A national-level prabandha samittee meet of Bharatiya Kisan Sangha was held at Parbhani, Maharastra on July 17 and 18 last where farmers from all corners of the country including Assam took part. [...] an important proposal was adopted against ‘legalisation of food colonialism and slavery of seed sovereignty through BRAI’. The meet observed that Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill (BRAI), 2009 is a three- member regulatory body that will act as single-window clearing house for all genetically modified crops and their commercial application.

Research at the UK’s University of Warwick, and the University of Goettingen in Germany, has found that the use of a particular GM crop in India produced massive benefits in the earnings and employment opportunities for rural Indian women. [...] The researchers found that compared with conventional cotton the Bt cotton generated additional employment, raising the total wage income by 40 US dollars per hectare. The largest increase is for hired females with a gain of 55% in average income.

Bangalore-based Foundation of Biotechnology Awareness and Education (FBAE) has asked the government to lift the indefinite moratorium imposed on commercial introduction of Bt brinjal in the country by the ministry of environment and forest (MoEF). [...] “With such uncertainty revailing about GM crops, the companies wanting to invest in bio technology in agricultural sector would be hesitant to do so,” Seetharam Annadana, Technology Lead, Syngenta India, told FE

The details available in the public domain so far do not make for a thriller or the agro-apocalypse scenario that is getting people worked up from the Lok Sabha to the gram sabha level in India. So what is it about Bt brinjal that bothers the farmers, scientists, policy makers and the Bt crop producers alike? The one-word answer to that question is ”impact”. The impact of introducing a genetically modified food crop in the agro-ecosystem has neither been independently quantified nor calibrated.

The widespread acceptability of Bt technology among India’s cotton farmers is a recognised reality today. This year, out of the total projected cotton area of 260-265 lakh acres, about 225 lakh acres would be sown under Bt hybrids/varieties. Considering that the latter figure stood at a mere 72,000 acres in 2002, it represents perhaps the most rapid rate of diffusion for any technology after the mobile phone.

Even as the fate of Bt brinjal hangs in balance, the parliamentary standing committee attached to the agriculture ministry has started examining the pros and cons of introducing genetically-modified food in India, with a panel of experts coming out in favour of setting up a regulatory mechanism to monitor their implications. [...] While stressing on the need to have a regulatory mechanism, the experts welcomed the new law seeking the setting up of the National Biotechnology Authority.

A transgenic groundnut—designed to tolerate dry weather and salinity, and being developed by University of Agricultural Sciences in Dharwad, Karnataka—hasn’t passed muster with the country’s genetic engineering approval committee. [...] The GM groundnut contained an unnecessary piece of DNA called gusA and ought not to be released into the environment, according to a statement on GEAC’s website.

Despite criticism and protests from different quarters in the country, global agricultural products company Monsanto is confident that GM (genetically modified) food will be accepted in the Indian market in the coming years. ”Yes, we know that some sections of the society are against GM food but we still support it. We are confident that GM foods will be widely accepted by the Indian society in the coming years and people will themselves go for them after realising their value,” Jyotsna Bhatnagar, sustainability director of Monsanto India, told IANS here Wednesday.

Environment activists led by the Kheti Virasat Mission and the Bharti kisan Union on Friday said they would launch agitation and oppose every move of Punjab Government to promote BT maize seed in the state as genetically modified variries would take a toll on the environment. The activists also demanded that Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal should explain on what basis his government had offered to introduce BT maize in the state to reduce the area under paddy cultivation.

Governments of cotton growing states have spiked proposals by companies to increase prices for genetically modified (Bt) cotton seeds. Makers of Bt seed have asked for a rise in the price they could charge for a 40-seed packet of the BG1 variety to Rs 850 (from Rs 650 now) and for the BG2 variety to Rs 1,050 (up from Rs 750), as input and labour costs had gone up by 35 per cent. All the governments in question — Andhra, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Punjab — have declined to do.