GM industry and science busy exploiting hunger.

• Author: Sharma, Devinder
• Position: Thinking Economically

In the past four months, hundreds of farmers in Karnataka, ironically the hub of GM industry, have taken the fatal route to escape the pangs of hunger and the growing humiliation that comes along with crop failures. Unable to understand the ground realities, the Karnataka government has been thinking of sending psychiatrists to talk to farmers. The Andhra Pradesh government too has followed this misplaced vision.

At the same time, in the past few months and for that matter as a trend that continues from a couple of years, a few educated entrepreneurs in the Karnataka's capital, Bangalore, have suddenly become the darlings of the state exchequer. Many foreign companies, most of them unable to operate in the hostile environment against GM crops in the west, have moved shop to Bangalore. Invariably, they all come with the promise of higher crop yields, nutritional crops, and the underlying thrust of eradicating hunger.

It isn't therefore surprising to see Bangalore hosting five-star conclaves every month or so and that too in the name of fighting hunger. None of the delegates, and I repeat none of them, have ever stepped out of the hotels to even visit and meet the families of those who laid down their lives essentially to sustain flawed policies, including the misplaced emphasis on crop biotechnology.

The biotech epidemic has now spread wide. Karnataka is not the only state to have doled out state largesse to a handful of industrialists and business houses. If the recent surveys and reports in BioSpectrum are any indication, many other state governments are queuing with red carpets. Isn't it surprising that the same politicians who were once despised by the industrialists have now become their comrades-in-arms? Isn't it surprising that the same elite class that once blamed the "politician-engineer-contractor" nexus for siphoning off state funds, is now merrily part of the new age trio that comprises "politician-industry-scientist?"

Industrialists are not alone. Let us examine the dubious role of agricultural scientists, part of the new age tribe. "When was the last time you organized a national conference on farmers' suicides?" I asked a group of distinguished agricultural scientists participating in a recent national seminar on the need for a strong regulatory mechanism for GM crops at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. "When was the last time you organized a meeting on the shameful paradox of plenty that continues to...