Are transgenic plants suitable for increasing population?
By Dr Susheel Verma The human population is increasing with every passing day. It was 1.6 billion at the beginning of the century, increased to 6 billion today and estimated to reach 8.3 billion by 2025. The most pressing need before the world is to meet the food requirement of such a ballooning population, otherwise the much speculated doom’s day will be engulfing us shortly. If we look at statistics, India’s population is growing at a rate of 1.8 percent per year. It crossed one billionth mark in the year 2000 and is projected to reach 1.6 billion by the middle of century. To meet the food requirement of our population, food grain production of about 243 million tonnes is required by the year 2006-07. The goal of meeting the food requirement of such a huge population appears gigantic. What should be done and how it should be done are the real questions bothering both the policy makers and scientific community. One of the solutions, scientists agree globally, is biotechnological inter
