GM Crops and related issues in India

BT crops: A big Failure

  • The article ‘Modern Technologies for Sustainable Food and Nutrition Security’ was recently published.
  • It is authored by P.C. Kesavan and Prof. Swaminathan, senior functionaries of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF).
  • The article is a review of crop development in India and transgenic crops — particularly Bt cotton, the stalled Bt brinjal as well as DMH-11, a transgenic mustard hybrid.
  • The latter two have been cleared by scientific regulators but not by the Centre.

Why GM crops are flawed acc. to Swaminathan?

  • Mutations and natural selection are predominant evolutionary mechanisms to induce variations and not GM technology.
  • It has failed as a sustainable agriculture technology failing to provide livelihood security for cotton farmers who are mainly resource-poor, small and marginal farmers.
  • The precautionary principle (PP) has been done away with and no science-based and rigorous biosafety protocols and evaluation of GM crops are in place.
  • It raises questions on the genetic engineering technology as the cost of sowing is higher in GM Crops. This again burdens small farmers by high input cost.
  • The insertion of foreign genes (in the plant) could lead to “molecular and cellular events that are not precisely understood.”
  • Genetic modification is the technology of choice for solving abiotic problems like drought flood, salinity, etc. It may not be equally effective in the case of biotic stresses since new strains of pests and diseases arise all the time. Therefore MSSRF [M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation] chose mangrove for providing genes for tolerance to salinity.
Location: Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

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