“We are a publicly funded institution and our only commitment is to the people of India, to the rubber-growers particular. We have no profit motive as our clones, genetically modified (GM) or not, are entirely free for our growers. We are not a multinational company selling GM rubber and making money,” said the Director of the Rubber Research Institute of India (RRII) James Jacob in an interview to The Hindu .
Referring to the reports on the successful creation of transgenic rubber plants in the RRII laboratory near Kottayam, he said that the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, under the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, recently approved field trials of the transgenic plants.
Dr. Jacob, who was with the Smithsonian Environment Research Centre, Maryland, U.S., before joining the RRII, said the group of scientists behind the GM rubber breakthrough were to be lauded because it was the first time in India that a transgenic experiment had been successfully completed in a tree crop like rubber.
He said that transgenic rubber plants offered scope to produce clones that better tolerated the impact of change in climatic conditions, which included breaks in monsoon and protracted periods of drought.
Natural rubber being a key industrial raw material, a judicious exploitation of new technology to increase production was warranted.
“The RRII has a history of helping rubber farmers in India. It is the RRII and the farmers who together achieved the highest natural rubber productivity in the world. Our first commitment is to the rubber farmers in the country,” he said.
Besides, he said, the RRII was not seeking permission for the commercial production of GM. The field trials for the GM rubber, wherever conducted, would be under the strict watch of an expert team, which would have even medical doctors.
The field trials would last over a decade and if “we find that that GM rubber is not good for our environment it will be abandoned.”
“As a researcher I take every remark seriously,” said Dr. Jacob about the general apprehensions about genetically modified plants.
“If the people in Kerala or for that matter any State are apprehensive about the GM rubber plants, their fears have to be addressed.”
“Technology is a tool in the hands of the planners. It is ultimately the government which decides and implements policies. ,” Dr. Jacob said.
On the Kerala government's policy to keep the State GM-free, Dr. Jacob said that it was up to the government to decide on the field trial of GM plant in the State.
