NEW DELHI: Emboldened by agriculture minister Sharad Pawar’s current pitch in favour of scientific field trials for transgenic crops, top agriculture scientists of the country on Saturday came together to make it forward more vigorously through their strongest ever remarks: “Ban Monsanto, but don’t ban GM crops” and “don’t ban science (research and trials). Banning science is banning progress”.

Seeking to clear the air over the anti-GM activists’ allegation that the scientific community has been pitching for genetically-engineered crops at the behest of multinational seed companies like Monsanto, the scientists from government institutions like IARI and ICAR and other research bodies argued that demand for scientific trials has nothing to do with benefiting a company A or company B, but it’s for larger interest of people of the country.

Referring to instances where many states don’t even allow trials of genetically-modified crops, noted genetics scientist Deepak Pental said, “It’s quite an irony that the country tested pesticides, drugs and vaccines but it refrains from scientific field trials of GM crops which may turn out to be a boon for increasing agricultural productivity.”

Dismissing the stand of anti-GM crop activists as a case of “fear” and “scientific ignorance”, Pental – former vice-chancellor of Delhi University – said the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) too had taken an “ideological” stand which had nothing to do with science.

The TEC had in its report to the apex court recommended a ban on open field trials of genetically-engineered crops till a robust regulatory mechanism was put in place.

The scientists' remarks came barely four days after Pawar made his preferences for GM crops clear. Strongly articulating his ministry’s stand in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, he had cited examples of Bt Cotton saying its success showed how farmers themselves opted for this crop which last year alone earned Rs 21,000 crore from export.

“I honestly feel that the farmer of this country is wiser than me...It is not proper to say that Bt Cotton is not useful”, said Pawar, adding the farmers preferred genetically-modified cotton as it gives higher yield, is more disease-resistant and provides more profit.

Pental and other scientists fully concurred with what the minister had said. Former vice-chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and founder-director of the National Institute of Plant Genome Research, Asis Datta, too emphasized that they would not have insisted for the GM crop options if there had been any scientific evidence of adverse impact of genetically-engineered crops on human health and environment,

The National Academy of Agriculture Sciences’ (NAAS) president R B Singh, its secretary Anwar Alam and senior scientists of IARI – N K Singh, K V Prabhu and A K Singh - along with other scientists of this institution put forward their arguments on similar lines highlighting importance of genetic engineering to enhance India’s ability to meet its comprehensive food and nutritional security through home grown foods.

Responding to activists’ allegation that the scientists have, in fact, been pitching for GM crops at the behest of Monsanto, N K Singh said, “Ban Monsanto, but don’t ban GM crops”. His remarks came in a bid to drive home the point of fellow scientists that “any ban on research and testing of such technologies will push India at least 20 years behind and it will be difficult to recover due to intense global competition for the development on commercialization of the GM technologies”.

They also said that Indian public sector institutions were capable enough to counter multinational companies, provided government allows the Indian scientists to go for field trials and strengthen infrastructure to compete with private companies.

Lending his support to the scientific community, the ICAR director general S Ayyappan assured his all out support for strengthening of the infrastructure for agronomic performance and bio-safety evaluation of GM crops including establishment of an “All India Coordinated Research Project on Transgenic Testing and Evaluation”.

Former ICAR’s director general R S Paroda – one of the six members of the technical expert committee on GM crops – suggested setting up such project in his separate report to the Supreme Court last month. Going against the other members of the TEC, Paroda pitched for scientific field trials of GM crops.