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G. Gurumurthy

Coimbatore , Dec. 3

The Tamilnadu Agriculture Minister, Mr Veerapandi Arumugam, has said that the State Government is in no way involved in the experiment on Bt rice development. It is a purely private initiative by Mahyco and Monsanto.

Referring to the recent farmers' protests and destruction of Bt paddy crop under trial cultivation at a private farm near Coimbatore, the Minister said that the Government was unaware of this as the crop might have been in experimental stage in which the State Government is not involved.

Speaking to presspersons, Mr Arumugam said that even if the private seed company succeeded in its experiment and produced Bt rice seed, it still had to get past the rigorous screening by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee of the Union Government, which would approve after going into all aspects, including safety.

Only after the Centre's approval will the State Governments allow the rice variety for commercial cultivation. Hence, farmers need not have apprehension on this front, he said.

Citing the case of the Bt cotton crop, he said that Bt cotton too evoked strong protests when trial cultivations were first conducted in 1996.

Only after establishing the crop had no side effects and that it led to higher yields was it was permitted by the Centre for commercial production; subsequently, all State Governments have to give permission.

The Minister also said that Monsanto, which initially sold the Bt cotton at Rs 1,650 per packet, later brought down the cost to Rs 750 after all the State Governments jointly fought in court to effect the rate cut. Since the American seed company has now allowed many Indian seed producers to produce the Bt cotton strain, the need for the farmers to buy from the foreign seed company every time they sowed Bt cotton would end.

More Stories on : Rice | Bio-tech & Genetics | Tamil Nadu

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