‘Will stop GE crop trial if CMs protest’
The minister of environment, Jairam Ramesh, admitted on Wednesday that if chief ministers of the nine states that were conducting field trials of Genetic Engineering Approved Crops (GEAC) would demand cancellation of field trials of Bt crops, he would immediately do so.
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, on March 5, had demanded Mr Ramesh to instruct the GEAC to immediately cancel the field trials for Bt-maize in the state. Bihar accounts for ten per cent of maize producton in the country. Following this phone conversation, Mr Ramesh ordered the cancellation of Bt-maize field trials being conducted by Monsanto in Bihar. Mr Ramesh had “ordered the GEAC to immediately cancel the field trials for Bt-maize in Bihar,” Mr Ramesh said in a letter to chief minister Nitish Kumar. According to the letter, the copies of which were made available to the media here, Mr Ramesh said explained that even as the moratorium on commercialisation of Bt brinjal stands, Mr Jairam Ramesh has asked the GEAC to withdraw permission to Monsanto for field trais. Bt brinjal was the first crop for which the GEAC has given permission for field trials in India. The GEAC had been given permission to Monsanto to conduct field trials of Bt corn in two locations in Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, UP, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. There was a caveat in the letter written to Nitish Kumar that state governments be given one month to agree or diasagree on GM crops given that agriculture is a state subject.
Mr Ramesh had earlier received a letter from the Kerala agriculture minister asking him to withdraw permission to conduct field trials on rubber. Mr Ramesh said, “A distinction must be made between food crops and non-agriculture crops. If the chief minister of Kerala had made the request, I would have considered it.”
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