Scientists and public representatives at the Mararikulam Brinjal Festival have called for a public hearing to be held in Kerala on the commercial release of Bt. Brinjal.
Talking to The Hindu on Sunday, Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac, who has been one of the key organizers of the Mararikulam Brinjal Festival, and Dinesh Abrol, senior scientist at the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies (NISTAD), said that it was unfortunate that the Union Environment Ministry had not scheduled a public hearing on the issue in Kerala.
“They are holding public hearings from January 13 at Kolkata and then on, at Bhubaneswar, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Nagpur and Chandigarh. But Kerala has been left out. We have seen how a small panchayat like Mararikulam North garnered the nation’s attention by organizing this Brinjal Festival, because there are a lot of stakeholders for brinjal here. Therefore, a public hearing on the commercial release of Bt. Brinjal should be held in Kerala, most suitably at Mararikulam,” Dr. Abrol said.
Dr. Isaac said a demand to hold a public hearing here would be made to the Centre. It was already decided that a delegation from the Mararikulam North panchayat would meet Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh to submit a Common Statement on Bt. Brinjal adopted by the national seminar conducted on Saturday as part of the festival.
Earlier, releasing the Common Statement at a press conference, Dr. Isaac said the views of academicians, scientists, farmers and public representatives expressed at the national seminar, on Bt. Brinjal had been incorporated in the statement.
“In general, the statement reiterates what noted scientist P.M. Bhargava said on Saturday, that there should be a moratorium on the introduction of Bt. Brinjal and GM foods for a certain period. During this period, the Government should set up a credible and transparent public sector institutional structure for undertaking longer and medium term laboratory and field studies,” he said, adding that the seminar had voiced an emphatic negative to plans of public private partnership in the agriculture sector and had placed emphasis on developing indigenous strengths in keeping with India’s philosophy of self reliance in the sector.
The statement also called for the training of scientists in bio-safety assessment, including the socio-economic dimension to do a competent evaluation of transgenic crops, apart from calling on the Central Government to support efforts taken for development of alternatives like non-pesticide management of pests and diseases and the practice of ecological agriculture.
