The scientific temper in this country is dying fast. This debate just highlights that fact.

Invite me to debate and i will explain what real farming is. I'm a organic farmer and I say crop dont need GM seeds or even hybrid seed, pesticides or chemicals or any 'technology' but it needs seeds, water and most important soil, healthy soil.. Come to my farm and you get the evidence..

GM Crops do not increase productivity , they just modified a gene that includes the bacillus variety that fights Bollworm - It can be said in single term that GM crops are nothing but " Seeds with inbuilt pesticides " , It consumes more water than normal farming. BT Crops cannot fight any other worms. What are the side effects - The quality of the crop is totally lost , cost for farming also is too high and the farmers cannot reproduce using the seeds and they have to get the seeds monopolized by Monsanto seed company only. Whereas organic farming yields more and is most appropriate farming method. Monsanto GMO varieties are banned in 38 countries and rat trials clearly showed that GM crops causes , diabetes , cancer etc. The stooges of Monsanto are well paid to accompany this mega fraud. The increase in farmers suicide in MH is bcz of Monsanto and their evil designs across the world.

Last comment, about independent testing. The fellow from Monsanto was exactly correct about the hundreds of studies funded and carried out by the EU. They did this at the time that the US was suing the EU in the World Trade Organization because the EU had instituted a moratorium over approving any new GMO crop varieties, regardless of scientific studies. It is hard to imagine that the EU, funding those studies, was not hoping to find a justification for its moratorium. It didn't. Just to give you an idea how hard they looked, one of those studies was about whether bacteria living in the guts of honeybees could take up genes from pollen and incorporate them in their own genomes. Before the experiment, nobody knew if this was possible. Maybe it is possible. But the EU scientists performing the study found no examples of it, so at least we can say that it it happens, it is very rare.

As I watch this I may make various comments. I will begin with Mr. Sharma's claim, around 6 minutes in, that the Bt gene does not increase productivity. This is a true but misleading statement. You can talk about productivity in two ways. One way is the intrinsic productivity, which is what you can get from the plant under optimal conditions. Optimal means no weeds, no pest insects, no plant diseases, adequate water and nutrients, etc. As of 2014, there were no GMO crops which had any advantages in intrinsic productivity. Certainly Bt cotton did not have increased intrinsic productivity. Nor was it even meant to. That's why Mr. Sharma's true statement is misleading. The Bt gene was and is meant to let the plant produce a protein which kills certain insects that try to eat the cotton boll. By killing the insect, you of course get a higher actual yield that you would get without the protection of the Bt protein. I wonder if he is being purposely deceptive or if he doesn't understand the difference.

Around sixteen minutes, I was thinking that the moderator had done a very good job in keeping the debate productive. But then, everybody started talking at once and I couldn't tell what anyone was saying.

Aajtak, abp R TV also should be debate on theses types of topic,,

It is a very relevant debate at this point of time. I congratulate the anchor for taking the debate to his total control and for keeping the debate well balanced. I wish I could be there in the debate at least in the audience.

thanks for sharing NDTV

This is genetically mortified debate

About a minute later, Dr. Chaudhary makes the same mistake. Both Chaudhary and Sharma say that India was growing hybrid cotton before there was BT cotton, which is true, and that the increased yield was due to the hybridization. But increased yield compared to what? Compared to non-hybridized cotton, yes. Compared to Bt cotton, no because the Bt cotton offers an advantage when there are insect pests eating the cotton bolls, and the non-Bt hybrids do not offer this protection. Half a minute later, Dr. Chaudhari makes the amazing statement that some hundreds of scientists have said that GMO foods cannot feed the world. This may be true or false but it has nothing whatsoever to do with Bt cotton, which is not grown for food but for fiber. (Yes, I know that there is a very minor food component when the seeds are pressed for oil. And nobody on either side of the debate thinks that the Bt. cotton produces more or less oil per seed than the non-GMO varieties.)

14:16, Sharma again, saying that with field trials, there could be an escape of a novel gene into the environment. I can't see why that would not be true of the Bt gene in cotton where there is non-Bt cotton nearby. So I briefly thought he was speaking the truth. But in the next sentence, he talked about superweeds. That is an issue of weed control, not insect pests control. There is another kind of genetically modified crop with an added gene to make it easier to control weeds with herbicide because the gene makes the crop invulnerable to the herbicide. He seems to be claiming that the herbicide immunity gene has escaped into the wild and led to the emergence of superweeds. But that is simply not true. In no case has a gene escaped from a crop into a plant pest, a weed. The weeds are totally unrelated to the crops and genes can't transfer from crop to weed. Weeds can evolve a tolerance to certain herbicides, and that has happened many times, for the herbicide used for weed control of GMO crops, and also for the herbicides used for weed control in non-GMO crops. As just one example, most sunflower varieties are now immune to a certain herbicide, such as the brand named herbicide Beyond. There are no GMO sunflowers. But there are dozens of weeds that have evolved an immunity to Beyond herbicide. As before, there was no gene transfer from sunflowers to weeds. The weeds evolved the immunity to the herbicide naturally, just as the sunflower evolved its herbicide resistance naturally. Again, I have to wonder if Mr. Sharma is being deceptive, or simply doesn't know this.

When growing the seeds to be given to farmers as GMO seeds do they use GMO plants. Or Traditionally grown plays. If someone knows plays tell me and why .

At 7:24, Mr. Kaundinya says it in one sentence. The other two simply drown him out.

18:40 Sharma again. I am finally convinced that he is incapable of telling the truth. When he says that in China, pesticide use has increased by twenty times more in Bt cotton, that simply cannot be true. I think he may be meaning to say that since China first began to grow Bt cotton, as i has grown more and more Bt cotton, compared to the beginning when it grew only some in test plots, it has used more pesticides because there were more plants. Or. alternatively, he may mean that since the Bt cotton produces a pesticide inside the plant, he counts that as increased pesticide use. In neither case, even assuming that his figures are accurate, that isn't what one cares about with pesticides. One cares about their environmental impact, whether they harm innocent animals or people. Doesn't he know that just about all plants produce substances that protect them from some pests? Does he thing that pesticide use increases twenty times when you grow twenty times as much onions? Or garlic? Or, since India is famous for its spicy peppers, does he think India is using and its people eating too much pesticide in spicy peppers? Same claim about America, 400 pounds additional pounds of pesticides since Bt crops came into use. I wonder if he has ever thought to look at the corporate reports of the chemical companies that make pesticides. They sell less and less pesticides each year and they are scrambling to find other businesses involving chemicals. Also, he states the amount of pesticides in pounds. That's insane. Take two farmers, both using the same pesticide. One puts a pound of pesticide in a hundred pounds of water. The other puts a pound of the same pesticide in 200 pounds of water. Nobody would say that the second farmer is using twice as much pesticide, because we all understand that we should compare the toxicity, not the weight. America's dispersal of pesticides measured by toxicity is plummeting not increasing.

If you wanna see real field farmers then come to vidarbha or telangana... farmers even heard of this show..

Patent of cotton seed or seeds??? Are u kidding... is seed property?? If yes,then it belongs to soil first n then farmers'.

Conclusion?

OK they are saying that ban gm crops but why I want to know why it as to be banned what is the reason

Why don't you discuss about ill effects of GM seeds.. in food... in a seperate debate

Monsanto own the patent of the seed. Very wreckless to allow a for profit company own your food supply. Watch out

I agree with Devinder Sharma ji..

we should be say no GMO...TAKE AN EXAMPLE IN US AND CANADA and learn the terrible consequence of it! please do your own research other countries are absolutely saying no to GMO

my concern is patented seeds will make India depends on foreign corporation.

GMOs needs to go stop stop stop stop stop the fucking food poisioning

YE KISAN BIKA HUA HAI

GMO - Get Monsanto Out from india forever (period)

Go to bangala desh about began , and land how distroy, we donot want distroy bharat