Monday, June 3, 2002
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Why India needs transgenic crops
A letter from Norman Borlaug explains why
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo NEB-60
April 12, 2002
To: Drs. M S Swaminathan, George Varughese, M V Rao, Mangla Rai, and R S Paroda From: Dr Norman E Borlaug, Senior Consultant
Colleagues, I was pleased to receive an e-mail message on March 26, from George Varughese and three days later from M V Rao, informing me that the government of India had finally approved the cultivation of Bt cotton. Congratulations! Approval has been a long, slow, painful process, effectively delayed, I assume, by the lobbying of Vandana Shiva and her crowd. Now that the door has been opened for the use of transgenic biotechnology on one crop, I hope it will soon be approved for other traits and on other crops, wherever there is proven advantage within acceptable levels of risk. The recent tactics in the use of the "precautionary principle" is a dangerous game plan, especially when a country is under heavy population pressure and continuing rapid growth. As an enthusiastic friend of India, I have been dismayed to see it lagging behind in the approval of transgenic crops, while China forges ahead. I hope India's recent approval of Bt cotton is indicative of a change towards more progressive leadership in agricultural policy. The benefits to Indian farmers of Bt cotton will no doubt be significant. Evidence from South Africa indicates that small-holder profits are increased by as much as $ 150 per hectare (ha), and six insecticide sprays are eliminated. I do not agree with the critics of transgenic crops who say that there is no need for conducting such research because the world is now producing a surplus of food and fibre - and that the problem is largely one of distribution. Oh, if only it were so simple! While improving the equity of food distribution is certainly a global imperative, we cannot forget that world population still continues to grow by 80 million per year. When I was born in 1914, world population was approximately 1.6 billion, at present we are approaching 6.2 billion. Even with the reported slowing in global population growth, food production must be increased by 50 per cent over the next 25 years, just to maintain present, often inadequate, levels of food availability. As a person trained in forest ecology, I was very supportive of the environmental movement when it began in the 1960s. However, in recent years, the movement has been captured and distorted by elitists, and has evolved more and more toward an anti-science, anti-technology reactionary force. Too many of its leaders are opposed to high-yield crop production technology, including high-yielding varieties, chemical fertilisers, herbicides, insecticides and fungicides. Yet these critics fail to stop and think what the world would look like today, had it not been for the widespread adoption of high-yield crop production technology during the last 40 years. Had Indian farmers continued with the low-yielding pre-Green Revolution technology, they would have needed to plant an additional 67 million ha to equal current wheat harvests. This is extra land that India did not have to spare. It's hard to imagine all the consequences on Indian agricultural land use of trying to produce 75 million tonnes of wheat with 800 kg per ha technology! On a global scale, world cereal production increased from 650 million tonnes in 1950 to 1,887 million tonnes in 1998. Had the world attempted to produce the cereal harvest of 1998 with the technology (yield) of 1950, it would have required 1,800 ha of land of the same quality - an increase in cultivated area of 1,150 million ha over the 650 million ha that were actually used. Even in regions where land is more abundant, the adoption of high-yield agriculture has spared millions of hectares for other uses. How many hectares of forest would have been destroyed, how many species of plant and wildlife would have been pushed to extinction, had traditional low-yielding agriculture continued? I continue to be astonished by the claims of some ecologists that the world can do without chemical nitrogenous fertilisers. To equal current annual consumption of 82 million nutrient tonnes of nitrogen, some 2.9 billion tonnes of cattle manure would be needed, which would probably require an eight- to 10-fold increase in the global cattle population. Imagine the feeding and environmental consequences of maintaining such a number of livestock. Farmers by all means should strive to return organic matter and nutrients to the soil, through appropriate crop rotations, and use green manure crops and animal manures. But we should also heed the research of Professor Vaclav Smil, which indicates that without chemical nitrogenous fertilisers, only 60 per cent of our world population can be supported (given available technology). Somehow, we have failed to communicate to the public that it makes no difference to a plant whether the nitrate ion it "eats" comes from a bag of urea or from decomposing organic matter. The new tools of biotechnology will permit us to speed the development of improved cultivars with higher genetic yield potential, increased resistance to diseases and insects, and greater tolerance to drought, heat, cold, and soil toxicities. By incorporating genes for crop protection into the seed, production costs can be reduced, as well as the need to use pesticides. This is good for farmers, the environment, and consumers. I believe that scientists who have been part of bringing the benefits of high-yield technology to the 20th century must speak up when pseudo-science is used to spread fear and misinformation about agricultural technology among the masses, including political leaders who consequently make disastrous policies. T D Lysenko and his pseudo-scientific propaganda did enormous damage to individual scientists and to Soviet agriculture. Let us not be misled into believing that such a scientific "Dark Age" could never happen in India or Europe or the US, especially if those who know better do not stand up for a more balanced debate. Let us remember the courageous decisions made by C Subramaniam that ignited the Green Revolution in 1966 - even when other Cabinet members baulked at the plan. Thank God, Subramaniam was not paralysed by the "precautionary principle," as seems to be the case today. Look at the results - a six-fold increase in wheat production and a three-fold increase in rice production over the past 40 years. How would 500 million additional Indians have been fed without this great transformation in production? As impressive as these technological achievements have been - and despite the fact that India is overflowing with buffer grain stocks - poverty and hunger continue to haunt upwards of 40 per cent of the population. While inequitable food distribution is not a consequence of agricultural science and technology - but rather failed government rural development policies - we cannot rest until adequate nutrition and health care reach every citizen. I am convinced that the wise use of biotechnology will be crucial to achieving this goal.
(Courtesy: Liberty Institute, New Delhi)
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