Recently, the case of Deepak Pental and his team developed DMH-11(Dhara Mustard Hybrid), the transgenic hybrid mustard is again in the news as its commercial release has been questioned in the Supreme Court. The hybrid developed in 2002 is known to be derived from the cross of transgenic parents ‘Varuna’ and East European ‘Heera-2’ and is claimed to have shown an average 28% yield increase over Varuna and tolerant to a non-selective herbicide called Glufosinate Ammonium. It is believed to reduce the dependency on the import of edible oil, as per the data by Ministry of Commerce 55.76% of the total edible oil demand was met through import during 2022-23 and would also enhance herbicide use efficiency. The challenges to the commercial release of the first edible genetically modified crop shed light on their prospects in the Indian scenario.
But first, it is necessary to understand why this process is so tedious in India. Any genetically modified or engineered crop would undergo a series of reviews by experts from institutions such as the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBSC), the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM) and finally approved by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) for field trials followed by a nod of Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) for its nationwide release. This is important since India has signed the Cartagena Protocol of Biosafety which comes under the Convention on Biodiversity. And few activists, farmers and environmentalists have suspected the credibility of the proposed mustard hybrid on its harmless effect on biodiversity.
The major concerns include its effect on honeybees; more than 50% of the honey produced in India is being exported to other countries i.e., 74,413 MT of Honey worth Rs. 1221.17 Crores during 2021-22. Mustard honey (1,50,000 tonnes) is the significant one because of its easy crystallizing property that helps in exporting is facing problems caused by reduced flowering days of hybrid varieties and the associated disquiet on the long-term effect of GM crops on bee colony and eco-system. Further, experience from the USA has shown that large‐scale and long‐term use of herbicide-tolerant crops can change the patterns of herbicide use and the adoption of different rotation schemes and the possibility of indirect effects on pollinators due to the impact of changes in agricultural practices linked to the adoption of GM crops. Apart from this, such crops are viewed as hurdles to labour-intensive Indian agriculture. The aftermath of resistant pest variants of Bt cotton has also been considered, owing to the possibilities of the emergence of super weed or super pest due to large-scale and long-term cultivation of GM crops. Introducing genetically modified versions of these crops could also be a major threat to the vast number of domestic and wild varieties of these crops. Few even believe the indifferent use of herbicides (or pesticides in general) would further enhance their impact on the food chain.
Even though few studies have shown that GM crops have negligible impact or no evidence of causing organ toxicity or other adverse health effects the acceptance among the people of a country matters the most. Nevertheless, the growing popularity of GM crops and their cultivation is considered crucial for food security by many experts across the world and in 2019, over 18 million farmers in 29 countries planted more than 190 million hectares (469.5 million acres) of GM crops. It is vital to have detailed and unbiased research on the long-term effect of GM crops on human and animal health along with their implications on biodiversity need to be conducted in the Indian scenario to have a better stand.
