs have sent a letter to the Chairman Senate asking them to reject the proposed Seed Act 2014 and in its place enact a Bill which would protect the seed sovereignty interests of the small farmers of th country, who are no doubt the most productive force of the country. The stand is not only based on issues of environmental and health concerns that are the basis of a majority of the EU population, and the Pakistani government officials, but also lodged in the collective right of farmers on seed. This position rests on the historical collection and development of the genetic resources of millions of plant varieties abundantly present in the diverse ecosystems of the Earth by millions of small farmers across the continents through many millennia. Today, the likes of Monsanto are only able to develop their so called new seeds based on the germ-plasm collected by farmers, especially farmers of third world countries such as Pakistan. The Harapa Museum in Sahiwal is testament to the rich centuries old agrarian history of our country and the region. It is truly amazing that a seed from many thousands of years can be seen in the Museum. Given the cultural heritage of our country and our people, our farmers, why is our government allowing profit-driven seed corporations to implement new seed laws?

New technologies are only welcome if they come in the interest of the people; in the interest of our farmers; in the interest of increasing national self-reliance; in the interest of national and people’s sovereignty and indeed sustainable development.  It is to be hoped that the Pakistan Senate will keep these aspirations as their guiding principal when they sit down to discuss the potential benefit or harm of the draft Amended Seed Act 2014, whos function as a legal tool is to bring prosperity to the most productive sector of the country: the small and landless farmers of Pakistan.

The writer is an activist working with small and landless farmers in the country. She holds a doctorate in Social Pharmacy from the University of Minnesota, USA.

Azra Talat Sayeed @ azra.sayeed@gmail.com

The shocking statement from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an organ of the World Health Organization (WHO) that glysophate probably causes cancer in humans further verifies the concerns of the farmers organizations such as the Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek.

According to IARC “Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum herbicide, currently with the highest production volumes of all herbicides. It is used in more than 750 different products for agriculture, forestry, urban, and home applications. Its use has increased sharply with the development of genetically modified glyphosate-resistant crop varieties. Glyphosate has been detected in air during spraying, in water, and in food.”

This herbicide is used in the Monsanto’s Roundup Ready which can be sprayed on genetically-engineered plants resistant to Glyphosate. This of course provides further food for thought to the Pakistan Senate as it in the process for approving the Pakistan Amended Seed Act 2014 passed by the National Assembly on March 16 last month.

There have been recent concerns raised by the Director General, Environmental Protection Agency on the safety of GM seeds and crops in the country; similar concerns have also been voiced by the Foreign Office to the Climate Change Division stating that “GM seeds can be used as biological weapon of mass destruction to destroy Pakistan’s major crops such as potatoe, wheat, rice, corn, cotton and vegetables through modified viruses, bacteria, and other parasite.”

Roots for Equity along with many other peoples’ organizations and farmers’ organizations has sent a letter to the Pakistan Senate early this month, highlighting the many political, environmental an economic issues pertaining to acceptance of genetic ally engineered seeds and crops.

The breaking news by WHO on further harm caused by the use of GE seeds and related technologies should be taken into grave consideration and help in rejecting the Amended Seed Act 2014, to be replaced by legislation which guards farmers seed sovereignty and national food sovereignty.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(15)70134-8/fulltext

http://www.dawn.com/news/1175542/farmers-or-corporate-sovereignty

http://www.dawn.com/news/1173928/50-ngos-urge-senate-to-block-bill-on-seeds

http://www.dawn.com/news/1174415/minister-concerned-over-gm-crops-in-pakistan

http://www.dawn.com/news/1174330

http://www.dawn.com/news/1172653

http://www.dawn.com/news/1170209/farmers-most-affected-by-new-law-on-seeds