Pashupat Vasmatkar

Prospects and Consequences of Transgenics in Agriculture: a Quick Review Pashupat Vasmatkar

Genetically modified organism (GMO) contains foreign gene introduced through recombinant DNA technology. The gene transferred is the transgene and the plant developed is referred as transgenic. The global area under transgenic crops has continued to grow during the last decade. As a result of the consistent and substantial benefits offered by transgenic crops, millions of large, small and resource-poor farmers around the world continued to plant significantly more hectares of transgenic crops. Accumulated hectarage from 1996 to 2010 exceeded 148 million hectares for the first time, signifying that transgenic crops are here to stay. Introduction of transgenic food into the existing food chain generated lot of apprehensions or possible negative consequences. These include allerginicity, toxicity, horizontal gene transfer and antibiotic resistance, consequences of eating of foreign DNA, viral promoters, changed nutrient levels and loss of biodiversity. So these GM crops requires more transparency in regulatory mechanisms that ensure it's biosafety.