Biotechnology and genetically modified crops

Biotechnology uses living organisms and their processes to make products, from medicines and vaccines to improved crops and industrial enzymes. The Department of Biotechnology was set up in 1986, and India's biotechnology industry is best known for vaccines, diagnostics and generic biologics, alongside agricultural applications. The field matters for civil studies because it sits at the meeting point of science, regulation, trade and public trust.

In agriculture, the best-known case is Bt cotton, a cotton variety carrying a gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis that protects the plant against bollworm pests. Bt cotton was approved for commercial cultivation in India in 2002, and its spread changed pest management and pesticide use in cotton-growing regions. Supporters credit it with reducing bollworm losses; critics point to seed prices, the emergence of resistant pests, and the fortunes of rain-fed farmers. The lesson often drawn is that a technology's effect depends on agronomy, prices and extension services, not on the gene alone.

Genetically modified mustard has been the most contested food-crop case. The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, the regulatory body for such proposals, has considered it, and the matter has also been the subject of court proceedings, so its regulatory status should be checked at the time of reading rather than assumed. The debate turns on yield claims, effects on honeybees and biodiversity, the adequacy of field-trial data, and who controls seed supply. It illustrates how scientific uncertainty and public values both enter a regulatory decision.

Beyond crops, biotechnology policy includes the BioE3 policy approved in 2024 to promote bio-manufacturing, using biological processes to make materials, chemicals and fuels with lower environmental impact. Regulation of genetically modified organisms involves the environment ministry, the appraisal committee and state governments, and for medicines, the drug regulator. This layered system is meant to separate scientific risk assessment from commercial promotion, though critics argue that the layers can also delay decisions or obscure accountability.

For examination answers, the safe approach is to separate three questions: what the science says about a specific product, what the regulatory process requires, and what the social and economic effects are for farmers, consumers and seed markets. Answers that collapse all three into a single verdict for or against biotechnology miss the distinctions that regulators actually have to make.