GE - Tomato Q & A

Questions:

These days Delhi market is flooded with GM tomatoes and other variety of vegetables. I don't have much knowledge on the harmful effects of GM crops. But I want to know from Subhas Mahapatra about few things.

1. Why GM crops are not tasty as our natural crops? It is no way closer to the natural vegetables. Our natural vegetables don't have the beauty than the GM crops have. GM vegetables look so attractive!!! Natural vegetables look ugly before them.

2. Do we need to go for GM crops? (People say this will help in producing more, then what...? The plenty of production does not reduce the poverty and exploitation of the poor).

3. Why do we need to brain wash the poor farmers to relearn the technology of using GM crops and forgetting their own traditional knowledge- which is more dependable and durable?

4. I think the world has been producing enough and the challenge is not further producing enough. The challenge is at the attitudinal level. People with new knowledge and technology further wish to take advantage and exploit further who are outside this knowledge system. Knowledge is good when it is trasparent and respect the environment, people and bring harmony in society.

5. Today we have many advocates for any company products and knowledge and very few volunters to advocate for the natural way of living. The very nature of GM crop is the greedy nature of companies to make enough profits. I think the technology in the hands of Bhasmasura- a wrong hand that will spoil the world. They have no vision for tomorrow.

6. Just compare if a human being will be altered chemically? If it happens in massive scale what will happen? We may not think of such a horror dream! But we can think to do all kinds of alteration with our envionment as we think we (human) have every right to excercise our will around us. Surprisingly human being is not thinking of the consequences which may come after 10 to 20 years in future. They have been most selfish in this era.

People who built the civilization always think of holistic perspective. Civilization needs to take into accont the voices of poet, arists, philosopher, saints. If we look back these people have built the civilization. We don't remember those businessmen of yesteryears! Development in any field should be linked to the interrelated knowledge system- cultural, spiritual, economic and all. "Our specialised knowledge will help us only to think like a blind men judging an elephant".

Dr. Sadananda Sahoo
Institute of Applied Manpower Research
(Panning Commission, Govt. of India)
Sector A-7, Institutional Area
Narela, Delhi- 110040, 09818602718 (M)
+091-011-27787214-18, Extn.-198(o)

Answer:

Because I will be going out of town for couple of weeks it may not be possible to participate in the ongoing discussion on GM/GE crops. I am therefore leaving the following thoughts for readers on this subject. Will offer needed clarification upon my return.

What we say gnetically modified or genetically engineered is actually a process of chemcial modification. We isolate the chemical molecule DNA, break it down to pieces id polymers (or chemical compounds) before we insert into the cell. Thus we are chemically modifying the DNA of the cell. The piece of chemical we introduce is rarely a complete gene. We do not insert the complete gene because the regulatory elements are already inside the cell. All we need is to insert new chemical fragments to function as templates for new proteins. Some times we find that needed genes are already present but are not expressing because of the inefficiency/ absence of the regulatory mechanisms. In that case, we introduce the needed regulatory chemical molecules. I have simplified the statement because the actual process is much more detailed than what I have said here. Thus, we can technically replace the terms "GM" and "GE" with "CM" and "CE" (i.e. chemically altered or chemically engineered) respectively.

We all know that even though we use the land to produce rice and cereal crops, the tools and sequence of operations are often quite different. Like wise, although we use different chemicals, the cocept of chemical alteration of plants is akin to water purification. We all know that rivers and streams carry industrial pollutions and animal urine and stools situated upstream. We pass these "dirty water" through water treatment plants to modify them chemically to bring to a relatively pure (not absolutely poor) state for city water supply. This chemical modification is often more harmful to human beings than the chemically modified plants have ever been. Even with close monitoring of pollutions and microorganism some times water treatment plants fail or some times the plumbing systems introduce new organisms or pollutants make the water unsafe. Thus in all city water supplies there is a "tolerable" level of pollutants and pathogens. The "tolerable" levl is there because dirty water can not be made "absolutely pure".

The readers need to recognize that every day we drink city water we are voluntarily subjecting ourselves to potential true hazards. This will never happend in chemically altered crops because they do not aquire chemcials on the way to the "market" and before they are released to the market they are thoroughly tested with respect to their danger and efficacy.

So folks, start using the term "CM" and "CE" crops and put your mind at rest from the perceived dangers of "GM" and "GE" crops.

Happy Easter Break