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Genetic transformation of crop plants: Risks and opportunities for the rural poor

OAR@ICRISAT

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/2096/
http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/vol80.htm
 
Title Genetic transformation of crop plants: Risks and
opportunities for the rural poor
 
Creator Sharma, H C
Sharma, K K
Seetharama, N
Ortiz, R
 
Subject Genetics and Genomics
 
Description The world population is increasing at an alarming rate and is expected to increase from 6.5 billion at present to 7.5 billion by 2025. Most of this population lives in the rural areas in the developing countries where poverty, food insecurity and nutritional deficiencies are the major
problems. Low crop productivity, limited use of inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides and
losses due to biotic and abiotic stress factors are a major constraint to increase production and
productivity of crops. With the advent of genetic engineering, it has become possible to clone and
insert genes into the crop plants to confer resistance to insect pests and improve the nutritional
quality. Genetically transformed crops with Bacillus thuringiensis and herbicide resistance genes
have been deployed for cultivation in USA, Canada, China and Australia. However, very little has
been done to use this technology for improving crop production in the harsh environments of the
tropics, where the need for increasing food production is most urgent. However, there is a need to
follow the biosafety regulations and a better presentation of the results to the general public for a
rational deployment of the genetically transformed crops for improving the livelihoods of the rural poor.
 
Publisher Indian Academy of Sciences
 
Date 2001
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Rights —
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/2096/1/Genetic_transformation_of_crop_plants.pdf
Sharma, H C and Sharma, K K and Seetharama, N and Ortiz, R (2001) Genetic transformation of crop plants: Risks and opportunities for the rural poor. Current Science, 80 (12). pp. 1495-1508. ISSN 0011-3891