ICAR nodal office refutes concerns over gene-edited rice

Bengaluru: The Directorate of Knowledge Management in Agriculture (DKMA), New Delhi, the nodal office for information within the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), has refuted the concerns and allegations against the gene-edited rice varieties released by the Centre recently.

DRR Dhan 100 (Kamala) developed by Indian Institute of Rice Research, Hyderabad and Pusa Rice DST1 developed by Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Delhi were released on May 4.

The Director issued a statement through the Press Information Bureau to dismiss the concerns about the genetically modified (GM) rice aired by the Coalition for GM-Free India as published by DH on May 5, 2025.

The DKMA dismissed as baseless the assertion that r-DNA technology lacks public acceptance as well as the opposition to the exemptions provided by the Centre to SDN-1 and SDN-2 categories of genome edited plants.

"So far, only Bt cotton was available to the farmers, and more than 90% farmers have adopted the technology within a short period of its availability. It was one of the technologies with the fastest adoption rate," the director said, while defending gene-editing as an extension of mutation breeding.

"There is no biosafety concern in the mutant crop varieties developed through spontaneous or induced mutations as they carry only an alternative form of a native gene and native protein with safe history of consumption for over 75 years... The spontaneous mutations and induced mutations developed by physical/chemical mutation techniques and those developed by genome editing techniques for a given trait are therefore similar, equally safe and indistinguishable." the statement said.

The director argued that there were enough bosafety mechanisms to review the safety of plants under the SDN-1 and SDN-2 categories, pointing to the standard operating procedures. More than 30 agriculture-based countries have exempted the plants under two categories from stringent biosafety regulations.

The statement also termed gene-edited crops as safe. "In relative terms, the risks and uncertainties of genome editing are lower than the risks and uncertainties of conventional random mutagenesis which makes use of radiation or chemicals to induce genetic changes," the statement said, citing (Genome edited crops and 21st century food systems challenges, European Union, 2022)

With regard to the concerns that the introduction of GM rice may impact India's rice export, especially to the European Union, the director said the two varieties were non-Basmati category. "The EU is an insignificant importer of non-Basmati rice from India... If it is a matter of concern in the EU, the country can afford to lose the eEU market in the larger interest of Indian farmers and consumers," it said.