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Vanitha Srinivasan

NEW technologies create extraordinary possibilities that people find disturbing. However, for every new technology, the ecological and environmental scare graph charts a predictable seven-year cycle, as was interestingly traced by The Economist in its Christmas issue five years ago. The first year belongs to the scientist who discovers a potential threat, avidly lapped up in the second year by the journalist who oversimplifies and exaggerates. In the third year, the debating parties are polarised and divided into two camps; one which is righteously indignant and the other, the hand-maiden of big business. Year 4 is of the bureaucrats who splurge public exchequer by holding conferences traversing continents in business class, diverting the arguments from science and technology to regulation. Year 5 is the time to pick up a villain like Monsanto, as in the case of Bt cotton seeds. Year 6 is the turning point when the prosecution witness, who started it all in the first place, turns hostile, admitting coyly that the scare is, indeed, exaggerated. This drives the sundry cheerleaders to fly into pious rage condemning such Doubting Thomases as belonging to the fringe. Year 7 is of quiet climb down, with the official consensus estimate that the problem has shrunk. If history is to repeat, in a couple of years from now, when nobody is looking, the discussion on Bt cotton will be old hat. We are now in the third year of this cycle.

Bacterium thuringiensis (Bt) was discovered in silkworm in Japan in 1901. However, it was first investigated in 1911by a German from Thuringia who named it after the place. Interest in it was kindled only in1956 when an American published an article on "Living Insecticides''. Bt is a naturally-occurring soil bacterium, an insect pathogen which produces a protein that is toxic; it paralyses their digestive system and the insect dies within a few days, usually of starvation. By itself Bt is a powerful insecticide that has little or no environmental side-effects.

Bt cotton is genetically-engineered cotton to carry the gene from soil bacterium Bacterium thuringeinsis. It is genetically enhanced to resist major caterpillar pests, including tobacco boll worm, boll worms and pink boll worms. Plants which are genetically-engineered produce their own Bt pesticide from root to shoot, flowers to fruit, protecting them all round.

Growing pains: The `Green Revolution' led to farmers using higher yielding hybrid seeds, chemical fertilisers, pesticides and weed-killers. While the revolution averted famine it did damage the environment. More worrisome now is that the Green Revolution has run out of steam and the productivity gains are tapering off. For squeezing more calories per hectare to feed the humanity it is increasingly realised that more brain than brawn is required and such brain power comes in the form of biotechnology — a youngest but powerful science, especially its powerful tool — genetic engineering. It is hard to believe that barely six years ago, genetically modified food appeared on the shelves.

During the Green Revolution, hybridisation was an important tool in the kit of the agricultural technologist. By this process, high quality seeds were produced by combining two inbred and genetically reliable strains. This involves time and huge investment in land, labour and agro-chemicals. Moreover, the disadvantage is that the inbred strains themselves do not make good crops as inbreeding often leads to genetic weaknesses that are not expressed in hybrids. This also means the farmer cannot save seeds from his own crop.

GM, a quick-fix: The tension between ecology and agriculture is now marked by the contentious issue of transgenics. In 1999, GM crops were grown in about 40 million hectares in a dozen countries, a 44 per cent increase from the previous year. While the technology may be yet to deliver its promise, it has provided enough benefit to keep the farmers enthusiastic. For thousands of years farmers have sought to transfer desirable traits from one plant species to another by cross-breeding. Who has not heard of hybrid mangoes from Tiruchi which are sweeter, juicier and even aesthetically satisfying with a golden yellow hue? GM does the same thing, only much quicker than the 8-12 years taken for cross breeding. For instance, a gene in Bt cotton for ingesting endotoxins to paralyse the attacking worms can be associated in the plant itself, more preventive than the cumbersome spraying of insecticides. It is more precise than hybrids, as it transfer only the desired trait. Further, GM allows transfer of traits across unrelated species. The drought-resistance characteristic of cactus can be replicated in corn.

But there are some potential dangers too. GM can cause health risks. For example, when soyabean is genetically modified with some traits of Brazil nuts, allergic reactions are triggered. Some fear that to repel pests GM may spur the evolution of super pests or poison. Laboratory tests have reportedly shown that butterfly larvae are harmed when fed the GM crops to express Bt. The biggest concern with GM crops relates to the impact on non-target beneficial insects and plants. The gene for herbicide tolerance could transfer itself from GM crops to closely-related weeds making it difficult to control those susceptible to the herbicide glyphosate.

According to English Nature, an agency that champions wildlife conservation in Britain, the herbicide-resistant oilseed rape is likely to create a new class of weed difficult to control. All these risks are speculative. Just as it is impossible to prove they are safe, there is, as of now, no evidence to show that they harm humans or the environment. This is not to say that they should not be tested carefully before releasing them and monitored closely afterwards. In fact, farmers should also receive training and advice on the complex safety measures. It is easier to apply measures of controlled conditions in the highly organised US cotton belt than in the fragmented small plots in India.

China and GM: China adopted GM most enthusiastically; it has approved 26 commercial GM crops including the most successful Bt cotton. In 1992, cotton-chomping boll worms growing increasingly resistant to pesticides destroyed the entire cotton crop in large parts of China ruining a large number of farmers and bankrupting textile mills. So when Monsanto, the American bio-tech major, started selling boll worm-resistant seeds, the Chinese Government snapped them up. Now Bt cotton covers now more than half a million hectares in China. Production costs fell by 14 per cent.

Precision and quality control: If there is a way of asexual reproduction (the technical term being apomixis) — weeds like dandelion by nature do so — through genetic engineering, then it is possible, according to scientists, to control quality precisely from generation to generation. This would, of course, help the farmers to save seeds from his own crop. Apomixis blocks a process called meiosis. This happens during the production of sex cells and has the effect of halving the number of chromosomes in a cell; the number returns to normal when two cells combine during fertilisation. If meiosis can be abolished, a plant can produce viable seeds without having them fertilised.

Profit motive or poison?: The profit motive gives companies a strong incentive not to poison their customers. It is not in their interest to kill the goose which lays golden eggs. Nor does it give them any incentive to cater to people who cannot afford their products. In the US, gains from Bt cotton amounted to $200 million in 1997, out of which it is estimated that 42 per cent went to farmers, 35per cent to Monsanto (which holds the gene patent) and7 per cent to consumers. Improved agriculture is possible only if governments pay for the research, and the current hysteria about GMOs makes this politically hard. However, critics say that with big companies controlling a growing portion of the seed market, farmers would be forced to buy the so-called `terminator' seeds when a bad crop left them short of seeds. Some scientists also worry that pollen from `terminator' plants could alter other crops in the area and make them sterile too.

Biotechnology is bound to be a big business in India. Presently estimated at $2.5 billion, it is no surprise, therefore, that it is riddled with controversies, speculation and unanswered questions, for it is not merely a science and technology issue, but a socio-economic one. Environmentalists are quick to accuse those in favour of new technologies in agriculture as having vested interests. But their own income and fame depend on supporting alarmist versions of every environmental scare.

No one would disagree that the farmers in a country such as India should be delivered from the cycle of debt and dependency. GM cotton offers increased productivity and peripheral benefits such as soil conservation and quality cottonseed oil.

On the flipside, it is an application of single-seed varieties not selected for local conditions and where application of pesticides is a prerequisite. Its record in decreasing the use of pesticides in the long term is debatable. Unless bio-safety issues involved in the country's adoption of Bt cotton are made known to the farmers, long-term damage may yet be difficult to foretell.

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