'People with knowledge and facts should decide about GM crops'

The popularity of rice as primary cereal is increasing worldwide because of its food and nutritional values, easy access and storage benefits. People outside Asia, who were not traditionally rice eaters, are also embracing rice.

In an interview to Deccan Herald’s Kalyan Ray, director general of International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Manila Robert Zeigler spoke about the issue and challenges in rice farming and the future of genetically modified rice, which is under development.

The world population is steadily rising. Are we producing enough rice for the burgeoning population?

 Even though we are producing 450 million tonnes of rice every year, too many people are going to bed hungry. We are now looking at increasing rice supply to not only meet the population growth, but also provide adequate rice so that we don’t have hungry people. We have to increase rice supply by 25 per cent, so that the production is increased by 120 million tonnes by 2030. By 2050, we need to increase supply by 75 per cent.

What are challenges for increasing rice production?

Aerable land is decreasing. Large tracts of high quality agriculture land is converted to industry and urban plots with increased urbanisation. Likewise water, which used to be directed to agricultural uses, is directed to industrial usage. The resource base for producing increased amount of rice is shrinking. Climate change poses yet another challenge. Rice production has to be much more efficient than what it is today. These are major challenges for rice farmers, government policy makers and researchers.

How do you plan to meet these challenges?

Technology is going to be an essential tool to bring out new varieties with better yield, new varieties to tolerate drought and flood. We are looking at better water management, seeding practices, better harvesting and post harvest practices. Some of them are long-term research challenges. We need to have policy framework to stimulate rice production and marketing.

When you speak of government policies, do you mean policies regarding genetically modified crops also?

GM is one component. But policies are required on seed trade, fertiliser, credit, rural infrastructure and irrigation. Many countries have a complex set of subsidies. A careful analysis is needed to find out how effective these subsidies are and who are the primary beneficiaries of subsidies.

In India many private companies and government research agencies are working on GM rice as well as other GM crops. But due to the moratorium on bt brinjal, the research on transgenic crops are not coming to the market. What’s your view?

Scientific community has to be more vocal. There should not be a situation in which whoever shouted the loudest got their way. Decisions on GM should be left to the people with knowledge with best facts at hand. We need to have calm and structured discussions based on facts. We need to balance scientific and economic information with social values to have a discussion.

But if every event is turned into shouting match, then there is a risk of mob rule. Decisions like what technology would be used to guarantee food security for a country cannot be based on mob rule. We need to have a mechanism to bring various opinions on the table so that a careful and reasonable discussions can take place. You need to be far more courageous in opposing GM crops in the absence of evidence about its ill-effects.

Do you think that the decision taken by Indian government (moratorium on Bt brinjal) will have a cascading effect on other countries?

India adopted a GM crop (bt cotton), which benefited the farmers and industry tremendously. So countries like Philippines look up to India and say yes we can and adopted bt maize. But when you look at the brinjal situation and look at the number of pesticide spray – 40, 50, 60 times on each crop – I don’t understand how you can talk about environmental risks with bt brinjal. Its much better. But as India is seen as an example, it should do a careful analysis of GM crops on a case by case basis.

There are important political questions like private sector's involvement, seed control and food supply which have nothing to do with GMO, but are cited while taking a decision on GMOs. The primary benefits of bt technology is to reduce use of insecticides. So you ask who tends to lose more.

Has China adopted GM rice?

No country has adopted GM rice commercially. Many have developed products with GM traits. Commercial cultivation of GM rice has not been formally approved in China, which developed bt rice varieties.

Your flood tolerant rice has done well in India and other countries in the subcontinent. What are you doing on the drought tolerant varieties?

We have found similarly effective gene. We are combining them with varieties with sub1 (gene for flood tolerance) rice so that there can be varieties which are both drought and flood tolerant. These are under evaluation now.

The field trials are going on in IRRI and these varieties will be in fields in a few years time realising a 25-year old dream. In addition, IRRI now has rice varieties tolerant of phosphorus stress, which may be transferred to Indian Council of Agriculture Research in the next 18-24 months.