Cost-Effectiveness of “Golden Mustard” for Treating Vitamin A Deficiency in India

BACKGROUND: Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is an important nutritional problem in India, resulting in an increased risk of severe morbidity and mortality. Periodic, high-dose vitamin A supplementation is the WHO-recommended method to prevent VAD, since a single dose can compensate for reduced dietary intake or increased need over a period of several months. However, in India only 34 percent of targeted children currently receive the two doses per year, and new strategies are urgently needed. METHODOLOGY: Recent advancements in biotechnology permit alternative strategies for increasing the vitamin A content of common foods. Mustard (Brassica juncea), which is consumed widely in the form of oil by VAD populations, can be genetically modified to express high levels of beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A. Using estimates for consumption, we compare predicted costs and benefits of genetically modified (GM) fortification of mustard seed with high-dose vitamin A supplementation and industrial fortification of mustard oil during processing to alleviate VAD by calculating the avertable health burden in terms of disability-adjusted life years (DALY). PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We found that all three interventions potentially avert significant numbers of DALYs and deaths. Expanding vitamin A supplementation to all areas was the least costly intervention, at $23-$50 per DALY averted and $1,000-$6,100 per death averted, though cost-effectiveness varied with prevailing health subcenter coverage. GM fortification could avert 5 million-6 million more DALYs and 8,000-46,000 more deaths, mainly because it would benefit the entire population and not just children. However, the costs associated with GM fortification were nearly five times those of supplementation. Industrial fortification was dominated by both GM fortification and supplementation. The cost-effectiveness ratio of each intervention decreased with the prevalence of VAD and was sensitive to the efficacy rate of averted mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Although supplementation is the least costly intervention, our findings also indicate that GM fortification could reduce the VAD disease burden to a substantially greater degree because of its wider reach. Given the difficulties in expanding supplementation to areas without health subcenters, GM fortification of mustard seed is an attractive alternative, and further exploration of this technology is warranted

Prospects for Bt Cotton Technology in India

Cotton is a very important crop in India; farmers there face the challenge of losses due to various insect pests. The first genetically modified crop in India, Bt cotton, has been introduced to address bollworm infestation. The process of introduction of Bt cotton took six years of experimentation, during which time agronomic, environmental, and biosafety data was generated and reported. The trials conducted prior to commercialization clearly established the superior performance of Bt cotton, as demonstrated by increased yields and reduction in application of pesticides. Transgenic technology is suitable for the Indian farmer despite small farm holdings. The area under Bt cotton is projected to increase rapidly in the coming years

Changing face of India Agriculture since the Green Revolution

Title VI National Resource Center Grant (P015A060066)unpublishednot peer reviewe

Somaclonal Variation in Soybeans

130 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988.Tissue culture induced variation in regenerated plant progeny, up to R\sb4 generation (four cycles of self-pollination away from the regenerated plants) was studied. Several mutants/variants were seen, majority of them derived from the organogenic culture system. Variants such as wrinkled leaf phenotype (with a simple recessive Mendelian inheritance) and sterility (single recessive gene trait) were seen in three or more generations of the same family. Wrinkled leaf phenotype was associated with partial sterility and may be unstable since some plants showed sectors of the normal branches on a wrinkled plant and some had wrinkled branch sectors on normal plant.Partial sterility, multiple branching and dwarf growth habit were observed as stable traits seen in more than two generations but the segregation ratios do not fit a simple model. Several other traits like chlorophyll deficiency, abnormal leaflet morphology, abnormal leaflet number and twin seeds were seen in one generation only.Somaclones of resistant and susceptible genotypes to brown stem rot were screened using an in vitro system for changes in tolerance. The system allowed for differentiation between resistant and susceptible genotypes when calli were treated with culture filtrate at different dilutions. Some somaclones did show greater tolerance and others showed greater susceptibility than the control. Greenhouse screening of these selected somaclones would confirm these results.Oil and protein content of somaclones in the R\sb4 generation were also determined. Increases and decreases up to 9% were seen. Next generation needs to be tested to see if the changes are stable and heritable.Chromosomal abnormalities such as mixaploidy were associated with wrinkled leaf phenotype, partial sterility and multiple branching when chromosome counts were done on root tips. Attempts to establish involvement of transposable elements in inducing somaclonal variation produced inconclusive results.Somaclonal variation for both qualitative and quantitative trait was noted. Chromosomal abnormalities in part induced some of this variation.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

Isolating the 'farmer' effect as a component of the advantage of growing genetically modified varieties in developing countries: a Bt cotton case study from Jalgaon, India

The present paper explores the 'farmer' effect in economic advantages often claimed for Bt cotton varieties (those with the endotoxin gene from Bacillus thuringiensis conferring resistance to some insect pests) compared to non-Bt varieties. Critics claim that much of the yield advantage of Bt cotton could be due to the fact that farmers adopting the technology are in a better position to provide inputs and management and so much of any claimed Bt advantage is an artefact rather than reflecting a real advantage of the variety per se. The present paper provides an in-depth analysis of 63 non-adopting and 94 adopting households of Bt cotton in Jalgaon, Maharashtra State, India, spanning the seasons 2002 and 2003. Results suggest that Bt adopters are indeed different from non-adopters in a number of ways. Adopters appear to specialize more on cotton (at least in terms of the land area they devote to the crop), spend more money on irrigation and grow well-performing non-Bt varieties of cotton (Bunny). Taking gross margin as the basis for comparison, Bt plots had 2.5 times the gross margin of non-Bt plots in both seasons. If only adopters are considered then the gross margin advantage of Bt plots reduces to 1.6 times that of non-Bt plots. This is still a significant advantage and could well explain the popularity of Bt in Maharashtra. However, it is clear that great care needs to be taken with such comparative studies