Greenpeace India

Greenpeace started in 1971 with a small group of volunteers organising a music concert to raise
funds to sail a boat from Vancouver to Amchitka to protest against US militarism and the testing
of nuclear weapons. The tests went ahead but the protests gave birth to a new idea – Greenpeace.
Greenpeace India was founded in 2001. Its achievements include campaigning on a wide range
of issues ranging from Genetic Engineering to the dumping of toxic mercury waste at
Kodaikanal in 2003 to promoting clean energy and the solar generation, and also mobilising
support for the victims of Bhopal Gas Tragedy.

As far as GM food safety is concerned, the organization has taken several steps over a decade to
oppose GM crops especially emphasizing on the harmful effects of GM Mustard and Bt Brinjal.
The following are two of their major campaigns:

1. #NoGMMustard

In 2016, another GM food crop was being pushed for commercial cultivation approval. An
application for the release of mustard was in an advanced stage of processing by the Indian
regulators. The application, with a biosafety dossier that claimed to have completed all
required tests and studies to assess the impacts of this GMO as per the Indian regulatory
guidelines, had been submitted to the apex regulatory body called Genetic Engineering
Appraisal Committee (GEAC), constituted under the Environment Protection Act’s 1989
Rules in the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Government of India.
Foreseeing that And the GEAC might go ahead with the commercial cultivation of GM
Mustard, the organization started this campaign citing reasons to say no to GM crop. Some of
the reasons were that transgenic technology was unsafe, GM Hybrid Technology (HT) crops
cause numerous adverse impacts, for farmers, agri-workers and consumers, GM mustard
yield increase claims are wrong and unverified, etc.

2. Nationwide Campaign for withdrawal of BRAI Bill, 2013

The Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill, 2013 seeks to give easy access to GM
crops in India. It provides a single window fast-track approval for GM crops, overriding the
State’s authority over agriculture and health. The organization opposed the Bill for various
reasons. One of the initial reasons was that the nodal ministry for the UN Convention on
Biological Diversity is the Ministry for Environment & Forests, and yet the Ministry of
Science and Technology had tabled the Bill. Another issues included no public consultation
and lack of democratic functioning, no need-assessment built into regulation and No
protection for farmers, whose fields growing natural non-GMO crops get contaminated with
a GM product of the neighboring farm among other reasons.