Despite heralding four-fold increase in food production, the green revolution was showing signs of fatigue and adoption of new tools of biotechnology was the only solution to reinvigorate agriculture head of the Centre for Plant Biotechnology Research in Tuskegee University in the US CS Prakash said.

Genetic improvement of crops was the single most powerful tool for an agrarian economy like india to meet its food and fibre requirements, said Prakash whose research team had pioneered development of transgenic sweet-potato plants and improvement of protein content of plants through genetic modification.

Prakash was here to participate in a national seminar on `application of biotechnology in Indian agriculture:socio-economic and technology perspectives+ organised jointly by Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Federation of Andhra Pradesh Farmers' Associations and Peddireddy Thimmareddy Farm Foundation.

`Biotechnology holds greatest promise in developing countries like India because of high reliance on agriculture, large farming areas, low crop yield and urgency for food increase and economic revitalisation,' he said.

Allaying fears over genetic modification of crops, Prakash said strategic integration of biotechnology tools into agricultural systems and a research thrust to increase farm productivity could revolutionise Indian farming and usher in a new era in the countryside.

Pointing out how the green revolution, despite its enormous success in augmenting food production, could not meet challenges of persisting hunger, poverty and economic inequality, he said there was an urgent need to re-orient agriculture research to address crop productivity issues by re-designing crop plants to benefit thefarmer and the consumer and develop innovative value-added agricultural products to enhance revenue base of farming.

`The green revolution is showing signs of fatigue as farm productivity increases are flattening and serious constraints cropped up due to small holdings, vagaries of weather, limited water resources, drought, heat and saline soil conditions besides pests, diseases and transportation constraints,' Prakash said.

By seizing the opportunity of genetic engineering, the country could successfully tackle a plethora of afflicting its mainline crops like rice, cotton, sorghum, coconut, wheat, tomato, chillies, groundnut, coffee, pepper and banana.

`The development of genetically re-programmed seeds designed to resist these diseases can minimise or even eliminate costly and hazardous pesticide sprays. Besides, the technology is environment-friendly,' he said.

Citing an example of how genetic modification of crops could prove to be a boon, Prakash said though cotton crop occupies only five percent of the land, nearly 50 per cent of pesticides used was bought by cotton farmers with an incalculable impact on environment and human health.

`Development of cotton varieties with resistence to pests can thus enhance welfare of farmers and help both economy and environment,' the scientist said.

New genome technologies, along with bio-informatics, would further propel Indian agriculture into a new era where complex traits like photosynthetic efficiency and crop yield could be enhanced, he said.

While iron deficiency afflicts 300 million Indian women impacting their immune system and nearly one lakh children go blind every year due to Vitamin-A deficiency, the genetically improved rice with iron and Vitamin-A could help ameliorate such dreaded maladies, he argued.

Similarly, edible oils from groundnut, sunflower and mustard could be enriched with Vitamin-E content as shown by recent research in the US, he said.

Seeking to demolish the myth that genetically improved plants are environmentallyunsafe, Prakash said `thousands of field tests conducted on genetically improved crops with more than one hundred new traits or their commercial planting on 28 million hectares world wide have failed to provide any evidence of food safety or environmental concern'.

`The enormous potential benefits from these crops far outweigh any hypothetical risks posed by their use,' he said.(PTI)