Bangalore, Mar 12, 2010: Dr P Balasubramanian, the former director of Center for Plant Molecular Biology and the person behind the developemnt of Bt brinjal development at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore, India, was highly critical of the anti-GM lobby and the withhelding of Bt brinjal atleast for two years. In an interview with Biospectrum, he shares his views on issues surrounding Bt brinjal.
1. What is the need for developing Bt brinjal?
When a housewife goes to the market to fetch a few brinjal fruits, she gets those brinjal that have aptly been described by Prof. G Padmanaban, the former director of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, as 'pesticide bullets'.
In fact, the rotund fruits from Tamil Nadu region and those oblong ones from Bangladesh need to be called ‘pesticide cannon balls', as the brinjal crop receives not less than 50-60 sprays in the crop period of 150-180 days; almost once in three days; the day the crop does not get a spray is when the produce goes to the market; the waiting period between the spray and the spoon is only a few hours.
Under these circumstances, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) joined hands with the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad and Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, Varanasi, sought for financial support from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II (ABSPII) to address this important problem which affects the wellness of the society as a whole. We came out with 16 open-pollinated Bt brinjal varieties (OPVs) most of which underwent biosafety trials as per extant laws of the country along with those Bt brinjal hybrids developed by Mahyco. The major difference between Mahyco’s hybrids and that of the public institutions is that the farmers retain their rights to save their Bt brinjal OPV seeds for the next sowing season.
The Indian brinjal farmer is largely unlettered and he decides to take up a number of sprays not only on the basis of economic thresholds as recommended by the university but as decided by the pesticide dealer. So, this is more a social problem and practical solution lies in a strategical change to protect the brinjal crop from the pest. Genetically modified technology makes it possible to protect brinjal crop from the pest effectively and saves a lot of money on pesticide sprays yet assures the consumer a healthy brinjal produce.
2. What are your views on the consultations held by Environment & Forest Ministry on Bt brinjal?
Consultations invariably were stormed by the anti-GM lobby comprising the hate group organizations and there are very few people who were neutral, leave alone the fact almost no scientists including me were coming forward to speak for Bt brinjal (in fact, I was invited by the Environment Minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh to speak on the technology. It was really surprising that an octogenarian scientist who has co-authored a book on biotechnology of horticultural crops came forward to speak against Bt brinjal in the consultation at Kolkata.
Most State Agricultural Universities where the consultations were conducted remained silent onlookers to the onslaught of this innocent technology by the anti-GM lobby. As Dr Norman Borlaug the Father of Global Green Revolution puts it, ‘The scientists have done a poor job of explaining the complexities of their science to the general public''.
During all the consultations queries on environmental and health safety issues were raised and discussed apparently to assuage the pesticide industry. There had not been any genuine environmental or health hazards (certainly inclusive of the alleged death of sheep as was reported in Warangal district by an NGO) under field conditions.
3. What are your views on Bt brinjal clearnace earlier by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) and the latest moratorium issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry?
The moratorium imposed on Bt brinjal development and release would largely affect the smooth process of technology transfer to the needy farmers and consumers as well. As one who attended most consultations of the minister, I feel the real brinjal farmers were not consulted at all as they did not care to be at the venue. The so-called farmers who made their presence felt at the consultations were alter egos of the anti-GM activists and the minister also appeared to be aware of this fact.
I could figure out that the activists aimed only at stalling the whole process by raising slogans like ‘whose genotypes are these?’ and ‘conduct long-term biosafety tests’; conveniently forgetting the fact that whatever the process in question was as per extant laws of the land.
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