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.

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What GMOs are and what are Transgenics? Are they same?

Answer is No.

We can say: All Transgenics are GMOs but all GMOs are not Transgenics”.

From time to time all these terminologies played a notorious role in hardship of understanding the meaning of it. Thus it led us to fear of using it or to taste it along with many questions like whether is it safe or not, whether there is any adverse effect on environment etc. But trust me, it’s not that hard to understand. You must know that whatever you are taking as a food on daily basis 90% are GMOs. Let’s get to the point.

Suppose, you have bought a couple of Kgs of Tomato from the market. Now after 3-4 day you saw that your tomatoes start shrinking, it has got rotting softness and running towards spoilage. Strange! You brought it to consume it for a week and it took a very little time to spoil. Why did that happen?

Actually, the firmness and shelf life of the tomato fruit is determined by the cell wall protein and like other fruits on ripening it starts to soften which may lead to further fungal infection as penetration was never such easy. Thus shelf life is hampered in the case of that tomatoes. Now, you must know that the cell wall protein was softened due to an enzyme, named Polygalacturonase secreted inside the fruit as a natural behaviour. You might be thinking that, what if that enzyme secretion never happened or even if happened with a slow rate. Yes, that’s the point where comes genetic modification.

How?

The enzyme Polygalaturonase secretion was triggered by a gene identified in Tomato plant when it was onset of ripening. Now, if we perform a modification to the genetic constitution of the tomato so that the expression of the genetic material could be turn on or off, in this case it would be off, the game takes a U-turn. The expression of the PG-gene that triggers the secretion of Polygalacturonase enzyme would be closed or make it slow. Thus the shelf life of the tomato could be increased and you might have you tomato throughout the week instead of 3-4 days.

The thinking was applied practically later by a Californian Company named Calgene from where first genetically modified tomato Flavr-Savr were developed with the use of APH(3’)II, i.e. aminoglycoside 3’-phosphotransferase. The U.S. FDA (Food and Drug Administration) on 19^th May, 1994 concluded the use of APH(3’)II to be safe.

That is Genetic modification and the produced called Genetically Modified Organism or in brief GMOs. You might find a lot of GMOs in the market whose natural behaviour were either supressed or have been aggravated. Genetic constitution of many improved varieties of several crops are being modified through artificial laboratory techniques.

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What’s transgenic then?

Transgenics are also GMOs as their genetic constitutions are modified. But the genetic modifications are distant, huge and not normal. In this case we can take an imaginary example. Suppose you have a farm and you are growing Tomato there. One night you saw some fireflies that emits light in dark. You thought what if my tomato plants could possess the same feature. Then, you identified the genome causing light emition in firefly and transplanted it to the genetic constitution, of tomato the other feature of tomato intact. From then your tomato lightens up in dark.

Actually this hypothesis is not fully imaginary and were applied in real. But crop was Nicotiana tabacum or in common word we say it tobacco plant. In eighties, the experiment was carried out and was successful as a public demonstration was given. The main biotechnological tool used in this case was the Agrobacterium mediated gene transfer. Agrobacterium is a natural occuring bacteria that helps in gene transfer though biotechnological way.

That means a huge alteration and distant gene transplantation in genetic material causes the formation of new genetic material and the produce called transgenics.  

I hope you can digest it now.

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