The Association of Biotech Led Enterprise - Agriculture Group (ABLE AG) has termed the document of Supreme Court appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) as regressive, biased and a troubled treatise that promises to push Indian agriculture into an archaic age.

"The industry believes the TEC report besides being incomplete is also anti-science and anti-research and will severely dent the future of country's farmers besides destroying the domestic private and public sector research. While improving the testing programmes is a continuous process, we do not believe that testing should be stopped in the interim. Such stalling will not help us in understanding science better. This recommendation, if accepted by the Supreme Court, will put our agricultural research back by decades and will severely hamper progress," said Mr Ram Kaundinya, Chairman, ABLE AG.

ABLE AG recognises that national leadership is well aware of the need for modern technology as evidenced from recent speech of President of India, and earlier by Prime Minister of India. India's agricultural productivity still ranks far below the best in the world, and reluctance to deploy novel and new technologies will have a far-reaching adverse impact denying Indian farmers and the domestic seed industry new technologies.

Dr N Seetharama, Executive Director, ABLE AG said, "This report by four members of TEC can't be considered complete as SC appointed agriculture expert Dr RS Paroda's submission directly to the Supreme Court is yet to be made public."

"India's robust science-based regulatory environment is comparable with global standards, and must be more predictable to encourage domestic agricultural research. We hope the Hon'ble Supreme Court will consider views from the scientific community, researchers, economists, farmers and the local Indian industry before taking a considered decision," added Mr Kaundinya.