Chennai: Alliance for Agri Innovation (AAI), a special interest group of Federation of Seed Industry of India (FSII), has urges the Central and State governments to allow field trials of Bt Brinjal in India.
A letter has been sent to the Ministry of Agriculture and Chief Ministers of Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Tamilnadu, Odisha and West Bengal to bring their attention to this matter.
According to a press note, the current Bt Brinjal event which is going for field trials, which were approved by Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) in May 2020, was developed by the National Institute of Plant Biotechnology under Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and has been licensed to an Indian company for commercialisation.
This technology is different from the Bt Brinjal technology which despite approval by GEAC was put under moratorium in India but is being grown commercially by farmers in Bangladesh since 2014.
Ram Kaundinya, director general, FSII-AAI said, “Brinjal is one of the most pesticide consuming crops among vegetables. Farmers spray pesticides more than 25 times in a single crop season of brinjal. By controlling this with Bt technology we can save farmers income, reduce pesticide loan on the environment and provide pesticide and insect free brinjals to the consumers.”