GENETICALLY modified potatoes will play a key part in an ambitious 15-year plan to combat malnutrition among India鈥檚 poorest children. Anti-poverty campaigners have greeted the 鈥減rotato鈥� with cautious support.
The three-pronged attack on childhood mortality would aim to provide children with clean water, better food and vaccines. 鈥淶ero child mortality in underprivileged children would be the goal,鈥� says Govindarajan Padmanaban, a biochemist at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.
Formulated in collaboration with charities, scientists, government institutes and industry, the anti-hunger plan is under consideration by the Indian government. Meanwhile, the protein-rich GM potatoes are in the final stages of testing, prior to being submitted for approval.
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Padmanaban, who outlined the plan at a conference at the Royal Society in London last month, hopes Western-based environmental groups and charities will not demonise the project in the same way as they did AstraZeneca鈥檚 鈥済olden rice鈥�, a strain modified to make more vitamin A. 鈥淭he requirements of developing countries are very different from those of rich countries,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 think it would be morally indefensible to oppose it.鈥�
Asis Datta鈥檚 team at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi added the AmA1 gene to potatoes, with the result that they make a third more protein than usual, including substantial amounts of the essential amino acids lysine and methionine. AmA1 is a gene from the amaranth plant, a crop long grown by native South Americans and now available in some Western health food stores.
鈥淭he potato doesn鈥檛 contain a pesticide gene,鈥� says Padmanaban. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a gene that improves nutrition, and it鈥檚 from another plant that is already eaten. Moreover, it鈥檚 not a known allergen.鈥� That might help make it acceptable in India, where local activists oppose the recent licensing of Bt cotton 鈥� which carries a gene for a bacterial pesticide 鈥� on the grounds it is 鈥渦nnatural鈥�, and that it could kill beneficial insects.
The idea is that the potatoes will form part of a midday meal to redress deficiencies in children鈥檚 diets. A lack of lysine, for example, can affect brain development.
The potato should only be adopted if it passes all safety and environmental requirements, and if the extra protein is digestible, says Suman Sahai of Gene Campaign, a Delhi-based sustainable development group opposed to the patenting of plants. However, Sahai says the team鈥檚 goal is far more worthy than, say, creating crops resistant to a company鈥檚 own weedkiller.
鈥淚f you鈥檙e going to use GM at all, use it for this,鈥� she says. 鈥淚ndia鈥檚 problem is that we鈥檙e vegetarian, so pulses and legumes are the main protein source, but they鈥檙e in short supply and expensive. The potato is good because it鈥檚 cheap.鈥�
Siddharth Deva, policy adviser for south Asia for the British-based charity Oxfam, agrees that the potato could serve a useful purpose. But he calls for the government鈥檚 judgements on GM crops to be independently assessed by panels of experts, including environmentalists. 鈥淲e want to ensure that introductions of GM crops don鈥檛 have harmful implications,鈥� he says.
The potato isn鈥檛 the first protein-enriched crop. Strains of GM maize rich in lysine have already been created. It isn鈥檛 necessary to resort to genetic engineering, of course: bread and wheat flour can also be enriched in protein simply by adding, say, peanut flour. But this is costlier and none of the various schemes to provide such bread to malnourished children since the 1960s has survived, despite the benefits.
