Find out how science and technology is helping Indian agriculture
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Five years ago, the Indian government imposed a ‘temporary’ moratorium on the commercial release of Bt brinjal – a genetically modified crop - even after it had passed through the due regulatory processes. In this article, Robert S Zeigler, a plant pathology expert, outlines the benefits of transgenic crops and emphasises the need to expedite their adoption in India.
For the last 25 years, I have worked on various aspects of rice research in India. During this period, I have had the very good fortune of working with outstanding colleagues in a number of fine research institutions and universities. I am thoroughly impressed with the quality of Indian scientists and graduate students, especially those working on research projects that are part of the collaborative programme of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). India has an incredible cadre of young scientists poised to propel the country toward being a world leader in transforming agriculture through the use of modern scientific tools.
How science has benefitted agriculture so far
Indeed, it has been science-based improvements in agricultural technology that have contributed significantly — across two Green Revolutions (GR) — to alleviating hunger and poverty in India and most of Asia. The first GR that started in the 1960s — what I call GR1.0 — converted India from being a basketcase to a bread basket — a play on words I like and have borrowed from Shanthu Shantharam, the former executive director of the agricultural group of India’s Association of Biotechnology-Led Enterprises and who currently teaches plant biotechnology and biotechnology innovation management at Iowa State University.
The science of GR1.0 basically built high-yielding semi-dwarf rice and wheat plant architecture adapted to low-stress environments, which mostly benefited farmers in favourable, irrigated areas. The science of the second GR (GR2.0) has gone one better on GR1.0 by “leaving no farmer behind”, especially those poor rice farmers growing their crop in marginal environments. I maintain that GR2.0 in rice started in 2008, when farmers began adopting one of this revolution’s first new technologies, flood-tolerant rice, which can withstand total submergence for more than two weeks. Since then, these Sub1 varieties (the gene discovered and deployed by IRRI and Indian scientists that enables the plant to survive complete submergence is named Sub1) have spread like wildfire in eastern India and in other regions where flooding is a perennial problem.
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