Reports from China indicate that harmful aphids have decreased—and ladybugs and other beneficial insects have increased—in provinces where GM cotton has been planted. Field tests began last spring in Uganda. Only four African countries allow the planting of genetically modified crops. The particular GM crops Fraley pioneered at Monsanto have been profitable for the company and many farmers, but have not helped sell the cause of high-tech agriculture to the public.
That means farmers can spray the herbicide freely to eliminate weeds without damaging their GM corn, cotton, or soybeans. Their contract with Monsanto does not allow them to save seeds for planting; they must purchase its patented seeds each year.
Modern agriculture, they say, already relies too heavily on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Not only are they unaffordable for a small farmer like Juma; they pollute land, water, and air. We need to change the paradigm of the green revolution. Heavy-input agriculture has no future—we need something different. Monsanto is not the only organization that believes modern plant genetics can help feed the world.
Late on a warm February afternoon Glenn Gregorio, a plant geneticist at the International Rice Research Institute, shows me the rice that started the green revolution in Asia. Roosters crow in the distance; egrets gleam white against so much green; silvery light glints off the flooded fields. Two years later a plant pathologist named Peter Jennings began a series of crossbreeding experiments.
He had 10, varieties of rice seeds to work with. His eighth cross—between a dwarf strain from Taiwan and a taller variety from Indonesia—created the fast-growing, high-yielding strain later known as India Rice 8 for its role in preventing famine in that country.
Walking along the paddies, we pass other landmark breeds, each designated with a neatly painted wooden sign. The institute releases dozens of new varieties every year; about a thousand have been planted around the world since the s. Yields have typically improved by just under one percent a year.
Rice is the most important food crop in the world, providing more energy to humanity than any other food source. When the green revolution began in the s, it was before the revolution in molecular genetics: IR8, the first miracle rice, was bred without knowledge of the genes that blessed it with high yields.
Breeders today can zero in on genes, but they still use traditional techniques and ever more complex pedigrees. Click here to trace the pedigree. For many decades IRRI focused on improving traditional varieties of rice, grown in fields that are flooded at planting time.
Lately it has shifted its attention to climate change. It now offers drought-tolerant varieties, including one that can be planted in dry fields and subsist on rainfall, as corn and wheat do. Only a few of the rice varieties at IRRI are GM crops, in the sense that they contain a gene transferred from a different species, and none of those are publicly available yet.
One is Golden Rice, which contains genes from corn that allow it to produce beta-carotene; its purpose is to combat the global scourge of vitamin A deficiency. Genetic modification gets the public attention—and the controversy—but plant breeders today have numerous tools for creating crops with new traits.
The goal: continually increasing yields in an increasingly challenging climate. Traditional Breeding Desired traits are identified in separate individuals of the same species, which are then bred to combine those traits in a new hybrid variety. Interspecies Crosses Breeders can also cross different yet similar species.
Modern wheat comes from such hybridizations, some of which happened naturally. Genetic Modification Genes identified in one species can be transferred directly to an unrelated species, giving it an entirely new trait—resistance to a pest, say, or to a weed killer.
If a mutation happens to produce a desirable trait, the plant is selected for further breeding. Art: Oliver Munday. For decades IRRI breeders patiently followed the ancient recipe: Select plants with the desired trait, cross-pollinate, wait for the offspring to reach maturity, select the best performers, repeat. In an international consortium of researchers mapped the entire rice genome, which comprises some 40, individual genes.
Since then, researchers around the world have been pinpointing genes that control valuable traits and can be selected directly. In , for example, plant pathologist Pamela Ronald of the University of California, Davis, isolated a gene called Sub1 from an East Indian rice variety. Seldom grown now because of its low yields, the East Indian rice has one remarkable characteristic: It can survive for two weeks underwater.
Most varieties die after three days. Then they screened the DNA to determine which seedlings had actually inherited the Sub1 gene. The technology, called marker-assisted breeding, is more accurate and saves time. The new flood-tolerant rice, called Swarna-Sub1, has been planted by nearly four million farmers in Asia, where every year floods destroy about 50 million acres of rice. One recent study found that farmers in villages in the Indian state of Odisha, on the Bay of Bengal, increased their yields by more than 25 percent.
The most marginal farmers reaped the most benefit. Rice, wheat, and many other plants use a type of photosynthesis known as C3, for the three-carbon compound they produce when sunlight is absorbed.
Corn, sugarcane, and some other plants use C4 photosynthesis. Efforts are underway to produce genetic variants of millets that can withstand biotic and abiotic stresses. Earlier, the introduction of genetic variants of rice and wheat and pesticides was the solution for malnutrition, but it led to environmental destruction in a few years. In the short term, food scarcity might rise again due to increased water depletion and soil damage.
Any new interventions should be carefully introduced not to disrupt other systems to prevent future adversities. A domino effect is expected to occur when there is any disruption in the ecosystem, such that if even one link in the food chain is affected, it affects other parts of the chain also. Most of the ecological disruption is by human intervention Vaz et al. Pesticides used for agricultural activities are released to the environment through air drift, leaching, and run-off and are found in soil, surface, and groundwater.
This can contaminate soil, water, and other vegetation. Pesticide residues are found to be present in almost all habitats and are detected in both marine and terrestrial animals Choudhary et al. The mechanisms include absorption through the gills or teguments, which is bioconcentration, as well as through the consumption of contaminated food, called biomagnification or bioamplification.
In marine systems, seagrass beds and coral reefs were found to have very high concentrations of persistent organic pollutants Dromard et al. It also affects the activities of insects and microbes. It kills insects and weeds, is toxic to other organisms, such as birds and fish, and contaminates meat products, such as chicken, goat, and beef. This can lead to bioaccumulation in human beings along with poor food safety, thus impairing nutrition and health.
Repeated application leads to loss of biodiversity Choudhary et al. Consumption of pesticide-laden food can lead to loss of appetite, vomiting, weakness, abdominal cramps, etc. Gerage et al. There is a decline in the number of pollinators, for instance, the destruction of bumblebee colonies that are an important group of pollinators on a global scale Baron et al. There is an extinction of honeybee populations, and it poses a great threat to the survival of human beings Hagopian, The residue level of these pesticides depends on the organism's habitat and position in the food chain.
This is a serious issue because the predicted usage of pesticides is that it will be doubled in the coming years Choudhary et al. In addition, it is not nearly possible to get back the lost varieties of indigenous rice. Likewise, further advancements should not lead to the extinction of the other indigenous varieties of grains, such as millets.
In conclusion, the effects of the green revolution are persisting. The green revolution, which was beneficial in ensuring food security, has unintended but harmful consequences on agriculture and human health. This requires new interventions to be tested and piloted before implementation, and continuous evaluation of the harms and benefits should guide the implementation. An already fragile food system is affected due to the aftermaths of the green revolution. The potential negative impacts are not part of the discourse as it can affect the narratives of development and prosperity.
Developments introduced due to necessity may not be sustainable in the future. Organic ways of farming need to be adopted for sustainable agricultural practices. Similarly, alternative agriculture techniques, such as intercropping, Zero Budget Natural Farming ZBNF with essential principles involving the enhancement of nature's processes, and elimination of external inputs, can be practiced Khadse et al.
There is a need for a systems approach in dealing with food insecurity and malnutrition and other similar issues. Like the already mentioned example, the green revolution was brought in to reduce the problem of reduced yield. Now, there is a green revolution 2 that is planned. Before such interventions are taken, environmental risk assessments and other evaluation studies should be conducted for a sustainable future. DJ conceived the idea. DJ and GB contributed to the writing of the article.
Both the authors contributed to the review, proofreading, and finalizing the manuscript. The funding agency had no role in the design and conduct of the article, review and interpretation of the data, preparation or approval of the manuscript, or decision to submit the manuscript for publication. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Alisjahbana, A.
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Bora of Assam is used in the treatment of jaundice. Karhani of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand is used as a tonic in the treatment of epilepsy. Layacha is consumed by pregnant women to prevent unborn children from contracting Laicha disease. Gudna rice is used to treat gastric ailments [ 64 ]. These are some of the benefits of the few reported varieties, while many remain undocumented and unexplored.
Foods such as roti, idli , dosai , puttu , aval , dhokla , khaman , selroti , adai , sez , kulcha , naan , and kurdi ; sweets such as adirasam , anarshe , and jalebi ; snacks such as murukku , and vadai ; and infant formulations are made from major cereals.
Millets are resistant to drought, pests, and diseases [ 65 ]. The growing season of millets is short, and the consumption of water for its cultivation is very less when compared to other cereals. Foods such as roti, dosai , and kuzh porridge , snacks such as murukku , baby foods, ambali , wine, and health mix are made from millets. The polyphenols present in millets acts as antioxidant and boost immunity [ 66 ].
Lei et al. Millets provide protection against obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. Though millets possess various health benefits, the anti-nutrients present in millets weaken the absorption of nutrients. However, the anti-nutrients present in millets can be inactivated or reduced by soaking, cooking, germination, malting, removal of the seed coat, and fermentation, among others.
From this research, it is evident that necessary measures should be carried out to conserve the indigenous species of the nation and also to carry knowledge to the future generations by reviving the crops back into cultivation. Furthermore, the primary factors that contribute to the revival of indigenous crops include the passion of farmers, administrative measures initiated by the stakeholders, and the marketing strategies of vendors.
Additionally, the knowledge about the health benefits of indigenous crops may also prevent its extinction and ensure the availability of these foods in local markets and the methods of cooking for future generations [ 52 ].
Nevertheless, the revival of indigenous crops is possible only when all the stakeholders define and bring these crops under a special category similar to the one initiated in Kyoto, Japan. India may also adopt a geological indication GI for the traditional products like the one followed in the European Union and Japan [ 69 , 70 ] to provide the farmers with better access to the willingness of their consumers to try the traditional food products [ 71 ].
The benefits of indigenous crops over the introduced HYVs include 1 cultivation of indigenous crops can make agriculture more genetically diverse and sustainable, 2 consumption of domestically cultivated indigenous crops can reduce the carbon footprints [ 72 ] and imports, 3 the indigenous crops are highly adapted to the climatic conditions of the land, and 4 consumption of indigenous foods contribute to food diversity and enrichment of diet with micronutrients provides health benefits due to the interactions between the inherited genes and food nutrients [ 73 ].
The measures discussed above may be initiated by the stakeholders to revive the indigenous crops, and it is imperative that food security must also ensure nutrition security of the nation.
Thus, proper planning and intensive collaborative research work should be initiated by the stakeholders for the conservation of the traditional varieties and the inclusion of these varieties and practices into the food and nutrition security plans for the nation owing to their nutritional benefits.
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