States: Ask us before Bt trials
Following the decision of 14 states giving a categorical no to Bt brinjal, states have now come down hard on the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) stressing that they must be consulted before any private sector agency is allowed to conduct trials for genetically modified crops.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has led the charge when he informed minister of environment Jairam Ramesh about his “bitter experience of private hybrids” having had to cough up `61 crores as compensation to farmers because of the “non-formation of grain due to the use of private hybrids”.
Dr Ramkrishna Kusmaria, minister of agriculture in the Madhya Pradesh government, also shot off a letter to Mr Ramesh expressing serious concern about the introduction of GM crops for open field trials.
“It is shocking to see that during the rabi 2010-11 season, GEAC has given permission in India for open air trials of Monsanto’s GM maize, containing both the Bt (insect resistance) and herbicide-tolerant traits in a “stacked–gene product”, the state minister wrote.
He informed Mr Ramesh that the state government had “taken a decision to prohibit all environmental release of GMOs and keep the state totally free of all GM food. We would also request you to reconsider the policy on GM in the national scale and declare a moratorium on all GM food crops”.
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