The growth of the world population at the rate of 78 million people a year would need 640 square miles of farmland for their food needs, according to an estimate made by Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute, Washington. India will add another 500 million people(1), reaching the 1.6 billion mark by 2012. The tropical forests in the Amazon region, Congo and Indonesia are already bearing the brunt of deforestation, to give way to new farmland and timber for the growing human population.

The recent surge in production of biofuels from food crops in addition to the export bans and excess levies the world over, has heightened the food crisis. To resolve the food security problem for the population of 9 billion in the coming 50 years, it has been realized that agricultural research and genetic modification could provide the key to the situation.

The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) was formed in 2002, as a result of a conjuncture between biotech companies and the World Bank, to ascertain the status of genetically modified (GM) crops for the developing nations.

In 2005, the IAASTD had widened its interests from food production to encompass social justice and the environment(2). The assessment led to a contention as to whether GM crops are to be favoured or not. Controversies surrounding GM foods and crops mainly emphasize on human and environmental safety, intellectual property rights, ethics and environmental conservation among others.

Opponents of genetic engineering fear that the use of this technology outside laboratory environs carries potential threats to both farmed and wild ecosystems(3).

GM foods are produced from genetically modified organisms (GMO) that have had their DNA altered through genetic engineering. GM foods were first put on the market in the early 1990s. The most common modified foods are derived from plants: soybean, corn, canola and cotton-seed oil(4). Other GM crops include insect-protected maize and herbicidetolerant maize, cotton and rapeseed varieties3.