Nobel laureate campaigns for Genetically Modified Organisms

Nobel Laureate Richard Roberts has urged India to adopt the Genetically Modified (GM) crop to usher in the revolution to feed the millions.
Roberts, who won the Nobel in Physiology or Medicine in 1993, led a signature campaign of Nobel Laureates to force non-governmental environmental organisation Greenpeace to apologise for their wrong campaign against genetically modified organisms (GMO) which has so far been signed by 123 Nobel prize winners.
Participating in Nobel Dialogue 2017 at the Mahatma Mandir, in presence of eight other laureates, India born Venky Ramakrishnan supported Roberts and urged the country to go for GMO.
"About 800 million people sleep hungry in the world. I don't think this is a good situation," Roberts said, adding, "By genetically modifying plants we can increase the yield, tolerance to pests, nutrients."

"But unfortunately what has happened is that there has been tremendous amount of misinformation which is being spread," he said.
"There is a lot of research and it has proved that there is absolutely no reason to believe that so called GMOs are more dangerous to traditionally bred plant. Infact if you look at it, traditionally bred plants are likely to be more dangerous than these GMOs," he said.

"What happens is when you begin to scare people and tell stories of how dangerous this things could be, it becomes very difficult to convenience people," he said.
"The campaign spread to developing nations as well and in India many activists are creating problems," said Roberts, adding, "So some time back I started a signature campaign of Nobel laureates for the GMO and so far we now have 123 laureates who have signed the petition."

"No Nobel laureate who have signed this petition are anyway connected with giant agri multinational corporation, but we are doing this for the people of the world," he said.
Speaking about India Roberts said, "Fortunately Prime Minister Narendra Modi recognises this, but unfortunately there are many in Parliament who do not recognise this."
"In India BT cotton has been been a great success, economical success for farmers. Gold rice is another good product that India should adopt," he said.
V Ramakrishnan said he does not understand the opposition to the GM food.
"People have no problem in taking genetically modified substance in medicine in the form of insulin, but when it comes to food they are not ready," Ramakrishnan said.