Why India needs to embrace GMO crops
Ignore technology at your own peril.
India got the short end of the tariff stick. The 50% tariff rate has already been applied. While the GDP shouldn’t suffer only slightly, it is a blow to be cut-off from the American market, at least directly1. If rumors are to be believed, part of the disagreement over trade was over the issue of agriculture. Among other things, red lines were drawn over the issue of Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) crops.
Whether or not GMOs contributed to derailing the trade deal is a bit irrelevant. I’ve often seen opposition for GMOs across the entire political spectrum. I want to use this opportunity to make a case for GMOs.
The basics of GMOs
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines GMO as:
A GMO is a plant, animal, or microorganism that has had its genetic material (DNA) changed using technology that generally involves the specific modification of DNA, including the transfer of specific DNA from one organism to another (emphasis added).
In other words, in the context of agriculture, GMOs are those crops that have had their genes edited using technologies like CRISPR. CRISPR works like a molecular scissors. It uses a guiding RNA molecule to locate a specific sequence in the DNA. Then it uses another specific protein, like Cas9 to cut it. The cell repairs the cut using a special DNA template provided along with CRISPR.
There are a few other techniques to achieve the level of DNA edits desired. But CRISPR is among the most precise. Lately, CRISPR has even been used to cure children of rare genetic diseases with personalized treatment.
Once the DNA is edited in plant cells, whole plants are regenerated from those cells. The best breeding lines are then chosen to produce commercial seeds. The genetic change is inherited so the harvested seeds carry the engineered trait into the next generation.
Some examples of GM traits
GMOs are primarily popular because of certain desirable traits. Let’s take a look at some of these popular ones.
Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt) is a soil bacterium that produces insecticidal proteins. It is the most commonly used biological pesticide. A few genes from the bacterium2 are extracted and inserted into the plant of choice. A representation for corn is shown below.
In India, the GMO crop, Bt Cotton is of the same variety. Introduced in 2002 to reduce losses of the cotton crop to bollworm, it turned India from a net importer to an exporter of Cotton.
It increased the productivity of the crop, and reduced the relative number of inputs required. Cotton yields had stagnated at about 8 quintals per hectare. In 2013, they had surged to almost 14 quintals per hectare.
In Hawaii, the Papaya Ringspot Virus (PRSV) almost destroyed the state’s papaya industry. Dennis Gonsalves, a plant pathologist, isolated a gene from PSRV’s coat protein into the plant’s own cells. The DNA edit activated the immune system of the plant and lead to the plant itself blocking off the infection. And the Rainbow papaya was born. The technology was crucial in saving the Hawaiian papaya industry. Within a decade of introduction, GMO papaya accounts for more than 75% of the papayas grown in Hawaii.
Herbicide tolerance (HT) saw widespread adoption in soybean, corn, canola and a few other crops. As shown in the image below, HT and Bt GM crops have seen the most adoption.
HT crops allowed crops to withstand different herbicides allowing for better crop management and less labor complexity. Farmer surveys in the 1990s put weed control as the reason for adopting it. Unfortunately, heavy reliance on a single herbicide (glufosinate) prompted weeds to select for resistance to that particular herbicide. The solution was to ensure that different herbicide mixes were applied.
The Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) is a single- number index developed by Cornell to compare the environmental and health impact of pesticides.
For HT crops, some regions required increase in the total volume of herbicides. But even then, EIQ profiles improved compared to the alternative.
The HT example shows that GM crops aren’t a silver bullet to all agricultural problems, but simply another tool in the box. It needs to be applied with best practices to gain the most effectiveness. And sometimes, it might not even be better than a conventionally grown crop. But that doesn’t imply that the entire technology needs to be discarded.
GMOs in India
India highly restricts GMOs. Bt Cotton was approved for commercial cultivation in 2002 and since then, no other GM crop has received approval. As I mentioned previously, Bt Cotton was essential in propelling India from a cotton importer to a net exporter.
The approval for GM Mustard (DMH-11) is currently being litigated in the Supreme Court. The crop is herbicide tolerant (HT) and increases yields by up to 40% over the traditional variety. Because HT encourages liberal herbicide use, the concern is a proliferation of super weeds. Consequently, those weeds might affect other crops that might not be as tolerant of herbicides as the GM Mustard. This is a valid concern and I’ll have more to say on this later in the post.
GM Maize with many traits like herbicide tolerant and insect resistance has received approval for field trials. Varieties of GM potato that improve attributes like yield, protein content and blight resistance are in various stages of trials as well. GM Rice with genes inserted for salt tolerance, water use efficiency and drought tolerance has also been brought to trials.
India has faced fierce protests against GMOs. Since 2006, there has been a Coalition for a GM-free India comprising farmers, organization and individuals across India. They campaign and advocate to keep India GM-free, citing adverse health and environmental impacts.
Prominent activists against GMOs are Aruna Rodrigues and Vandana Shiva. Even RSS-affiliated Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) and Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) strongly oppose GM crops in India. Digvijay Singh has also criticised Bt. Cotton as being responsible for farmer suicides in Maharashtra. The Telangana Kisan Congress hosted a conclave in September 2024, resolving to oppose the entry of GMO crops.
The core arguments against GM crops in India
I’ll sum up the main threads of the arguments against GM crops. If I do miss any, let me know in the comments below.
For herbicide tolerant (HT) crops, the concern is that super-weeds resistant to herbicides will grow. When non-HT non-GM crops are planted in those fields, they will be damaged because they won’t be able to tolerate as much herbicide as the HT crops.
Crops like Bt Cotton and other varieties of insect resistant crops will be vulnerable to insects that evolve to evade those defences.
There’s wide concern that GM crops aren’t suitable for human consumption primarily because they are seen as “unnatural”.
Because GM seeds are developed in labs and patented, corporates control the seed supply. Farmers aren’t allowed to reuse seeds from their crops and instead have to buy a new batch every season. Companies like Monsanto already have a track record of being litigious. Especially in the current scenario, US companies could withhold seeds and India would be staring down the barrel of a famine if it was dependent on GM crops for its calorie needs.
Farmers face increased input cost burdens. Seeds are often expensive and they come with their own ecosystem. Farmers struggling under the weight of various loans don’t have the financial bandwidth to go the GM crop route. Consequently, farmers become dependent on corporates rather than traditional seed-saving practices.
GM crops often undermine local food systems and traditional farming knowledge. The impression is that they disrupt indigenous agriculture, especially organic agriculture.
Related to safety, there’s another argument made that there’s no long term safety data on GM crops for human consumption. And GM crops are often pitted as antagonistic to organic farming.
Because pollination is often done by pollinators like honeybees, farmers fear that their indigenous breeds will get polluted by cross pollination from GM crops. It is seen as undesirable for various reasons.
In the remainder of the article, I’ll put forward my counter-arguments against these. If you do disagree, please leave a comment below. If I do end up strawmanning a position, please point it out. I’d like to make sure that I address the strongest version of the anti-GMO arguments.
The Naturalistic Fallacy
The most common argument is that GMOs are unnatural. Because humans create these DNA edits, it’s often accepted that it is “tampering with nature”. It can combine organisms that would never interbreed in nature. A good example is Bt cotton. The genes of the bollworm could never make it into plants on their own.
Another related concern is the complexity of nature. Because genetics is incredibly complex with millions of interactions between genes, introducing an additional edit, even if only one, will introduce ripple effects. Those could be on the soil, on pollinators or on long-term health.
I want to start out by saying that these are perfectly valid concerns!
But this logic isn’t consistently applied to other agricultural practices. Hybrid crops, selective breeding of animals, fertilizers and pesticides are not the “natural” way of farming. In fact, even farming itself isn’t natural. Before domestication of wheat and rice, humans were mostly hunter gatherers. Agriculture itself is only 12,000 years old. Homo Sapiens evolved 300,000 years ago. So for 288,000 of those years, we were probably only hunting animals and foraging for food. Agriculture itself would have looked like a radical break from the “natural” lifestyle back then! GMOs are subjected to an isolated demand for rigor.
Pasteurization of milk was invented by Louis Pasteur in 1864. As late as 1920, pasteurization was opposed in New Brunswick, Canada on grounds of it being unnatural. There were 20th century critics in the the US that blamed rickets and scurvy on on pasteurized milk. Some people even complained that pasteurized milk had a “cooked” taste and it lost its nutritive qualities3.
For a more closer example related to genetics, take the RNA Covid vaccines. These vaccines use synthetic strands of mRNA to teach the immune system about the Covid virus. After the vaccines were released and widely administered, Covid cases dropped drastically and the world was able to go on with its life4.
And finally, it is wrong to assume that natural is inherently safer. Apple has trace amounts of cyanide in its seeds. Ingesting large amounts of apple seeds could result in cyanide poisoning. Wild almonds are actually toxic. They contain large amounts of amygdalin that breaks down into cyanide when ingested into the body. Domesticating almonds have made them much safer to eat.
GMOs harm the environment
These types of arguments are closely related to the naturalistic fallacy. I’ve come across people arguing that growing GMO crops will cause famines and reduce biodiversity. Pollinators — like the honeybee — will cause cross fertilization between GMO and non-GMO crops and introduce the edited genes into “natural” crops too.
In the past couple of decades, there were fears that Bt. corn was causing a decline in Monarch Butterflies. These butterflies eat milkweed when they’re in the caterpillar phase. Pollen from Bt. corn was hypothesized to harm them if the said pollen settled onto the milkweed. The primary reason was that the Bt. gene was supposed to kill off a specific insect, but it was unintentionally killing off the butterfly. It turned out to be false. But it did spark off global fears of unintended effects.
On Twitter, J Sai Deepak shared a thread on how GMOs harm the soil in which it is grown. I don’t intend to dive into the specific example. That gets into the weeds of biotechnology and I’m not sure I’ve the skill to hold your attention while I dive into the nitty-gritty. I’ll present a generalized argument instead.
In my view, the way to think shouldn’t be whether GMOs are perfect. The question we should be asking is: are they better or worse than the alternatives? Humans will always require food. Growing food is pretty much environmentally destructive. Sustainable agriculture can help a bit, but doing it globally will reduce yields and will require more land for agriculture. And more land use means clearing forests and the associated biodiversity so that humans can use it to grow crops.
Wouldn’t it be better to have high yields so that agriculture can be restricted to a small amount of land leaving the rest of the earth’s biodiversity preserved?
Let’s say that as J Sai Deepak says, soil is harmed because of GMOs. If the yields are high, we would need smaller patches of land relative to the amount currently used. So whatever unwanted changes happen, would happen in that secluded corner. Biodiversity elsewhere would remain.
Corporate risk and Monsanto
The final leg of the argument rests on the role of corporates and patents in the GMO ecosystem. Seeds are considered intellectual property. Corporates spend time and money in developing and extracting useful traits and injecting them into the seeds. So they’d naturally want to profit from these investments. The problem arises when this desire for profits threatens the food supply and incomes of farmers. Farmers are forced to buy GM seeds from corporates. And these seeds are more expensive than traditional or hybrid seeds.
I don’t see much of a problem with this. If GM crops have better yields, and require lesser input like pesticides, it doesn’t matter if the seeds are more expensive. Farmers will end up making more money on the whole.
Innovation resides on the bedrock of patents. Without access to patents and the ability to profit from an invention, there wouldn’t be much progress in agriculture.
Not all GMOs are corporate controlled. Much research also comes from public labs that don’t withhold patents for profits.
Coming to Monsanto, I don’t intend to defend the corporation. It has lawyers more than capable of doing that in court. I’ll only say this. Monsanto isn’t forcing farmers to buy seeds every year. Farmers already do that for non-GMO seeds too! Farmers find it far more convenient to buy seeds from corporation for regular crops too. Yields are more predictable. Crops grow more uniformly. There are a plethora of other reasons.
But provided with evidence, I am ready to accept that Monsanto might be engaged in shady practices. But I don’t see why that should shed a bad light on the entire corporate sector. As long as there is fair competition in the space, the invisible hand of the market will ensure that bad-faith actors slowly lose out on business.
Concerns specific to India
In the Indian context, GMOs have been blown out of proportion by activists, whose motivations are often suspect. Some even draw a correlation between farmer suicides and the introduction of Bt. Cotton. There’s the usual argument that GM crops will reduce biodiversity. And finally that non-GMO crops will be crowded out by GMO crops.
India’s agricultural sector suffers from severe land fragmentation. More than 80% operate at a land size of less than 2 hectares. Mechanization isn’t possible at such small scales. GMOs could be helpful in shoring up the yield of crops allowing farmers to have higher incomes. This must be accompanied by opening up farmers to exports in international markets. Otherwise, higher yields would just end up depressing prices domestically.
Freshwater is a finite resource. Over 80% of India’s freshwater withdrawals every year go to agriculture. Drought resistant GM crops that use water efficiently could reduce water consumption without compromising yields.
India’s fertilizer subsidy is unsustainable. 70% of the agricultural budget goes into the subsidy. There are GM crops that could fix Nitrogen into the soil, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers. I’d argue that — subject to safety testing — it is imperative India adopts such crops. Fertilizer subsidy is often an unproductive use of funds and it incentivizes indiscriminate usage of fertilizer, further harming the soil.
There’s one activist that I want to explicitly call out though. And that’s Vandana Shiva. She often misrepresents data and uses logical fallacies to argue her point. She shifts goalposts so it is hard to pin her down. She claims that:
As a scientist, I have tried to understand what is driving our small farmers to suicide. Two things are evident. One, the suicides begin with the period of globalization which allowed MNC’s entry into India’s Seed Sector, making seeds a non-renewable ‘input’, to be bought every year.
Secondly, the suicides have further intensified after the introduction of GMO Bt cotton. GMOs are intrinsically linked to Intellectual Property Rights, which in turn are linked to royalty payments. Royalties are extracted from poor farmers through credit and debt. The Monsanto representative, who appeared before India’s Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, admitted that Monsanto was collecting Rs 700 as royalty for a 450 gm packet of seed costing Rs 1600. The shift to Bt cotton meant a jump of 8000% in the cost of seed. This is at the root of the farmers’ distress in the cotton areas of India.
This is just not true. See the below graph taken from USDA data.
See the sharp rise in cotton production after the introduction of Bt. Cotton sometime after 2000. Farmers that grew Bt. cotton had an increase in their daily caloric intake. This indirectly shows higher incomes for Bt. Cotton farmers. Suicide is an immensely multi-causal issue. It can’t be boiled to a single one-dimensional argument: Bt. cotton.
I don’t want this to be a post against Vandana Shiva so I’ll stop my arguments against her. The only reason I brought her up was that she is a prominent activist in anti-GMO circles and it is important to counter any misinformation in her speeches and writings.
One argument that I’m sympathetic towards is that there aren’t any Indian companies that work on GMOs. Depending on foreign companies for seeds is a recipe for disaster especially where food security is involved. In tumultuous times, India’s food supply could be weaponized against it. I’d be open to restricting GM crops to only those seeds that could be produced and patented domestically. That’s a valid national and food security argument.
I’m not saying that GM crops are a panacea for every problem in the agricultural and climate world. But I wouldn’t like to spurn this technology simply because of common fallacies.
I would like there to be more anti-GMO activists that question companies. Because social pressure is immensely effective at keeping corporates honest. I’m not taking corporates at their word and trusting them. But as a society, we must be fair to corporates and use beneficial technology.
Counter-intuitively, GMOs are more useful at protecting biodiversity. If farmers spray less pesticides after using Bt. crops, fewer unintended insects, pollinators and soil organisms die. Higher yields reduce pressure to clear grasslands, wetlands and forests to create farms. Even drought resistant GMOs contribute to biodiversity, by allowing degraded land to be used for crops.
I hope I’ve been able to shift your viewpoint at least slightly. If you still disagree, let me know why. I’d love to see what I’m missing out on.
Goods to America can always be routed through different countries. Only goods directly shipped from India with no value added in intervening countries are tariffed at 50%. If India ships an almost ready product to Mexico, where the final assembly is done, the goods won’t be tariffed at 50%. There are some more nuances, but this is the gist of it.
Of course, there are about 4.4% adults that still consume raw milk. Yet, both the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics proclaim that there are no advantages over pasteurized milk.
I don’t want to get into the entire debate of whether Covid vaccines were necessary. That is entirely tangential to the point I’m trying to make here.
So far I’ve been on point with my observations of Govt of India. A while ago, I mentioned Centre’s reluctance on GMOs is because of lack of domestic players. I think domestic gmo players are ready to enter the market.
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/genome-edited-pulses-varieties-aatmanirbharta-mission-10341511/
I understand that we don't allow import or soya from USA because it is GMO By origin. But at the same time we import large quantities of soya oil which is produced from GM seeds. The approach of GoI In a blanket ban is totally illogical. I agree monopolistic behavior of organization's like Monsanto may be an issue, as can unregulated use. But both those points can be addressed through policy. This can be a big step towards food security and improvement in farmer incomes, as they are far behind the rest of the country and have not really benefitted from reform in any major way... The problem is people like Vandana Shiva in the left and Swadeshi Jagran Manch on the right have boots on the ground to fight this, while people taking a fact based approach dont do as well in that regard. Change will only come imo if there is a broad-based movement among the farming community for this.