Traditional farming in India
In a major blow to the future of genetically modified (GM) crops in the developing world, GM company Bayer has announced that it has stopped all its work on creating new GM crops in India. This is the biotech giant's third defeat this year proving just how unsustainable and unwanted GM agriculture is.
Bayer conceded to Greenpeace 's office in India that ALL its projects on GM crops have been "discontinued" in a letter sent by Aloke V. Pradhan, head of Bayer's Corporate Communications in India. In the letter, Bayer claims that the decision to stop GM research was "due to changes in our global research strategy," and concedes that all work on GM cabbage, cauliflower, aubergine, tomato and mustard seed has stopped. The company will now only concentrate on conventional plant breeding.
"We don't need genetically engineered crops to feed India," said Divya Raghunandan, GM campaigner for Greenpeace in India. "In fact, globally, the promises made by the genetic engineering industry have been unfulfilled, whether increasing crop yields or reducing pesticide use."
"It doesn't surprise us that Bayer is giving up in India as they saw the writing on the wall - the Indian public was not going to accept their manipulated cabbages and cauliflowers and they cut their losses," said Divya. "It's time for the rest of the industry to give up on this misguided and inappropriate technology."
The letter outlining Bayer's retreat was sent following a protest which saw six activists chain themselves to the Bayer headquarters in Mumbai at the beginning of October. During their protest they demanded to know exactly what the biotech giant was doing in India.
This retreat follows other decisions by Bayer earlier this year. In March of 2004, the company announced it would be pulling out of GM crop research in the UK. A few months later, in June, it announced it would not pursue commercialisation of GM canola in Australia.
It is clear that popular resistance to genetic engineering is not diminishing as hoped for by the industry. No matter what country we're talking about, consumers are on the same page. They don't want to eat genetically engineered food. That's good news for farmers and good news for the environment.
Read the letters (pdf) exchanged between Greenpeace India and Bayer.
Find out the history of Bayer in India.
