Sesikaran says Bt crop’s long-term effect on health can be studied only if it’s approved for commercial production Concerns raised by agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan, cited by the government as among the reasons to put a halt to the release of Bt brinjal, will be impossible to address, according to the head of a state-run laboratory. Swaminathan, 84, credited with the success of the Green Revolution of the 1960s that made India...

An over-dependence on genetically modified organisms to boost agricultural production eclipses other biotechnologies and their potential to benefit poor farmers in developing countries, warned the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) today. “Modern and conventional biotechnologies provide potent tools for the agriculture sector, including fisheries and forestry,” said FAO Assistant Director-General Modibo Traore. “But biotechnologies are not yet making a significant impact in the lives of people in most...

Demanding attention to farmers, agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan on Tuesday said increasing income per hectare was as much of a concern as improving yield per hectare. “The National Farmer’s Policy is unique because it shifts focus from the land to its tiller.” Dr. Swaminathan was speaking at a conference here on implementing the Farmer’s Policy, drafted in 2007 by a National Commission with him as chairman. Revisit syllabi Revisit syllabi, he...

The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) will probe an allegation that research on genetically modified brinjal initiated five years ago in India had violated a law that sought to protect the country’s genetic resources, NBA sources said. A non-government group in Bangalore has alleged that Indian crop scientists may have violated the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, through research involving local brinjal varieties and foreign technology without appropriate permission from the NBA....

IMAGINE THE lowly brinjal you have always known turning into a sci-fi gizmo — with an uncharted potency for good and evil. Imagine a food turned into a pesticide — and you will have a measure of the essential uncertainty around Bt brinjal. When Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh announced his indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal on February 9, he halted a juggernaut that could have swept India to a point...