Various Issues with GM Crops

The debate on safety and need for GM crops, particularly GM food has been lingering since 1990s. The Biotech firms as well as scientists have spent a lot of time and money to convince the people that there is really nothing to worry about it.  Non-food Bt Crops were introduced with relatively lesser resistance but Food crops have faced stiff resistance around the world. Thus, globally the countries are divided in the use of GM Crops. It has estimated that in US, 60% of the processed food in supermarkets contains Genetically Modified ingredients. Since 1990s, the farmers in U.S., Canada and Argentina have been growing the corn, cotton, soybean etc. varieties that were genetically engineered.

Initially, there were no strict regulations on initial stages of testing for such crops. They even allowed commercial application without even labelling requirements. However, with increased awareness on environmental and health risks associated with such crops, things have changed.

On the other hand, European countries are more cautious. EU came up with the labelling requirements as early as 1997. It was followed by a moratorium on registration of new varieties of GM crops till such time as greater consensus and understanding were achieved. Similarly, Australia, Brazil, Japan and UK made labelling compulsory.

Rationale

Rationale behind GM seeds is that the conventional methods of breeding that brought the Green Revolution had hit a plateau. Excessive use of fertilizers and water has led to soil degradation, salinity and alkalinity. So, the GM seeds with further quality improvements were seen as a solution. Other reasons cited were the increase in farmer’s net income by reducing overall costs and increasing output.

However, introduction of GM crops has been slow and tardy because of some basic issues viz. human health, weeds, biodiversity, non-targets, soil health and terminator seeds.

Our country has so far allowed on one GM Crop viz. Bt cotton, that too because it is not a food crop. Bt Brinjal had been at centre stage for last few years. Recently, GM Mustard has become a new focus GM crop in India.

The reactions around the world have slowed the pace with which the biotech companies would have introduced various crops. But still, the biotech companies are lobbying and pushing for their introduction. The more they push, the more people become concerned about the safety of these crops.

Key Concerns

The key concerns can be summarized in the below questions.

• What impacts could GM crops have on the environment and wildlife?
• Can the Insect resistant crops affect non-target insects? What will happen if such insects develop resistance to the toxin?
• Could the herbicide resistant plants produce uncontrollable weeds or so called “super weeds”?
• They increase the yield but will be economical? Will the farmers become extremely dependent on biotech companies?
• How they would affect the soil health and soil organisms?
• What will happen to plant (an animal) biodiversity?

Human Health

• By inserting genes from organisms which have never been eaten as food, new proteins are introduced into the human and animal food chains. There is concern that these could cause allergic reactions or other health effects.
• Many GM crops contain genes which provide resistance to commonly used antibiotics such as ampicillin. There is concern that these genes could be passed from food to bacteria in the guts of humans and animals.

Terminator seeds

One of the major issues with the GM crops is that the biotech companies (despite a global moratorium via UN Convention on Biological Diversity) can resort to the Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT) and produce the terminator seeds which makes crops die off after one harvest without producing offspring. This would force the farmers to buy new seeds for each planting, which reduces their self-sufficiency and makes them dependent on major seed and chemical companies.

The above argument has been countered on the premise that today many crops depend on their yield due to hybrid seeds. These seeds are the product of two inbred parental lines, which, when crossed, produce hybrids of a high quality. If farmers plant seeds from these hybrids they will eventually lose the quality of the parents. This implies that the farmers need to buy Hybrid seeds every season or they knowingly would risk low yield by their own planted seeds.