The GMO Policy Debate in India: Who is Involved and Who has Influence?

1. The GMO Policy Debate in India: Who is Involved and Who has Influence? Cliff Echols, Sanjib Bhuyan, and Carl Pray Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics Rutgers University New Jersey, USA

2. Outline Motivation – constraints to spread of GM food crops – example of BtBrinjal (Eggplant) Objectives – identify which groups are involved in GM food debate and what influence do they have? Methods: media content analysis and then social network analysis to look at influence Results from content analysis and partial social network analysis based on relationships observed incontent analysis of literature. Preliminary lessons and plans for actual social network analysis based on interviews

3. Motivation Templeton Foundation project on barriers to GM food crop production in India, China and East Africa Hope to use basic political economy model to explain policy and regulatory barriers to GM crops Models of rice and maize supply chains Who would benefit from biotech in supply chain Where are the beneficiaries? Problem – how to connect economic interest groups to actual policies and regulations Starting with a case study of BtBrinjal

4. Motivation The success of growing Bt Cotton in India was showed the potential ofGMO technology held the potential to address and resolve India’s low food productivity issue. BtBrinjal, the first food crop was approved for commercialization for GM crop in India by the biosafety authorities in 2009 Jairam Ramesh Minister of Forestry and Environment stages public meetings major cities to show opposition moratorium and places a moratorium on Btbrinjalcommercializatoin Still no consensus on why and how the moratorium took place

5. Motivation This existing literature does not show how important various interest groups were or the pathways by which those messages move to and from other actors involved in the debate. The media reporting on the GMO policy debate in India in general and on Bt Brinjal in particularcontainsthe messages by the most vocal actors in the debate. For instance, the Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises statements are geared toward the convincing the government (e.g., govt. regulatory agencies, politicians) to support GMOs in India, similar efforts by Gene Campaign and Navdanyaclearly are opposed.

6. Motivation We argue here that to understand the GMO-related policy process in India, we need to identify various actors in the policy debate and their interrelatedness, and how such relationships may impact GMO-related policy outcomes, such as in the case of Bt Brinjal.

7. Indian Agriculture and Bt Brinjal Brinjal or more commonly known as eggplant (Solanummelongena; family: Solanaceae) is crucial to India’s roughly $14 billion (or Rs. 72,000 crore; US 1$=Rs.50) vegetable economy (Suresh, 2009). Brinjal contributes to almost 15% of this massive vegetable market providing livelihood to over 1.5 million farmers (Suresh, 2009). Brinjalis a common staple of Indian diet and significance importance in Indian cuisine. So, only a small fraction is exported.

8. Major Vegetable Crops in India Note: A 'tonne' is a unit of weight in the Metric system (also called a "metric ton") and is equivalent to 1,000 kilograms. One kilogram is about 2.204 lbs, so one 'tonne' is about 2,204 lbs or 1.102 short tons (or 'ton' as referred in the United States; equivalent to 2000 lbs.).

9. Indian Agriculture and Bt Brinjal Brinjal is quite susceptible to a complex array of pests and diseases among which the fruit and shoot borer (FSB) is its primary enemy causing yield loss up to 70% even after repeated spray of insecticides (Choudhary and Gaur, 2009; Dhandapani, Shelkar and Murugan, 2003). Encouraged by the success of growing BtCotton, one of the first crops to come to the forefront of the agricultural biotech revolution in India was brinjal.

10. Indian Agriculture and Bt Brinjal The potential economic benefits of BtBrinjal was confirmed by numerous researchers. Kumar, Prasanna, and Wankhade (2011) concluded that “…adoption of Bt brinjal hybrids would provide yield gain of 37 percent and reduction in total insecticide-use of about 42 percent over non-Bt hybrids.” Among other benefits, they argued, included almost $10 mil savings from insecticide use against FSB.

11. Indian Agriculture and Bt Brinjal Figure 3: A comparison of healthy and FSB damaged brinjal vegetable

12. Indian Agriculture and Bt Brinjal Hybrid BtBrinjal was developed by Mahyco using Bt gene from Monsanto and open pollinated varieties of BtBrinjal were developed in public-private partnership with Monsanto, Cornell University, TANU, UAS, and IIVR. Around the same time, there was a controversy about high prices for Bt Cotton seeds from Monsanto and MAHYCO There were also claims of increased suicide rates among farmers who grew BtCotton. The streams of interrelated negative media attention created a snowball effect with regards to negative side effects of GM crops in the country. In 2009 Biosafety authorities ruled BtBrinjal safe for commercial use but in 2010 Minister of Environment declared a moratorium on BtBrinjal.

13. Objectives • Our goals in this article, therefore, are • to identify the interest groups involved in the debate over the GMO policy debate in India, and • to examine these groups' and their members' interrelatedness. • We expect to better understand interrelatedness of various actors in the debate and who among them are influential in terms of the eventual GMO-related policy making in India.

14. Research Method A two-pronged strategy: content analysis and network analysis We use a common qualitative analytical tool employed in social science research– content analysis - to fulfill our first objective. In our case, we try to analyze the 'sentiment' of members of the various interest groups in the GMO policy debate in India as expressed by these groups in the public domain, including but not limited to popular press, academic journals, and government reports and comments. Our principal source of information search is Google, including Google Scholar. We limited our search to the 2010-February 2013 periods to collect and analyze only the publicly available published information.

15. Research Method The content analysis provided the following information: names of people and organizations (members of the civil society, NGOs, corporations, corporation-affiliated organizations, scientists, research institutions, government agencies, and politicians) that are involved in the GMO policy debate in India. Regarding the second objective, we use social network analysis (SNA). The concept of SNA rests on the simple fact that we interact with other humans either individually or in groups and such interactions have always influenced our behavior.

16. Research Method In a typical SNA, the basic procedure for collecting network data is to get respondents or actors (also known as ‘egos’) to identify people, organizations, or entities, i.e., other actors (also known as ‘alters’) with whom the respondents had various kinds of relationships. This study, however, is based on secondary data obtained through desk research, so we had to make some modifications to the typical SNA methodology! To carry out a limited form of network analysis, we followed the following modified methodology: First: the names of people and organizations identified from the content analysis are defined as 'actors.'

17. Research Method • Second: using our expertise and knowledge about these actors, we identified the interrelatedness of these actors. • We categorized information on each actor's various relationships in the form of • institutional relationship (e.g., belong to the same trade association), • political relationship (e.g., supports a particular political party), • personal relationship (e.g., work together in a previous career), or • regional or cultural relationship (e.g., from the same state).

18. Research Method For example, one of the actors in the GMO debate is the Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE), and two key players in the GMO debate in India, Monsanto India and Mahyco, are members of ABLE. By definition, then, both Monsanto India and Mahyco have institutional relationships with ABLE and vice-versa. We expect that an examination of such relationships would help us better understand the stance taken by these actors in the GMO debate in India. For example, ABLE's stance in the debate is 'for' GM crops. With SNA, we will be able to identify ABLE's network with other actors in the debate who are not necessarily members of ABLE, and evaluate ABLE's importance in such a network.

19. Research Method If, for example, we find that ABLE's network of relationship contains only those who are 'for' GM crops in India (either member of non-member of ABLE) and ABLE is found to be very important in the network, we can draw the inference that ABLE probably impacted the 'for' stance of the other actors in its network. Examination of such relationships is carried out for every actor and such relationship data is entered in Excel. Third: to verify our identification of relationships, we contacted several academic researchers in India, the U.S., and elsewhere who are either working on GMO or related issues in India, or who are knowledgeable about these actors and their various relationships. We utilized our own expertise and knowledge about these actors to complement and verify input from our colleagues. We use NodeXL (http://nodexl.codeplex.com/)to analyze the network of relationships among various actors or entities involved in the GMO debate in India (Hansen, Shneiderman and Smith. 2011).

20. Results of preliminary analysis • Two goals of the SNA are to • Examine the relational ties among the actors, and • Analyze their perceived Influence on the network involved in the GMO policy debate in Indi • We conducted a SNA • Using the ‘actors’ identified under content analysis • Relationships identified in the content analysis • Judgment about the direction of influence based on articles

21. Future SNA Analysis • Interviews of 30 to 40 individuals from government, NGOs, business, and farmer organizations in Delhi, Maharashtra and one or two other states • Start with key actors that we have identified • Then interview people that they key actors say were important sources of information • We will ask • Who do you get your information from about a GM issue • What are the relationships between the individuals that you get information from

22. Relational Ties

23. Figure 4: Interaction of actors involved in the GMO policy debate in India

24. Figure 5: Interaction of government actors AND farmers and farmers’ group actors involved in the GMO policy debate in India

25. Figure 6: Interaction of government actors AND corporations and corporate-related trade group actors involved in the GMO policy debate in India

26. Figure 7: Interaction of government actors AND NGOs, general public, including consumer group actors involved in the GMO debate in India

27. Figure 8: Interaction of government actors AND the science community actors involved in the GMO debate in India

28. Perceived Influence

29. Table 1: Network of Actors in the GMO Debate in India: Actors Involved and node-level Statistics

30. Table 2: Comparing Characteristics of Various Interest Groups Networks Note: order = number of nodes; size = number of non-zero ties; network density (or graph density) = this is a ratio that compares the number of edges in the graph with the maximum number of edges the graph would have if all the vertices were connected to each other. The maximum value for network density is 1.0 and minimum is zero, i.e., there is no edge because no two node is connected. Duplicate edges and self-loops are ignored.

31. Conclusions The content analysis shows that some political figures have been consistent in following recommendations of scientists, while some have followed the party-line or party leadership, and others have not followed the party-line. We found that farmers and farmers’ groups are generally in favor of GM crops (and Bt Brinjal) in India. However, they seem to be too disparate or fragmented to have their voices heard. The sentiment of the civil society, as represented by NGOs and consumer groups, was overwhelmingly negative toward allowing commercialization of GM crops in India.

32. Conclusions Regarding the activities of the corporations and corporation-related interest groups, they aimed their efforts to influence public policy toward GMO in India in an expected way, i.e., to benefit their stakeholders. For example, Monsanto and its cohort such as Mahycoaimed their public (and possibly private, but we do not have evidence) lobbying efforts at commercialization of BtBrinjal (and allowing GM crops in India).

33. Conclusions • Actors from two interest groups are identified as highly influential in the debate. • Bio-tech related corporations and their related groups (‘pro’ GMO) • NGOs and civil society (‘anti’ GMO). • Network statistics reveal that the latter group of actors had more influence on the GMO related policy debate in India than the former

34. Conclusions One of the most important stakeholders in the GMO policy related debate in India is farmers and farmer groups. One of our main findings was that the members (i.e., actors) of this group were not well-connected in the network and they did not have high influence in the debate. The science community is another group of stakeholders or interest groups that played a minimal role in influencing the debate.

35. Comments (and assistance) are Welcome! Grazie mille! Thank You!