As the Centre mulls over giving approval for commercial cultivation of GM mustard, a section of biologists and activists have warned that such a move would be ill-advised.
Kavitha Kuruganti, convener of the Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), said that GM mustard threatened the seed diversity of indigenous mustard.
“The push for GM is coming from the commercial food industry, not from the kitchens of ordinary Indian homes. India produces sufficient mustard to meet its consumption requirements. The claim that GM mustard will reduce dependence on oil imports is baseless,” she told a panel here at Anna University.
Dr. Sultan Ahmed Ismail, a soil biologist, said that herbicides sprayed onto the crop to kill weeds were potentially carcinogenic with implications for health and safety of its consumers.
