When Jairam Ramesh requested India’s academics to produce an assessment of GM, all they could do was to copy a corporate publicity handout. He sees problem-solving purely in terms of technological improvements in yield potential, farm productivity and integrated pest management, but underplays the social realities of agriculture.One has to think of the work of scientists beyond Dr Khush.The second event was a well-publicised article by world food laureate Gurdev Khush. He seems to think that every crisis merely needs a technical response to a technical question. By minimising social science wisdom, his Green Revolution portrait as a miracle of productivity becomes naïve and even dated. The first was a letter by 107 Nobel laureates chiding Greenpeace for criticising the introduction of GM crops. His IRRI-64 is a legendary rice variety, hailed as the most widely grown crop in the world. He accuses anti-GE activists of filibustering the proceedings of Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC). The ecological and biotechnological have to debate on open ground and the ethics of choices, the logic of problem-solving, and the nature of a risk society with solutions no longer predictable, certainly have to be highlighted.He warns against narrowing the field, but if anyone narrows the field literally it is the legendary Dr Khush.

In confronting two modes of problem-solving we must examine the paradigmatic basis of two approaches. His article begins with a Malthusian anxiety, a demographic trend, which recognises that not only will India be the most populous country by 2030, but also one where most of the population will be engaged in agriculture. There are two problems here: It ignores the fact that the Government of India has stalled debate by equating environmentalists with seditionists. One must also remember that social is not an addendum in these debates but a critical part of decision-making. The laureates’ list was impressive and interesting. There is a slight one-sidedness here in tactics. Cost is a consideration as the farmer does not have to depend on others for seeds.Dr Khush is unfair to GM’s opponents and fails to recognise that they too are providing counter-expertise, carefully collecting data, marshalling arguments without indulging in rhetoric or imputing motives. It is time for a more open debate where science and democracy in India will be under close scrutiny. Testimonials on the good conduct of GM crops, whether by scientific legends or Nobel laureates, is just publicity. The question to ask is this: Is it the only solution or the best solution He sees scientific data as an immaculate conception.Dr Khush, by being mono-paradigmatic, ignores agro-ecological approaches that outstanding scientists like Madhav Gadgil, Raymond Dasmann or Gordon Convay have suggested, one to emphasise that the critique of GM isn’t merely from social movements but from dissenting scientists. Dr Khush is silent on them, but considering such arguments is important, otherwise the pat he gives work like Delhi University’s research group Paintal sounds like empty paternalism. Utilising Dr Khush or 109 Nobel laureates as a public hoarding is not quite the answer to the question. He doesn’t have to buy seeds from outside, can reduce water usage to a minimum and yet get high output. The Nobel laureates saw Greenpeace’s action not as a Cassandra cry but an irrational defiance of a scientifically progressive product. Dr Khush says that while agricultural policy has catered to issues like soil, rural connectivity and irrigation, the question of doubling farmers’ income by introducing more productive varieties has not been considered adequately.

The title is a pun: "Don’t narrow the wholesale empty capsules field". One wondered where the ecologists were and one sensed in this age of reductionism, their chances getting a prize were remote. Social movements prove that it is GM advocates who are responsible for bad science and bad management. He has to realise that the Green Revolution is not just about productivity and technology, and these aren’t magic bullets for problem-solving.Dr Khush is obsessed with productivity and he sees GM crops as the solution. Sustainability has to be seen as more than yield management. One needs a paradigm of ecological prudence, not just technological productivity. The question is: should agriculture be so monolithic, or are there alternatives to posing the question around issues of resilience, diversity, sustainability and the matter of intellectual property, words which rarely enter his thesaurus or argument The question critics like Kavitha Kuruganti are asking is whether GM is the only solution, or are alternatives like systems of mustard intensification more adequate as they show better yields than GM mustard. First, GM advocates pick on Greenpeace as the major disrupter. We have to respect the data raised by dissenting groups that have repeatedly shown this is not so. Second, there is an assumption that the GEAC is correct in its handling of trials. Dr Khush is a legendary scientist with a copybook career at University of California at Davis and the International Rice Research Institute in Manila. It’s the absence of plurality and democracy in his work that is distressing.

In democracies, when citizens and social movements reply with good science, the scientific establishment must respond with openness. Activist groups have shown that GEAC needs to be scrutinised. He accuses anti-GM activists of "filibustering" without realising that even science has to respond to issues of dialogue and democracy. One should be sensitive to what sociologist Robert Merton called the Mathew effect, where papers by established scientists get more attention than those by ordinary workers.Two recent events have emphasised the urgency of introducing GM crops on a large scale. His dream is of "low input-high output" agriculture. Third, one has to ask scientists like Suman Sahai (Gene Campaign) whether the so-called best practices are foolproof. What one wants to challenge is the logic of his argument.The article published in an Indian newspaper is down to earth, quietly argued and impressive. Second, what they are offering is not a centralised solution, but a panarchic response that varies at the household and population level, and in terms of time.What the movements are offering is twofold — a critique of regulatory science and the outline of an alternative paradigm. Almost all were physicists and chemists.

Megosztás a facebookon