genetically modified crops and food security by abhishek kr. tiwari & dr. vinita kacher

Upload: dr-pk-pandey

Post on 07-Apr-2018

215 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

  • 8/6/2019 Genetically Modified Crops and Food Security by Abhishek Kr. Tiwari & Dr. Vinita Kacher

    1/7

    The Legal Analyst

    ISSN: 2231-5594

    Volume 1, 2011, pp.111- 117

    GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS AND FOOD SECURITYAbhishek Kr. Tiwari* & Dr. Vinita Kacher**

    Abstract:In the whole world population is increasing with a fast ratio but food production is not increasing equalto that ratio ultimately there is the problem of food security. The application of modern biotechnology to the food

    production presents opportunity and challenges for the human health. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are

    organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally. The

    technology used to do this-genetic modification-allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one

    organism into another, either from the same species or from a non-related species. In this paper authors want to

    understand the concept of food security, global crisis in food, use of GM Technology for production of food ,

    controversies arising out of use of these technologies. Those in favor of GM crops often claim that they have the

    potential to feed the world population. The example of Bt brinjal and Pro -Vitamin - A Golden Rice are discussed

    in this context. There is an attempt to find out whether GM crops are viable solution of food in security or not.

    Key Words: Food Security, Genetically Modified Crops, Agriculture.

    Introduction:

    Food has played a critical role in history. Archeological evidences suggest that many, perhaps most,ancient civilizations disappeared as a result of losing the ability to feed them. The most common reasonscited for this disaster are climate and ecological changes, combined with over population. In the wholeworld population is increasing with a fast ratio but food production is not increasing equal to that ratioultimately there is the problem of food security. The application of modern biotechnology to the foodproduction presents opportunity and challenges for the human health. New genetically modified1technologies are introduced with a promise of solution to increased food production, reduction inenvironmental degradation and promotion of sustainable development. However, besides raising variousenvironmental, ethical and social concerns, today, GM technologies are being promoted by a handful ofmultinational business corporations, who are privatizing the worlds food chain and protecting theirinvestments by using intellectual property rights.Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been

    altered in a way that does not occur naturally2

    . The technology used to do this-genetic modification3

    -allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one organism into another, either from the samespecies or from a non-related species.In this paper authors want understand the concept of food security, global crisis in food, use of GMTechnology for production of food, controversies arising out of use of these technologies. There is anattempt to examine the phenomenon of food security in the context of GM crops. There is problem offood insecurity at worldwide level. Those in favor of GM crops often claim that they have the potential tofeed the world population. The example of Bt brinjal and Pro -Vitamin - A Golden Rice are discussed inthis context. There is an attempt to find out whether GM crops are viable solution of food in security ornot.What is Food Security? Food security remains an overwhelming concern for developing countries eventhough some countries classified as developing countries have virtually eradicated hunger. As often

    acknowledged, food security is a function of availability; access and distribution of food.

    4

    A number ofother links are also relevant such as the links between food security, property rights, agriculture andenvironmental management. Food security can be understood at different levels, from the household to

    * Research Scholar, Faculty of Law, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, INDIA.

    ** Senior Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, INDIA.1 Hereinafter referred as GM2Naturally meaning by mating or natural recombination3Sometimes also called recombinant DNA technology or genetic engineering 4 Mahbu-bul-Haq,Human Development in South Asia 2002Agriculture and Rural Development, 98 (2003)

  • 8/6/2019 Genetically Modified Crops and Food Security by Abhishek Kr. Tiwari & Dr. Vinita Kacher

    2/7

    112 THE LEGAL ANALYST [Vol. I______________________________________________________________________________ the international level. While the overall availability of food at a global level is not a major concern atpresent. Food availability in specific regions of the world and access to food by specific individualsremains a major concern in most parts of the South 5 . Further, population growth in countries whereundernourishment is already a problem and diminishing arable land availability make food insecurity oneof the most important policy challenges of coming years.The concept of food security has been defined in various ways. In the 1970s, food security was used torefer to the availability of food stuff in sufficient quantity at a global level. During the course of 1980sand 1990s, academics and NGOs pointed out the inadequacy of food security approaches rooted inpromoting global production levels and countries access to world markets for food alone. Theyemphasized instead that food security approaches should guarantee livelihoods which would generatesufficient food at the household level.One of the most commonly accepted definitions of food security is:

    Adequate access to food at all times, throughout the year to year. Access is ensured when allhouseholds and all individuals within those household have sufficient resources to obtain appropriate

    foods for a nutritious diet. It is dependent on the level of household resource capital, labour, and

    knowledge and on prices.6

    At the 1996 Rome World Food Summit (WFS), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)produced a new definition. The FAO definition of food security is;

    Food that is available at all times, that all persons have means of access to it, that it is nutritionallyadequate in terms of quantity, quality and variety and it is acceptable within the culture .

    7Although this definition tried to remedy earlier deficiencies, it is by no means universally accepted. Thebiotechnology industry, in common with World Bank, WTO and IMF studies, continue to use the termfood security largely to denote increased global production of food.It is within this context that Sri M. S. Swaminathan has proposed a comprehensive definition of foodsecurity in preparation for the 1996 World Food Summit:

    Policies and technologies for sustainable food security should ensure: That every individual has the

    physical, economic, social and environmental access to a balanced diet that includes the necessary

    macro- and micro-nutrients, safe drinking water, sanitation, environmental hygiene, primary health

    care, and education so as to lead a healthy and productive life. That food originates from efficientand environmentally benign production technologies that conserve and enhance the natural resource

    base of crops, animal husbandry, and forestry, inland and marine fisheries. 8

    Swaminathans definition captures both the complexity and the multi-dimensionality of food securitywith particular regard to environmental constraints and preservation of ecosystems. Keeping in mind thatthe majority of developing countries rely on smallholder farms and that hunger is caused by poverty,inequality and lack of access to food and to land, allows us to scrutinise the promises of agro-chemicalindustries.Global Food Crisis : The worlds population continues to grow even as available farmland shrinks. Thereis an urgent need for sustainable practices in world agriculture if the demands of an expanding worldpopulation are to be met without destroying the environment or natural resource base. Humans face thechallenge of producing enough food to meet the demands imposed by several biological and agriculturalfactors as:

    Rising population;

    Rising income, and an expectation of a higher quality, more divers diet;

    5Carl F. Jordan, Genetic Engineering, the Farm Crisis and Wor ld Hunger.Bioscience 523, 526 (2002)6 T. K .Chandrabhanu and Vasudev Bhatnagar, Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, Vol. 10, 2009, at1487 See: Farhana Amin, Globlisation and the international Governance of modern Biotechnology IPRs Biotechnology and FoodSecurity. Research Paper of Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD), available athttp://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&ei=oB3oSfWEOIuP_QbGiM j7Aw&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=1&q=Farhana+Yamin+Iprs+food+security+and+biotechnology&spell=1(Accessed on 10/9/2010)8 M. S. Swaminathan, From Rio de Janeiro to Johannesburg: Action Today and Not Promises for Tomorrow, 21 ( 2002)

  • 8/6/2019 Genetically Modified Crops and Food Security by Abhishek Kr. Tiwari & Dr. Vinita Kacher

    3/7

    2011] GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS 113______________________________________________________________________________

    Decreasing amount of land available for food production;

    Decreasing use of synthetic pesticides;

    Preservation of biodiversity.These factors have put a problem/ challenge before the developing countries to increase and improve thefood supply. Promoters of GM technology say that GM technology coupled with important developmentsin other areas, has the potential to increase the production of food, improve the efficiency of production

    and the nutritional quality of foods, reduce the environmental impact of traditional agriculture, and withcooperative efforts, provide access to this technology for small-scale farmers.Global food prices have witnessed an unprecedented surge in recent times the increase in prices whichinitially started with corn and wheat, has now engulfed all cereals, vegetable oil meat, milk and mostfruits and vegetables. The food price index (base 2005=100) of the International Monetary Fund, whichcovers a large number of food items, reached 170 in march 2008; the highest value of the index in the pastquarter century was 143 in November 1980. The rise in prices has been much higher for staple foods.Wheat, rice, and maize prices in international markets in the first quarter of year 2008 were 107 %, 71 %and 29 % higher, respectively, as compared to the previous year, and this came on top of substantial

    jumps in 2007.9 Hike in the prices of different food items like cereals, wheat, rice sugar, and vegetablesespecially onion and tomato in India in the year 2010-11 10 has made them out of the hands of poor.Food security at an individual level implies that people must either have a sufficient income to purchase

    food or the capacity to feed them directly by growing their own food. There is therefore a direct linkbetween poverty and food security 11 . More specifically, food security is influenced by individualscapacity to work, individual and household access to land and their control over the land and otherproductive assets, including seeds. Further, food security is also influenced by policies concerning themanagement of the environment in general and agricultural biodivers ity specifically. D iversity constitutesfrom an environmental point of view one of the ways in which resilience of agricultural systems can beensured while from a socio-economic point of view, agro-biodiversity constitutes to a large extent one ofthe basic productive assets of poor farmers.In the light of above discussion it can be said that the global food crisis is a challenge for the whole world.In this context proponent of GM crops came with a promise that is to attain food security by the help ofGM crops.The argument of GM Proponents: GM crops will feed the worlds growing population

    Those in favour of genetically modified (GM) crops often claim that they have the potential to feed theworld. One of the major debates with regard to food security today is the contribution that agro-biotechnology can make to meeting the food needs of the worlds population. This happens in a contextwhere it is expected that most of the increase in food production will continue to come from furtherintensification of crop production where part of this increase will come in the form of higher yields andpart in the increase of multiple cropping and reduced fallow periods 12. It is hoped that transgenic plantvarieties can contribute to at least part of this food production increase. In practice, the impacts oftransgenic plant varieties on agricultural management are partly similar to the impacts of GreenRevolution varieties. The main differences are concerns over environmental safety on the one hand andthe impacts of the close link between agro-biotechnology and IPRs.The policy challenges concerning food security are immense. Guaranteeing access to food for eachindividual around the world today and in the future requires measures to create wealth in poor

    communities, measures to enhance poor farmers control over their land and productive assets, measures to conserve the natural resource base while increasing either agricultural productivity or arable landavailability and measures to ensure effective distribution of existing food supplies.

    9Economic & Political Weekly, April 26, (2008) at510The Times of India, January 8,201111Supra note 212 The FAO estimates that 80% of crop production increases will come from this intensification of crop production. The 20%remaining will be initiated the expansion of arable land. See FAO, World AgricultureTowards 2015/2030 (2003)

  • 8/6/2019 Genetically Modified Crops and Food Security by Abhishek Kr. Tiwari & Dr. Vinita Kacher

    4/7

    114 THE LEGAL ANALYST [Vol. I______________________________________________________________________________ The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that food output must increase by 60 percentover the next 25 years to keep up with demand. In a report on the bioengineering of crops written for theWorld Bank and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in October2007, a group led by Henry Kendall, chair of the Washington DC-based Union of Concerned Scientists,said that transgenic crops could improve food yields by up to 25 percent in developing countries andcould help to feed an estimated additional three billion people over the next 30 years.13With over 800 million hungry peoples over the world, proponents of GM crops advocate that GM seedsand crops will end world hunger and bring about food security by increasing agricultural yields andimproving nutrition. It is also claimed that GM crops will contribute to sustainable food production andhelp preserve the environment. However, these claims have been greatly crit icized. In this context thestatement of Mr. C. R. Bhatia, a renowned geneticist and p lant breeder in India is considerable;

    "The use of Biotechnology in agriculture has revealed that GM crops help enhanced food production

    and also offer food security and sustainability. Many countries have adopted Bt crops and are

    successful in achieving their food requirement."14Dr Clive James, founder chairman of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotechApplications (ISAAA), is of the view that:

    The use of biotechnology in agriculture had delivered a significant increase in food production with

    no harm to the environment. Today, many African countries are fighting for food and about 10

    million out of 35 million population in Kenya are suffering from poverty due to drought and famine.

    The drastic climatic change in Asian countries, particularly in India, may create a similar

    situation."15

    Although the GM crops related to staple food are very few but some crops are golden rice and Bt brinjal.Pro-vitamin A golden rice: Lack of essential vitamins and minerals causes as many problems as lackof protein or calories. The biotech industry promises solutions to these problems with crops modified tocontain vitamins and minerals. The most highly publicized of these GM crops is golden rice. As theacceptable face of GM, it is used to persuade consumers of the benefits GM can bring, even though it isstill only at the research stage. Golden Rice, as a second generation transgenic, is a pioneering step in theuse of agri-biotech to produce a significant impact at the consumer level, more specifically in developingcountries. Thousands of children die every year of vitamin A deficiency. Scientists have engineeredgenetic material into rice to make it rich in beta-carotene, which is converted in the body to vitamin A.However, to reach the recommended intake of vitamin from this GM rice, 9Kg of cooked rice would haveto be eaten every day. Developments such as golden rice fail to address real poverty issues such as the

    lack of a varied diet which contributes to malnutrition. They also distract from more accessible andaffordable approaches advocated by the World Health Organisation such as promoting breastfeeding,food fortification, and eating more fruit and vegetables.16 In Golden Rice, the successful engineering ofthe carotenoid biosynthetic pathway (i.e., genes) in the rice endosperm, with the subsequent expression ofpro-vitamin A (i.e., beta-carotene), represents a remarkable technological accomplishment. Specifically,this is due to the utter complexity of the carotenogenic pathway, as well as the interrelated nature of plantmetabolic systems 17 . Golden Rice has significant potential for the alleviation of chronic vitamin A

    13 Laura Spinney, Biotechnology in Crops: Issues for the Developing World available at http://www.actionbiotchnology.org(accessed on 10-07-2010)14 CR Bhatia, a renowned geneticist and plant breeder in India. Available athttp://www.fnbnews.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=24942&sectionid=1,(accessed on 15-09-2010)15See http://www.fnbnews.com/article/detnews.asp ?articleid=24942&sectionid=1, (accessed on 15-07-2010)16 http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/gm_crops_food_security.pdf 12-03-2009 (accessed on 15/09/2010)17 Gerhard Sandmann, Carotenoid Biosynthesis and Biotechnological Application , 385 Archives Biochemistry Biophysics 4(2001) as cited in Stanley P. Kowalski Intellectual Property Management And International Capacity Building, Pierce LawFaculty Scholarship Series available at ht tp://lsr.nellco.org/piercelaw/facseries/papers/7

  • 8/6/2019 Genetically Modified Crops and Food Security by Abhishek Kr. Tiwari & Dr. Vinita Kacher

    5/7

    2011] GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS 115______________________________________________________________________________ deficiency (VAD) throughout the developing world. VAD is a serious public health problem withworldwide estimates 52 of 100 to 200 million children affected.18In terms of major food crops, maize and Soya have been the targets of most genetic manipulation to date.Wheat and rice are a little more complicated, but GM versions of these already exist they are not farbehind. It is possible, therefore, that the maize- and soybean-growing areas of the world will see the firsteffects of the biotech revolution.

    19

    Genetically modified crops are now being farmed in 22 countries over a total area of 637.5 millionhectare and they are expanding fast, while their trading value is estimated at about $6 US billion (Bt 203billion) per year.20 Many genetically modified crops have already been sold in the market, includingsoybeans, corn, canola, cotton, potatoes and papaya. Developed countries like the United States, France,Australia, Canada, Spain and Germany, and developing countries like China, India, Argentina, thePhilippines, Indonesia and Brazil, have embraced GMO technology. Adding to the urgency of the GMOdebate are the already evident effects of global warming and climate change, including flooding, drought,rising sea levels and natural disasters that have resulted in failed crops and lower yields, which pose athreat to global food security. Many experts believe that the world, particularly poor developing countries,needs another Green Revolution and that GMO technology will enable that to happen.Criticism by Opponents of GM crops: The opponents of GM crops says that it is widely accepted thatthere are several reasons for food shortage and hunger in the third world and the production of food is

    only one of them. Increasing the amount of food on the planet will not necessarily solve the food crisisfaced by millions; in fact it oversimplifies the causes of hunger and starvation in the third world. Escobarattacks this notion of development, which he sees as supported by western governments and prompted byinternational aid agencies, arguing that such efforts fundamentally and purposefully misidentified thesource of the problems in underdeveloped countries in order to enhance their own interest.21Since the 1980s, biotechnology companies have promised that genetic engineering would produce cropsthat deliver higher yields. No such crops have ever been produced, but as fossils fuel supplies dwindleand food prices rise, the belief that higher yielding GM Crops could solve both our fuel and foodproblems has get momentum and prominence among policy makers government officials and media 22. Inthis context the statement given by Dr. David Ehrenfield23 seems appropriate;"Genetic Engineering is often justified as a human technology, one that feeds more people with betterfood. Nothing could be further from the truth. With very few exceptions, the whole point of genetic

    engineering is to increase sales of chemicals and bio-engineered products to dependent farmers."

    According to FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations), the five largest plantbiotechnology companies are all large multinational corporations with important interests in agro-chemical sales: DuPont, ICI, Monsanto, Sandoz and Ciba-Geigy.24 These TNCs propagating GM seedsare pushing developing and poor developing countries to a monoculture environment of agriculture.This makes them susceptible to pests and diseases as well as has implications on biodiversity. Forexample in India there are over fifty thousand varieties of rice, so if some are attacked by pests, the otherswill survive. Multinationals have also concentrated on high profit crops and not the needs of poorcountries. So this rubbishes claims that they are conducting research for solving the worlds foodproblems. Also focus has been on herbicide resistance rather than on drought resistance; this is to ensurethat TNCs also make forays into the pesticide and fertiliser markets.

    18 Stanley P. Kowalski, Intellectual Property Management And International Capacity Building, Pierce Law Faculty ScholarshipSeries available at http://lsr.nellco.org/piercelaw/facseries/papers/719Supra note 9420 Let rationality decide GMO debate, The Nation, August 29, 2007 Wednesday available athttp://www.monsanto.co.th/showQAnswer.asp?qNo=838The Nation (Thailand) (accessed on 11-02-2009)21 See Arturo Escobar, Encountering DevelopmentThe Making and Unmaking of the Third World, as cited in Joel J. DSilva,

    GM Seeds Intellectual Property and the Coporat ization of food 34Ban. L. J., (2005). 2822The Ecologist, November (2008), at 1823 David Ehrenfield: Professor of Biology, Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA24 Magdalena Kropiwnicka, Biotechnology and food security in developing countries The case for strengthening internationalenvironmental regimes available at http://www.scienceandworldaffairs.org/PDFs/Kropiwnicka_Vol1.pdf

  • 8/6/2019 Genetically Modified Crops and Food Security by Abhishek Kr. Tiwari & Dr. Vinita Kacher

    6/7

    116 THE LEGAL ANALYST [Vol. I______________________________________________________________________________ GM seeds are targeted at large-scale commercial farmers growing cash crops in monocultures. This couldundermine food security by, wasting the scarce resources of poorer farmers in developing countriesbesides. Undermining their rights to use and save seeds. In addition, GM crops are known threats to other

    plants and insects. They can cross-pollinate with non-GM plants, endangering diverse original varieties,particularly in developing countries.

    25 The introduction of GM seeds and crops in developing countrieswill also have severe impacts on their economies. Besides leaving them open to be preyed upon by TNCsand other vested interests, they may be witnesses to upheavals in their labour markets as well as shiftfrom self-sufficiency to an exporting role.

    Reasons of Hunger: A birds e ye view: Hunger in many places is not due to shortage rather due to

    lack of access to food, wastage and distribution flaws, in most cases man made. The poor do nothave the money to buy food or in some cases are simply prevented from doing so. As pointed outby Amartya Sen, Starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat.

    It is not the characteristic of their being not enough food to eat. 26 A study conducted in India,the third largest food producer in the world shows that food and vegetables worth 350 billion

    rupees ($7.3bn) are wasted every year in India. The cause is the lack of food processing plantsand over 20% of the 601 million tons of food grain produced annually is eaten by rodents. This iswhile a third of the worlds 800 million hungry live in India. There are reports in regard to

    wastage of huge amounts of foodgrains rotting away in India27 at a time when high inflation andrising prices have made the lives of people, especially those below the poverty line, miserable.

    Although The Supreme Court of India has passed orders to give away food grains supposedlyrotting in warehouses to the poor. It may not be easy to implement the Court order in this case.But if wastage is inevitable due to poor storage facilities, distributing the food grains free of cost

    or at cheaper prices to the poor is a better option. It is true that the Supreme Court should not gointo the realm of policy formulation but the government should have ensured that food grains did

    not rot. It is the duty of the government to create and maintain adequate storage facilities so thatnot a grain is wasted.Though it is true that the Green Revolution was highly successful in initially increasing crop yields andaggregate food supplies, it has also been responsible for causing many environmental and socio-economic

    problems. By its promotion of the industrial farming model, favouring mostly export cash cropsproducing farms that have enough resources to purchase expensive chemical and mechanic inputs, theGreen Revolution has failed to address the issue of food access and contributed to the erosion of geneticvarieties in the food systems. The technological change introduced by the Green Revolution hasdiscriminated against small, sustenance-level production, contributing to the loss of food self-sufficiencyand agro-biodiversity at the local level among many areas of Asia, Latin America and Africa.The importance of the agricultural sector in developing countries as a source of food, employment,livelihoods and culture cannot be overstated. A productive and sustainable agricultural sector is critical toachieving poverty reduction and economic growth, and maintaining healthy communities. Worldwide,around 70% of the worlds poorest people live in rural areas and are dependent on agriculture for theirincome, food supply and livelihoods. For India, agriculture remains the backbone of the economy,contributing 21 per cent of GDP and employing 53 per cent of all male workers and 75 per cent of all

    female workers yet underinvestment in this sector is causing crises for farmers most tragicallyillustrated by an increasing spate of farmer suicides.28

    25 Stephen Nottingham,Eat Your GenesHow Genetically Modified Food is Entering Our Diet, at 160-164, (1998)26 Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines. at1. (1981)27The Hindu, September 08, 201028 UK Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Integrating Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy, Report ofthe Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Chapter 3, Agriculture and Genetic Resources, 2002, available atwww.iprcommission.org/papers/text/final_report /chapter3htmfinal.htm

  • 8/6/2019 Genetically Modified Crops and Food Security by Abhishek Kr. Tiwari & Dr. Vinita Kacher

    7/7

    2011] GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS 117______________________________________________________________________________ At present, the potential of modern biotechnology for food security in developing countries remains anopen question. Firstly, it appears that plant biotechnology research is only likely to benefit poor farmers ifit is applied to well defined social or economic objectives

    29 .To date, commercialised geneticallymodified crops have generally not focused on the needs of developing country agriculture. In fact, it isuncertain whether the large life-science companies that are responsible for most of the applied agro-biotechnology research thanks to the incentives provided by IPRs can ever be expected to focus their

    research efforts on plant varieties of specific interest to poor farmers and consumers in developingcountries. Secondly, the scale of overall benefits derived from the introduction of transgenic plantvarieties remains a matter of debate when agricultural and other factors, such as environmental and socio-economic factors are taken into account. Thirdly, according to projections showing an increase inagricultural trade in coming years, it is possible that further specialisation will occur whereby somedeveloping countries may be led to increase the production of non-food cash crops at the expense of basicfood crops. This may have significant implications for local and national food security in a context whereit is expected that the development of agro biotechnology may lead to further market concentration andwhere access to genetically modified seeds may be hampered by their higher cost.30

    Concluding Observation: At this juncture the author is agree with Magdalena Kropiwnicka thatthe present structure of the gene revolution based on profit rather than need -motivated

    deployment of seed products coupled with enforcement of IPRs and absence of a fullyimplemented regulatory and biosafety framework, could have a disastrous effect on thedeveloping countries food security31 . This is why it is necessary to conduct research thataddresses particular countries environmental and socio-economic circumstances as well as theneeds of the smallholder farmers. Furthermore, independent risk assessment of GMOs needs to

    be strengthened and national and international guidelines must be developed and supported onbiosafety and preservation of biodiversity. All this is necessary to assure that the new

    technologies will not have a negative effect on global food security.Thus, new technologies like GM seeds are not the solution to food security in developing countries. GMtechnologies have great scope and potential in the developing world, but to assert that they will solveworld hunger is rather farfetched At best they make a feeble attempt to address some of the symptoms ofhunger but not the stark causes of hunger. It is essential that these new technologies be incorporated into

    other strategies in order to tackle hunger and impoverishment.32

    Thus it is clear that scarcity in food production is not the only reason of food insecurity and TNCs are notresearching and developing GM crops for the eradication of food insecurity rather than for their profit.Present research in GM crops shows that research is done in the areas of cash crops like BT cotton andstaple food is not given required importance that is necessary for food security. There is a boasting thatgolden rice will do the miracle with enhanced vitamin A trait but that will not be in the reach of commonman.In authors opinion right approach to GM crops is one that is cautiously optimistic.

    We will need to find a way to increase food output in the future; More food will not be sufficient without addressing the political, economic and administrative

    issues; Research should be allowed and encouraged to continue to address safety and health concerns.

    29Charles Spillane, Agricultural Biotechnology and Developing Countries: Proprietary Knowledge and Diffusion of Benefits,in Timothy Swanson ed., Biotechnology, Agriculture and the Developing World The Distributional Implications ofTechnological Change 67, 72 (2002)30Supra note 10 at 322-32731Supra note 2232Supra note 25 at 29