Baingan-ka-bharta could be first modified food on your table

Last week, Monsanto Mahyco Biotech (MMB), which is developing the hybrid, presented biosafety data from the field trials to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), seeking permission for large-scale field trials.

Once cleared for field trials—the final set of trials for biosafety—commercial production of seeds could take upto two years.

There is another interesting aspect of Bt brinjal’s journey from the lab to the field. MMB has given the gene to public sector institutes free of cost to develop their own varieties under a USAID programme led by Cornell University, New York. This will ensure that farmers have a choice between hybrids and varieties—something anti-GM activists have been very critical of in case of cotton, where only hybrids are available.

A variety means farmers will be able to save the seed and use it the following year, thereby saving on costs. Seeds for a hybrid has to be purchased every year.

According to sources, the agreement between MMB and the public sector companies carries a stipulation that once the clearances are given, the transgenic and non-transgenic varieties will be sold at the same price, so even poor farmers can afford it.

“This is a new model which the company is trying out,” said M K Sharma of Mahyco, speaking at a conference organised by TERI on ‘Agriculture for food, nutritional security and rural growth’.

The public sector institutions working on brinjal are Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwar and Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, Varanasi.

In this race between a private company hybrid and the public sector varieties, for now, the hybrid is clearly ahead.

The Bt brinjal has the same Cry1Ac gene from Bacillus thuringiensis as cotton. The gene makes the plant tolerant to the fruit and shoot borers, pests which attack it throughout its life cycle.

The yield-loss due to fruit and shoot borers in India alone is estimated to be about $221 million. MMB is ready with the data for four hybrids.

There is another company working on brinjal—the Bejo Sheetal company, based in Jalna, Maharashtra. They are transferring a hybrid developed by a scientist of Indian Agriculture Research Institute into their own hybrids for commercialisation.

Their work is also on the controlled field trial stage, and is likely to take another 2-3 years for large-scale trials.

There are nine food crops undergoing smaller field trials—mustard, pigeonpea, rice, tomato, brinjal, chickpea, groundnut, maize and okra. None, however, are ready for large-scale field trials.

This will be the second food crop after ProAgro, a subsidiary of German giant Bayer CropScience applied to GEAC in 2002 for its GM mustard.

However, the regulatory body did not give the clearance, citing paucity of reliable scientific data.

This time, the GEAC will be putting the biosafety data on the environment ministry’s website for public comments.