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The Rediff Business Interview / Dr M S Swaminathan

'Technology should be like a cafeteria. But terminator tech is like putting a virus into a computer software'

News about terminator technology may have become a regular feature in the Indian media in the last couple of months, but Dr M S Swaminathan, father of the green revolution in India, sensed this way back in March. That is when he alerted the department of biotechnology and the Indian Council for Agricultural Research about the perceived threat to Indian agriculture. But the ongoing furore over Monsanto's field trials is unnecessary, he told Shobha Warrier in Madras.

I understand that in the terminator technology seeds are 'sterilised' by introducing a certain type of gene. In sterilising the seeds, are there any advantages, like increase in productivity of the plant, other than those that help the seed producers?

The purpose of developing a methodology for what they call genetic control over seed, is mainly to ensure that F1 hybrids are pure and that every year you have to buy the seed. In any case, if I grow hybrid maize or hybrid pearl mallet or any hybrid, I have to sow fresh seed every year. I cannot keep the seed of the same plant. If I keep the seed of the same plant, yield will be much less and there will be a wide variation in the field, like maturity period, quality and so on.

Now this mechanism makes it sure that you can't just keep the seed but you will have to buy fresh seed every year. So, for those who are growing hybrids, this mechanism may be helpful to ensure that they get pure, quality seeds.

Is productivity higher in hybrids?

Yes, productivity of hybrid is higher. That is the reason why you cross two parents. The hybrid gives more yield than either of the parents. We call it hybrid vigour, technically heterosis. The vigour may be 20 per cent more than the parent. Suppose you have two parents, one producing four tonnes and another producing three tonnes, the hybrid will produce five tonnes, more than the parents.

Hybrids have become an important method for improving productivity or yield in many crops including the self-pollinated crop like rice. Formerly we could not produce a hybrid for rice but the Chinese discovered about 25 years ago what you call a male sterile line in Hunan island which led to the development of hybrid rice. So, for the last 25 years, hybrid rice has been used extensively.

The terminator technology will ensure that, first you buy the same seed every year from the same company. So, a commercial company will have double interests. One is to ensure that farmers are growing hybrids. The other interest is that they will buy from the company every year.

You said this technology would affect our food security. Why? Is it because after the harvest, our farmers keep some seeds for the next year, as they cannot afford to buy fresh seeds every year?

I have taken the view that this particular technology may be very relevant to a country like the United States or Australia.

The developed countries?

No, not all developed countries. For example, in Japan, they have small farms. This is important for large farms where you cultivate in thousand acres, 400 hectares, etc.

Why is it relevant only in large farms?

Because they do not have to worry about seeds not being pure, about cross-pollination, etc. So, it may be used in a country where there are large-scale farmers who are always buying seeds from the company. They are not seed savers but seed buyers. You can classify farmers into two major groups. One who saves seeds for the next crop and the other who purchases seeds from the market. Most of the commercial farmers like the US farmers are people who purchase seeds.

Do all the farmers of the developing countries save seeds for the next season?

In the developing countries also, farmers buy seeds. It is not a question of developed or developing. It is the question of the farmer's choice. If he doesn't want to be bothered about making seed selection, keeping seeds, etc, he buys seeds from a company. In our country, only 20 per cent of the seeds are purchased from the market. Eighty 80 per cent are kept by the farmers themselves.

Is it not true that they will have to spend more on seeds if they want to buy seeds from the market?

Yes, you have to spend more, but a farmer will spend more if the return is more. See, a farmer is a good economist who knows cost-risk and return-structure of farming. If he can earn a thousand rupees more by spending a hundred rupees more, he will spend.

Then, why do you say that farmers of the developing countries will be affected if this technology arrives on the scene?

A poor farmer is a farmer who has no access to resources. There will not be any water in his field. They are dry farmers. In our country, only 40 per cent of the land is under irrigation. Sixty per cent is rain-fed. The land holding may be small for the poor farmer. He or she cannot take risks. They borrow money from the money-lender to buy inputs at very high rates. Suppose a cyclone comes or a drought, or a flood, he doesn't have any crop insurance worth the name. He has borrowed money, but how does he repay it? That is why some of the frustrated farmers are committing suicide. So, we have to have a technology, which is appropriate to the resource-poor, small farmers.

I always say, technology should be like a cafeteria. In a cafeteria, you can eat for 10 dollars, you can also eat for one dollar...it all depends upon how much money you have and what you want to eat. Similarly, technology options must be several. The rich and large farmer may opt for a certain technology but the poorer people may prefer to have a more risk-free technology. They adopt risk aversion strategies and not profit-maximising strategies.

While a rich farmer may go for profit-maximising strategies, a poor farmer may go for a risk-averse agronomy. Therefore, you will have to develop a technological package relevant to the socio-economic and socio-cultural conditions of the farming situations.

Then, why do people condemn a technology, which would increase productivity? Should we not allow those who can afford to buy it?

They can certainly buy. But in this particular technology, there are other problems too. For example, the seed sterility mechanism can go to unintended targets.

Unintended target means...

That means it can go to another crop.

By pollination?

Yes, by pollination. You might have developed it in hybrid maize but it may go to rice, wheat, or some other plant. There is a very remote possibility but the possibility is there.

Then the other crop also may become sterile.

Yes, they also become sterile. In this particular technology, there is also a need to dip the seeds in tetracycline. The tetracycline dipping is not good because when you soak a lot of soil in tetracycline, the earthworms in the soil may die, the micro organisms in the soil may die, the soil fertility may go down and soil may become more sterilised. So, it is not a good methodology.

In this technology, something, some toxin is introduced which kills the embryo. You can't now raise the crop from the seed because you are raising it only for the grain. So, what will be the long-term impact? Until we make further studies, we do not know what the long-term nutritional impact may be.

So, there are several problems related to this technology. One of the socio-economic problems is the relevance of the technology. The second is the risk involved in terms of transfer of the technology to unintended targets. Thirdly, the risk involved to human health from the accumulation of the toxins in the body. Fourthly, the problem of the soil micro-organisms getting damaged. Even the US may not accept technologies that can spoil soil health.

How will it affect the food security of our country?

Food security is, helping the poor farmers to produce more. They are seed savers. They cannot afford to buy these proprietary seeds where some people hold patent rights. It is not relevant to us today.

You called it a killer technology. Is it because it sterilises the seeds?

Yes, it kills the embryo. People call it a killer technology, a terminator technology, etc.

Monsanto has put in a public interest notice in the papers recently in which they call it gene protection technology. They also say that it is the opponents of biotechnology who call it a terminator technology.

That is what they say. For their own protection! For their own proprietary protection! In some of the computer software, they put some virus. This is something like that.

They have also written that the patent by Delta & Pine Land along with the US department of agriculture is only conceptual and this technology currently does not exist in reality and it would take years to develop it. Is it true?

Yes, what they said is true. It is only a process patent and it is only in the conceptual stage and not a finished product.

The Monsanto issue has created furore even in the Rajya Sabha. People, including politicians, say that Monsanto has used terminator technology in the trial areas in India but their advertisement says that it is only a technology controlling Bollworms.

What they say is correct. Bollgard cotton technology is very different, it is to control Bollworms, a cotton pest. Monsanto is very correct there. I do not know why people suspect that Bollgard may contain terminator technology. It is good that they have issued such a statement.

What about 'Verminator technology'? Is it different from terminator technology?

Verminator technology is a technology similar to the terminator technology but developed in Europe. It is also a chemically activated seed killer. You use tetracycline in terminator technology but in Verminator technology, embryo is destroyed by switching on rodent fat genes that have been bio-engineered into crops. The final impact is the same, the embryo is aborted in both the cases. Both these technologies ensure that farmers buy seeds every year.

One thing I will say, we must not become anti-science. It will only put us backward. So, you must have the power to discriminate, analyse to find what is good for us. We must not say, bio-technology is good or bio-technology is bad. There is nothing like that. Anything may be good or bad, depending on how you use it. That is when ethical considerations come in. I always said, you need three kinds of mechanisms -- bio-surveillance, bio-ethics and bio-safety. If you put all these mechanisms, you can use these technologies safely. Do you know we were the first one to develop hybrid cotton in the world?

Photographs: Sreeram Selvaraj

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