Pakistan Senate approves bill on importing GM crops seed

A Pakistan Senate committee approved on Wednesday the controversial Seed Amendment Bill 2015 which the National Assembly has already passed.

But the controversy is likely to persist because the law allows the import and commercialisation of genetically modified (GM) crops in Pakistan, which many agricultural and environmental experts consider harmful for the country.

It was the controversy that made Senate chairman refer the bill to the Senate Standing Committee on National Food Security to address the concerns farmers, lawyers, civil society and seed company associations had about the legislation.

Critics allege that the government took advantage of a turbulent period when public attention was fixed on terror attacks to get the National Assembly pass the bill “unanimously”.

Pakistan is signatory to Cartagena Protocol on Bio-safety, which does not permit import and commercialisation of GM crops without bio-safety regulations and proper infrastructure in place.

Anti-GM lobby in the country says that 85 per cent of Pakistan’s cotton belt is already under genetically engineered Bt cotton and multinational seed and pesticides companies are pushing to introduce genetically modified corn and maize seeds.

Many agricultural and environmental experts have been arguing that GM crops threaten Pakistan’s food security.

Critics say the bill ignored the eight-year long trial period of imported GM crop varieties/hybrid in different locations to study its adaptability and assess diseases that could spread from sowing into the local environment and have hazardous impact on human health.

They also say that genetically modified cotton introduced in Pakistan has been a failure. Growers complain that use of pesticides has increased and yields gone down since the GM cotton seed arrived as pests have developed resistance to the variety sooner than expected.

These critics claim that the government is trying to introduce Bollgard II, the second generation of Bt cotton seed, after Bollgard I failed to deliver promised results over the past five years.