Sir,
It is significant to note that 109 Nobel laureates recently signed a letter urging the well-known environmental NGO, Greenpeace, to end its opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and called upon Governments across the world to reject the NGOs campaign that opposed biotechnological opposition in agriculture. This appeal is indeed important for a country like India, where over 60 per cent of the population is engaged in agriculture and there is an imperative need to increase production and productivity.
The letter clearly stated: “Scientific and regulatory agencies around the world have repeatedly and consistently found crops and foods improved through biotechnology to be as safe as, if not safer, than those derived from any other method of production”.
The scientists regretted the fact that the campaign led many to stop its efforts to block introduction of genetically engineered crops but it noted that “there has never been a single confirmed case of negative health outcome for humans or animals from consumption”.
Keeping this in view, time has possibly come to allow GM crops in the country. Multiple studies have shown that benefits include there are no human or ecological ill-effects, yield increases and there is resistance to pests. Perhaps the most wide-ranging of these is a 2014 meta-analysis, by Wilhelm Klumper and Matin Qaim of University of Gottingen, Germany, of 147 studies on farm surveys and field trials of GM crops carried out across the world. Their results: use of GM technology increased crop yields by 22%, reduced chemical pesticides by 37 per cent and increased farmer profits by 68 per cent, with better results in developing countries than in developed ones.
Yours etc….
Dhurjati Mukherjee
New Delhi
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