STAND by your bhajis. The humble aubergine – you might call it eggplant or brinjal – may be about to unlock a food revolution across Asia. It is a revolution that could dramatically raise yields of staple foods while cutting farmers' deaths from pesticide spraying. And it could be coming to a curry house near you.
I'm in New Delhi to hear from Indian scientists about what's in store. Many believe their government is preparing to abandon a four-year moratorium on trials of a genetically modified form of one of south Asia's favourite vegetables, which could rapidly take over from non-GM varieties. Since science-friendly Narendra Modi swept to power in India's elections in May, the government's Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has been reactivated. If genetically modified aubergines get the green light, they would join a select number of modified plants, including papayas and squashes, that are grown primarily for human consumption. GM soya beans and maize are in the human food chain, but they are mainly grown for animals.
The modified aubergine in question is known as Bt brinjal, and contains a gene taken from a common soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis. The gene produces a toxin that kills the vegetable's main pest, the larvae of the fruit and shoot borer moth, and was first promoted by seed giant Monsanto for protecting cotton against bollworm. The company agreed to donate the gene free for brinjal.
Bangladesh is leading the race to commercialise Bt brinjal. Next month, it will be planted in nationwide trials in fields, and sold in markets. Indian scientists hope to follow soon.
"Policy-makers sometimes find it hard to understand GM technology and its importance," says S.R. Rao, who helps vet GM trials at the Indian government's Department of Biotechnology. But he and others here believe the government will take it up.
An attraction for farmers is that they are permitted to propagate Bt brinjal using their own seeds, which isn't the case with many modified crops (particularly Bt cotton), which are owned by biotech firms. "Bt brinjal has now become a powerful symbol of GM foods," says C. Kameswara Rao, a botanist at the Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education in Bangalore. "If it gets the go-ahead, other GM crops can come through."
Next to leave the lab will be a potato that is resistant to late blight, a Bt chickpea, drought-tolerant sorghum and to counter vitamin A deficiency.
Brinjal bhaji is a side dish on the menus of countless Indian restaurants worldwide. But in Asia, brinjal is a staple crop, grown by poor farmers. Fending off the fruit and shoot borer requires almost daily spraying with pesticides that are dangerous and expensive. Bt brinjal promises to largely remove the need for spraying against the borer, although other pesticides will still be needed.
Tests have shown that the Bt gene is harmless to humans and animals when eaten and is unlikely to threaten wild relatives of brinjal (see "In the public eye"). Its incorporation in Indian cotton cultivation has more than doubled yields.
The development of Bt brinjal began in 2003 thanks to an alliance between crop scientists at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Monsanto and Indian biotech firm Mahyco, and the US government's aid agency USAID. "We looked for crops with problems that couldn't be addressed by conventional breeding," says Kannan Vijayaraghavan, chairman of Sathguru, an Indian company that has coordinated the project. "Brinjal had an obvious need. It was the second biggest user of pesticides after cotton, and the same Bt gene that addressed the bollworm in cotton could address the fruit and shoot borer." Work began in India, Bangladesh and the Philippines.
The stand-off
Research in India went smoothly until the GEAC, made up of scientists, decided in 2009 to defer the final decision on field trials to the government. After a series of public consultations – to which anti-GM activists brought weeping farmers to protest the safety risks – then environment minister Jairam Ramesh (pictured, above right) in 2010 imposed a moratorium, pending further tests.
Instead, there was a stand-off. GEAC scientists said it would be unethical to kill animals in experiments that could reveal nothing new. Ramesh refused to sign minutes of GEAC meetings, rendering the committee inoperable. With the Indian Supreme Court also considering a petition from activists for all GM field trials to be banned, there has effectively been a freeze on planting GM crops outside the lab.
The political tide is now turning. Since Modi came to power, the GEAC has been reactivated, and in July it approved field trials of 15 GM crops, including varieties of brinjal, although not, yet, Bt brinjal. The government now plans to create a new regulatory agency. "We hope the new authority will address the concerns of the public, persuade the Supreme Court that there is a proper regulatory system in place, and help get our products to market," said one senior university scientist who helped develop Bt brinjal, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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