CS Prakash Munima Sultana
A US scientist has ruled out the possibility of any health and environmental hazards in genetically modified (GM) crops, arguing Bangladesh should scale up scientific research on biotechnology to help feed its growing population.
CS Prakash, Professor of Plant Molecular Genetics at Tuskegee University in Alabama, said Bangladesh has lot of crops and vegetables where the new technology can be adopted.
Mr Prakash shared his views during an exclusive interview with The Financial Express at the American Centre on Wednesday.
During the interview, he talked about how GM crops have been popularised in different developed and developing countries.
The Indian born scientist who is known for his research mainly on transgenic sweet potatoes works to incorporate herbicide resistance genes and to increase their nutritional value. He is also known for serving as a spokesman of the scientific community to educate the public on the benefits of genetically modified crops. He also maintains a website AgBioWorld.org for scientific community. Dr Prakash was in the capital last week to deliver some lectures on the GM crops in different universities in Dhaka and Chittagong.
The professor said the country has no alternative to biotech to feed its growing population. Investing more on scientific research and training of scientists will equip the country with the best facilities to find way forward for the improvement of quality of life of the people.
Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) with support from USAid launched a pilot scheme to introduce Bt brinjal as the first GM food crop in the country which, however, sparked harsh criticism as India and the Philippines have restricted the release of the crop on the ground of lack of health and ecological safety.
When his attention was drawn in this regard, CS Prakash said research and innovation provide answers to all the questions usually arise from critics to find the best transfer of a gene from one crop to another.
He said transformation of crops and foods has been going on historically for which the rice eaten 100 years ago is not available now. He also said Bangladesh has also been working on the biotechnology in jute citing example of the research going on to find out ways to reduce chemical uses in making fibre.
The CPBR director claimed that GM crops have been popularised in 27 countries in the world covering 500 acres mostly for producing corns, soybean, cotton, sugar bit since the first GM crop was introduced in 1996.
He said 30,000 to 40,000 food items produced from GM crops are now available in US supermarket for not having absolutely any concern about human or animal health adding that India's cotton production has also been doubled without bringing new land under cultivation for adopting GM crops.
Dr Prakash said that if the farmers are given choice first they would adopt the biotechnology promptly as science now gives them much healthier, cleaner food with 'no insect, fungus infection, no pesticides' which are blamed for creating imbalance in the nature.
In the case of Bangladesh, the US Scientist said when BT gene is put in the brinjal, it produces small amount of protein, which is very much effective against pesticide.
He also called for investing more on scientific research in other vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage where pesticides are sprayed unabated.
Citing an example of possibility of Bt Tomato by slowing down ripening element and keeping it fresh for longer time, Dr Prakash said science can help minimize cost of production, labour, and use of many environmentally harmful chemicals like pesticide, excessive fertiliser etc to make farming sustainable.
smunima@yahoo.com
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