Slamming activists for spreading “misinformation” on genetically-modified (GM) mustard, India’s premier association of agricultural scientists has said that India has a “narrow” pool of mustard varieties.

That India had over 9,000 varieties of mustard and was the “centre of origin and diversity (of mustard) ” was among the key arguments made by Prashant Bhushan in the Supreme Court, as part of a petition by activist Aruna Rodrigues.Earlier a Supreme Court-appointed Technical Advisory Committee had also recommended a stay on GM mustard citing the breadth of India’s genetic diversity in mustard and that introducing it would lead to “irreversible” contamin- ation.

“Contrary to GM basher’s (sic) propaganda – that very high diversity is available in Indian mustard – scientific analysis has shown that the Indian gene pool of mustard is very narrow… as a consequence, in spite of extensive efforts by our plant breeders – there is very little impact of pure-line breeding on mustard yields in recent years,” says a report by the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), a 600-member body of agricultural scientists.

In June, a 230-member quorum of the NAAS had passed a resolution unanimously supporting the commercial release of Dhara Mustard Hybrid 11 (DMH-11), a transgenic food crop that had been cleared by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) for commercial release.

“The base is narrow and that’s why we need hybrid technology for developing better mustard varieties,” Panjab Singh, president, NAAS, told The Hindu . Though there were wild-related species, these were largely untenable for commercially extracting oil, he added. Unlike in wheat, for instance, where the male and female can be crossed to make a wide genetic range of hybrid seeds, mustard is a self-pollinating plant that isn’t amenable to such crossings. DMH-11 uses a combination of genes from a soil bacterium that makes mustard amenable to hybridisation. The NAAS also refuted claims that non-GM varieties of rapeseed (a sister species of mustard and an oilseed) in Europe out-yielded GM varieties grown in Canada.

In a rejoinder, a coalition of activists slammed the NAAS report and accused it of being a “public relations” agent.

“The source of the number of species is the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (an agriculture ministry body)… It is unscientific for a scientific body to ignore the diversity that exists, and the implications on that diversity from GM mustard,” the Coalition for GM-Free India said in a statement.