{"id":2289,"date":"2019-07-23T17:22:08","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T09:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.agrinoon.com\/agriculture\/?p=2289"},"modified":"2019-07-23T17:22:08","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T09:22:08","slug":"gm-crops-india-farmers-clear-politics-muddled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.agrinoon.com\/agriculture\/2019\/07\/23\/gm-crops-india-farmers-clear-politics-muddled\/","title":{"rendered":"GM crops in India: farmers clear, politics muddled"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conventional crop breeding was about selection and crossing of plants within the same genus, to produce offspring with the desired traits of both parents. Even in the Green Revolution, the dwarfing genes that Norman Borlaug used for developing high-yielding wheat plants with shorter and stronger stalks \u2014 allowing them to bear the weight of the extra grain from increased fertiliser application \u2014 were sourced from a Japanese wheat variety, Norin-10.<\/p>\n

Genetic modification (GM), by contrast, has involved transcending these natural breeding barriers. The genes didn\u2019t any longer need to be selected from within the same species (say, Triticum aestivum or common wheat), genus (Triticum) or even kingdom (Plantae). The breeder could actually take genes from animals or bacteria and insert these into a host plant.<\/p>\n

Thus, Bt cotton has two alien genes, \u2018cry1Ac\u2019 and \u2018cry2Ab\u2019, isolated from a soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, and coding for proteins toxic to specific bollworm insects. The same \u2018cry1Ac\u2019 gene has also been incorporated in brinjal to confer \u2018in-built\u2019 resistance against the fruit and shoot borer. In both cases, GM technology has been deployed for minimising crop damage from pests that cannot be effectively controlled through spraying insecticides.<\/p>\n

The object of the latest controversy is HTBt cotton. It is basically Bt cotton containing a third gene, \u2018cp4-epsps\u2019, derived from another soil bacterium, Agrobacterium tumefaciens. This gene produces a modified protein that enables the plant to \u2018tolerate\u2019 the application of glyphosate , a chemical herbicide. Farmers cannot spray glyphosate on normal cotton as the chemical cannot distinguish between weeds and the crop itself. But with Herbicide Tolerant Bt cotton, they don\u2019t have to rely on manual labour to remove weeds that compete with the plant for nutrients, water and sunlight.<\/p>\n

For farmers, pests and weeds are a major cause of crop losses, due to which the varieties\/hybrids grown by them cannot realise their genetic yield potential.<\/p>\n

The fourth GM crop, which was in the news not too long back, is hybrid mustard. Breeders have always exploited the hybrid vigour resulting from crossing two genetically dissimilar plant varieties even within the same species. Their first-generation offspring tend to have yields higher than what either parent can individually give. In mustard, such possibilities are limited, simply because the flowers have both female (pistil) and male (stamen) reproductive organs. To the extent that the egg cells of one plant cannot be fertilised by the pollen from the stamen of the other, it restricts the scope for developing hybrids.<\/p>\n

With GM technology \u2014 entailing the introduction of a male sterility-causing \u2018Barnase\u2019 gene in one plant and a \u2018Barstar\u2019 gene blocking the former\u2019s action in the other \u2014 the yield benefits from hybridisation and making crosses from a diverse genetic pool, both native and exotic, can be extended to mustard. The two genes are, again, derived from a soil bacterium called Bacillus amyloliquefaciens.<\/p>\n

The opposition to GM crops is clearly not from farmers. Were that so, the global annual area planted under them wouldn\u2019t have risen from a mere 1.7 million to nearly 190 million hectares between 1996 and 2017. Roughly 93 per cent of India\u2019s cotton area is today covered by Bt hybrids; nobody forced farmers to cultivate these, unlike what the British did to Champaran\u2019s indigo growers. The opposition is, instead, coming primarily from environmental activists, who are raising issues based more on ethics, \u2018tampering with Mother Nature\u2019 and ideology. The treatment of GM crops as \u201chazardous substances\u201d under the Environment Protection Act, 1986 \u2014 again guided by fear of the unknown than strictly scientific rationale \u2014 has not helped either.<\/p>\n

Whether to permit cultivation of HTBt cotton, Bt brinjal or transgenic hybrid mustard will ultimately be a political call. Maharashtra and Haryana farmers launching a \u2018civil disobedience\u2019 movement to assert their right to plant these, of course, adds a new dimension to that.<\/p>\n

\n

Source<\/strong>:\u00a0Indian Express<\/a><\/span><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conventional crop breeding was about selection and crossing of plants within the same genus, to produce offspring with the desired traits of both parents. Even in the Green Revolution, the dwarfing genes that Norman Borlaug used for developing high-yielding wheat plants with shorter and stronger stalks \u2014 allowing them to bear the weight of the… Continue reading GM crops in India: farmers clear, politics muddled<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry-news","entry"],"yoast_head":"\nGM crops in India: farmers clear, politics muddled - agrinoon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.agrinoon.com\/agriculture\/2019\/07\/23\/gm-crops-india-farmers-clear-politics-muddled\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"GM crops in India: farmers clear, politics muddled - agrinoon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Conventional crop breeding was about selection and crossing of plants within the same genus, to produce offspring with the desired traits of both parents. 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