Faced with the enigma of rising salinity ingress on their farmlands, farmers
can now look forward to transgenic crops. A central research institute is
developing ?salt-tolerant? varieties of crops like groundnut, tobacco, cumin
and banana that aim at revolutionising the food-basket in 6.7 million
hectares of ?salinity-affected? farmland in the country, most of which is in
Gujarat.


The Bhavnagar-based Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute
(CSMCRI) is in the advanced stages of developing salt-tolerant varieties of
groundnut and tobacco. ?Though we have successfully grown three generations
of the crop in the laboratory, it will take 2-3 more years before the new
variants of groundnut and tobacco are available commercially,? said
Bhavanath Jha, deputy director and head of Marine Biotechnology & Ecology
division at CSMCRI.

?The necessary clearance for these transgenic crops is expected to take some
time. Meanwhile, we are in the preliminary stages of developing
salt-tolerant variety of cumin (?jeera?) and also planning to develop a
similar variety of banana,? Mr Jha said while adding that the cultivable
area has been steadily shrinking due to salinity and adversely affecting
crop production.

According to the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI) at Karnal
(Haryana), 6.7 million hectares of farmland in the country has been affected
by salinity ingress. ?Of the salinity-affected areas, 20% are on the coastal
areas, while the rest are inland areas. States like Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh
and Maharashtra have the highest percentage of land area affected by
salinity,? said Gurbachan Singh, director of the institute which has already
developed salt tolerant varieties of rice, wheat and mustard (which were
released by the Central Varietal Release Committee and are being grown
widely in salt affected areas of Punjab, Haryana, UP, Gujarat, Maharashtra,
West Bengal and many other states).

?In Gujarat, two-third of the area under groundnut cultivation in Saurashtra
and Kutch regions have been affected by salinity. This is a huge loss
because 90% of the total groundnut production of Gujarat (18 lakh tonne in
2007-08) is cultivated in the districts of Bhavnagar, Amreli, Junagadh,
Jamnagar, Rajkot, Veraval, Porbandar and Surendranagar districts of
Saurashtra peninsula,? said Mr Jha. The numbers are significant considering
that Gujarat accounts for 70% of the total groundnut produced in India.

Assisted by central bodies like the department of science and technology,
ICAR and CSIR, the Bhavnagar-based CSMCRI has been developing salt-tolerant
groundnut ?as national priority.? This institute has identified a
?salt-resistant gene? from a plant called Salicornia, a small shrub that
grows in saline environs of marshes, beaches and mangroves, and incorporated
it into the ?salt-sensitive? crops like groundnut.

?In our experiment with tobacco, we have found that the new salt-tolerant
variety has a significant increase in the bio-mass, meaning that the tobacco
leaves are larger than its actual size,? Mr Jha said.
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