While Europe is cracking down hard on genetically modified (GM) food, the Indian government is busy removing the remaining barriers to its introduction. Wired Science talks about the economic complications surrounding GM foods. Specifically it talks about how you can’t get ‘tastier’ food by through artificial gene manipulation. It turns out that the Natural genetic modification that farmers have been doing down the centuries has achieved the desired result already, far better than a ‘quick-fix gene toggle’ could accomplish. Naturally, this is because ‘taste’ is a very subjective attribute, and it would be quite difficult to identify any one gene, or set of genes that controls the taste of a Tomato. However, GM is good for producing certain kinds of pest-resistants crops, which would help save the environment by limiting the use of pesticide, and also improve farmer incomes as they wouldn’t lose their crops to pests like the Jagadguru Fruit Fly. Higher crop yields means cheaper food in the long run, which means that low-income consumers would also benefit from this.
It is time for the Jagadguru to learn to read English, instead of trying to put a spin on an article. Trying to impose biases are meaningless and we can achieve better results with an objective, analytical, critical and independent mind. Hopefully, this education goes a long way in saving the lives of Jagadguru, Indian Farmers, and Indian consumers.
P.S. Artifical GM might even help turn on the ‘Intelligence’ gene in the Jagadguru. There’s got to be some scientific and economic merit in that
