Strong parallels can be drawn between the recent anti-biotech and anti-nuclear movements. To begin with, both have nothing to do with safety; they are really a cultural/political war against modern science and progress.

The Prime Minister and the Government persevered in the case of nuclear power. It is time the Government showed a similar resolve for biotechnology.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture, in its 500-odd page report, severely indicted the GM crops technology and called for complete cessation of even field tests, which are so crucial to research and development activities.

Condemning one of the truly transformative technologies of our times without a sound scientific rationale has harmed India’s agricultural progress.

Increase farm productivity

Indian farm productivity is in doldrums and with increase in population growth and changing climatic conditions, there is no way India can feed its population in 2050 without modern science and technology. The much-touted Food Security Bill will become useless as do most of such “bleeding heart” programmes, if India does not increase its agricultural productivity.

The parliamentary report repeats the same old tired arguments proffered by anti-technology activists. It raises the question who might really have drafted the report. The report targeted the highly successful Bt cotton as a disaster for Indian farmers.

This is nothing but balderdash and contrary to all the empirical field data published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, DC and the Centre for Economic and Social Sciences (CESS), Hyderabad.

Bt benefits

Researchers from highly reputed institutions such as the Inter Academy Report on GM crops of India; economic assessment by the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences of India; Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Andhra University, the Gokhale Institute, Pune; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; and publications in reputed scientific journals like the Science and the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences USA have documented the phenomenal success of Bt cotton in India.

The fact is more than 95 per cent of cotton-growing areas in the country is now under Bt cotton. The proven net benefits are environmental protection, reduced human exposure to insecticides, and measurable socio-economic benefits. The Parliamentary Report also praised the moratorium on Bt brinjal, saying that that India has over 2,200 varieties of brinjal that would take care of all future needs of the country.

The scientific fact is there are no more than 200 authentic brinjal varieties, most of which have gone out of cultivation.

More than 70 per cent of brinjal grown in India are modern day hybrids that are genetically modified, albeit using classical breeding techniques.

As much as it is valuable to have diversity in a crop variety, useless biodiversity is not a virtue unless it has redeemable features to the benefit of the grower. In this day and age, an overriding concern must be the financial benefit of the poor farmer, and not some feel-good reason that all “biodiversity” is good.

After all, agri-ecosystem is a man-made ecosystem solely for doing beneficial agriculture.

Weed management

The Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) goes even further and recommends a ban on the Herbicide Tolerant (HT) GM crops on the basis that they will deprive livelihoods (poverty wages) of the poor agricultural labourers, mostly women and children. It is back-breaking work that nobody wants to do, and as such there is acute shortage of farm labour all over the country.

Indian farmers need technologies that can save on labour and bring efficiency. Indian agriculture loses 30-40 per cent of its crops due to weeds.

Efficient weed management is the crying need of the hour to increase India’s moribund agriculture, and for that we need modern science and technology.

The TEC has thrown all scientific objectivity to the winds and ignored voluminous credible literature in support of the safety and utility of GM crops.

There is no justification for recommending a halt to research in biotech food crops, even though over three trillion meals made out of GM crops have been eaten, the world over, in the past decade and a half. The suggestion to halt research till a utopian regulatory set-up is created is ridiculous.

There is not a single internationally reputed scientific body that endorses the kinds of tests the TEC recommends.

The Government of India must boldly push ahead with GM crops technology with the same resolve shown for the nuclear energy.

(The author is professor, Seed Technology Center and Biosafety Institute for Genetically Modified Agricultural Products (BIGMAP), Iowa State University.)

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