Food & Beverage News: Top Stories - GM crops to meet food security and sustainability, says ISAAA chief

A half-day national conference on "Global Status of Commercialised Biotech Crops: 1996 to 2008" was organised by the International Service for Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), jointly with the Agricultural Scientists' Recruitment Board on February 19 at The Trident in Mumbai.

Addressing the convention, CR Bhatia, a renowned geneticist and plant breeder in the country, said, "The use of Biotechnology in agriculture has revealed that GM crops helps enhance food production and also offer food security and sustainability. Many countries have adopted Bt crops and are successful in achieving their food requirement."

While presenting a paper on the development of Biotechnology in Agriculture and GM crops, Dr Clive James, founder chairman of ISAAA, said that the use of biotechnology in agriculture had delivered a significant increase in food production with no harm to the environment. Dr James, said, "Today, many African countries are fighting for food and about 10 million out of 35 million population in Kenya are suffering from poverty due to drought and famine. The drastic climatic change in Asian countries, particularly in India, may create a similar situation."

"The basic food grains like rice, wheat, maize, corn and others will not allow us to increase the production unless we use state-of-the-art technology. We are sure that the GM crops will help the country to amplify the production with reduction in cost of production and eco-friendliness," Dr James added.

According to the latest report by ISAAA, India has become the 4th largest user of GM (genetically modified) crops accounting for over 7.5 million hectares land under cultivation.

The experts are expecting the global population to reach 9.5 billion by 2050. Speaking on alleviation of the global poverty, Dr James said, "During 1996-2008, the Bt crops have benefited over 13.3 million farmers in which over 90% are poor and small farmers across 25 countries in the world. In the last one decade, the productivity and production has been increased by 44% in almost all Bt users' countries." Currently, the leading GM crops users are the US (62 million hectares), Argentina (21 million hectares), Brazil (17.3 million hectares), India (7.5 million hectares, mainly Bt cotton) and Canada (6.8 million hectares).

Speaking on the future of GM crops, he said, "By 2015, we will be introducing biotech rice which will help increase productivity and production, Golden rice with vitamin A and other products like Omega 3 and high lysine. We are also working on "SMARTSTAX," an eight genes seed."

Highlights of the Global Status of Commercialised Biotech Crops: 1996 to 2008 report:

■ The registered growth rate is over 9% per annum accounting for about 166 million hectares land under Bt crops cultivation in the world.

■ ISAAA claims that the GM crops are the fastest adopted technology in the history of world agriculture.

■ Over 32 million tonnes more food grains produced in 2007 to meet food, feed and fibre security.

■ About 3,59,000 million tonnes pesticides saved between 1996 and 2007, whereas in 2007 about 77,000 million tonnes less pesticides used to sustain the environment.

■ About $10 billion economic benefit including $6 billion in developing and $4 billion in developed countries.

■ ISAAA is expecting 4 billion hectares land under GM cultivation by 2015.

"At present, the agricultural biotechnology is in its nascent stage. Many countries like Brazil, China and EU have understood the value of GM crops for their present and the future requirement. India has great potential to become the leader and food factory for the world. For instance, China has 20% of the world population but only 6% land for food production, whereas India has over 16% land under cultivation which can help meet food, feed and fibre security for today and tomorrow," Dr James told F&B News on the sidelines of the event.

Further, Dr C D Mayee, chairman, Agricultural Scientists' Recruitment Board, also presented a paper on Bt cotton in India and its future prospects.