NEW DELHI (Commodity Online) : India’s Food and civil supplies minister Sharad Pawar reiterated his support for crop biotechnology, warning that India’s ability to combat future challenges in food security will hinge on genetically modified GM crops.

Pawar also asked India's agricultural scientists not to view the moratorium on GM brinjal imposed last week by the environment ministry as a setback, but treat it as a “challenge we need to surmount”.



“Our research efforts have to be doubled to ensure that all misgivings regarding GM crops [are] removed from the minds of policy makers and the public," Pawar said at a conference of the heads of agricultural universities and Environment minister Jairam Ramesh has said the moratorium on brinjal will be in place until independent safety tests establish they are safe for humans and there is scientific consensus for its release for cultivation.

The moratorium has sparked disappointment and dismay across vast sections of crop scientists and the biotechnology industry, but environmental groups and some sections of scientists, including biologists, have welcomed it as a move of caution.

Pawar told the assembled agricultural scientists today that India will need to double food production in the coming decades as its population is expected to rise to about 1.8 billion by the year 2050.

“The additional food will have to be produced on existing land with dwindling water resources ... crop losses due to insects, pests and diseases have to be controlled in an eco-friendly and sustainable manner,” he said.
“Conventional technologies of agriculture are inadequate to meet the formidable challenges ... the most compelling case for transgenic (GM) crops is their capability to contribute to crop productivity, lowering production costs,” he said.

However, analysts point out that Pawar's call today on scientists to carry out more research to gain public confidence in GM crops appears to echo what Ramesh himself had articulated last week when announcing the moratorium.

Ramesh had asserted that the moratorium had nothing to do with other GM crops in the research pipeline. However, he had also called for more studies (research) to help generate consensus among scientists and public confidence in GM brinjal

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