Recipe for slaying anaemia
Australian scientists have genetically modified bananas to stack them with extra vitamins and iron. They are now sharing this technology with Indian scientists. What makes this development really significant is that India is the world’s largest producer of bananas by a mammoth margin and consumes most of these domestically. So it is elementary that if Indian bananas could be fortified with more nutrients, this would have a wholesome impact on the citizenry’s diet and counteract their penchant for malnutrition. The possibility of making bananas rich in iron is of special note as iron-deficiency is a grave problem among vegetarians and anaemia is also a major cause of maternal mortality.
India’s Bt cotton triumphs helped the global GM narrative march forward but the government has tried to reign in this march at Bt brinjal, putting a moratorium on its commercial release after a decade’s worth of agronomic and biosecurity testing, not to mention unequivocal approval from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee. While our decision-makers bury their heads in the sand, the US Food and Drug Administration has categorically declared that foods developed by bioengineering techniques do not entail greater safety concerns than those developed by traditional plant breeding. Ninety per cent of American
maize, soybean and canola is now GM. Brazil, which once used to be a net food importer, has engineered an impressive agricultural turnaround by pushing GM crops forward. Not only does China’s dining table boast GM papaya, tomato and bell peppers but GM poplar is now supplying it timber on a commercial scale!
As food demand keeps rising, it will become increasingly hard to resist the embrace of high-yielding GM varieties. Anyway, why try to resist when no harm has been detected among Americans who have been chomping GM cornflakes and tortillas for around two decades now?
Don’t open this Pandora’s box Anil Thakkar
For all the years that human civilisation has existed, bananas growing the natural way have been good enough for us – good enough, in fact, that they have gained a deserved reputation as being one of the
healthiest of fruits, full of vitamins. Doctors have recommended them, traditional wisdom has espoused their virtues. But now, all of that is apparently not good enough. If Indian researchers have their way, we will be eating genetically modified bananas in the not-too-distant future, grown with technology obtained from the Australians. And that is a pity.
What exactly is the purpose of meddling with an already healthy fruit’s genetic make-up to boost the amount of vitamins and calcium? Is it so that instead of going to the effort of eating half-a-dozen bananas, a person can gain the same benefit from eating four or five of them? Is that sufficient reason to introduce dangerous variables into the natural order of things? The fact is that we simply don’t know enough about GM crops and how they will affect the environment – and us – in the long run. It runs counter to the most basic scientific principles to take their benefits for granted without gathering sufficient data.
GM crops are like the proverbial Pandora’s box. Once you introduce them into the environment, there is no going back. Genetically modified organisms can spread and interbreed with natural organisms, contaminating future yields in entirely unpredictable ways. Further, in the developed world, perhaps precautions such as adequate labelling of GM foods, segregation of GM crops and seeds, and similar measures can be implemented to mitigate their risks for those who are unwilling to jump on the GM bandwagon. Does anyone really think that such regulations would be followed any more assiduously in India than any of the hundreds of others in all walks of life we ignore blithely? The safest way is to simply say no to GM.
Australian scientists have genetically modified bananas to stack them with extra vitamins and iron. They are now sharing this technology with Indian scientists. What makes this development really significant is that India is the world’s largest producer of bananas by a mammoth margin and consumes most of these domestically. So it is elementary that if Indian bananas could be fortified with more nutrients, this would have a wholesome impact on the citizenry’s diet and counteract their penchant for malnutrition. The possibility of making bananas rich in iron is of special note as iron-deficiency is a grave problem among vegetarians and anaemia is also a major cause of maternal mortality.
India’s Bt cotton triumphs helped the global GM narrative march forward but the government has tried to reign in this march at Bt brinjal, putting a moratorium on its commercial release after a decade’s worth of agronomic and biosecurity testing, not to mention unequivocal approval from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee. While our decision-makers bury their heads in the sand, the US Food and Drug Administration has categorically declared that foods developed by bioengineering techniques do not entail greater safety concerns than those developed by traditional plant breeding. Ninety per cent of American
maize, soybean and canola is now GM. Brazil, which once used to be a net food importer, has engineered an impressive agricultural turnaround by pushing GM crops forward. Not only does China’s dining table boast GM papaya, tomato and bell peppers but GM poplar is now supplying it timber on a commercial scale!
As food demand keeps rising, it will become increasingly hard to resist the embrace of high-yielding GM varieties. Anyway, why try to resist when no harm has been detected among Americans who have been chomping GM cornflakes and tortillas for around two decades now?
Don’t open this Pandora’s box Anil Thakkar
For all the years that human civilisation has existed, bananas growing the natural way have been good enough for us – good enough, in fact, that they have gained a deserved reputation as being one of the
healthiest of fruits, full of vitamins. Doctors have recommended them, traditional wisdom has espoused their virtues. But now, all of that is apparently not good enough. If Indian researchers have their way, we will be eating genetically modified bananas in the not-too-distant future, grown with technology obtained from the Australians. And that is a pity.
What exactly is the purpose of meddling with an already healthy fruit’s genetic make-up to boost the amount of vitamins and calcium? Is it so that instead of going to the effort of eating half-a-dozen bananas, a person can gain the same benefit from eating four or five of them? Is that sufficient reason to introduce dangerous variables into the natural order of things? The fact is that we simply don’t know enough about GM crops and how they will affect the environment – and us – in the long run. It runs counter to the most basic scientific principles to take their benefits for granted without gathering sufficient data.
GM crops are like the proverbial Pandora’s box. Once you introduce them into the environment, there is no going back. Genetically modified organisms can spread and interbreed with natural organisms, contaminating future yields in entirely unpredictable ways. Further, in the developed world, perhaps precautions such as adequate labelling of GM foods, segregation of GM crops and seeds, and similar measures can be implemented to mitigate their risks for those who are unwilling to jump on the GM bandwagon. Does anyone really think that such regulations would be followed any more assiduously in India than any of the hundreds of others in all walks of life we ignore blithely? The safest way is to simply say no to GM.
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