India Deregulates Approved GM Cotton Events

In a major regulatory development, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has decided to adopt the event based approval mechanism for Cry 1Ac (MON 531 event), Cry 1Ac and Cry 2Ab genes (MON 15985 event), (Cry 1Ab-Cry 1A) “GFM” Cry 1A and Cry 1Ac (event 1) that have been approved for commercial release during the period 2002-2007 in India. The new event based approval system for cotton crop will replace case by case approval of Bt cotton hybrids expressing different approved events based on the recommendations of a Sub-committee set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forest under the Chairmanship of Dr. B. M. Khadi, Director, Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR), Nagpur. The area for Bt cotton has reached  6.2 million hectare which is 66% of total cultivated area of 9.5 million hectares in 2007-08. Cotton production has increased to 31 million bales in 2007-08 as compared to 15.3 million bales when Bt cotton hybrids were introduced first in 2002.

There are six new events of cotton being extensively tested and are at different stages of field trials including; 1). Large scale field trial of the CICR event expressing the cry1Ac (Truncated and codon-modified) gene developed by CICR of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) of the Ministry of Agriculture, New Delhi. 2). Multi location research trial (MLRT) of BG-II Roundup Ready flex Cotton hybrids containing stacked cry1Ac, cry2Ab (Event 15985) and CP4epsps (MON 88913) genes developed by M/s Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company Ltd., Mumbai. 3) Multi location research trials (MLRT) of stacked event expressing Cry1EC (Event 24) along with already commercialized Cry1Ac (Event 1) developed by  J.K. Agri Genetics Ltd., Hyderabad. 4) Multi location research trials (MLRT) of cry1Ac and cry1F gene (WideStrike = Event 3006-210-23 and Event 281-24-236) developed by Dow AgroSciences, Mumbai. 5). Multi location research trials (MLRT) expressing genes vip3Aa (COT102 event) and cry1Ab (COT67B event) developed by  Deltapine India Seed Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad and, 6). Multi location research trials (MLRT) expressing synthetic cry1C gene (Event 9124) developed by  Metahelix Life Science Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore. The present system will continue until the new event based approval system is formally notified by the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MOEF).

Download additional information at http://www.envfor.nic.in/divisions/csurv/geac/decision-dec-83.pdf.  For biotech developments in India contact: b.choudhary@isaaa.org