After a four-year legislative battle, the European Parliament has granted member states the ability to decide for themselves whether or not they want to allow crops of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on their soil.

Writing in The Parliament Magazine, Marc Tarabella MEP notes that the wishes of several pro-GMO lobbies, led by several multinationals and Britain, did not prevail.

A legal basis was obtained for allowing member states to ban the implementation of GMO crops and an extension of the list of motives for this. The goal to avoid contamination of traditional crops by GMO crops was also strengthened.

In 2010 a Eurostat study found that 59 per cent of Europeans think GMOs are dangerous.

It is the responsibility of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to therefore address such concerns and properly assess the dangers of GMOs.

However, as Tarabella notes, the EFSA’s track record is worrying. Several former members of food-processing industry lobbies have been nominated as EFSA officials.

Between 1998 and 2010, out of the 125 import authorisation requests submitted to the commission, other than six applications that were withdrawn by manufacturers themselves, none were denied.

Tarabella states that, as the EFSA is responsible for the food safety of half a billion citizens, it is perfectly within people’s rights to expect it to be neutral, upright and trustworthy. However the EFSA is riddled with conflicts of interest.

Tarabella argues that studies on GMOs have been left in the hands of multinationals for too long and writes that these companies are merely motivated by greed and the promotion of single-crop farming, with a complete disregard for food safety and biodiversity.

What Europe needs is neutral and transparent research. However the evidence shows we have anything but.

On the back of India sanctioning the open-field trials of GM crops, similar concerns are being echoed there too.

Biotech regulator the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, has approved field trials of 13 GM crops, including those of mustard, cotton, brinjal, rice and chickpea.

An Indian parliamentary committee and the technical committee of India’s Supreme Court have already stressed the need for caution and has recommended bans on GM field trials until stronger regulatory controls can be put in place.

Now another high-level committee chaired by TSR Subramanian, a former cabinet secretary, has drawn similar conclusions.

Subramanian has warned that the Indian government should exercise caution and seek greater assurance given the potential for medium to long-term adverse affects through unprepared introduction of GM food crops.

While stating that he is not against GM crops, he stressed chances should not be taken over GMO-related outcomes that cannot be undone. After all, he argued, European countries are not allowing field trials and they are not idiots.

The report states that the average Indian farm is of very small size — which could lead to severe adverse impact on biodiversity through gene-flow — and there are no independent expert agencies in the country.

Through a series of recommendations, the committee seeks to improve rather than merely maintain the environmental standards and biological assets of the country.

The committee’s report comes at an apt time given that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pitching a Make in India campaign which seeks to make India a potential investment destination for GM crops.

The Make in India campaign’s website states that India has the potential to become a major producer of transgenic rice and several genetically modified or engineered vegetables.

The site also states that GM food crops are an investment opportunity for foreign players as they will offer “new business opportunities” in the country.

It says that “hybrid seeds, including GM seeds, represent new business opportunities in India based on yield improvement.”

This is the first time the National Democratic Alliance government has made public its stance on allowing field trials for GM food crops.

It is revealing that Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar recently stated in parliament that the government is of the view that research in GM and confined field trials for generating biosafety data with all due precautions should be allowed to continue in the “national interest.”

The implication is that GMOs are in the “national interest.” They are clearly not — quite the opposite in fact.

Evidence indicates that India can feed itself without GMOs and that food sovereignty would be surrendered to US biotech corporations if India were to fully embrace GMOs.

Does Prakash’s statement also mean that those who are legitimately resisting the introduction of GMOs are thus working against the national interest?

This is not merely implied by officialdom but has been openly stated in an Intelligence Bureau report from earlier this year.

Before coming to power, certain commentators feared Modi would be beholden to foreign interests.

The Make in India campaign appears to include handing over food sovereignty to foreign corporations and is itself based on a fallacious and increasingly outdated notion of “development” and “growth.”

From India to Europe, there is a drive to push GMOs into countries at all — health, environmental and social — costs. This is in part being driven by profit-hungry agritech corporations.

As with the big-dam, water-intensive, oil-dependent, dollar-boosting, debt-inducing, chemical-industrial model of agriculture we have seen over the last 50 years or so, the GM version is also a tool to further subjugate nations to the hegemonic needs of the US.