Bangladesh Press Club President: Write on Biotech

The President of the Bangladesh National Press Club Shaukat Mahmood appealed to journalists to write on the pros and cons of biotechnology and biosafety issues. This would help better understand the technology and help in decision making for the end users, said the Press President during the launching ceremony of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications' (ISAAA) Global Biotech Status Report at the National Press Club in Dhaka. He added that if "there is proof that biotech crops are not harmful to human health and the environment, we should accept them."

Dr. Abdur Rahman Sikder of the University of California Davis, newspaper representatives of the Daily Shangram, Daily Independent, and Daily Observer, and M. Shahjahan Ali Badsha, Progressive Farmer representative, also echoed the same sentiments to address the food requirements of a country where population is increasing at a geometric rate and land is decreasing at 1.6 percent.  About 60 journalists and scientists attended the session which was presided y Dr A.R. Malik, Managing Director of Alpha Group of Companies . Dr. Malik has a biotech laboratory where 1,200,000 meristem cultured potato saplings are produced per year for quality virus free seed tubers. He expressed interest to grow biotech crops when released by the authority.

For more biotech news, email K. Nasiruddin of the Bangladesh Biotechnology Information Center at nasirbiotech@yahoo.com.