8/3/2019 Good GM Crops Would Flourish in India

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CORRESPONDENCE

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 100, NO. 9, 10 MAY 2011 1272

of Ph Ds produced is bound to increasesubstantially. These laboratories are nodoubt well equipped to carry out goodresearch, but most of the mentors in thenational laboratories will only use the stu-

dents to do their work and publish papersso that their progress is not hindered.The desire to increase the number will

only lead to producing more Ph Ds whoare mostly incompetent. To assume thatIndia can produce a few Nobel laureates

by increasing the number of Ph Ds pro-duced in these production mills is afalse dream. That can only happen, if thecontrolling agencies first improve thequality of mentors and then develop uni-

form guidelines for the internship. Justgiving a few crores of rupees to someinstitutions, recognizing all scientists asmentors and allowing them to producePh Ds will only lead to further deteriora-tion of the existing system.

1. Balaram, P., Curr. Sci ., 2011, 100 , 145146.

P. TAURO

Mangalore Biotech Laboratory, Embassy Plaza, III Floor, Mangalore 575 005, Indiae-mail: ptauro@rediffmail.com

Good GM crops would flourish in India

The right kind of GM technology wouldflourish in India, in contrast to the con-cerns expressed in a recent article inCurrent Science 1. India has already wel-comed GM products in medicine and wehave a large number of GM drugs (suchas urokinase, erythropoietin and vaccines)currently available. The success of medi-cal biotechnology is due to the fact that itis containable. In agriculture, GM cropsrelevant to our country like those withdrought-, salt-resistant and nutritionalquality genes shall be welcomed. The in-appropriate GM crops include unrecalla-

ble and uncontrollable ones like thosewith Bt and herbicide genes. The inap-propriateness of this category of GMcrops under Indian farming conditionsand the irrelevance of buffer zones bet-ween them and non-GM crops have beendiscussed earlier 24 . In this context, theGolden rice is likely to be welcomed,whereas Bt rice would be rejected by thepublic. Bt rice could be dumped likepesticides and herbicides banned in thecountries of their origin. Unfortunately,the end-users of GM technology were

apparently frightened by Bt

brinjal whichwent first for approval instead of a bene-ficial GM crop like the Golden rice. Nowwe have to work harder to convince theend-users. It is well known that in a mar-ket-driven economy, any product un-wanted by the consumers would go off the shelves towards burial like the flavoursaver tomato 5.

The labelling of GM crops is alreadydebated by the public as reflected in aneditorial cited elsewhere 2. However, im-plementation of GM labelling would beimpracticable under Indian marketingconditions, unless new genes for colouror pattern are introduced into the appro-priate GM crops. The Golden rice is anunique example of built-in GM labellingand thus it can be easily distinguishedfrom non-GM crops.

A shift in mindset of both the activistsand enthusiastic scientists of GM tech-nology is the need of the hour for suc-

cessful introduction of GM crops inIndia. It makes no difference for theactivists whether cry or smile genesare incorporated in the GM crops. As amatter of fact, the Cry gene has made theactivists cry more. Their concern appearsto be safety and environmental aspects,in addition to seed security. To addressthe latter, one way is to develop our ownGM seeds in the public sector and leavethem in the public domain (without pat-enting), like what our ancestors did fortraditional medicine. This way, the farm-

ers would be benefited and relieved fromthe trap of multinational companies whowill charge exhorbitantly after makingthe farmers dependent on them. Also, itis necessary to put forth the benefits andrisks of GM crops in a simple manner.GM crop activists and enthusiasists seemto highlight the aspects that suit them;the former concentrating on the draw-

backs and the latter on the benefits. Forexample, the enthusiastic scientists oftenquote countries like USA which havepermitted GM crops liberally and con-veniently forget countries like Europe,Ireland and Japan which restrict GMcrops. History tells that the US used pes-ticides and herbicides indiscriminatelyand decades later realized that the resi-dues of these went through water andfood, and caused several genetic disorders,including cancer. Recent history showsthat India is better off in its economy bynot following the US. In conclusion, sci-

entists have greater responsibilities and itis not surprising that they take well-documented environmental impacts of GM crops of the Bt category seriously 46 .

1. Padmanaban, G., Curr. Sci. , 2011, 100 ,157158.

2. Shanmugam, G., Curr. Sci. , 2011, 100 ,147.

3. Chokshi, A. H., Curr. Sci. , 2010, 98 , 734.4. Banarji, D., Curr. Sci. , 2010, 99 , 1319

1320.5. Yadugiri, V. T., Curr. Sci. , 2010, 98 ,

12731278.6. Kesavan, P. C. and Malarvannan, S., Curr.

Sci. , 2010, 99 , 908914.

G. SHANMUGAM

Oncophyta Labs,2/130, Palkalai Nagar East,

Madurai 625 021, Indiae-mail: shan1938@yahoo.com