Making of an Enhanced Yellow Revolution (E)
Northern India is a sea of yellow in the winters and that is thanks to the widespread cultivation of mustard or sarson. The charismatic yellow has been the backdrop of many a Bollywood blockbuster, but behind this picture perfect landscape there is a lot of hard work that has gone in from the agricultural scientists. Breeding new high yielding, short duration varieties of mustard with high quality mustard oil is not an easy task. Mustard is a crop with many uses from the tasty and famed sarson-ka-saag, to the use of mustard seeds as a spice to being one of the most important oilseed crops of India. Despite the widespread cultivation, India remains a net importer of edible oils and domestic production can only meet 30-40% of India’s consumption. Scientists are working for an enhanced yellow revolution to try and see if the gap can be bridged and if India can become self-reliant in the production of oilseeds and edible oils. While traditional breeding has been mainstay for making better varieties but modern tools like marker assisted breeding and gene editing are all playing a role. A vexed question remains should India embrace genetically engineered mustard? Indian scientists have indigenously bred GM Mustard varieties but despite the scientific community has given a thumbs up to a few GM Mustard varieties, they are still not available in the farmer’s fields. The Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi which was the cradle for the Green Revolution is now helping India become Atma Nirbhar in oilseed seed production especially trying to breed heat tolerant varieties that can withstand the aftermath of global warming.
