Editing a Seed Is Not Enough: Why CRISPR Can End Dependence but Not the Need for Indian Field Trials

Editing a Gene Versus Importing One

Here's what's actually happening underneath the slogans. There are two very different ways to change a crop's DNA and Richard Roberts' argument works for one of them far better than the other. Transgenic modification inserts a gene from another species.

Bt cotton carries bacterial genes that produce proteins toxic to the bollworm. It is like pasting a paragraph from another book into the text. Genome editing with CRISPR-Cas9 changes the plant's own DNA. A guide RNA leads the Cas9 enzyme to a precise spot, where it cuts and the plant's repair process makes a small change.

It is closer to correcting a typo in the existing text. The analogy has limits. A small edit can still change how a plant behaves and edits can occasionally land in the wrong place. But the basic difference holds: one method brings in foreign DNA, the other does not.

Why Roberts Is Right About Ownership

India's regulators already treat these two methods differently. In March 2022, the Environment Ministry exempted SDN-1 and SDN-2 genome-edited plants, those without foreign DNA, from the strict Rules 7-11 of the Environment Protection Rules, 1989, which govern GM crops.

The Department of Biotechnology issued guidelines and in May 2025 ICAR released India's first two genome-edited rice varieties, developed for disease resistance and higher yield. That is Roberts' point in practice. Editing is cheap and quick to learn; he estimated six to eight weeks in a laboratory.

It is being done by Indian public institutions, so the fear of depending on companies like Monsanto, now part of Bayer, carries less weight here. One caveat remains: the foundational CRISPR-Cas9 patents are still disputed between US institutions, so commercial licensing questions are not fully settled.

Why Transgenic Crops Remain Stuck

Transgenic crops are a different story. Bt cotton has been India's only approved GM crop since 2002 and pink bollworm has since developed resistance to its Cry1Ac and Cry2Ab proteins. Bt brinjal has been under a moratorium since 2010.

GM mustard DMH-11, developed at Delhi University, was cleared by the GEAC in October 2022, but its release stalled; in July 2024 the Supreme Court gave a split verdict and asked the Centre to frame a national policy on GM crops.

That policy has not been finalised. Critics such as Kavitha Kuruganti of the Coalition for a GM-Free India argue that the developers' own data does not support GM mustard's yield claims.

The Gap Roberts Avoided

When asked whether Golden Rice could disrupt Indian farming systems, Roberts said he was not an agriculture expert. That gap matters. Golden Rice was engineered in 1999 to make a vitamin A precursor in the grain. In 2017, Indian researchers reported that transferring one Golden Rice event into the popular variety Swarna produced stunted, low-yielding plants unsuitable for farming, despite high provitamin A levels.

The lesson is that laboratory skill is not the same as a crop farmers can grow. Real self-reliance in agricultural biotechnology needs Indian field trials in Indian varieties, not only Indian laboratories. For the exam, the insight is that the GM debate has two tracks and India is moving forward on gene editing because it has separated that track from the regulatory deadlock over transgenic crops.