From green revolution to gene revolution
Rajalakshmi Swaminthan
M.S. Swaminathan
Senior Scientist
Research Foundation
Taramani, Chennai, India

Overall food production in recent years has increased at an annual rate of 1.3%, while the world's population has maintained an annual growth rate of 2.2%. Thus, the global food and health situation is a cause for concern, with the conclusion that the use of genetically modified organisms represents a tool and an option that should be given serious consideration.

Faced with a choice between cultivating new land and thereby destroying forests which are storehouses of biodiversity and serve to moderate climate change, or, increasing the productivity of existing agro-ecosystems, the second option is definitely preferred. Biotechnologies, and especially genetic engineering, can contribute to research that ensures new varieties, at the same time guaranteeing safety in use for both humans and the environment. This involves a decreased use of chemical synthetic products (pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides), while at the same time permitting the reclamation of areas of land that are adequately productive but which have gradually been abandoned because of environmental stress.

In India, agriculture is now at a crossroads. Our national capability in frontier areas of science and technology such as biotechnology, information, communication and space technologies, nuclear and renewable energy technologies and in management science has opened up uncommon opportunities for achieving an evergreen revolution, i.e. sustainable advances in crop productivity per units of land, water and time without associated ecological harm.

Green Revolution

The first 60 years of the 20th century were marked by a sense of despair and frustration regarding India's capability to achieve a balance between human numbers and the production of food grains and other agricultural commodities.

In 1963, Dr. Norman Borlaug with the International Wheat Rust Nursery in Mexico sent a wide range of semidwarf plant material to the Indian Agricultural Research Institute via the USDA. This provided the initial material for stimulating an accelerated advance in wheat productivity and production. In 1964, a National Demonstration Programme was started in farmers' fields, both to verify the results obtained in research plots and to introduce farmers to the new opportunities opened up by semi-dwarf varieties for considerably improving the productivity of wheat. These small farmers harvested over five tonnes of wheat per hectare and its impact on the minds of other farmers was electric. The popularity of these seeds grew and the area under high yielding varieties of wheat rose from four hectares in 1963-64 to over four million hectares in 1971-72. A small Government programme thus became a mass movement. The rest of the history is recorded in a book on the Wheat Revolution (Swaminathan, 1993). Wheat production in India rose from 10 million tonnes in 1964 to 17 million tonnes in 1968, and similar results were obtained with semi-dwarf varieties of rice. In 1968, Dr William Gaud of the United States coined the term "Green Revolution" to stress that the changes occurring in the wheat and rice fields of Asia was revolutionary, not just evolutionary, progress.

As early as 1967, Prof Swaminathan had observed that farmers in northwest India with relatively large holdings tended to use large quantities of fertilizers and grow single genetic strains in large, contiguous areas. In his Presidential Address to the Agricultural Sciences Section of the Indian Science Congress, he stressed the need for considering ecological sustainability in efforts to improve yield. "The initiation of exploitative agriculture without a proper understanding of the various consequences of every one of the changes introduced into traditional agriculture and without first building up a proper scientific and training base to sustain it, may only lead us, in long run, into an era of agricultural disaster rather than one of agricultural prosperity" (Swaminathan,1968).

An increasing population leads to increased demand for food but reduced per capita availability of arable land and irrigation water. Improved purchasing power and increased urbanisation can also lead to higher per capita grain requirements, due to increased consumption of animal products. At the same time, there is increasing damage to the ecological foundations of agriculture (land, water, forests, biodiversity, atmosphere) and distinct possibilities for adverse changes in climate and sea level. While dramatic new technological developments are taking place, particularly in the field of biotechnology, their environmental, safety and social implications are yet to be fully understood. Finally, gross capital formation in agriculture is declining in both public and private sectors.

The processes of agricultural evolution are currently moving ahead at an unprecedented pace. This progress ranges from classic genetics (genetic maps, cytogenetics) to mutagenesis and in vitro culture, not to mention genetic transformation, studies on the structure, function and regulation of genes, molecular genetics, gene transfer, the use of molecular markers and the regeneration of organisms from transformed cells. This could provide new opportunities for increasing and improving the quality of production, for reducing costs which would allow a larger part of the population to access the goods and services produced, and for controlling pests and diseases which destroy more than a third of all plant products each year.

The green revolution has so far helped to keep the rate of growth in food production above the population growth rate. The green revolution was the result of public good research, supported by public funds. However, the technologies of the emerging gene revolution are, in contrast, spearheaded by proprietary science and can come under monopolistic control.

The Gene Revolution

It is now clear that the present century may witness changes in temperature, precipitation, sea level and ultraviolet radiation as a result of global warming. Such changes in climate are expected to adversely affect India and Sub-Saharan Africa. All human induced calamities affect adversely the poor nations and the poor among all nations the most. This led scientists at the MS Swaminathan Foundation to initiate an anticipatory research programme to breed salt tolerant varieties of mustard and other crop plants for coastal areas, in order to be prepared for seawater intrusion into farmland as a result of a rise in sea level. The germplasm donor of salt tolerance is a mangrove species Avicennia marina. Transferring genes for tolerance to salinity from mangrove tree species to rice, mustard or tobacco would be an impossible task without recourse to recombinant DNA experiments. Thus, the immense benefits that can accrue from genomics and molecular breeding are clear.

Principal Concerns

The professionals, public and political leaders of developing countries are all equally concerned about the food and environmental safety aspects of GMOs. The viewpoints of countries in the North on the ethical and social issues relating to GM crops have been dealt with in detail in a report published by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in January 2004.

Additional issues of concern to developing countries are:

• Biosafety: The safe and responsible use of biotechnology will enlarge our capacity to meet the challenges ahead, including those caused by climate change. At the international level, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety provides a framework for risk assessment and aversion. At the national level, there is need for a regulatory mechanism, which inspires public, political and professional confidence.
   
• Expansion of proprietary science and shrinking of public good research supported from public funds may lead to a situation where the technologies of the future remain in the hands of a few transnational corporations. Only resource-rich farmers may have access to them, thereby widening further the already wide rich-poor divide.
   
• The monopolistic control over crop varieties could lead to a situation where large areas are covered by very few genetic strains or hybrids. It is well known that genetic homogeneity enhances genetic vulnerability to biotic and abiotic stresses. A need for a crop insurance scheme needs to be incorporated to compensate farmers for such losses (Task Force on Applications of Agricultural Biotechnology, 2004).
   
• The potential impact of GM foods on biodiversity: This aspect has two dimensions. The first deals with the replacement of numerous local cultivars with one or two GM strains, thereby leading to genetic erosion. The local cultivars have often been the donors of many useful traits, including resistance to pests and diseases. Under small farm conditions every farm is a genetic garden, comprising several crops, both annual and perennial, and several varieties of each crop. The need of the hour is to enlarge the food basket and not shrink it further.

The other aspect of GM foods and biodiversity relates to the equitable sharing of benefits between biotechnologists and the primary conservers of genetic resources and the holders of traditional knowledge. At present, the primary conservers remain poor, while those who use their knowledge (for example, the medicinal properties of plants) and material become rich. This has resulted in accusations of biopiracy. It is time that genetic engineers promote genuine biopartnerships with the holders of indigenous knowledge and conservers of genetic variability, based on principles of ethics and equity in benefit sharing. The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act (2001) and the Biodiversity Act (2002) have provisions for recognizing and rewarding tribal and rural women and men for their contributions to genetic resources conservation and enhancement.

Ecotechnologies are knowledgeintensive. Fortunately, modern information technology provides opportunities for reaching the unreached. Computerised, networked "Virtual Colleges", which link scientists to people living in poverty, can be established to launch a knowledge and skill revolution. Genome clubs in schools and at grassroot / panchayat level can generate awareness at a massive scale. This will help to create better awareness of the benefits and risks associated with GMOs, so that both farmers and consumers get better insights into the processes leading to the creation of novel genetic combinations.

Productivity improvement will be possible only if greater attention is paid to improving the efficiency of input use, particularly the use of nutrients and water. To cite just one example, cotton yields in India are less than 20% of the yields achieved in several other countries, such as Egypt and the USA, yet Indian farmers use 25 times more water to raise a ton of cotton than farmers in California. Even in the case of rice and wheat, the present average yield is just 40 per cent of what can be achieved even with technologies currently on the shelf. Therefore a massive effort should be made to launch a productivity revolution in farming.

Another area that needs attention is enlarging the food basket. There are considerable opportunities for increasing the production of under-utilized or minor crops. With increasing urbanization, the demand for processed food increases. There is much scope for including the minor crops in the manufacture of processed and semi-processed foods. Farming systems intensification, diversification and value-addition are all important for achieving the goal of food for all.

The Green Revolution provided a breathing spell, allowing countries to achieve a balance between population growth and food production. However, the production technologies adopted must be both environmentally and socially sustainable. Achieving sustainable advances in the productivity of major farming systems and the well being of farming families is the pathway towards an Evergreen Revolution in agriculture.

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