The national agri-biotech regulator, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), has given conditional approval to start limited biosafety field trials of two home-grown Bt Brinjal hybrids, Janak and BSS-793, in eight states. These two hybrids carry the transgenic Bt Cry1Fa1 gene (Event 142)

The approval is conditional because the regulator has asked the company that developed these Brinjal varieties, Beejsheetal Research, based in Jalna, Maharashtra, to get no objection certificate (NOC) from the eight states where field trials can be done. The eight permitted states are Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and West Bengal.

The approval for limited field trials was taken at the 139th meeting of GEAC held on 19th May 2020, under the chairmanship of Mrs B V Umadevi, in the Ministry of Environment and Forests. Vice Chair Ms Richa Sharma (also from the same ministry) and 14 of the 20+ members of the committee attended the meeting. The meeting was held over video conference.

“ The Modi government decision to approve home-made GM brinjal hybrids is a great initiative to unlock the huge potential of the agriculture biotechnology sector and will help achieve the national target of doubling the farmer’s income by 2024,” said ABLE President, Mr Shrikumar Suryanarayan. ABLE—the Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises—is India’s leading biotech industry association.

The ABLE President appealed to the eight state governments to support the central government efforts to harness the benefits of biotechnology in agriculture crops and provide the No Objection Certificate to encourage this home-grown Bt brinjal hybrids and take the Atma Nirbhar (self reliance) movement forward.

The minutes of the meeting was only approved recently and published. The GEAC is supposed to meet on the second Wednesday of every month. No further meeting of GEAC has been held after May, according to information available on the GEAC website. The newly permitted trials are called BioSafety Trials (BRL-II).

“It is nice to know that the GM brinjal varieties developed by Beejsheetal has been given regulatory approval for field trials,” commented Dr K K Narayanan, executive council member of ABLE and chairman of Kottaram Agrofoods.

“The wheels of our GM crop regulatory system seemed jammed for almost a decade; now it has started moving. Hope it gathers speed and many of the technologies that are now stuck in regulators’ shelves will see the light of the day,” added Dr Narayanan.

Dr Narayanan estimates that quick regulatory approvals for GM crops can potentially unlock value worth One lakh crore Rupees (Rs 100,000 crore) in a few years.

Dr Narayanan is one of the co-founders of Metahelix Life Sciences that developed indigenous varieties of Bt cotton last decade. Metahelix is part of the Tata group of companies now.

BeejSheetal had earlier conducted the preliminary BRL-I trials at three locations—Jalna, Guntur and Varanasi—for two seasons 2009 and 2010.

“We are very happy about this approval,” said Dr Sameer Agrawal of Beejsheetal Research. The company is awaiting the formal communication from the GEAC about this.

The company had conducted limited BRL-II trials during 2016-17 in the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi and Andhra Pradesh. The company had mentioned this in its applications to GEAC.

 

It may be pertinent to point out that GEAC approval to India’s first GM food crop, a Bt Brinjal variety developed by Mahyco with Monsanto’s assistance in 2009, was kept in abeyance by the then environment minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh. Since then the BioAgri industry has been engaging policy makers at various level for the lifting of restrictions put on biotechnology food crops in the country. Subsequently, the government had turned the request to conduct field trials another GM food crop, a GM Mustard variety developed jointly by University of Delhi South Campus and dairy cooperative, Mother Dairy.

GEAC has asked BeejSheetal to conduct the Bt Brinjal t BRL – II Studies in accordance with the guidelines for the monitoring of confined field trials of regulated, GE plants. The findings of the results may also be shared with State Biodiversity Boards and local panchayat Biodiversity Management Committees.

Only three (Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar) of the 8 permitted states are run by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Non governmental organizations associated with the BJP are strongly opposed to the introduction of GM food crops in the country. It will be interesting to watch whether all the eight states will provide the NOC to the limited field trials of home-grown Bt Brinjal hybrids.

Founded in February 1986 in Jalna, Maharashtra, the company has three directors Mr Sameer S Agrawal, Mr Sunil S Gawade and Mr Nandakumar S Kunchge. Group companies of BeejSheetal are well known for their varieties of popular vegetable crop seeds.

After 11 years, the government is taking initial tentative steps towards allowing introduction of first genetically modified food crop in the country. “It is nice to know that the GM brinjal varieties developed by Beejsheetal has been given regulatory approval for field trials,” commented Dr K K Narayanan, executive council member of ABLE and chairman of Kottaram Agrofoods.