Other
The challenges of sustainable food production without damaging the environment for a growing human population have increased considerably. The current agricultural practices involving chemical fertilizers and even organic farming are not sustainable in the long run and can have deleterious effects on the environment. Thus, new, innovative solutions need to be identified and propagated for tackling this. Among such innovations, that can complement conventional as well as organic farming methods, are genetic modification (GM) and aquaculture. Yet, GM technologies often face resistance from civil groups owing to an ‘unknown’ fear, akin to Frankenstein’s monster. How real is this fear? Our discussion rests on basic questions like, why can’t ‘organics’ include GM
crops that do not require chemical inputs for cultivation, and can GM crops like Golden rice qualify to be ‘organic’ if cultivated through organic practices? Do we need to rethink organic agriculture in the context of the present and future challenges of 21st century?Amjad M. Husaini Genome Engineering Lab, Division of Plant Biotechnology, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and
Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar, IndiaMuhammad Sohail Department of Biochemistry, St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford, Oxford,
United KingdomSource:https://bit.ly/2SZdtxA
Courtesty:https://www.academia.edu
Copyright:© 2018 Husaini and Sohail. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use,distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use,distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.