DR BANARSI LAL
Presently the world has been challenged with two major crisis; climate change and alarming population. These two challenges have placed the entire globe in a state of dilapidation. Twentieth century was marked by unprecedented achievements in a range of art, humanities, medicines, politics, civics, science and technology and social relations. At the beginning of 21st century widespread poverty, malnutrition, hunger, conflicts and environmental degradation make the goals of sustainable development appear elusive. The population is increasing with an alarming rate.
But the earth can produce the limited resources. Scientific agriculture is must to reduce the hunger, poverty, increase the production and sustain the production of the environment. Agriculture is an engine of the growth for the developing countries like India. How well we bring our rural transformation will definitely affect the outcomes of 21st century.
Biotechnology is a field of applied science that studies living organisms and their processes for various applications in industries and the environment to improve the well-being of humans. Following the discovery of genetic engineering usually termed as modern biotechnology, the application of this technology is very vast spanning from environmental protection, agriculture, industrial purpose, health and socio-economic developments. After the information technology revolution, biotechnology has rightly been said the technology of new millennium.
The problem of food shortage, control of insect-pests, diseases management and increase in crops yield is possible with the biotechnology. Biotechnology helps to increase the yield with innovative techniques. It helps to protect the environment and also helps to save the depleting natural resources and reduces the effects of different chemicals. It helps to produce the quality food products with increase in the nutritional value, increases in calorific contents and reduces the allergens effects. It does not discriminate between small and big farmers and protects the crop from insects and diseases to increase the income of the farmers.
The natural resources are depleting with the increase of population, call to increase the production with the alternatives chemicals which are causing the other problems are challenging the agricultural community. There is a need of transgenic chip to fill the hiatus created by the rising demand and depleting natural resources. Transgenic may come as a boon because the genetic engineering can offer solution. Biotechnology helps to increase the productivity and also it leads to develop the crops with better ability to fix the atmospheric nitrogen and better tolerance in cold, salt and drought conditions. The nutritional value of fruits and vegetables can be increased by the genetic manipulations by the genetic engineering of crops.
The carbohydrates, starch and proteins value of crops can also be increased with the genetic engineering.
A transgenic is a modified plant, developed genetically so that its quality can be improved.
Transgenic means a plant whose cells carries a foreign gene and is capable of regenerating whole plant, which can transmit the incorporated gene to the next generation. Transgenic plant has some inbuilt traits which make them more useful and competitive. The scientific components involved in the development of transgenic plants are as: identification of a gene which would impart a useful character to the target crop plant and cloning plant, modification of the target gene for expression in the crop plants involving selection and manipulation of a promoter, incorporation of the modified gene construct into the target plant genome.
Transgenic were introduced by China in early 1990s as viral resistant tobacco. Up to 1997 eight transgenic crops were approved commercially and around 25-30 million acres of land were used globally for the cultivation of transgenic crops. The first transgenic plant experiment in India was started in 1995 on Brassica Juncea to assess the extent of pollen escape.
Under the Ministry of Forest and Environment, there are different departments, which are in charge of the lab and field experiments and the commercial release of transgenic crop varieties.
The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee approves the open field tests and environmental release of GMOs. The major amount of money comes from the government and other funding agencies. The factors hampering the growth of investment into this sector are lack of world class infrastructure, adequate risk capital and inability of potential investors to assess intellectual property. Proagro-a Rs.90 crores Indian seed company have taken over by AgrEvo-the 2.3 billion dollars German Biotech firm, is the pioneer in setting up a biotechnology research centre in the private sector.
The centre has completed the research on mustard. The firm is also working on vegetables where the genetic engineering is needed because the vegetables are highly infested with the insects-pests. Genetic engineering makes it possible to develop the resistance against the insect-pests in these vegetables. Monsanto has also set up a laboratory in Bangalore and is working on crops like sugarcane and rice.
We cannot introduce a technology overnight. When the government is fully satisfied only then the transgenic can be developed and commercialized. The regular use of insecticides-pesticides develop the resistance in the insects-pests .
This compels the farmers to increase the dosages of insecticides-pesticides or try different chemicals. The harmful effects of the excessive use pesticides in food have been found.
This vicious cycle can be broken with development of resistant varieties. Now mostly the chemicals companies are acquiring seed companies because they have the support of biotechnology.
Fruits and vegetables are transported from one place to another causing lot of spoilage. If we would be having the methods of delaying the ripening of fruits and vegetables then the postharvest losses can be avoided. The activity of gene responsible for ripening can solve the problem of spoilage.
For extending the shelf life and preventing the fruits and vegetables from over ripening, the anti sense RNA technology has been developed at National Research Centre for Biotechnology to prohibit the production of ethylene which causes ripening in all climatic fruit. For this purpose, the new gene is not introduced but the activity of the gene is reduced.
The gene in reverse order expresses itself and reduces the activity of the innate and this causes the reduction of ethylene production.
By using the Amaranths gene, Central Potato Research Institute has developed a protein rich potato in association with Centre for Plant Genetic Research.
This protein rich potato can give more proteins to the vegetarians. The transgenic is not only a revolutionary science but also a business opportunity which can help to get the profit in agricultural industry.
Land holding size is becoming smaller day-by-day and the grower now thinks for more and more profit. Thus he thinks for the commercial outlook. He is ready to purchase the seed if certain benefits of the particular seed are assured to him. Biotechnology carved niche in 1982 and it got boost in 90s.
The top scientists working in the USA, Japan and Europe are from India. India needs to harness biotechnology. Biotechnology will definitely help to increase the resistance against insect-pests, diseases, increase in agricultural production, tolerance to heat and cold and soil toxicities. The use of recombinant DNA technology is just like a neutron bomb of agriculture. The technologies like nuclear technology can single handedly make or mar the entire agricultural set up in India. Terminator gene is also the outcome of genetic engineering renders the entire second generation seed sterile. These seeds make growers depend upon the company every year for seeds because the sterile seeds are incapable for growing after one season.
The country like India where the farmers are mostly resource poor may not be able to purchase such type of seeds. They can be trapped in this vicious cycle.
But we can’t discard genetic engineering as it has lot of benefits. The genetic engineering can become the central discipline of biology and one should use it in such a way by avoiding its misuse.
It is consumer who ultimately thinks whether to purchase such GM foods or not.
The consumer needs to have the proper understanding of biotechnology products. In order to develop the trust among the consumers, it is must that the benefits and risks need to be communicated to the consumers and not only to the stockholders.
The decisions for the application of transgenic plants require certain valid answers for the safety among the people. This has great concern in agriculture as the products are ultimately taken by the human beings.
The mankind is on the threshold of anxiety waiting to face the new challenges that may emerge from the use of gene technology in agriculture. We should not rush into it.
We should be optimistic about it but we should not welcome it blindly. Biotechnology is best suited to dry land farming and can play an important role to change the socio-economic status of small farmers.
(The writer is Chief Scientist & Head, KVK, Reasi, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology-Jammu). (SKUAST-J).