To gain societal acceptance is an art

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: Over a decade now agricultural biotechnology has been shaping into an effective tool in addressing a host of pertinent issues relating to improved crop yields, lower costs of production, lesser use of farm chemicals, improved efficiency in weed management, all of which contribute to a reduction in the use of land under the plough to feed a growing population and being able to achieve it in an ecologically sustainable manner. The second generation of improvements in the ag-biotech pipeline promises even more wondrous benefits that include improvements in nutritional quality of foods (vitamin A-enriched rice, soya with healthy portions of omega 3 fatty acids), paddy that does well under drought or saline conditions, wheat that wards off the devastating fungal disease Fusarium wilt, crops that produce pharmaceutical products as vaccines in banana and plants producing useful industrial products as starch with better milling qualities or more oil that can be converted to biodiesel. In the 10 years that biotech crops have been around, farmers have been lapping up the multitude of technological innovations proffered.

From a mere 1.7 million hectares (mha) 10 years ago, globally farmers have expanded the acreage 60 fold over to 102 mha in the year 2006. Although India had been slow off the block, it has impressively adopted biotechnology growing from a humble 50,000 hectares of Bt cotton in 2002 aggregating to 3.8 mha in year 2006. What is more, 42% of all cotton grown in the country currently is raised on seeds bearing this technological innovation. Happily, the country’s cotton output has shot up from 86.24 lakh bales to 210.37 lakh bales, during the same period coinciding with the adoption of the new technology.

Despite rich rewards from tangible benefits, the introduction of this new technology hasn’t been without its share of detractors. Vehement street protests, rampant vandalism, damage to property, fear psychosis, innuendos, smear campaigns and skulduggery in unmatched proportions have been the order of the day perpetrated by a handful of self-appointed guardians of all things nice and beautiful (aka pesky NGOs).