Contents - Faperta

15
Biosafety of Food from Genetically Modifi ed Crops
Introduction
The human population is expected to exceed 8 billion by 2025, and most of this increase
will occur in the developing countries. World food production capacity is quite substantial,
and yet millions of people are too poor to meet their basic need for food. Agriculture
is the primary interface between people and the environment and, therefore, agricultural
transformation will be essential to meet the global challenges of reducing poverty and
environmental pollution, and enhancing food security. Agricultural growth is central to
economic growth in developing countries, and very few low-income countries have
achieved rapid growth in nonagricultural sectors without a corresponding increase in
agricultural production. Socioeconomic transformation will have to occur at the level of
smallholder farmers so that their complex farming systems can be made more productive
and effi cient in resource use. The “Green Revolution” led to a rapid increase in food production
between the 1950s and the 1990s, but the total food production and per capita
availability of food have become almost stagnant for the past decade. Therefore, there is a
need to harness all the technologies, including biotechnology, for a sustainable growth in
agriculture for food security (Serageldin, 1999).
Because of the potential benefi ts of growing genetically modifi ed crops, their cultivation
has increased from 1.97 million hectares in 1996 to over 100 million hectares in 2006 (James,
2007). Large-scale planting of insect-resistant transgenic crops has resulted in a drastic
reduction in pesticide use and pesticide residues in food and food products (Conway, 2000;
NAS, 2000; Pray et al., 2001). However, the promise of genetically modifi ed crops for increasing
crop production has been dimmed by concerns related to their possible impact on
nontarget organisms and food biosafety (Williamson, Perrins, and Fitter, 1990; Miller and
Flamm, 1993; Sharma, Sharma, and Crouch, 2004). In developed countries, social and environmental
groups have raised a hue and cry about the real or conjectural issues related to
biosafety of transgenic crops, while in the developing countries, the caution has given rise
to fear because of lack of adequate information. In response to these concerns, biosafety
working groups have been formed by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the