Biotech crops can help to meet food challenges in future: experts

The introduction of new biotechnology crops in Pakistan can help to meet the food challenges in future and ensure a consistent and quality food supply to future generations, resolving problems of farmers and consumers.
Experts associated with the biotechnology told Business Recorder here on Wednesday that in its sixth year of commercialization, Pakistan achieved a near optimal adoption of insect resistant biotech cotton varieties. In 2015, Pakistan increased the adoption to 2.9 million hectares equivalent to 93 per cent of a total of 3.12 million hectares of cotton. Commercialization of another crop ie biotech corn has also been granted by the National Biosafety Committee. There are number of other crops which are under trialing phase and soon will be applied for commercialization.
Biotech crops certainly are the future with their immense benefits and adaptive nature. All stakeholders, eg, farmers, food producers, consumers the food manufacturing industry has been catered with biotech crops. Biotech crops also have the solution for mitigating the climate change effects. Ever since their introduction biotech crops have helped to increase the productivity and meet the food and feed shortages. With the time this technology is also growing with multiple dimensions. The first generation biotech crops catered farmers and food producers to increase yield and resist biotic stresses. The second-generation biotech crops included stacking IR/HT traits and those traits that can help mitigate the effects of climate change. The third generation of biotech crops will include ones that will cater to consumers and the food and manufacturing industry.
FAO stated that the world produces enough food to feed everyone on the planet, but nearly 800 million people around the world suffer from hunger because approximately 1.3 trillion tons of food per year is lost or wasted. Currently, there are biotech crops developed and adopted by growers that can help reduce food waste and environmental impact. For example, biotech crops designed with non-browning and non-bruising traits become available and greatly eliminate losses due to wastage.
They said that the biotech crops in the pipeline in some public sector research institutes are also geared towards yield and biomass improvement, disease resistance and improved nutrition and product quality. This indicates that both public and industry technology developers are addressing a broader and wider needs of both farmers and consumers.
While rest of the world is moving quickly to adopt new technologies and reap their benefits we have been struggling to adopt them here. Recently, Pakistan has strengthened the legislation of the seed sector by enacting the Seed (Amendment) Act 2015. It amended the provisions of the Seed Act, 1976 aimed at strengthening the regulation of the supply of quality seeds by public and private sector in Pakistan. This amendment sets a new framework to register genetically modified plant varieties under the Federal Seed Certification and Registration Dept of the Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MONFS&R). There is still more to be done by the government to bring the products to market by implementation of Plant Breeders' Right Act, developing new regulatory framework for food and feed/import approvals of biotech products in country, strengthening its regulatory review mechanism.