Finance Minister and CPI(M) central committee member T.M. Thomas Isaac said here on Sunday that the CPI(M) was neither totally opposed to Genetically Modified (GM) crops nor ready to offer unqualified endorsement to it.
“We are not rejecting it outright. Nor are we welcoming it without any reservation,” Dr. Isaac said while briefing reporters about the deliberations of the ongoing International Congress on Kerala Studies, organised by the AKG Centre for Research and Studies.
Dr. Isaac, whose clarification came in the light of the row over CPI(M) Polit Bureau member S. Ramachandran Pillai's statement on Saturday that opposition to the use of Genetically Modified (GM) seeds was tantamount to superstition which invited a quick rejection from State Agriculture Minister and CPI leader Mullakkara Rathnakaran, said the CPI(M) was of the opinion that the whole issue should be viewed from the perspective of health, environment and proprietary rights and a stand taken on a case-by-case basis.
The GM technology was necessary and research in the area should ideally take place in the public sector as had been done successfully in the case of the Green Revolution. However, the public sector was increasingly withdrawing from such research leaving the field open to private corporations. The party had opposed Bt. Brinjal because not enough study had been conducted on its health implications. What the party had demanded was a 30-year moratorium on its use. The party did not also agree with private corporations controlling GM seeds like in the case of Bt. Cotton, which was in Monsanto's control. The Union government was to blame for this, he said.
The CPI(M), he said, wanted the debate to continue, but this did not mean that the party wanted the State government to change its stand that Kerala should remain a GM-free State or that there is any need to change the State government's policy on GM seeds. What the party wanted was a consensus on the issue, Dr. Isaac said.
