GM crop potential

The strong defence of genetically modified (GM) crops by Nobel laureate Norman E Borlaug, hailed as father of the Green Revolution, is essentially commonsense.

It was the genetic alteration of the wheat plant by him in the early 1960s that triggered the Green Revolution in India and many other countries.

And he knows that a similar genetic manipulation of other crops can produce even more wonderful results today.

As Borlaug pointed out, if the genes that make rice plants resistant to dreaded rust diseases could be transferred to crops like wheat, maize, and sorghum, the latter could be freed from a big hazard, ensuring good production without any use of pesticides.

Similarly, if wheat's leavened dough-making trait could be transferred to rice, it would be possible to make pasta products, breads and chapatis from rice flour.

Indeed, the advantages offered by a calculated genetic alteration of crop plants are countless.

Farmers have not been slow to take advantage. The total area under GM crops globally has risen by 20 per cent in the last year alone. In India, where their use was allowed only three years ago, about 1.34 million hectares have come under Bt cotton.

As a result, cotton output has scaled a new peak this year, posing problems of plenty. But it is not farmers who are complaining about GM crops; it is the strong anti-GM lobby that is unable to stomach it.

This lobby has been opposing GM crops on various grounds, none of which is entirely convincing. If GM crops do indeed pose a real environmental or health hazard, some of it should have surfaced by now in areas where they are being grown for years now.

Many anti-GM activists take advantage of the general ignorance about the distinction between GM and transgenic products.

While all objects with artificially altered gene structures are GMOs, only those receiving genes from unrelated species are transgenic (like plants receiving genes from bacteria or animals, and vice versa).

Gene transfers from related species have been going on for centuries through conventional plant breeding. The production of transgenic organisms is not possible with conventional technology.

The new tools of molecular biotechnology have made the evolution of both kinds of products easy, broadening the horizons of this technology.

No doubt, such a potent technology is amenable to misuse, especially if it falls into the wrong hands. That is a good enough reason to call for more safeguards and study, but not blocking it.

There are also acceptable ways to check misuse. All that is needed really is ample caution by way of hazard-testing before clearing GM products.

But even this caution need not be taken to an extreme and converted into an impediment, as seems to be the case in India, where GM seeds have had to wait for years before being cleared.

As a result, a good deal of the investment made by public and private sector organisations in these seeds remains blocked. Only a handful of Bt cotton hybrids have so far been allowed to be gainfully utilised.

It is time to review our GM variety approval mechanism to speed up the commercial exploitation of useful crop varieties.