The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : ‘GM crops needed to boost output’

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Friday, Jul 25, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

‘GM crops needed to boost output’

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: Senior Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) scientist K.C. Bansal has made a strong pitch for going in for genetically modified (GM) crops as the conventional methods will not keep pace with the foodgrain and other crop requirements of country’s growing population.

Speaking to media persons on the benefits of GM crops here on Wednesday, he said that foodgrain and pulses production in India with conventional plant breeding plateaued at around 227 million tonnes for the last 10 years. At the same time land under cultivation was decreasing due to urbanisation and environmental stress factors like drought, salinity, diseases.

It is time to switch to transgenic crops to address these issues and increase yield manifold to ensure food and nutrition security to entire population. At present 320 million Indians suffered from malnutrition, he said.

Prof. Bansal said the Indian Council for Agricultural Research and other research institutions had been working on several GM food, vegetable and fruit crops for a manifold increase in the yield. The new transgenic crops under trial included Bt rice, Bt brinjal, Bt Okhra, Bt cabbage, drought resistant wheat & rice, mustard, tomatoes, papaya and virus-resistant GM tomato. It was time to invest in drought resistant GM foodgrain production as one drought year was enough to drastically bring down the yield, he said.

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