Editorial: Turning to GM

The plateauing of yields is not the only barrier to higher output. Crop plants need also to be equipped with the capacity to withstand stresses caused by the deterioration of natural resources, climate change and the changing profile of diseases and pests, while their nutritional status needs to be enhanced. This requires looking for the genes that control these traits and putting them into the target crops, using bio-tech tools.

 

The competence of bio-technology to achieve these goals has already been established. GM crops, including the transgenics that involve genes from alien sources such as the pest killer Bt-gene from soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis, already account for the bulk of the agricultural produce in the US, Canada and Argentina. Other countries have begun sensing the value of GM crops in meeting the growing demands on agriculture and have, therefore, started expanding their use, with good results. India has been a late starter but, judging by how the insect-protected transgenic Bt-cotton has caught farmers' fancy, there is little doubt that GM crops are going to flourish here too.

However, that is only one side of the story. The cultivation of GM crops is not an unmitigated blessing, it involves several risks that cannot be disregarded. While it may be okay to play with genes that are already in the food domain, when it comes to using alien genes from non-food sources, as in transgenic crops, the risk of their posing unforeseeable threats to health, the environment and bio-diversity cannot be ruled out.

Additionally, there is danger of the incorporated genes escaping from the host plants and getting into non-target crops and (what is even worse) weeds, to lend them the traits least wanted in them, such as weedicide resistance. It is, therefore, imperative that extreme caution is exercised by way of stringent testing of GM crops prior to their approval for cultivation and also by meticulously observing post-release regulations regarding isolation distance, buffer plantations and the like.

India is among those countries which have put in place elaborate bio-safety systems to regulate the approval of GM crops. However, the effectiveness of this system is suspect, and the GM crop approval procedure is so cumbersome and time-consuming that it causes several years to elapse between the development and commercialisation of GM crops.

This is proving counter-productive by discouraging investments in fresh GM research. There is, therefore, an urgent need to revamp the GM approval and regulatory procedure so as to remove roadblocks in the way of gainful exploitation of GM technology without, of course, sacrificing the necessary caution.