Bt Brinjal: An indispensable tool for Brinjal farmers in India
Bt Brinjal: An indispensable tool for Brinjal farmers in India
(Selected Articles of National Web Conference: Vegetable Farmers Forum 2020)
India is the second largest producer of vegetables in the world, but the average annual loss of vegetables is about 12 per cent which results in significant reduction in Indian agricultural economy (Manunayaka et al., 2020). The major issues in vegetable production are lower market price, high input price, high cost of management for pest and disease, lack of high yielding variety seedling, lack of proper cold storage structures and losses due to natural calamity (Azad et al., 2014).
Brinjal (Solanum melongena Linn) is the fourth important vegetable grown by small and marginal farmers in India. Farmers encounter several problems during brinjal production and the major one is fruit and shoot borer (FSB - Leucinodes orbonalis Guenee), which results in 60 – 70 % of yield loss. Several pesticides gave optimal control over the pest but the pest has developed resistance to several insecticides. This aspect urged the need of novel pest management tool which may include GM crop (Das, 2017). Bangladesh is the first south Asian country to approve commercial cultivation of GM food crop. BARI (Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute) developed four varieties of brinjal (BARI Bt brinjal-2, BARI Bt brinjal-4, BARI Bt brinjal-3, BARI Bt brinjal-1) for commercial cultivation. Bt brinjal- 4 was genetic construction of ISD-006 variety with Cry 1 Ac toxin against FSB. Bt brinjal resulted in 47 percent reduction in the cost of pesticides, which is equivalent to a reduction of US$85.53 per hectare. An increase of 27.3 percent in gross revenues per ha was reported due to adaptation of GM brinjal crop (Ahmed et al., 2019).
Field testing of GM crops is conducted by Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI), Ministry of Agriculture in compliance with the biosafety and regulatory guidelines of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. The report of “Cultivation on Genetically Modified Food Crops-Prospects and Effects” (2012) states that the bt brinjal cultivation was denied in India due to policy and regulatory constraint. MHB 80 Bt, MHB 9 Bt and MHB-10 Bt were the promising Bt brinjal hybrids against FSB (Khan and Borikar, 2017). Triple Helix (government, academia, and industry) model plays a significant role in understanding the networking between agricultural innovation systems (Hall et al. 2001). Major public-private partnership projects in India include Bt brinjal, Bt chickpea, Late Blight Resistance potato, GM mustard and Bt cotton. The Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM) is not independent and it has failed to establish an independent regulatory system for GM crops. Bt brinjal is cultivated illegally in some parts of India and this is due to lack of ability of GEAC to control the illegal use GM crops. The major critics for cultivation GM brinjal and GM mustard is due to inadequacy of biosafety data and biosafety data were not made public (Kumari and Mallick, 2017). The approval for commercial cultivation of Bt brinjal by Bangladesh makes illegal cultivation in India beyond its boundary of politics, governance, or risk. Hence approval of Bt brinjal cultivation is indispensable for Indian farmers.
Reference:
Ahmed, A.U., Hoddinott, J.F., Islam, K.M.S., Khan, A.S.M.M.R., Abedin, N., Hossain, N.Z., Ghostlaw, J., Parvin, A., Quabili, W., Rahaman, S.T. and Rahman, W. 2019. Impact of Bt brinjal (eggplant) technology in Bangladesh. Project Report prepared for the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Azad, M., Ali, M. and Yeasmin, M. 2014. Problem perceived by the farmers in vegetable cultivation. Journal of experimental bioscience, 5(2): 63-68.
Das, G. 2017. Comparative bioefficacy of different insecticides against fruit and shoot borer (Leucinodes orbonalis Guenee) of brinjal and their effect on natural enemies. International Journal of Green Pharmacy (IJGP), 10(04).
Hall, Andrew, Geoffrey Bockett, Sarah Taylor, M.V.K. Sivamohan, and Norman Clark. 2001. “Why Research Partnerships Really Matter: Innovation Theory, Institutional Arrangements and Implications for Developing New Technology for the Poor.” World Development, 29 (5): 783- 797.
Khan, F.S. and Borikar, P.S. 2017. Performance of Bt and non Bt brinjal hybrids against brinjal shoot and fruit borer, Leucinodes orbonalis Guenee. Journal of Entomological Research, 41(3): 283-286.
Kumari, M. and Mallick, S. 2017. Triple Helix Model of Innovation and the Politics of Genetically Modified Crops: Cases of Bt Cotton and Bt Brinjal in India. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 16(4): 434-460.
Comments
Post a Comment