Agriculture Minister Urge Scientists To Create Awareness About GM Crops AHN

Agriculture Minister Urge Scientists To Create Awareness About GM Crops AHN


New Delhi, India (AHN) - India's agriculture minister said on Wednesday that the setback over Bt.Brinjal should not be taken as a failure. He said it was a challenge that needed to be overcome.

"The recent decision on Bt. brinjal should not be seen as a setback to our efforts, but a challenge which we need to surmount," Sharad Pawar said while inaugurating a conference of Vice Chancellors of Agricultural Universities.

The Indian government's decision to introduce Bt. brinjal or genetically modified aubergine in the country had raised an uproar.

The minister urged agricultural scientists to double their efforts to remove all misgivings regarding GM crops from the minds of policy makers and public.

He said, "conventional technologies of agriculture are inadequate to meet the formidable challenges. The most compelling case for bio-technology and more specifically transgenic crops is their capability to increase crop productivity, lower production costs, conserving bio-diversity, efficient use of external inputs, and improvement of economic and social benefits and alleviation of abject poverty in poor and developing countries."

Monsanto, a US-based company, has developed the Bt. brinjal and it is being marketed in the country by an Indian company.

However, following widespread protests all over the country, the government officially announced on Feb. 9 that it needs some more time to release the Bt. brinjal in India.

Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh said that there is no over-riding urgency to introduce Bt. brinjal in India.

In Feb, after a series of countrywide consultations, Ramesh had said that since there was no consensus on the introduction of Bt. brinjal, the government will proceed cautiously with its introduction.

"When the public sentiment is negative and when Bt-brinjal will be the very first genetically-modified vegetable to be introduced anywhere in the world and when there is no over-riding urgency to introduce it here, it is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary principle-based approach," Ramesh had said.

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