ABSTRACT
GM crop debate in India draws a complex mix of agrarian, environmental, legal and development discourses woven together by pro and anti GM actors within a wider set of narratives on modernisation, globalisation and nationalism. GM crops provides benefits for India that includes: increasing agricultural production and productivity, trade gains, safeguarding food security, enhancing the nutritional quality of cereals, introducing stress tolerant crops, achieving better pest control through disease resistant. Its concern for Indian agriculture includes: toxicity in the food system, contamination of wild relatives of cultivated species, reduction in choice and in farmer's control over seeds, and phenotypic variations in the target crop. The agricultural research aims to understand the perception of lay publics for the purpose of the study as professional women, students and householders. The governance institutions including the national agricultural research system by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and other associated bodies concerns the health, food, nutrition and the agricultural production impacts of GM crops.
