State science, risk and agricultural biotechnology: Bt cotton to Bt Brinjal in India

Abstract

Agricultural biotechnology has been a project of India's developmental state since 1986, but implementation generated significant conflict. Sequential cases of two crops carrying the same transgene – Bt cotton and Bt brinjal (eggplant/aubergine) – facing the same authorization procedures produced different outcomes. The state science that approved Bt cotton was attacked as biased and dangerously inadequate by opponents, but the technology spread to virtually universal adoption by farmers. Bt aubergine was approved by the same Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), but the decision was overruled, the GEAC downgraded and a moratorium imposed on the crop. Resultant conflicts engaged international networks, expanded the domestic arena in which science is contested and instigated restructuring of institutions for governance of genetic engineering. Divergent trajectories of the two crops corresponded to global patterns, but also reflected differences in agro-ecologies and state interests. In Bt cotton, state and cultivator interests dominated precautionary logics; in Bt eggplant, politics of risk dominated questions of agro-economics. The cases illustrate both the inherent vulnerability of science in politics and specific vulnerabilities of science embedded in particular institutions. Differences in institutional specificity of state science matter politically in explaining variation across countries in adoption and rejection of genetically engineered crops.