Biologically engineered crops and pharmaceuticals are critical to the long-term economic and agricultural security of India, the science and technology minister said on Sunday.
While some nations like France may be wary of genetically modified food, India cannot afford not to invest in technologies that will boost production and can also serve to address the nutritional deficiencies of India's largely vegetarian population, Kapil Sibal said.
"We can't close our eyes to biotechnology for agriculture," he said at a biotechnology conference in Chicago.
"At the same time we cannot deviate from the goal of sustainable development in terms of environment and the basic interest of the farmer and consumer safety. So our approach is a case by case basis," he said.
Yields in India are significantly lower than in most other nations and the current production growth rate will have to triple if India will be able to feed its growing population.
Scientists are currently working on creating crops enriched with a significantly higher iron content that will allow the 70 percent of South Asians with iron deficiencies improve their hemoglobin counts.
India has been producing genetically modified cotton for three years now and 13 other crops -- including rice, chick peas, potatoes, cauliflower and eggplants -- ought to be approved in the near-term.
"We have to be very, very careful about safety standards," Sibal said. "We must ensure that the regulatory procedures are such that we don't damage our biodiversity and that in fact we make our biodiversity a source of innovation rather than destroy it."
In the health sector, India companies must invest in biotech research to find new treatments and cures for the "diseases of the poor" like malaria which are being ignored by large multinational corporations, Sibal said.
India aims to develop its life sciences industry in the same way it has developed its information technology industry.
This will create much-needed jobs but will also help drastically reduce the price of treatments because of India's low production costs. India already produces about half of the world's vaccines at just pennies a dose.
One area which India hopes to specialize in is genomics-based preventative medicine which will develop therapies tailored to subgroups said Maharaj Bhan, secretary of the department of biotechnology at the ministry of science and technology.
The Indian government has undertaken a number of measures to jump-start research and development, Bhan said.
It has revised its patent protections to meet global standards, has a goal of doubling the number of students entering life science PhD programs in the next two years and will open 50 centers of excellence over the next five years which will focus on cross-disciplinary research in the life sciences.
But more help is needed from abroad, Sibal said.
"It's very important for the scientific community to remember that yes they should make profits but they have to share knowledge," Sibal said. "Sometimes there is a clash between societal interests and proprietary interests and the world scientific community has to remember that," Sibal said.
Cutting prices in order to make products affordable to developing nations can ultimately result in profits, Sibal said.
A few weeks ago he met with Monsanto and convinced the agricultural product giant to cut its royalty fees by 30 percent on genetically modified cotton seeds.
That will help production of GM cotton to nearly triple to a forecasted 35 million hectares.
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