Bangladesh Approves Second Year RB Potato Field Trial

The National Technical Committee for Crop Biotechnology headed by Mr. CQK Mustaq Ahmed, Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture has recently approved the second year multilocation field trial (MLT) of late blight resistant RB Potato for planting in 2010-11 crop season. Dr. Md Yusuf Mia, the Director General, Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) explained that the first year result was satisfactory and it is essential  to conduct another trial in bigger space and with more transgenic lines.

It may be noted that scientists from Tuber Crops Research Centre (TCRC) of BARI have developed the transgenic lines by crossing the leading Bangladeshi varieties (Diamant, Cardinal, Multa, Granula, Local) with transgenic variety Katahdin at Wisconsin University and Indonesian University. BARI has brought back those lines in 2006 and were given approvals for glasshouse and multilocation field trials last year. It was decided in the meeting that the trial must follow the international standard biosafety procedures instructed in Cartagena Protocol and the regular field visit of Field Level Biosafety Committee be facilitated by the applicant BARI.

The partial funding of this trials are covered by ABSPII project. The meeting was attended by inter-ministerial high profiled policy planners, university professors, and researchers.

For details of this news and for other biotechnology news in Bangladesh, contact Prof. Dr. K M Nasiruddin of Bangladesh Biotechnology Information Center at nasirbiotech@yahoo.com.