Organically-grown genetically modified crops? Scientists unveil plan to bridge the ideological gap

Highlights

Sustainable farming on ever-shrinking agricultural land and declining water resources for the growing human population is one of the greatest environmental and food security challenges of the 21st century. Conventional, age-old organic farming practices alone, and foods based on costly cellular agriculture, do not have the potential to be upscaled to meet the food supply challenges for feeding large populations. Additionally, agricultural practices relying on chemical inputs have a well-documented detrimental impact on human health and the environment. As the available farming methods have reached their productivity limits, new approaches to agriculture, combining friendly, age-old farming practices with modern technologies that exclude chemical interventions, are necessary to address the food production challenges.

Growing genetically modified (GM) crops without [synthetic] chemical inputs can allow agricultural intensification with reduced adverse health and environmental impacts. Additionally, integrating high-value pleiotropic genes in their genetic improvement coupled with the use of modern agricultural technologies, like robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), will further improve productivity. Such ‘organic-GM’ crops will offer consumers healthy, agrochemical-free GM produce.

We believe these agricultural practices will lead to the beginning of a potentially new [synthetic] chemical-free GM agricultural revolution in the era of Agriculture 4.0 and help meet the targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Furthermore, given the advancement in the genome editing (GE) toolbox, we ought to develop a new category of ‘trait-reversible GM crops’ to avert the fears of those who believe in ecological damage by GM crops. Thus, in this article, we advocate farming with no or minimal chemical use by combining chemical-free organic farming with the existing biofortified and multiple stress-tolerant GM crops, while focusing on the development of novel ‘biofertilizer-responsive GE crops’ and ‘trait-reversible GE crops’ for the future.

[B]oth organic farming methods and GM crops have their advantages and limitations, but neither alone has the capacity to meet the future food demands without severe environmental damage. Here, we propose aggregating advantageous features of organic farming and GM crops to develop farming with no or minimal chemical use . We also propose incorporating other modern farming technologies into ‘organic GM farming’, such as AI-assisted robotics, to enhance farming efficiency ; for example, those developed for operations like weeding, eliminating the need for herbicide sprays.

GE crops would be biofertilizer-responsive and suitable for chemical-free agriculture, unlike the earlier chemical fertilizer-responsive varieties of the green revolution. There is a considerable potential of developing such GM crop varieties by expressing genes related to secondary metabolite biosynthesis for enhanced plant defense, and also, genes that can promote beneficial microbial associations in the rhizosphere.

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This can be achieved by presenting concrete scientific evidence of the benefits of GM produce to the public, quashing the decades-long negative propaganda, and lobbying of lawmakers. Only then would we be able to harness the benefits of a potentially new ‘agrochemical-free GM agricultural revolution’. Undoubtedly, such farming practices will increase productivity, they will also reduce land and air pollution, providing a cleaner and healthier environment for future generations.

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