A number of farmer groups met in Delhi recently to plan a stir against opening the country to genetically-modified (GM) foods like Bt brinjal.

Under the ’Jan Jagaran Abhiyan’, the protesters are also hoping to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as well as the Union agriculture and health ministers. Farmers claimed Bt brinjal would contaminate traditional varieties of brinjal, and the cultivators would suffer the consequences. They also alleged that the decision to allow the sale of Bt brinjal - which still awaits the government’s nod - was linked with commercial interests.