SILENT FAMINE

For the past 50 years, the country has introduced high-yielding rice and wheat varieties at breakneck speed to achieve food security. A study led by scientists with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has for the first time looked at the food value of these modern-bred grains, and delivers some dire warnings: the food grains that we eat have lost food value; instead they are accumulating toxins. Worse, by 2040, the grains will become so "impoverished" that they would worsen the country's growing burden of non-communicable diseases.

- SHAGUN

YOU ARE what you eat, or, rather, what you grow to eat. Imagine an entire population eating something that has little food value-something that is devoid of nutrients such as a host of vitamins which are essential for growth, disease prevention and maintaining overall health and well-being. "This is the future we are hurtling towards," says Sovan Debnath, a soil scientist at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) under the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.

In November 2023, Debnath and 11 other scientists from ICAR, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalayaanother premier agricultural research institute in West Bengal-and the National Institute of Nutrition in Telangana published a seminal study that says the Green Revolution has helped India achieve food security, but by compromising its nutritional security. In a first, the study reports that breeding programmes focused on developing high-yielding varieties have altered the nutrient profiles of rice and wheat, two major staple food grains of India, to the extent that their dietary significance to the population has diminished. While chasing yield, the plant genetics have been tinkered with so much that they no longer do the fundamental job of delivering nutrition from the soil to the grains.