Viewpoint: India’s GMO Bt eggplant ban drives farmers to buy black market biotech seeds

Bt brinjal [is] being illegally cultivated in the country—the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources has just confirmed this for a Haryana farmer’s crop—[and this] should hardly shock anyone.

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While the crop cleared the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee’s (GEAC’s) biosafety-test in 2009, the government yielded to pressure from the anti-GM lobby and declared a moratorium in 2010 on the transgenic crop developed by Mahyco.

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[W]ith no certified GM crops that can be monitored available, farmers could turn to unapproved knock-offs that don’t conform to accepted biosafety standards. [A]ctivist pressure thwarting scientific evidence neither helps agri-growth/food security, nor does it ensure safety.

Read full, original article: Bt brinjal a wake-up call; unfounded anti-GM fears spawn dangerous subversion