Transgenic plants: Successes and controversies

Manjunath, T. M., 2005. A Decade of Commercialized Transgenic Crops – Analyses of Their Global Adoption, Safety and Benefits. The Sixth Dr. S. Pradhan Memorial Lecture, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, 23 March 2005. (www.agbioworld.org: 8 April 2005). In 2004, transgenic crops were grown on 81.0 million hectares spread over 17 countries, including India, on six continents, marking a 47-fold increase in the area since their first commercialization in 1996. This increasing trend will continue in 2005 and in the coming decade. The dominant transgenic traits were insect resistance (IR) with Bt and herbicide tolerance (HT), either alone or both stacked. The principal transgenic crop was soybean with HR occupying 48.4 m ha followed by corn with IR and also HT plus IR on 19.3 m ha, cotton with IR and also HT plus IR on 9.0 m ha, and canola with HR on 4.3 m ha. The USA is the leading country in the commercial cultivation of transgenic crops, accounting for 59% (47.6 m ha) of the total 81 m ha followed by Argentina 20% (16.2 m ha), Canada 6% (5.4 m ha), Brazil 6% (5.0 m ha), China 5% (3.7 m ha), Paraguay 2% (1.2 m ha), India 1% (0.5 m ha) and South Africa 1% (0.5 m ha). In India, the area planted with Bt-cotton in 2002, the first year of introduction, was 29,415 ha. It increased to 86,240 ha in 2003 and to 530,800 ha in 2004. A nationwide survey carried out in 2003 indicated that the Bt-cotton growers in India were able to obtain, on an average, a yield increase by about 29% due to effective control of bollworms, a reduction in chemical sprays by 60% and an increase in net profit by 78% as compared to their non-Bt counterparts. These benefits were in tune with those obtained in other countries with Bt-cotton and also with other transgenic crops. Further, transgenic crops have proved to be safe and there has not been any untoward incident with regard to safety or pest resistance so far. Despite their proven safety and benefits, there has been an unending debate and unsubstantiated allegations on the safety and benefits of transgenic crops! This calls for greater efforts towards biotech awareness and education to mobilize wholehearted support for this remarkable technology which has the potential to revolutionize sustainable agriculture and benefit the farmers and consumers alike. The next generation of transgenic products will focus more on nutritional enhancement and tolerance to drought, cold and other abiotic stresses. As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the large scale commercial cultivation of transgenic crops in multiple countries, an overview is presented on the global adoption, safety and benefits of these crops as well as some of the challenges faced.

In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology - Plant, 2002

Recombinant DNA technology has great potential to enhance and extend the advantages of conventional plant breeding, and increase the production and productivity of crops to meet the increasing demand for food and food products in the future. Judicious application of this technology provides opportunities for alleviating some of the major constraints to crop productivity under subsistence farming conditions in the developing countries. Considerable progress has been made in developing strategies for the production and deployment of transgenic crops. However, biosafety concerns have been raised regarding the deployment and release of genetically engineered plants. This debate has divided the farming and consumer communities over acceptability of genetically modified foods. There is a need for a thorough investigation regarding the fate of transgenic plants in the environment, and their interaction with wild relatives and non-target organisms. The production and release of transgenic plants should be based on experience and sound scientific reasoning. The regulatory requirements for deployment of transgenic crops should be streamlined and harmonized, in order to achieve sustainable food production, poverty reduction, and environmental protection in resource-poor countries in the semi-arid tropics.

A more effective and sustainable agriculture is dependent on plant varieties and cropping techniques that are more resistant to diseases, pests, and other environmental pressures. The world's population may exceed nine billion by 2050. To meet the requirements of such a large number of people in previous centuries, food production will need to expand at the same or higher rate. As a result, in recent decades, there has been a need to apply genetic methods to enhance crops. Transgenics can be used to develop plants with desired features and even greater yields. Transgenic breeding technologies provide new possibilities to breed for more resistant variants by utilising considerably larger genetic resources. Transgenesis, in essence, is a significant supplement to traditional plant breeding in that it allows for the focused manipulation of certain traits utilising genes from a variety of sources. Biotechnology has paved the way for the incorporation of transgenic crops into sustainable food production systems by bringing beneficial features into crops. Although these scientific achievements inaugurated a new age in agricultural Advances in Agricultural Biotechnology 152 | production, broad adoption confronts a variety of obstacles owing to environmental, human health, and moral considerations. Crop genetic modification is expected to boost productivity and prosperity in sustainable agriculture methods. With the opportunity to ease global food crises, the proper use of transgenic crops has the potential to be more beneficial in coming future.

The increase in population has exerted tremendous pressure on global food supply with more than one in every seven people suffering from lack of basic food or micronutrient malnourishment. Moreover, anthropogenic activities such as exhaustion of natural resources and global warming further aggravate the problem. Therefore, scientists are studying ways to ensure sustainable and equitable food security along with preservation of environment. With the advent of recombinant DNA technology in 1980s, transgenic crops have been adopted to increase both quality and quantity of food. There has been a remarkable progression in identifying ways to increase plant productivity, discover novel and active metabolites, alternative fuel sources, chemical factories synthesising animal proteins and antibiotics, using transgenic plants. Here, we provide a global pattern of genetically modified crop cultivation and strategies adopted by small and large scale farmers in different countries in order to strike a balance between food security, social and environmental repercussions. Genetically modified (GM) crops are increasingly used to improve plant quality and stress tolerance. Herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant transgenic crops have been Lamis Javid and Samarth Kulshrestha contributed equally to this work.

Advances in Bioresearch, 2022

Genetic modification, a subfield of biotechnology, entails changing a living thing's genetic makeup to enable it to perform a certain function. The advantages of Genetically modified crops are quite widespread, and they span from improved food production features to health advantages. In addition to improving food security and lowering health inequities, GM foods also have the potential to generate higher-quality, more nutritious meals. However, due to the presence of certain concerns, it is required to examine the emerging transgenic plants more closely as the technology advances. In this particular review, we will be discussing about the biotechnological tools for producing the GM crops, the challenges and solution of commercial agriculture, ethical concern and risk assessment associated with the GM crops as well as the future prospect of the same.

The alteration of crops to improve their production was performed through the basis of selection before the creation of transgenics. This selection has been going on for thousands of years. By the year 2050, world population may reach nine billions. Food production will need to increase at the same rate or more in order to satisfy the needs of such an enormous number of people in some older centuries. So, there is a need to use the genetic techniques to improve crops over the recent decades. Through the use of transgenics, one can produce plants with desired traits and even increased yields. The transgenics would allow for more crops that last longer and withstand pests and diseases. Transgenic plant production will allow us to feed the growing population and to produce more desirable products. The future of GM crops remains a vital debate, as its applications have several advantages and disadvantages.

Annals of Botany, 1999

Genetically modified, i.e. transgenic crops, are now being grown on several million acres throughout the world, mainly in North America. Most of these ' first generation ' products have specific agronomic traits designed to improve the efficiency of production. For example herbicide tolerant soybean and insect resistant corn are the two most widely grown transgenic crops. Increasingly, the new transgenic varieties under test contain product quality or other higher value traits intended to provide specific benefits to the end user whether it be the producer of specialist chemicals or the consumer. This review describes examples of these ' second generation ' traits and attempts to predict the range of household, medical, industrial and environmental products that might become available over the next 20 years.

Advances in Biochemical Engineering/Biotechnology, 2008

Transgenesis is an important adjunct to classical plant breeding, in that it allows the targeted manipulation of specific characters using genes from a range of sources. The current status of crop transformation is reviewed, including methods of gene transfer, the selection of transformed plants and control of transgene expression. The application of genetic modification technology to specific traits is then discussed, including input traits relating to crop production (herbicide tolerance and resistance to insects, pathogens and abiotic stresses) and output traits relating to the composition and quality of the harvested organs. The latter include improving the nutritional quality for consumers as well as the improvement of functional properties for food processing.

Nature Biotechnology, 2005

The costs of meeting regulatory requirements and market restrictions guided by regulatory criteria are substantial impediments to the commercialization of transgenic crops. Although a cautious approach may have been prudent initially, we argue that some regulatory requirements can now be modified to reduce costs and uncertainty without compromising safety. Long-accepted plant breeding methods for incorporating new diversity into crop varieties, experience from two decades of research on and commercialization of transgenic crops, and expanding knowledge of plant genome structure and dynamics all indicate that if a gene or trait is safe, the genetic engineering process itself presents little potential for unexpected consequences that would not be identified or eliminated in the variety development process before commercialization. We propose that as in conventional breeding, regulatory emphasis should be on phenotypic rather than genomic characteristics once a gene or trait has been shown to be safe.