UNB, Dhaka :
Speakers at a workshop here on Saturday feared that the targeted insect to grow resistance to the controversial Bt Brinjal cultivation at farmers’ level in Bangladesh for lack of implementation of the refuge system.
They said the lack of implementation of the refuge system during the cultivation of GM Bt Cotton at farmers’ level in India has helped the targeted insect to grow resistance to the insecticidal Bt crop and that similar outcome could be seen in Bt Brinjal cultivation in Bangladesh.
They came up with the caution after a Bt Brinjal farmer, who was present at the workshop, titled ‘Food Security and Modern Biotechnology’, admitted he did not maintain the refuge system in his Bt Brinjal plot.
A refuge system refers to a management where non-GM plants are grown alongside insecticidal GM plants so that the non-GM variety provides a kind of refuge to the targeted insect. The absence of the non-GM plants can induce an evolution in the targeted insects to make itself resistant to the insecticidal GM plants in the long run.
Sharing the experience of his Bt Brinjal cultivation at the workshop, organised by Bangladesh Environment Lawyers’ Association (BELA) at Brac Centre Inn in the capital, Abul Kalam from Mymansingh district said though the fruiting at his Bt Brinjal plot began 65 days after the plantation, the plants started dying one by one from the third month of the plantation, causing him immense losses.
Responding to a query whether the officials of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) gave him any explanation for the dying of Bt Brinjal plants, he said they never went to his field. He also noted that he received the Bt Brinjal seeds from a friend who had ‘good relations’ with BARI officials. Notable, BARI did not officially provide any seed or seedling of any Bt Brinjal variety to the farmer.
Asked whether he planted any local brinjal variety along with the apparently leaked out Bt Brinjal, he replied in the negative adding that he did not know it was required.
Later, during his presentation at the workshop, Indian scientist Tusher Chakraborty noted that a variety of Bt Cotton, which was commercially released in India for pink bollworm control, failed to resist the insect within a couple of years of the introduction of the GM crop for lack of implementation of the refuge system.
The claim of pink bollworm resistance to one variety of Bt Cotton in India was also admitted by Monsanto, an agrochemical giant and also the owner of the Bt Cotton variety.
“During testing, researchers determined that pink bollworm resistance to the protein was confirmed in four districts in the Indian state of Gujarat – Amreli, Bhavnagar, Junagarh and Rajkot. Among the factors that may have contributed to pink bollworm resistance are limited refuge planting…”, according to a statement published by Monsanto in its website in 2009 following an outcry among farmers and anti-GM activists over the failure of Bollgard I, a GM Bt Cotton.
Citing the example of insect resistance to Bt Cotton in India, Dr Tusher Chakraborty, who is a member of State Council of Biotechnology, West Bengal, India, said similar outcome is likely to be experienced by farmers in Bangladesh.
Speaking on the occasion, Pavel Partha, a researcher of Bangladesh Centre for Indigenous Knowledge (BARCIK), also pointed out numerous violations of rules and regulations by the BARI officials during the trial as well as farmers’ field trial of the Bt Brinjal varieties.
Partha, who has been following and writing on the Bt Brinjal promotion in Bangladesh and its pitfalls over the last ten years, noted that the faulty process maintained by the BARI officials is evident when they changed the word ‘cultivation’ with the word ‘trial’ when they put signboards in the Bt Brinjal fields in the second season of limited cultivation of Bt Brinjal varieties in the country.
“If the second season is meant for trial of the Bt Brinjal, whey they coined the phrase cultivation at farmers’ level during the first season. Does that mean they had become more cautious only after news of crop failure in Bt Brinjal cultivation began to emerge in the media?” he questioned.
Speakers at a workshop here on Saturday feared that the targeted insect to grow resistance to the controversial Bt Brinjal cultivation at farmers’ level in Bangladesh for lack of implementation of the refuge system.
They said the lack of implementation of the refuge system during the cultivation of GM Bt Cotton at farmers’ level in India has helped the targeted insect to grow resistance to the insecticidal Bt crop and that similar outcome could be seen in Bt Brinjal cultivation in Bangladesh.
They came up with the caution after a Bt Brinjal farmer, who was present at the workshop, titled ‘Food Security and Modern Biotechnology’, admitted he did not maintain the refuge system in his Bt Brinjal plot.
A refuge system refers to a management where non-GM plants are grown alongside insecticidal GM plants so that the non-GM variety provides a kind of refuge to the targeted insect. The absence of the non-GM plants can induce an evolution in the targeted insects to make itself resistant to the insecticidal GM plants in the long run.
Sharing the experience of his Bt Brinjal cultivation at the workshop, organised by Bangladesh Environment Lawyers’ Association (BELA) at Brac Centre Inn in the capital, Abul Kalam from Mymansingh district said though the fruiting at his Bt Brinjal plot began 65 days after the plantation, the plants started dying one by one from the third month of the plantation, causing him immense losses.
Responding to a query whether the officials of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) gave him any explanation for the dying of Bt Brinjal plants, he said they never went to his field. He also noted that he received the Bt Brinjal seeds from a friend who had ‘good relations’ with BARI officials. Notable, BARI did not officially provide any seed or seedling of any Bt Brinjal variety to the farmer.
Asked whether he planted any local brinjal variety along with the apparently leaked out Bt Brinjal, he replied in the negative adding that he did not know it was required.
Later, during his presentation at the workshop, Indian scientist Tusher Chakraborty noted that a variety of Bt Cotton, which was commercially released in India for pink bollworm control, failed to resist the insect within a couple of years of the introduction of the GM crop for lack of implementation of the refuge system.
The claim of pink bollworm resistance to one variety of Bt Cotton in India was also admitted by Monsanto, an agrochemical giant and also the owner of the Bt Cotton variety.
“During testing, researchers determined that pink bollworm resistance to the protein was confirmed in four districts in the Indian state of Gujarat – Amreli, Bhavnagar, Junagarh and Rajkot. Among the factors that may have contributed to pink bollworm resistance are limited refuge planting…”, according to a statement published by Monsanto in its website in 2009 following an outcry among farmers and anti-GM activists over the failure of Bollgard I, a GM Bt Cotton.
Citing the example of insect resistance to Bt Cotton in India, Dr Tusher Chakraborty, who is a member of State Council of Biotechnology, West Bengal, India, said similar outcome is likely to be experienced by farmers in Bangladesh.
Speaking on the occasion, Pavel Partha, a researcher of Bangladesh Centre for Indigenous Knowledge (BARCIK), also pointed out numerous violations of rules and regulations by the BARI officials during the trial as well as farmers’ field trial of the Bt Brinjal varieties.
Partha, who has been following and writing on the Bt Brinjal promotion in Bangladesh and its pitfalls over the last ten years, noted that the faulty process maintained by the BARI officials is evident when they changed the word ‘cultivation’ with the word ‘trial’ when they put signboards in the Bt Brinjal fields in the second season of limited cultivation of Bt Brinjal varieties in the country.
“If the second season is meant for trial of the Bt Brinjal, whey they coined the phrase cultivation at farmers’ level during the first season. Does that mean they had become more cautious only after news of crop failure in Bt Brinjal cultivation began to emerge in the media?” he questioned.
