Should we support GMOs? My Opinion

Application of GMOs at field level, still raises controversial debates. And that’s not a new topic, occurring since the inception of this great discovery. Before you proceed, I would like you to know that the explanations going to be made here are based on solely personal perception and you know that personal opinions may differ. So, let’s take a ride.

Since the inception of civilisation, we, the humans, learned to grow crops and save seeds for the future growing. The process was too simple. We have been cultivating new plant varieties through selective breeding which are purely natural process. We eventually created new superior plant varieties by openly cross pollinating two different but related plant species and thereafter selection was made over 6-10 generations. The superiors were the best in terms of vigour and resistance to stress situations, though the process was time consuming. At least we had a great variability in genetic resources.

Then comes the creation of the biggest remark on plant breeding history, probably in mid-nineteenth century. The history was made by sir, Gregor Johan Mendel, pioneering hybrids. Here the process also was similar historic counterpart, natural, crossing between two related but with different charactered species, to produce a superior progeny or F₁ in terms of vigour, yield and other remarkable characters of choice. The characters are indeed more lucrative & productive than traditional races. But the main drawback in hybrid is that the trait superiority in subsequent generations are not identical to the F₁. It’s because of the fact that the characters got segregated in and from the F₂ generations as described by the great Mendel.

In simple words, we cannot save the seeds from the hybrid population or in other words, we have to be dependent on the source of seeds. Now what are those sources? Private Companies plays a big role here. Even though public sector hybrids are available now, enormous production of the seeds and ample availability of those seeds to farmers are still meagre compared to private companies. So, dependencies on the private companies increased. That means if you need those seedlings of your desired characters, you have to buy it from private companies year after year which is a great space of business. Along with this additional costs for agrochemicals appended as the hybrids are huge feeder than traditional one and is care intensive. All these made farming more costly, leaving no option to the farmers except leaving the noble job or to migrate into the cities for income generation.

Moreover, with the tradition of hybrids the land races gradually reached at the edge of elimination which is reducing the variabilities in genetic resources. Less variability means lesser options to the crop improvement and consequently more dependencies on outsourcing.

Unlike hybrid seeds, GMOs are not natural. They were created in lab using Hi-Tech and sophisticated techniques like Recombinant DNA Technology through Agrbacterium mediated gene transfer, gene guns etc. They are rarely from the similar genus and species. Often the cross goes far beyond the natural rules. Example Bt Crops. Now, like open pollinated seeds, many GMOs are there who might be producing fertile seeds and those seeds can be saved and expected to produce uniform offspring in next season. But practically we can’t save it. Why?

The cause is, all the GMO seeds are patented by Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and saving those ‘patented’ GMO seeds are illegal.

A blend of hypocrisy of private firms or other GMO producing organisations can be felt. Right?

Actually, these lab-made, finely superior, uniform seeds are too costly than that of Open Pollinated seeds or Hybrids. Without patenting companies might not get their investment back. Plus additional revenue factor is already there. To protect the IPR the firms are so reckless that they do not hesitate even to sue a farmer who is knowingly or unknowingly planting GMOs.

Question is, why the technique evolved? To support the farmers’ or to oppose them? To help the production system or was a prime monetization policy?

You might be surprised that, many of the farmers unintentionally planted GMOs in their field. How these happened? It might happened due to environmental pollen drift. Suppose, someone is cultivating GMOs or any research organisation has its research fields containing GMOs, a little far from farmer’s field. Now, those farmers have neither any idea nor any relation with that. But we can’t control pollinators, wind drifts to contaminate their non-GMO crops with those GMO pollens. Thus a lot of farmers got sued by those GMO producing organisation without intention.

All these support to the fact that, these GMOs are not only gradually paralyzing the farmers financially but also we are losing our generic food diversity. It is a cut-throat barrier for self-dependency to a farmer.

So, I must support to the fact that, GMOs are undoubtedly magical creation by humans but its application to the farmers' field should come with precautions, especially at the food sector. We can't neither afford to lose the variability of the genetic resources in food section nor can lose our farmers, because India, after all, is a country based on Agriculture and our farmers are most valuable treasures.