Cornell researchers get nod for Bt brinjal trials

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An international consortium of Cornell researchers and Sathguru Management Consultants from India has completed the first phase of developing a pest-resistant eggplant (brinjal). The consortia has got approval from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) to conduct large-scale trials for eggplant. By about 2009, this eggplant is expected to be the first genetically engineered food crop in South Asia.

Talking to FE, K Vijayaraghavan, director, Sathguru Management, said that it is being conducted in a public-private partnership with state agricultural universities and private companies. The engineered eggplant expresses a natural insecticide derived from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), making it resistant to the fruit and shoot borer (FSB), a highly destructive pest. The tiny larvae account for up to 40% of eggplant crop losses each year in India, Bangladesh and the Philippines, slong with other areas of South and Southeast Asia.

Cornell researchers from plant breeding, entomology, molecular biology, applied economics, communication, international programmes and the Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialisation began collaborating on the development of the Bt eggplant in 2002. Another partner, Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds, is on schedule to commercialise the genetically modified fruit by 2009.

Safety tests for the Bt eggplant are being conducted in India, starting in greenhouses and

now moving to large-scale field trials.