India to release GM mustard

India is all set to release its first genetically modified (GM) food crop -- a highly productive mustard oil variety -- and has declared edible oilseeds, oil crushed from the seeds and the leaves derived from the new breed as safe for both human and animal health.

The development came three years after Bangladesh released first GM food crop in South Asia -- Bt brinjal -- in 2013.

Once released, the genetically engineered Dhara Mustard Hybrid-11 (DMH-11) will be India's answer to lessening the huge import-dependency on edible oil. The variety is expected to be released sometime later this year.

The Indian environment ministry on September 5 made public the full report on food and environment safety of the GM mustard, uploaded on its website, seeking public comments until October 5 before the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), India's highest GM regulatory body, gives a final nod.

According to the report, the GM mustard, developed through public funding by a team of scientists at University of Delhi South Campus (UDSC), has 30 percent higher yield potentials than the varieties grown in Indian oilseed fields now.

According to Indian agriculture ministry statistics, the country had to import over 12 million tonnes of edible oil against nine million it produced in 2014-15 to meet the domestic demand.

 Talking to this correspondent in Kolkata on Wednesday, Dr SR Rao, adviser of India's Department of Biotechnology (DBT), said the release of GM mustard with higher yield potential would be welcome news, as India has to spend $10 to 12 billion for paying yearly import bills of edible oil.

Every year India imports millions of tonnes of soybean and rapeseed oil (like mustard) originated from GM oilseeds.

 The Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants (CGMCP) at UDSC used two genes -- barnase and barstar -- isolated from a common soil bacterium called Bacillus amyloliquefaciens -- to get hybrid vigour in mustard, giving promise to higher yield potentials.

Subsequent field trials over the past few years carried out in various regions of India validated the fact that DMH-11 has got up to 38 percent yield advantage over the currently cultivated mustard varieties in India. Mustard is India's top consuming cooking oil followed by groundnut oil, sunflower oil, castor oil and soybean.

India has been commercially growing non-food genetically modified crop -- Bt cotton -- for the last 14 years and the country turned out to be a cotton exporting nation from a cotton-starved one during that period.

But when it comes to GM food crop, Indian policy planners backtracked from regulators decision in the past. Around three years before Bangladesh's release of GM crop, Indian GEAC had given approval for release of Bt brinjal in that country. But in the face of anti-GMO groups' outcry, the then Indian minister for environment Jairam Ramesh overruled the release order.

SR Rao said for all these years, the release of Bt brinjal had been kept on a perpetual moratorium. Of late, risk assessment on the GM brinjal started afresh.

Talking to The Daily Star on the sideline of a workshop titled “GM Crops and Food Safety” at Bose Institute, Visva-Bharati University Vice-Chancellor Prof Swapan Kumar Datta said, “Bangladesh has shown the political will and courage in promoting biotech science by releasing Bt brinjal.”

Born and brought up in Bangladesh's Sirajganj, Prof Datta had served the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) earlier and widely credited with infusing vitamin-A producing gene in BRRI dhan-29, which is now under confined field test for being released as “Golden Rice”.

The United States Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Consumer Safety Officer Dr Carrie McMahon told this correspondent, “Our policy is to protect human and animal health while not hindering innovation.”

Dr Carrie was delivering speeches on regulators' role in ensuring safety of foods derived from GM crops at Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya in Nadia, West Bengal on Tuesday.

Prof Julian Adams, who has been teaching molecular, cellular and development biology at University of Michigan for the last four decades, was sharing dais with Dr Carrie at food safety workshops both at Bose Institute and at Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya.

He said had there been no adoption of GM crops by 28 countries since 1996, some 21 million hectares of additional land would have been required to grow the additional food derived from agro-biotech.

Welcoming the Indian regulators' go-ahead to GM mustard, India's leading daily Time of India ran editorial “Let Science Lead” on Wednesday.

“Adoption of GM crops ought to be a pivotal strategy in increasing agricultural yields and assessing India's food security -- launching a much-needed second Green Revolution. But for that to happen politics needs to be kept at bay with science forming the sole basis of formulating policies regarding GM crops,” reads the editorial.

A total of 28 countries grow GM crops on 170 million hectares of land with the US and Brazil on the forefront, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA). Of these countries, 20 are developing nations while only eight are industrialised countries.

 A 100-fold increase in acreage from 1.7 million hectares in 1996 to 170 million hectares in 2012 makes GM crops the fastest adopted crop technology in the history of modern agriculture, says ISAAA, a non-profit international network that operates from New York, Kenya and the Philippines.