No reason to stop Bt brinjal field trials
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Farmers have gained from GM tech. The naysayers seem averse to scientific progress percolating to agriculture
The polarised debate over genetically modified (GM) crops in India is back in limelight. The advocates and dissenters of GM technology broke open the debate following the Centre’s approval given for confined field trials to new brinjal varieties for biosafety evaluation by Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) in seven States.
With this decision, the gene modification of more than 200 verities of rice, wheat, maize, castor and cotton, among other crops, will no more be a distant reality, inflicting a severe blow to the Basudeb Acharya Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture and the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (SCTEC) which had called for a complete halt of all field trials of GM crops for a 10-year period.
Mystery packages of seeds may contain GMOs – Danish ministry Details
Are the packages the latest example of illegal dissemination of GMOs and approval by contamination ?
The Danish ministry of agriculture has announced that signs of GMOs have been revealed in mysterious packages of seeds sent to citizens in the mail, apparently from China. If the presence of GMOs is confirmed, this development is just the latest in a long line of illegal disseminations of GMOs by advocates.
We first received reports in August 2020 that citizens and farmers in Denmark had received unsolicited packages of seeds. Then an article for Fortune magazine revealed that US citizens had also received them. The US Dept of Agriculture (USDA) warned recipients not to plant the seeds, due to concerns that they could introduce damaging pests and diseases. The USDA identified some of the varieties as seemingly harmless herbs: rosemary, sage, mint and hibiscus.