Our kitchens are going to be filled with harmful and unnatural foods if we don’t act today.

It’s going to begin with Mustard - a regular ingredient in all Indian kitchens. The Government is gearing up to approve the cultivation of Genetically Modified (GM) mustard any day now, which has obtained a regulatory clearance on May 11th 2017. Soon, mustard oil and  mustard seed tadka in our food could harm us. Once GM Mustard is approved, it will open the floodgates for many more GM food crops – maize, rice, jowar, wheat, brinjal, bhindi, groundnut and so on.

There is a great deal of secrecy surrounding this new mustard. The genetic modification of this mustard has been done in a way that more chemicals will be used on the crop to control weeds. This will lead to more toxins in our food and environment. Such poisons have been known to be dangerous to toddlers, for example. The harm from this GM mustard is from both the genetic modification that has been done as well as chemicals that will be used on the crop.

Very little data about tests has been made public even after a Central Information Commission order to do so. The negative impact on the environment has been suppressed and the yield claims have been exaggerated and unproven.

In fact, major Mustard growing states of  Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana have said no to even experimental trials. I can’t understand why the Central Government wants to go ahead with an approval for cultivation!.

Sign my petition and show the Central Government and the interim Environment Minister Dr Harshvardhan that we don’t want to eat Genetically Modified (GM) mustard.

This mustard could be approved any time soon. We have very little time to make sure that this does not happen.

If the first GM food crop gets approved, many companies are ready to push for other GM food crops to be allowed too. Behind this are powerful, profit-hungry foreign companies like Monsanto and Bayer, which want to take control of India's seed system and food system.

After people rose up in protest, the permission for cultivation of Bt Brinjal was stopped. We can do this again. Sign my petition so that I can show the Government that we Indians don’t want GM mustard.