The Centre on 31st July told the Supreme Court that the commercial release of GM Mustard in India has to wait for a "well-informed and well-intentioned" policy decision and that the decision would come out in September. This is very significant as Mustard is a winter staple in India and millions of farmers would be waiting for the appropriate policy decision on the part of the government. 

Brassica juncea (Indian mustard) being the most important oil seed crop of northern India is cultivated on ca. 6 million hectares and contributes approximately 5.8 million tons to the oilseed pool of India. Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal are the major mustard producing states which is usually sown between the months of Sep-Nov. 

For pure mustard, the crop seed rate could be about 4-6 Kg/Hectare. The productivity of mustard in India is low with an average yield about 1 ton/ha with good agricultural practices (GAP). However, farmers do not usually practice GAP and so they derive a yield of only 400 kg/ha. 

 However, there are many locations in India where field  trials of GM Mustard have already been held. A 2004  study by Delhi University conducted field trials of  DMH-1 at Bharatpur (Rajasthan), Agra (UP) and  Rewari (Haryana) and reported maximum yields of up  to 2915 kg/ha. This is more than 7 times than that of  typical yields. 

 However, the spread of GM Mustard is fraught with its  own risks. Petitioner Aruna Rodrigues of the NGO-  Gene Campaign, through advocate Prashant Bhushan, had red-flagged the proposal to allow commercial cultivation of GM mustard in the Supreme Court. 
Bhushan had recounted the perilous experience of GM rice in Texas, US, which contaminated production of long-grained rice, leading to a ban on its import by EU countries and Russia.

He says that GM Mustard may seem safe in closed field trials but the moment it is cultivated in an open field, one does not know what effect it would have on nearly 5,000 varieties of indigenous varieties of mustard grown in India. 

Significantly we should remember that earlier during the brouhaha about Bt Cotton, the Supreme Court had set up a Technical Expert Committee (TEC) in 2012 to assess the safety of GM crops. The TEC in its 2013 report had, among other things, recommended a ten-year moratorium on field trials of GM crops in all edible food crops. 

Seeking the implementation of the recommendations of the Technical Expert Committee, the petitioners, have said that GM Mustard should not be released until there was a rigorous and public investigation conducted by private organizations as the government panel, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), responsible for approving the same in May 2017, has many members who suffer from conflict of interest.

Additional solicitor general P S Narasimha on 1st August 2017, told a SC bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud that the Centre would take a final decision on the commercial cultivation of GM mustard by September-end and said that till then, GM mustard would not be allowed to be sowed, even though the sowing season for mustard would start in October.

This is a welcome decision and one hopes that the Centre takes a firm stand on the issue. GM crops in India are fraught with risks as the end user –the illiterate Indian farmer- has currently many misconceptions on GM crops and does not have proper training on how to use them. The stakeholders who are involved in research and commercialization must engage the farmer and provide adequate training/education to them.  

Currently Delhi University and a few other Agri Universities are currently engaged in research on GM Mustard with funding from the Department of Biotechnology. However critics say that approval for commercial cultivation to them will open up a back door entry for private organizations such as Aventis, which recently acquired Delhi based Proagro (the company that applied for GEAC approval). 

This is not necessarily a bad thing since India imports nearly 60% of its annual edible oil requirements. In 2016 the cost for oil imports alone was Rs.78,000 crore. Increasing the spread of GM mustard would help in cutting down of those bills by a huge margin. However, in the rush to ease the financial strain the government needs to educate society and especially farmers so that they don’t fall prey to unfounded propaganda.

(The author is Senior Feature Writer, CapitalKhabar. The views expressed are personal)