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Days before US secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s tour of India kicked off, the Union agriculture ministry cleared three genetically modified (GM) food crops — tomato, brinjal and cauliflower — to be introduced in the country in three years. The final clearance will have to come from two committees — the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee and the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation. Given the consistent — and often uncritical — bias both have shown in favour of GM crops, there is every possibility that these three GM vegetables will soon be in the markets. There is no call to float conspiracy theories, but it must be significant that India has come down on the US side of the GM debate ignoring the European Union’s consistent scepticism about genetic modification, at a time when Clinton has made talks on agricultural technology part of the agenda of bilateral cooperation. It is nobody’s case that GM crops should be completely ruled out of court — potentially it has a serious role to play in meeting the crisis of food security that haunts developing countries. But precipitate action is extremely unwise for a number of reasons.

To begin with, there are health issues. At the current state of knowledge about GM food crops, no one can be certain about its health impacts. Much greater research and pilot testing will be necessary before GM crops can be declared completely safe for human consumption. A related issue is the matter of choice — a EU-US bone of contention for a long time. The question is: will the government be able to put in place a regulatory and labelling regime to ensure that consumers know what they are consuming? 

It is unclear what the impact of the cultivation of GM crops will have on existing landraces and strains. There is a possibility that if the regulatory regime is weak and proper precautions aren’t taken to segregate GM crops from others, native strains will be adversely affected. This could, in fact, end up imperilling food security. There are other issues — the question of the introduction of ‘terminator’ genes, already played out in the case of GM cotton, and the control that it gives to seed corporations must also be revisited. But for the moment health and safety are the most crucial questions — and as long as there is public scepticism about the pro-industry bias of the two expert committees, the political establishment must proceed with far greater caution.