Please find below a representative sampling of submissions from November, 2000 - February, 2001. Some submissions have been edited for length. Only those submissions which were not accompanied by a name, location, and valid e-mail address have been omitted.

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To control the insects/diseases in farming, feriliser and pesticides are being used indiscriminately. Excessive use of these has affected the environment. Quality of soil, water, air has been degraded drastically. With the help of bio-technology, there is hope to reduce the consumption of these chemicals and yield would be more. A proverb of Hindi say it all -- AAM KE AAM, GUTHLIYON KE DAAM.

Vivekanand Sharma
Mumbai, India
vivekanand_sharma@yahoo.com

I once believed that biotechnology would help save the world. Now I know that companies like Monsanto simply want a monopoly on the world food supply. The only plants and seeds Monsanto is developing are ones that require their poisons. Monsanto does not have our health in mind.

K Clark
USA
foundwriter@hotmail.com

Dear reader,

I believe that the cleaner and safer environment mentioned here has got to do nothing with the genetically engineered plants rather than what are the current farming practices existing now. Scientists have the option of developing desirable and advantageous genetic traits of plants and crops to enable better yields, empower the crops with better resistance to climatic effects as well as disease-causing microorganisms and an overall healthy growth. And all this will be reflected on the low use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers which might affect the crops as well as the soil.

Arvind Santhanakrishnan
Pune, India
8071sift@joymail.com

Dear Sir/Madam,

Yes definitely it will contribute a lot in cleaner and safer environment, and also will be helpful to increase food production, without increasing the area under agriculture land and without degrading the land and other resources like water, also without using pesticides. Definitely on one hand biotechnology is going to be future need, which at present is not there. And one day it will be demand for the society. But on other hand if we go beyond do we have ever thought about it's consequences after 300 yrs or may be 1000 yrs. Really this side we have to see. As what pesticide and fertilizer which in short time of 100-200 yrs duration has created such devastation that now everyone discuss about why we have brought this technology which is affecting our nature in and humankind on such a great extent. So there will be another side for this biotechnology which we should consider while going for this technology. Thanks for this newsletter.

Nagesh Patil
Mumbai
nagesh243@yahoo.com

Biotechnology has emerged as a new alternative to all the conventional methods of producing feertilizers. The use of biotechnological methods will definitely provide a cleaner and safer alternative. Biofertilizers and other natural fertilizers is the foremost need today in order to save the environment. The use of crops which do not require any chemicals is definitely a better alternative.The fear about the use of this method or any other biotechnological methods is just because of the ignorance among general public about this new technology.

Davias Lyngdoh
Shillong, Meghalaya, India
davislyngdoh@hotmail.com

Yes, definitely. This is because at present we are using tons of pesticides to protect the plants. This is like directly consuming poison each day in small doses. Just soak beans (or any vegetable for that matter), in salt water for half an hour and see the chemicals floating in water. More than this many of us eat at the road side and moonlight hotels. Do you think they take care as our mothers do? At each stage any thing we consume does necessarily contain chemicals.

The health levels both in rural and urban are going down and people are getting consious about their health and started going for morning and evening walks just to have fresh air and free themselves from the chemical world.

So to minimize this, genetically modified plants are necessary. The government projects of infrastructure and roads linking north to south and east to west is shrinking the airable land and cultivable lands to a large extent and hence the food scarcity problem will be on peak. Even the population is also multiplying in geometric means. To feed all these mouths the biotechnology is the only answer left to the human kind - or else we have to build a society in either on moon or mars.

B V Raghunanda Gupta
Bangalore
bvr_gupta@usa.net

Yes, plants derived through biotechnology will give a cleaner and safer environment provided that the plants are not involving any micro-organisms. Plants without the use of any strain of microbes will be accepted by the farmers and will be extensively used. But care must be taken that these plants do not have any hazardous effects on the soil structure.

Dr. Abhay thosar
Valsad
abhay_thosar@usa.net