Biotech Updates

Scientists Asks for Deregulation of Bt eggplant to Unchoke Regulatory Pipeline in India

September 16, 2015

Researchers from Ghent University in Belgium and Chaudhary Charan Singh University in India have published an article in Nature Biotechnology making a case for a return to science-based regulation of GM crops and a concerted effort to counter the misinformation widely promulgated by activists intent on demonizing GM crops. The researchers note the far-reaching repercussions that the moratorium on Bt Brinjal has had on the use of GM crops in India. The article features the difficult conditions under which Bt eggplant (Bt brinjal) was developed and field tested indigenously, encountered several regulatory roadblocks, culminating in a moratorium on its commercial use by the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) on February 9, 2010.

The full article is available at Nature Biotechnology.