Gene editing helping to create resilient, high-yield rice without foreign DNA: IARI

Guidelines for non-transgenic gene edited plants pending with GEAC since January 2020

The Indian Agricultural Research Institute may be one of the bodies tasked with investigating allegations that unauthorised genetically modified (GM) rice was exported to Europe, but the institute itself has moved its own rice research beyond this kind of GM technology using genes from another organism. Instead, the IARI is in the process of developing resilient and high-yield rice varieties using the gene editing techniques which won the 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and which have already been approved for export to many countries.

The IARI hopes to have such varieties in the hands of the Indian farmers by 2024. However, the proposal for Indian regulators to consider this technique as equivalent to conventional breeding methods, since it does not involve any introduction of foreign DNA, has been pending with the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee for almost two years.