{"id":39165,"date":"2024-01-19T02:46:44","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T21:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=39165"},"modified":"2025-04-24T02:18:52","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T20:48:52","slug":"gm-crops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/gm-crops\/","title":{"rendered":"Ban on commercial release of GM crops will be against national interest"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in news?<\/li>\n<li>What is GM Crop?<\/li>\n<li>Legal position of genetically modified crops in India<\/li>\n<li>Background: Ban on commercial release of GM crops will be against national interest<\/li>\n<li>News Summary: Ban on commercial release of GM crops will be against national interest<\/li>\n<li>Stand of govt in SC<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in news?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Supreme Court has reserved its judgment on public interest litigations (PILs) challenging the government&#8217;s decision to allow the commercial release of the GM mustard variant Dhara Mustard Hybrid-11 (DMH-11).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>GM Crop<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Conventional plant breeding involves crossing species of the same genus to provide the offspring with the desired traits of both parents.<\/li>\n<li>Genetic engineering aims to transcend the genus barrier by introducing an alien gene in the seeds to get the desired effects.\n<ul>\n<li>The alien gene could be from a plant, an animal or even a soil bacterium.<\/li>\n<li>E.g. Bt cotton has alien genes from soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt).\n<ul>\n<li>It allows the crop to develop a protein, toxic to the common pest pink bollworm.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>In Bt brinjal, a gene allows the plant to resist attacks of fruit and shoot borer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Seeds produced using genetic engineering are called Genetically Modified Seeds.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Legal position of genetically modified crops in India<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In India, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) is the apex body that allows for commercial release of GM crops.\n<ul>\n<li>In 2002, the GEAC had allowed the commercial release of Bt cotton.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Use of the unapproved GM variant can attract a jail term of 5 years and fine of Rs 1 lakh under the <u>Environmental Protection Act ,1989<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Background: Ban on commercial release of GM crops will be against national interest<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Earlier, in 2017, GEAC had cleared the proposal for commercial cultivation of GM mustard. However, the Union Environment Ministry vetoed it and suggested that the panel hold more studies on the GM crop.<\/li>\n<li>In October 2022, GEAC again cleared the proposal for commercial cultivation of GM mustard \u2013 also known as DMH-11.<\/li>\n<li>Later, the petitioners, Gene Campaign and activist Aruna Rodrigues, challenged the government move to commercially release DMH-11.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>News Summary: Ban on commercial release of GM crops will be against national interest<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The government told the Supreme Court that India already brings in and uses oil made from GM crops.<\/li>\n<li>It stated that opposition to this technology, based on groundless fears of negative effects, harms farmers, consumers, and industry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Stand of govt. in SC<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Production increased and so has consumption\n<ul>\n<li>A total of 272.2 lakh hectares was under cultivation of oilseeds in 2010-11, this increased to 302.3 lakh hectares in 2022-23.<\/li>\n<li>The average per capita oil consumption had also risen from 2.9 kg per year in 1950-1960 to 19.5 kg per year in 2022.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Increasing demand for edible oil\n<ul>\n<li>In 2020-21, 13.45 million tonnes (54%) of the <u>total edible oil demand was met through import worth about \u20b91,15,000 crore<\/u>.\n<ul>\n<li>This included palm oil (57%), soybean oil (22%), sunflower oil (15%) and small quantity of canola quality mustard oil.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>In 2022-23, 15.533 million tonnes (55.76%) of the total edible oil demand was met through import.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Critical for food security of India\n<ul>\n<li>Mustard is the most important edible oil and seed meal crop of India.<\/li>\n<li>Strengthening of plant breeding programmes, including use of new genetic technologies such as GE technology is critical for meeting emerging challenges in Indian agriculture.<\/li>\n<li>This is also vital for ensuring food security while reducing foreign dependency.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>India is already importing &amp; consuming a large quantity of edible oil from GM oilseeds\n<ul>\n<li>India imports about 55,000 MT of canola oil largely from GM canola seeds.<\/li>\n<li>Similarly, nearly 2.8 lakh tonnes of soybean oil is being imported annually largely comprising GM soybean oil.<\/li>\n<li>Most exporting countries such as <u>Argentina, US, Brazil, and Canada cultivate GM soybean<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Economic losses of crops due to weeds\n<ul>\n<li>The govt said India\u2019s annual economic losses of crops due to weeds is $11 billion (Rs 1 lakh crore).<\/li>\n<li>It also highlighted that annual value of herbicide currently used in India is Rs 4,500 crore even without Herbicide Tolerant (HT) crops.<\/li>\n<li>HT crops provide effective weed control and it will be detrimental to ban development of HT crops for Indian agriculture as labour is expensive and not available.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>DMH-11 hybrid has shown increased per-hectare yield by 25-30% over the traditional varieties\n<ul>\n<li>It further added that mustard is one of the highest oil-bearing of oilseeds in India. Hence, domestic production of edible oils will rise considerably.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1)\u00a0What is Dhara Mustard Hybrid-11?<\/h3>\n<p>Dhara Mustard Hybrid-11 (DMH-11) is a genetically modified (GM) hybrid variety of the mustard species Brassica juncea. DMH-11 is a genetically modified variant of Herbicide Tolerant (HT) mustard. It was developed using the genetic male sterility (GMS) technique, especially the &#8220;barstar-barnase&#8221; system, to make it herbicide resistant.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3>Q2) What is Genetic engineering?<\/h3>\n<p>Genetic engineering, also known as genetic modification, is a set of technologies that alters the genetic makeup of cells. It involves cutting and joining genetic material from different species to create new combinations of heritable genetic material.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/india\/ban-commercial-release-gm-crops-centre-sc-9115998\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Ban on commercial release of GM crops will be against national interest, Centre tells SC<\/u><\/a><u> | <\/u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/indigenous-gm-mustard-meant-to-make-edible-oil-cheaper-reduce-import-centre-to-supreme-court\/article67751742.ece#:~:text=The%20Supreme%20Court%20on%20Thursday,the%20most%20used%20edible%20oil.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>The Hindu<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seeds produced using genetic engineering are called Genetically Modified (GM) Seeds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":39166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}