( Photo courtesy: Vivian Fernandes )
At last , Haryana uproots & buries Bt brinjal crop
Ratia , May 17 , 2019 : Haryana government today uprooted & buried Bt Brinjal, an insect resistant biotech crop that provides protection against deadly pest Leucinodes Orbonalis, commonly known as Fruit and Shoot Borer ( FSB )
It has already been reported that a farmer Jeevan Saini from Ratia town in Fatehabad was found growing Bt Brinjal without the officials approval by Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change.
Bhagirath Choudhary , Founder Director at South Asia Biotechnology Centre (SABC) while sharing this info on his social media page said that Brinjal is grown by 1.4 million smallholder farmers on nearly 550,000 hectares in India
FSB causes fruit damage as high as 95% and losses of up to 70% in commercial plantings
Btbrinjal can reduce insecticide application by 77% as compared to non-Bt counterparts
To read more, Click @ The Indian Express News link below :-
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/in-haryanas-fatehabad-family-facing-gm-brinjal-storm-asks-whats-our-crime-5732041/
Know more about Bt Brinjal
The genetically modified brinjal is a suite of transgenic brinjals (also known as an eggplant or aubergine) created by inserting a crystal protein gene (Cry1Ac) from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis into the genome of various brinjal cultivars. The insertion of the gene, along with other genetic elements such as promoters, terminators and an antibiotic resistance marker gene into the brinjal plant is accomplished using Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation. The Bt brinjal has been developed to give resistance against lepidopteron insects, in particular the Brinjal Fruit and Shoot Borer (Leucinodes orbonalis)(FSB). Mahyco, an Indian seed company based in Jalna, Maharashtra, has developed the Bt brinjal.
The genetically modified brinjal event is termed Event EE 1, and Mahyco have also applied for approval of two brinjal hybrids. The Event EE 1 was introgressed by plant breeding into various local varieties by University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. Some of the cultivars of brinjal include: Malpur local, Manjari gota, Kudachi local, Udupi local, 112 GO, and Pabkavi local.[1] It was approved for commercialization in India in 2009, but - after an apparent public outcry and rounds of debates in which representatives from Mahyco, the scientific community, and NGO's spoke on the topic - the then Indian Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, facilitated a moratorium on its release until further, unspecified, tests were conducted. Bt brinjal was approved for commercial release in Bangladesh in 2013. ( Source Wikipedia )