GM crops are seeds improved through biotechnology.
By Rakesh Agrawal
As the world’s population crosses 7.4 billion mark, two, not one earth would be needed by 2030 to fill all hungry mouths. In such a desperate scenario, genetically modified (GM) foods are the only alternative. But, many activists and a key environmental non-profit organization, Greenpeace are opposing it tooth and nail.
Now, 110 Nobel Laureates to have written to the Greenpeace to change its stance on GM foods.
Dr. Richard Roberts, who shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Richard for his work on introns and the scientific officer of New England Biolabs, spearheaded the letter-writing campaign. “For thousands of years farmers have used various techniques to select for desirable traits and everything is GM,” explains Randy Schekman, who shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his team’s discovery of the machinery regulating vesicle traffic in cells, described the science behind golden rice, a transgenic crop enriched with beta-carotene as , and traditional rice, the staple diet of billions, is a lousy food as it has no beta-carotene, hence causing Vitamin A Deficiency (VAD), a killer in many parts of the developing world. As rice feeds half the world every day, this GM rise is the only way out.
But, Greenpeace has spearheaded opposition to Golden Rice, overlooking the fact that VAD has affected the poorest people in Africa and Southeast Asia.
It should be noted that most of these Nobel Laureates are scientists, baring eight economists, one literature and one peace Nobel Prize winner, so they cannot be accused of having any political motivation in taking this step.
The group included 41 Nobel medicine laureates among them James Watson, honored in 1962 for co-discovering the basic structure of DNA.
The letter called on Greenpeace to “cease and desist” in its efforts to block GM crops, and on governments to embrace “seeds improved through biotechnology”.
“Opposition based on emotion and dogma contradicted by data must be stopped,” the letter says.
The Nobel winners singled out Golden Rice as a genetically modified crop, whose patented strain was developed in the 1990s, that contains an artificially inserted gene which boosts the level of vitamin A-rich beta-carotene. It has a huge potential to improve health and save lives in the developing world.
GM crops also have much-better yields and as the much touted green revolution has petered out, these crops have the potential to fill the empty stomachs of millions.
Hopefully, the NGO will pay attention to the open letter by the laureates.