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Another case is the recent controversy surrounding Bt. cotton in India. Some farmers, in the state of Gujarat, had planted Bt. cotton on around 11,000 acres of land. The farmers had planted an unapproved variety of Bt. cotton obtained from the black market. When the government of India learned about this, it ordered them to burn the standing crops, worth over $12.6 million even as thousands of cotton farmers in other states were committing suicides after their cotton crops failed to withstand the attack of Bollworms.
The Gujarat farmers have now scored a major victory as the state government of Gujarat has refused to destroy the crops. Much of the crop has been harvested and sold. The state of Andhra Pradesh too has now approved Bt. cotton for commercial cultivation. This is a victory for both the farmers and the future of GM crops in India. Although a small victory, it showed that farmers wanted access to GM crops and do not want the controversy over GM crops being carried out in their name to deny them their basic right to use the best seeds available.
GM crops and GM food are definitely the answer to many of the problems the poor of the world are facing today – hunger, malnutrition and disease. GM food can not only address these problems effectively but it can actually lend a helping hand in routing out poverty from the face of the planet, given the fact that most of the worlds’ poor people are farmers or somehow depend on agriculture for a livelihood.
According to an estimate by IFPRI, the global food production must increase by 40% in the next 20 years to feed 8 billion people. We now have more mouths to feed and less land left, due to the rapidly growing population. This means we now have to grow more food in less land. Biotechnology is certainly showing us the way to just this. As biologist Richard Flavell concluded in a 1999 report to the IFPRI, “It would be unethical to condemn future generations to hunger by refusing to develop and apply a technology that can build on what our forefathers provided and help produce adequate food for world with almost 2 billion more people by 2020.”
All new technologies, from plastics to pesticides, have been double-edged swords. They have had their own share of benefits and ill effects. A technology is widely adopted if its positives are weighed to be more than its negatives. And the negatives don’t just remain as negatives. They contribute positively when the existing technology is perfected or a new technology is developed to get rid of them. They actually propel human technological advancement. Biotechnology is one such new technology. For all the yet-to-be proven ill effects of GM food, there are also a number of benefits, and more risks of not adopting them.
References:
• Dr. Strangelunch : Why we should learn to stop worrying and love GM food, by Ronald Bailey
• “What the Future Holds” – aBetterEarth.org - Excerpted from Genetically Engineered Food: Changing the Nature of Nature, by Martin Teitel and Kimberly Wilson (Park Street Press, Rochester, Vermont, 2001).
• G.M. Foods: Hope or Horror? by Radley Balko
• The Bollworm, the Suicidal Farmer, by Salil Singh
• NewScientist.com
• BBC News, BBC World
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Writer Profile
Aravind
Aravind Chandrasekaran is a student of electrical engineering from Chennai, India. His diverse interests include astronomy, web design, social psychology, travelling, and meeting exciting people with great ideas to share.
He is currently doing research, with the help of the Internet, on genetically modified foods and their impact on the environment.
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