The Supreme Court lifted an eight-month ban on field trials of genetically-modified food crops on May 8 subject to certain well-meaning provisos.
This judgment deserves to be heralded as a step in the right direction: the common man would now have a wider choice of foods to meet his nutritional and dietary needs. This list of food staples includes eight major crops that feature in every household across the country.
The apex court had temporarily halted large-scale field trials of GM crops of rice, maize, potato, brinjal, mustard, tomato, okra and groundnut in September last. By revoking its ban, the court will now facilitate a potentially wider spread of foods.
Take Bt-Brinjals, for example. The fruit- and shoot-borer (Leucinodes orbanalis) is the most destructive insect pest affecting brinjal. This pesky insect produces a small larva that bores through the shoots of the plant and feeds on the young and maturing fruit, rendering it inedible, discoloured and unfit for the market. Being a 150-180 day crop in which harvesting starts after 60 days, brinjal gives 20 pickings during the crop's lifetime.
Farmers tend to spray twice or even thrice between each picking to combat the deadly borer and as a result pile up 60 odd doses of spray for just one crop! On average, farmers end up dousing around 1.4 kg of pesticides per hectare on brinjal, which is way higher than, say, 200 gm for paddy.
The GM varieties of brinjal have been shown in trial after trial to be able to ward off this insect pest substantially. Brinjal cultivars that had been top performers in various climatic zones of the country had been incorporated with the gene that produces an endo-toxin produced by the ubiquitous soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt. This gene synthesises a protein toxic to the fruit- and shoot-borer that drastically reduces useage of the deadly pesticides by 80 per cent.
The far-reaching implications from this technological innovation go beyond reduction of farming expenses due to fewer sprays. Farmers' health is significantly improved through lesser exposure to harmful chemicals. The endo-toxin gene from the bacterium that is cobbled to the brinjal plant produces the toxin against the devastating borer all through the life cycle of the crop, ensuring good overall protection, as opposed to external sprays that have a tendency to be ineffective for a variety of reasons (not covering the entire plant, degraded by the elements, wash off from dew and rainfall leading to land and ground water contamination).
Non-target insects, many of which are beneficial for the crop and for the overall good of biodiversity, are saved the heavy barrage of constant chemical sprays; our marshlands, wilderness and habitats are better served with lower use of chemicals. Consumers reap huge benefits from lower costs besides a health bonanza from imbibing fewer chemicals with their foods.
The Bt endo-toxin has been proven to be completely safe for humans, birds and animals, for it takes an alkaline gut for the toxin to be effective, that which is prevalent in the target insects but is quite the opposite of the acidic gut in mammalian and avian systems. Advantages similar to that conferred by GM-brinjal are waiting to be harnessed in several of the other crops: vitamin A in rice, combating the stem borer in maize, staving off the blight in potato, and resistance to fungal pathogens in groundnut are but a few.
Advantages similar to that conferred by GM-brinjal are waiting to be harnessed in several of the other crops.
Cotton, the only GM crop that has been permitted for cultivation in the country thus far, has been a runaway success with farmers and the industry. Starting out with a mere 72,000 acres in 2002, the crop planted with GM seeds has galloped to 93 lakh acres in 2006. Overall production has risen to 24.4 million bales in 2005-06 as compared to 15.8 million bales in 2001-02. Productivity has increased from 308 kg per hectare to 450 kg per hectare during the same period. Significantly, pesticide usage has dropped drastically by 2,260 tonnes during 2005-06.
The five years of large-scale planting experience with Bt cotton would stand our systems in good stead to take the next logical step forward if we are to feed an ever-growing population in an ecologically sustainable way.
The author is an agriculture specialist.
