{"id":217517,"date":"2022-12-07T20:19:40","date_gmt":"2022-12-07T14:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=217517"},"modified":"2022-12-07T20:20:54","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T14:50:54","slug":"the-gm-mustard-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-gm-mustard-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"The GM mustard debate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>: The post is based on an article\u00a0\u201c<strong>The GM mustard debate\u201d <\/strong>published in <strong>The Indian Express<\/strong>\u00a0on\u00a0<strong>7<sup>th<\/sup> December 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS 3 \u2013 Science and Technology<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance: <\/strong><strong>concerns associated with GM crops <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>News: <\/strong>The government had cleared the environmental release of a genetically modified (GM) variety of mustard, <strong>DMH-11<\/strong>, recently which has been opposed by the activists and the matter has reached the court.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Why is the government trying to release GM mustard?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>There has been a significant <strong>rise in the import bills<\/strong> of the edible oils which has led to a shoot up in the price of edible oils causing a <strong>food security issue<\/strong> in India.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, the government is trying to reduce the dependence on other countries and save its forex reserves.<\/p>\n<p>It has said that approving the GM mustard variety would not lead to opening of the gates for all other transgenic crops.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For example,<\/strong> there has been no progress in the case of <strong>Bt brinjal<\/strong> which has passed all the safety tests and regulatory processes.<\/p>\n<p>However, environmental activists and NGOs have opposed the efforts of the government.<\/p>\n<p>They question biosafety data and claim that it will harm human and soil health, cause environmental damage, and threaten the existence of other species, like honeybees.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>What are the arguments that favours GM crops?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Oppositions to GM crops rely on the <strong>precautionary principle<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>This principle argues that new innovations may have severe impacts on human or environmental health in the absence of scientific consensus and adequate information.<\/p>\n<p>However, simply relying on this principle does not hold true for GM crops.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GM crops have been under cultivation for almost three decades<\/strong> in different parts of the world. There is little evidence to justify the dangers that are being highlighted.<\/p>\n<p>Countries such as the United States and Canada, Brazil. South Africa, and India\u2019s neighbours like Pakistan, Myanmar and Bangladesh are already growing GM crops.<\/p>\n<p>Even in India, Bt cotton has been in cultivation for two decades and there has not been any such concerns with it.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, <strong>a certain portion of imported edible oils as well as some other crops are genetically modified varieties<\/strong> which have already been consumed by Indians without any harm.<\/p>\n<p>Further, as per the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences <strong>(NAAS)<\/strong>, arguments made against GM mustard are totally <strong>unscientific and fallacious<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The post is based on an article\u00a0\u201cThe GM mustard debate\u201d published in The Indian Express\u00a0on\u00a07th December 2022. Syllabus: GS 3 \u2013 Science and Technology Relevance: concerns associated with GM crops News: The government had cleared the environmental release of a genetically modified (GM) variety of mustard, DMH-11, recently which has been opposed by the&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-gm-mustard-debate\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The GM mustard debate<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10500],"class_list":["post-217517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1700685408},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}