Indian agriculture is evolving to its third phase, the era of genetically modified (GM) crops. The formalisation of this evolution into a revolution in the food sector will happen with the lifting of the moratorium on Bt brinjal by the Union government. India has already launched GM crops via Bt cotton in 50,000 hectares in 2002. Its growth to 8.4 million hectares and cultivation by 5.6 million farmers at the beginning of 2010 clearly shows that the GM revolution is no fantasy.
From the fully organic subsistence agriculture prevalent till the 1960s, Indian agriculture entered the hybrids and chemicals-driven phase of the green revolution, which made the country almost self-reliant for most of its food requirements. This, in turn, helped stabilise food prices and ensure the subsidised food supply system mainly served the needy.
GM crops may not replace traditional plant breeding, molecular plant breeding, hybrid seed technology or organic farming. But they will be indispensable. The GM revolution?s mandate is to produce more with less land and water; to help the farmer make a profit despite spiralling cost of labour; and to face the problems of climate change, especially drought and soil water salinity. These will lead to better food security through economic food pricing, availability and affordability.
Although India is yet to permit GM food crops, these have been cultivated in several countries across the world since the 1990s. The major achievements so far have been increased crop availability by reducing losses to pests, inherent resistance to pests, virus or fungus, biofortification or increase in the nutritional value of the crop. The qualitative improvements are reducing the presence of toxins produced by pests and pesticides, and environmental enhancement by saving soil and water bodies from chemicals and pesticides.
Realising these advantages, 14 million farmers in 25 countries planted transgenic crops in 134 million hectares at the beginning of 2010. According to the data by the International Service for Acquisition of Ag-biotech Applications, the countries growing transgenic crops in more than one million hectares, include the US, Brazil, China, Argentina, India, Canada, Paraguay and South Africa. The major transgenic crops are soya bean, maize, cotton and canola. The important engineered traits include insect resistance, herbicide tolerance and virus resistance. The transgenics food crops include maize, canola, cotton seed oil, papaya, soya bean and squash. Although the first field testing of Bt rice was conducted in China in 1998, no transgenic rice has been released for large-scale cultivation so far. China?s ministry of agriculture released a biosafety certificate for Bt rice in November 2009, with possible wide-scale planting from 2012.
Research work on genetic plant transformation began in Indian laboratories in the 1980s and transgenics of certain crops were produced in the 1990s. However, nothing was released for cultivation until Bt cotton entered the scene. Now besides brinjal, a dozen other food crops are at various stages of development and trial to create transgenics with desired traits. These include cabbage, cauliflower, groundnut, maize, mustard, okra, pigeon pea, potato, sorghum, tomato, wheat and rice. The traits being targeted are insect resistance, virus and fungal resistance, nutritional enhancement, delayed ripening, and drought and salinity tolerance.
The Calcutta University, Directorate of Rice Research, Indian Agriculture Research Institute and Tamil Nadu Agriculture University are part of the global R&D and trial programme of the pro-vitamin A rice or Golden Rice slated for release in 2012.
In India, the learned opinion of scientists, economists and social groups is that the main responsibility for the development of transgenic technology in the country should rest with publicly funded institutions. This calls for massive government investment. The government and the public sector institutions should lead the GM revolution as food security is ?too critical and strategic an area to be left wholly or predominantly to private hands??, they say.
The inter-academy report on GM crops, prepared by the leading science academies and institutes in the country, says that GM technology, like any other, ?comes with some genuine and perceived risks and affects different social strata and cultures to variable extents. This is the reason for varied, sometimes extreme reactions from different social groups, countries and the regions of the world to GM crops. This aspect makes it necessary for the regulatory system for GM technology to take into account socio-economic factors. The system should also identify beneficiaries and losers and provide remedial action?. However, the fear of the perceived risk should not lead to inaction.
The report says, ?most of the scientific advances that helped shape the world as we know it, have been accompanied by uncertainties as well as dissenting voices??. Hence it is important to continuously strive to minimise or eliminate uncertainties, and to build the broadest possible consensus on issues that the inevitable GM revolution would generate.