The Hindu : National : Protest against GE brinjal field trials

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Saturday, Sep 09, 2006

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Protest against GE brinjal field trials

Special Correspondent

"Tests can cause contamination"

NEW DELHI: Greenpeace India and several consumer groups on Friday sought to prevent large-scale field trials of genetically engineered (GE) brinjal.

The bid comes in the wake of revelations that agrochemical company Bayer's field trials of GE rice had contaminated American rice exports, inviting immediate import bans from Japan and the European Union. Also, it was found that illegal GE rice from field trials in China had contaminated food products in France, Germany and the U.K.

"What has happened in Europe over the past three days is just the first information report," Divya Raghunandan, Greenpeace India campaigner, told reporters here.

Manipulated gene

She said the manipulated gene, found to be tainting the banned rice from China, was the same one that was sought to introduced into brinjal in India.

Ms. Raghunandan said India was a centre of diversity for this crop and it was cultivated over 5 lakh hectares annually. If these tests were carried out, they could cause contamination on an unimaginable scale. The approval of GE brinjal for large-scale field trials was pending before the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC)

Eminent molecular biologist Pushpa Bhargava, at a press conference, stressed the need for banning field trials of GE brinjal. He said given the appalling bio-safety risk assessment protocols in place today, there was absolutely no case for large-scale field trials. The veracity of these risk assessments was also not authentic, as these were carried out by the same companies that were marketing the crop.

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