Sept.30 : Dr M.S. Swaminathan, considered the Father of the Green Revolution in India, finally stated his views on genetically-modified (GM) crops in an opinion piece published on August 26, 2009, in this newspaper. GM crops are produced by inserting foreign genes, mostly non-plant genes (bacterial, viral and animal genes) for obtaining hitherto non-existent, new characteristics in a crop. For instance, the Bt class of GM crops like Bt cotton and Bt brinjal, have been engineered at the genetic level by the insertion of a bacterial gene so that the plant produces its own poison against chosen pests that feed on the crop.
Dr Swaminathan, who headed a task force on agri-biotechnology which gave its report in 2004 to the ministry of agriculture, began his report by reiterating what many of us believe: That "if agriculture goes wrong, nothing else will have a chance to go right". The report emphasises that the bottomline with regard to any policy on agri-biotechnology is "the safety of the environment, the well-being of farming families, the ecological and economic sustainability of farming systems, the health and nutrition security of consumers, safeguarding of home and external trade and the bio-security of our nation".
After presenting such a comprehensive requirement around any policy-making on GM crops in that report, it was surprising to see this recent article hype up the so-called benefits of GM crops and play down valid concerns.
Let me begin with some fundamental issues that Dr Swaminathan did not touch upon:
l Genetic modification by insertion of new genes is now known to cause mutations all along the genome of an organism and at the site of insertion.
l We have not yet understood the full complexity of the genomic regulation in an organism and, therefore, the changes brought about by genetic modification are unknown and also unpredictable. This is where the primary concern about this technology stems from - scientific evidence exists to show that the changes made are unsafe from an environmental and human health perspective. A fundamental flaw in Dr Swaminathan's article was to make it appear that what is inherently unsafe can be made safe through regulation!
At another level, Dr Swaminathan talks about various GM crops and their benefits - it is interesting to note that except for the insect-resistance trait that he expands upon, none of the other crops actually exist! In reality, two kinds of GM crops exist - those that produce a pesticide from within the plant, like Bt cotton and Bt brinjal (sought to be introduced in India for the first time in the world, developed mostly by American agencies), and those that assimilate application of more pesticides and confer herbicide-tolerance characteristic to a crop. In fact, herbicide tolerance is the trait in nearly 81 per cent of the GM crop cultivation in the world today. Dr Swaminathan's report talks about how this should be of low priority given the large number of agricultural labourers in various regions of the country. Today, several field trials of GM crops in India are centered around this trait - does it make sense to destroy existing opportunities of employment in agriculture and then create more and more budgets for National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) kind of programmes?