The idea of growing foodgrains produced from genetically-spliced seeds is bound to attract the attention of any self-respecting green, consumer activist, and food-grain specialist. Essentially, biotech seeds are those modified by introducing or transplanting certain genes to either encourage the growth of certain features found to be desirable in the plant, or restrict those that have proved otherwise. The basic intention, say the companies responsible, is to encourage plant-productivity, increase resistance to pests and reduce dependence on pesticides. In short make the world a better place for all. Utopia that's grownin the backyard.

The Greens and Consumer Activists don't share that view. The basis for their objection to GM crops is two fold. One is the likelihood of the "Monarch-Butterfly Test" becoming reality, and the other is that since we are dealing with technological hi-jinx, the efforts at playing "God", if left to amateurs, could go terribly wrong. The "Monarch-Butterfly" test is a hypothetical scenario, which holds that a rare Monarch Butterfly in the course of its daily gluttony could ingest sufficient quantities of Pollen from GMOs, which could turn out to be poisonous.

While the author of the report himself points out that the conclusion is highly theoretical, and that it is far more likely that pesticides and insecticides will do the members of a Monarch Butterfly community "in: before anything else, this doesn't cut much ice with the Anti-GMO Brigade who fear that Butterflies may not be the only one's who could get affected.

This ties in well with the consumer activists argument that "consumers havea fundamental right to know what they eat". This sounds nice but doesn't mean much. Many of the plant varieties cultivated on a large scale today, didn't exist a century ago. They were developed through an extensive hybridisation process, trial and error and the results are better quality and more productive strains which have managed to feed most of the world's burgeoning population without much ill-effect. (Besides, it's also little difficult now to ascertain the effects of pollen from hybridised plants on the Monarch Butterfly race over the last 100 years.)

Consumer activists have also demanded that biotech products be labelled and segregated so that the consumer can have a choice in the market place. Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), the North American trading giant, earned brownie points with the EU and the Greens with its announcement recently that the Group would offer segregated products for sales.

The practical aspect of this is not hard to imagine. Other than creating a temporary caste-system forAgricultural produce and discriminating against the farmer (currently, GM Corn is offered at some elevators at a 15c/bu discount while GM soybeans once traded at 30c/bu discount to non-GMO, but for how long?), this move will achieve little else. It is virtually impossible to segregate the products right from the time it is harvested till its final consumption.

The chances of it getting coming led with non-biotech produce can occur either at the farm level at harvest, or at storage elevators, or during movement. To strictly demarcate and create a parallel logistics and storage system for GMOs may turn out to be too expensive and unviable. Again, the problem with cross-pollination is that there's nothing to prevent a non-biotech crop in one field from getting pollinated with a biotech-crop in a nearby one.

How then does one guarantee that labelling of non-GMO food will be 100 per cent correct?

Someone needs to tell that to the Europeans. In an apparent shot in the arm for the Greens and ConsumerActivists, the EU (and Japan) recently announced labelling requirements for GM products and all imports from GMO producing nations. Some countries, like the UK, have even gone a step further and banned GM imports totally, continuing evidence of the effects of the Mad-Cow disease on British Farm and Trade Policy.

The views of the EU need to be seen in the correct perspective. Rather than any effort to protect their consumers, this is an effort by the European governments who perceive (correctly) that their heavily subsidised farmers will need even more subsidies now to compete with cheaper American biotech crops.

At a time when 50 million acres of US farm land has been planted with GM crops, accounting for 50 per cent of US Soya crop and 35 per cent of the corn crop, the savings those farmers wll incur due to lesser crop damage and on the lesser use of pesticides and insecticides will be substantial. As if American farmers were not efficient enough already, now the European farmers will end up lookingdownright sloppy! (Further proof of the EU duplicity in this matter is the recent funding given to develop and sell a new biotech variety of Swiss Rice enriched with B-Carotene in substantial quantities to developing nations.)

The US/EU debate on GMOs, however, is now threatening to turn into a larger conflict of trade interests, which could impact world trade for some time to come. The US has accused EU lawmakers of "demagoguery" and claims that the recent rulings would cost US exports $200 million in lost corn sales alone. All eyes are on the Cairns Group Seattle in November.

In 1798, a UK clergyman called Thomas Malthus pointed out that while human population expands exponentially, food supply increases arithmetically - apparently leading to famine. For years new and improved technologies have managed to stave off this dismal prediction. However, in its latest Food Report, the FAO has declared that a food-emergency exists in 37 countries around the world. For these countries, and for India's percapita grain output in 1978, was 200 kg each. 20 years later, China boasts 300 kg per capita production (due to better farm practices brought on by liberalisation) while India's production still nudges 200 kg per capita. Importantly, both countries are now members of the "elite" one billion plus population club.

By 2050, the UN estimates that their populations will have increased by 50% over current figures. Also, by 2050 grain land per hectare in India, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Nigeria will have dwindled to less than one tenth of a hectare. Crop yields have already been undeniably hit by lack of new arable pastures, less irrigation and by diminishing use of additional fertilisers (which is currently growing at two per cent annually as against the six per cent annual growth witnessed between 1950 and 1990).

On this basis, perhaps farming with genetically modified seeds holds out some hope for preventing the Malthusian nightmare from becoming reality. But will the Human Race, in its quest to self-destruct,prevent scientists from producing seeds which can withstand Frost, Drought, and give higher productivity with a lower gestation period? At the end of the day, the entire issue of whether or not to use biotechnology boils down to the crucial issues regarding ethics and consumer awareness.

Realising this and to placate the opposition to biotech products - the leading biotech companies, Monsanto and AgrEvo, have joined hands to introduce a new licensing application procedure for GM crops to be applicable upon themselves. The new guidelines are said to contain an increased number of safeguards and to take into account the more stringent standards that the EU is now demanding. In any case biotech food regulations are always as tough, and in some cases, tougher than normal FDA regulations.

India has already seen substantial imports of wheat and sugar over the last two years, while rice exports fell over 50 per cent in 1998-99. There is already a belief in certain circles that India might become one of thelargest importers of Rice by 2005. We have already started importing tea, and corn looks a definite possibility in the new millenium. It needs to be realised that at the threshold of the new century we have to accept and encourage foodstuffs from seeds prepared in a lab to feed our millions. The halcyon days of platitudes to the Green Revolution and of focus on meeting production targets are over. The new era demands that we focus on consumption, and per capital food intake.

A country's prosperity is not judged by how much it produces, but by how much its citizens consume. Prudence also demands that a heightened awareness be created about the possibility and advantages of genetically engineered food forming part of the diet of the average Indian.

(The author is a trader in agro commodities at Adani Exports Ltd)