Brinjal, easy to grow and very easy to cook, is now the subject of heated debate. This little noticed vegetable became ?brinjal of contention? when the Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company (Mahyco), put an extra gene, taken from the soil bacterium bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), the same Monsanto had used to create Bt cotton, to protect it from fruit and shoot borers (FSB) . The procedure started in 2000 reached commercial release stage by 2009, passing through very stringent regulatory mechanisms under the Department of Biotechnology and the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
Brinjal is an important vegetable in India grown by 14 lakh farmers on 55 lakh hectares. But close to 70% of the harvest is lost to FSB. Mahyco donated this technology to the resource poor farmers of Asia and Africa. Cornell University, with the support of USAID, took over this gift under its Agriculture Biotechnology Support Project II and found development and delivery partners in public sector institutions and universities like Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, to develop bt-empowered popular variety brinjals.
These institutions have shown in multilocational trials the efficacy of the GM brinjal to ward off FSB with no harm to soil or other living organisms.It is now awaiting the nod of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee to sell the seeds to the farmers for cultivation.
The farmer can save the seed and need not necessarily go back to the seed sellers for the next crop. Nobody will have any monopoly over the seeds, nor will anybody be able to profiteer with them. However, the road ahead for the farmer-friendly bt brinjal, like the Bt cotton, seems set to be rough. The green warriors are leaving no stone unturned to stop its entry to the fields, markets and dining tables, though the choice is between the pesticide-loaded vegetables and those with a gentle gene from the soil that acts against only a target pest and leaves others unharmed. Multilocational trials from Coimbatore to Margoa has proved this. Science is now opening biotechnology-driven possibilities to ensure food security with much less damage to the environment.
joseph.vackayil@expressindia.com