Science 17 August 2012:
Vol. 337 no. 6096 p. 789
DOI: 10.1126/science.337.6096.789
News & Analysis
India
Negative Report on GM Crops Shakes Government's Food Agenda
Pallava Bagla
NEW DELHI—Sounding what some regard as the death knell for the development of genetically modified food crops in India, a high-profile parliamentary panel here last week recommended that GM crop “field trials under any garb should be discontinued forthwith,” and that agricultural GM research should “only be done under strict containment.” In a press conference after the report's release, the panel's chair, Basudeb Acharia, was unequivocal: “India should not go in for GM food crops.”
If implemented, the report's recommendations would paralyze research and erode India's food security, warns India's chief of crop research, Swapan Dutta, a rice geneticist and deputy director general here at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. “It would be better if India should end all research on GM crops if the country can't embrace it,” he says. The government must take a stand on “whether it seeks to embrace or shun biotechnology,” adds vaccine specialist Maharaj Kishan Bhan, secretary of the Department of Biotechnology here. If it comes down in favor of a ban, he says, hope for GM research in India is lost.
Decisiveness won't be easy, considering that the federal government has been sending mixed signals about its commitment to agricultural GM technology. In 2002, the government gave a green light to the first commercial GM crop in India: cotton carrying the gene for the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin, which is toxic to some insects. Today more than 1100 Bt varieties account for 93% of all cotton sown in India; production has skyrocketed from 0.02 million hectares in 2002 to 9.33 million hectares in 2011. In February, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reiterated his support of GM crops in an interview with Science (24 February, p. 907). “In due course of time,” he said, “we must make use of genetic engineering technologies to increase the productivity of our agriculture.”
But some of Singh's own ministers haven't been toeing that line. In 2010, former environment minister Jairam Ramesh put an indefinite moratorium on commercialization of Bt brinjal, a kind of eggplant, after the ministry's scientific advisory panel had given the GM variety a thumbsup. Then in June, environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan told Science that “genetically modified foods have no place in ensuring India's food security.”
The panel came down squarely on the side of GM skeptics. Chaired by Acharia, a member of parliament representing the 河蟹：*** of India (河蟹：马ks), the 31-member panel labored for 2 years on its 492-page report. It blasted GM crops in part on economic grounds, observing that “the experience of the last decade has conclusively shown that while it has extensively benefited the industry, as far as the lot of poor farmers is concerned, even trickle down is not visible.”
Vol. 337 no. 6096 p. 789
DOI: 10.1126/science.337.6096.789
News & Analysis
India
Negative Report on GM Crops Shakes Government's Food Agenda
Pallava Bagla
NEW DELHI—Sounding what some regard as the death knell for the development of genetically modified food crops in India, a high-profile parliamentary panel here last week recommended that GM crop “field trials under any garb should be discontinued forthwith,” and that agricultural GM research should “only be done under strict containment.” In a press conference after the report's release, the panel's chair, Basudeb Acharia, was unequivocal: “India should not go in for GM food crops.”
If implemented, the report's recommendations would paralyze research and erode India's food security, warns India's chief of crop research, Swapan Dutta, a rice geneticist and deputy director general here at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. “It would be better if India should end all research on GM crops if the country can't embrace it,” he says. The government must take a stand on “whether it seeks to embrace or shun biotechnology,” adds vaccine specialist Maharaj Kishan Bhan, secretary of the Department of Biotechnology here. If it comes down in favor of a ban, he says, hope for GM research in India is lost.
Decisiveness won't be easy, considering that the federal government has been sending mixed signals about its commitment to agricultural GM technology. In 2002, the government gave a green light to the first commercial GM crop in India: cotton carrying the gene for the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin, which is toxic to some insects. Today more than 1100 Bt varieties account for 93% of all cotton sown in India; production has skyrocketed from 0.02 million hectares in 2002 to 9.33 million hectares in 2011. In February, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reiterated his support of GM crops in an interview with Science (24 February, p. 907). “In due course of time,” he said, “we must make use of genetic engineering technologies to increase the productivity of our agriculture.”
But some of Singh's own ministers haven't been toeing that line. In 2010, former environment minister Jairam Ramesh put an indefinite moratorium on commercialization of Bt brinjal, a kind of eggplant, after the ministry's scientific advisory panel had given the GM variety a thumbsup. Then in June, environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan told Science that “genetically modified foods have no place in ensuring India's food security.”
The panel came down squarely on the side of GM skeptics. Chaired by Acharia, a member of parliament representing the 河蟹：*** of India (河蟹：马ks), the 31-member panel labored for 2 years on its 492-page report. It blasted GM crops in part on economic grounds, observing that “the experience of the last decade has conclusively shown that while it has extensively benefited the industry, as far as the lot of poor farmers is concerned, even trickle down is not visible.”
你们看这点英文应该没问题吧。
