New Delhi: With the start of a fresh round of trade talks between India and the US in Washington, the Coalition for a GM-Free India – a network of farmers and civil society organizations – on Monday wrote to the Central government urging it not to allow the import of genetically modified (GM) cotton seed oil, animal feed dried distillers grains (DDG) and soybean oil from the US into India.In its detailed letter to several Union ministers, including Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, the alliance also urged them not to allow GM to be dismantled as a non-tariff trade barrier. The US has long been asking India to address the issue of non-tariff barriers to trade in US food and agricultural products.The coalition argued that allowing these imports would amount to backdoor entry of GM food into India, even though domestic law clearly prohibits it, and would lead to the legalization of transgenic food.While India can protect its ground by not allowing imports of maize (maize) and soybean (both genetically modified crops in the US), in an interim agreement on February 7, it agreed to eliminate or reduce tariffs on a wide range of US agricultural products, including DDG and soybean oil.The move was criticized by agricultural organizations, who said that DDGs would mostly come from genetically modified US corn.In its letter, the coalition pointed out how various US organizations are directly or indirectly pushing for opening up the Indian market to GM agricultural products, and urged the government to distance itself from all entities that are promoting US interests for GM crops in India under their MoUs with US pro-GM organisations.“These entities are no less than new-age East India companies, setting up a presence in India and working to open up India’s markets to American GM products and subvert our sovereignty,” it said.