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Thursday, November 8, 2007

[vinnomot] Biotech to figure in new EU-India S&T cooperation + India & China on GMOs

NEWS Bulletin from Indian Society For Sustainable Agriculture And Rural Development
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1. Biotech to figure in new EU-India S&T cooperation
2. India overtakes China in Bt cotton race
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Biotech to figure in new EU-India S&T cooperation
 
 
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 at 1938 hrs IST
 
New Delhi, November 7: Biotechnology in agriculture, bio-fuel, climate change and energy security are top on the agenda of the European Union's new offer for science and technology cooperation with India.
 
"I am confident that we are embarking upon a new eara in science and technology cooperation between the European Union and India. Our S&T cooperation agreement is about to be renewed for a further 5 years and we are about to announce new exciting opportunities for collaborative research, which may include biotechnology in agriculture, bio-fuel, climate change, energy security and computational material science. We will establish a road map of our strategic S&T cooperation for 2008 and beyond," the European Commission's director-general, Jose Manuel Silva Rodriguez at press conference here on Wednesday.
 
He said that the quality and the number of Indian participants in the early stage of the European Union's 7th Research Framework Programme was impressive.
Rodriguez and his team would participate in the 4th EU-India Science and Technology Cooperation Steering Committee meeting being hosted by the Union science and technology ministry in Delhi on November 8.. This meeting will discuss collaborative research in the fields of computational material sciences which will receive support of about 5 million euros (Rs 28 crore) from each side. It will also review progress on the renewal of the EU-India S&T cooperation agreement.
 
Scientists from the two sides will jointly work towards a common identified goal of developing high performance ceramics, structured composites and advanced materials capable of performing multiple roles. Intellectual property rights will be shared by scientists collaborating in the project.
 
"The potentially significant and mutual benefits of this cooperation were highlighted by the leaders of the EU and India in the joint statement of their summit in Helsinki last year. The renewal of the EU-India S&T Cooperation Agreement is expected to be one of the key deliverables at the forthcoming EU-India Summit on November 30 in Delhi, followed by a joint business summit in November 19," said Rodriguez.
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India overtakes China in Bt cotton race
 
 
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Tuesday , November 06, 2007 at 2248 hrs IST
 
Although China is an early starter in transgenic agriculture, India has overtaken its northern neighbour in terms of the area under Bt cotton cultivation and the number of genetically modified (GM) crops in the pipeline for approval.
 
Both the countries began with developing transgenic fibre crop—Bt cotton—and moved on to food crops. They are experiencing similar resistance from consumer groups and civil society organisations, which is considerably delaying the process of regulatory approvals.
 
"We have developed transgenic rice, but the approval for commercial cultivation is withheld due to stiff resistance by Greenpeace. However, transgenic tomato, green pepper and petunia are in commercial cultivation in a few select areas," said Zhen Zhu of the Institute of Genetics and Development Biology in the Chinese Academy of Science, when recently in India.
 
According to International Services for Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Application (ISAAA) China has over a dozen biotech crops being field-tested, including the three major staples—rice, maize and wheat as well as cotton, potato, tomato, soybean, cabbage, peanut, melon, papaya, sweet pepper, chilli, rapeseed and tobacco. In India, biotech crops in development by the public sector include about 17 crops like banana, blackgram, brassica, cabbage, cauliflower, chickpea, coffee, cotton, eggplant, muskmelon, mustard, potato, rice, tobacco, tomato, wheat and papaya. Private sector in India are developing about nine biotech crops namely brassicam cabbage, cauliflower, cotton, maize,  mustard, pigeonpea, rice and tomato among others.
 
In India, a public interest litigation has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a moratorium on GM crops. The exporters, particularly the rice exporters are apprehensive about a setback in the European market in the event of approval of GM food crops.
 
However the ISAAA chair, Clive James said: "India can be hub for transgenic technology in agriculture in South Asia." China began commercial cultivation of Bt cotton in 1996 and became the member of the group of six 'founder biotech crop countries' along with the US, Argentina, Canada. According to ISAAA, though India began cultivation of Bt cotton quite late in 2002, its area under Bt cotton has increased to 3.8 million hectares in 2006 exceeding for the first time, that of China's 3.5 million hectares.
 
The ISAAA report noted that China has developed successful Bt cotton varieties that compete with products developed by the private sector, but the level of Bt cotton adoption in that country seems to have plateaued at around 66%. "The plateauing may be in part due to the fact that large cotton areas in Xing Xang province are subject to much less pest pressure than eastern provinces such as Hubei where pest pressure is high and where adoption rates are well above the national average," it said.
 
China has a cotton area of about 5.3 million hectares compared with the standard 9 million hectares in India, the world's largest cotton producer. India is the only country to grow all four species of cultivated cotton. Gossypium hirsutum represents 90% of the hybrid cotton production in India and all the current Bt cotton hybrids are G.hirsutum.
 
In India by 2006 four events including double-stacked genes were deployed on 62 cotton hybrids. One event, the GFM developed by Nath Seeds featuring fused genes cry 1Ab and cry 1Ac was sourced from China. An indigenous event was developed by JK Seeds featuring cry 1Ac gene was sourced from IIT, Kharagpur. Apart from this, the rest of Bt technology in use in India is owned by Monsanto, licenced to Mahyco and sub-licenced to other seed companies.
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