Sangh farmers' outfit joins anti-GM groups against transgenic mustard

NEW DELHI: The Bhartiya Kisan Sangh, farmers' group linked to the RSS, on Wednesday joined hands with anti-GM groups in their protest against regulatory clearance to transgenic GM mustard and demanded rejection of the regulator's recommendation of allowing commercial cultivation of the genetically engineered oil-seed in the country.

They met environment minister Anil Madhav Dave who assured them to discuss all the points, raised by them, at a right platform before taking a final call.

"He (Dave) gave a patient hearing to us for about 20 minutes. We presented various points about GM mustard and about what oil-seed producing farmers need as policy initiatives from the government for increasing production. At the end, he said that he will take all our points for a discussion to "sahi manch" (right platform)", said Kavitha Kuruganti of the Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) after meeting the environment minister.

She was joined by Yudhvir Singh of the Bhartiya Kisan Union, Badrinarayan Chaudhary of the Bhartiya Kisan Sangh and Rajesh Krishnan of the Coalition for a GM-Free India among others in the delegation.

The protest march outside the environment ministry at Jorbagh here was held in the backdrop of the central regulator's recent recommendation for approval of the GM mustard for commercial cultivation in India. The final decision on this is required to be taken by the environment minister. It is learnt that the minister would wait for the nod of the Supreme Court which has been hearing a petition challenging cultivation of GM mustard and open field trials of any transgenic crop.

The protest march was organized by the 'Sarson Satyagraha' which is a broad platform of hundreds of organisations representing farmers, scientists, consumers and others that has been on the forefront of resisting GM mustard.