Fortified food: Complex regulatory issues make it a distant dream

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Hyderabad: Biofortified foods research in the country might see the fruits only after a decade. It might be a distant dream to have fortified foods for the poor. Complex regulatory issues are among the reasons behind the delay, experts say.

While the agenda is indeed to provide food to the poor, having the tools of biotechnology through tissue culture, marker-assisted selection, comparative and functional genomics and genetic engineering, which are the inevitable waves of the future, it might take long before it fructifies, according to Dr KK Sharma, scientist, at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT). There were many issues in plant genetic engineering which were yet to be discussed, he said.

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), in coordination with the Directorate of Rice Research, along with few state agricultural universities is working to develop Golden Rice containing higher levels of Beta Carotene targeting Vitamin A deficiency among the masses.

Under the HarvestPlus programme, ICRISAT has also proposed to work on edible vaccines for rabies and Vitamin A for improving Beta Carotene levels in groundnut and improving sulphur amino acids in pigeonpea.The research aimed to make not only ‘Golden Rice’, but also Golden Mustard and Golden Peanuts, he said.

Highlighting transgenics, Dr Sharma pointed out the next generation of transgenic crops will be marker-free transgenic plants, plant-based vaccines, enhanced nutritional content, plant-derived plastics and polymers, besides controlled gene expressions.

While agricultural biotechnology has the potential to reduce levels of natural toxins in plants, provide simpler and faster ways to identify and remove pathogens and increase food supply to support growing world population and decreasing agricultural space, Dr Sharma also cautions on the risk assessment of transgenics. There has to be precision in plant breeding, which will take care of deploying transgenics else the risks might be very high, he said.