Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics

Bt brinjal: Alliance for Crooked Science & Corporate Lies

8Dec

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Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics, Uncategorized

Bt brinjal: Alliance for Crooked Science & Corporate Lies

Farida Akhter || Tuesday 08 December 2020 || READ BY SUBJECT: Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics IntroductionBrinjals, locally called Begun (in Bangla) by the people of Bangladesh, are the most common and favourite vegetable. On 17 May, 2020 the New Age, a national daily of Bangladesh published an article of mine [Akhter, 2020] titled “Aubergine Story: Local varieties exists, not GMOs”. In the article, I argued that in the month of Ramadan (month long fasting of the Muslim communities), the demand for brinjal (eggplant/aubergine) is the highest, because it is the main component of the most popular Iftar item, the Beguni. From the rich to the poor, Iftar is incomplete without chola-peyaju-beguni on the plate. In the market, local varieties of brinjals were amply seen, but not Bt bri...

Bt Brinjal Story: Bangladesh Resisting Monsanto

2Sep

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Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics

Bt Brinjal Story: Bangladesh Resisting Monsanto

The witness account from By UBINIG Farida Akhter || Wednesday 02 September 2020 Monsanto in Bangladesh Monsanto is not new in Bangladesh. The company has been actively selling RoundUp Ready in the Tea Gardens as Glyphosate herbicide for over two decades. Tea Gardens are located in remote areas in the north eastern geographic location of Bangladesh. It is only recently that Health hazards of unprotected tea garden workers are revealed only recently and linked to the unprotected use of pesticides and herbicide. However, the name of the herbicide company was never known until Monsanto representative in Bangladesh disclosed to the anti-Monsanto activists in 1999 that Monsanto has been supplying Glyphosate herbicide with their brand RoundUp Ready for over past ten years . Monsanto...

‘Adoption’ & abandoning of Bt brinjal cultivation: Farmers’ Experience Survey

13Sep

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Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics

‘Adoption’ & abandoning of Bt brinjal cultivation: Farmers’ Experience Survey

UBINIG || Thursday 12 September 2019 i. UBINIG conducted a short survey in December, 2018 and early January, 2019 on the adoption and abandonment of Bt brinjal by farmers on the basis of the claims of higher adoption of Bt brinjal by farmers. Forty-eight farmers were interviewed out of the list of 106 farmers who were selected by Department of Agricultural Extension for cultivation of Bt brinjal during 2014-15. The purpose of the survey was to check if the farmers receiving seedling in the early rounds are continuing for the later rounds till 2018-19. Farmers were given seedlings of four Bt brinjal varieties during 2014-15. Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) and the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) have given six rounds of distribution of seedlings till 201...

Comments on IFPRI Study Report published in a national daily

17Mar

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Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics

Comments on IFPRI Study Report published in a national daily

UBINIG Dhaka Tribune, a Bangladeshi daily, published a report by Reaz Ahmed on IFPRI ‘s Btbrinjal study on March 7th, 2019: “5-yr after releasing its first GM crop Bangladesh says farmers gain by adopting Bt brinjal”. Till now we have not been able to get a copy of the IFPRI report. Nevertheless, until we could put our hand on the full report and make our detail critique, we felt the media report demands some immediate response. Question 1: About the cover picture Dhaka Tribune published a picture with the caption: ‘Farmers busy selling Bt brinjal at a village market’. The picture does not say from which area/village market the shot has been taken. Dhaka Tribune Caption of this imege published with the report: 'Farmers busy selling Bt brinjal at a village m...

India asks about Btbrinjal: what Bangladesh can say?

5Nov

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Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics

India asks about Btbrinjal: what Bangladesh can say?

Farida Akhter SINCE 2014, Bangladesh has been commercially field testing four Btbrinjal varieties. In October 2013, on its last day of the session, the 9th parliament approved the genetically modified eggplants. The timing was strategic — a very agitated political situation prior to the national election was a convenient moment to introduce an inappropriate and unsafe technology. Btbrinjal has hardly any agronomic value but threatens Bangladesh with potential biosafety risks. Btbrinjal is the first GM vegetable crop that got the government approval despite protests from environmental and farmers’ organisations. Mahyco, the Indian counterpart of Monsanto, who gave the technology to Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, has now applied seeking approval for commercial release o...

‘Misrepresentation’ of Bt Brinjal farmers for corporate interest

17Apr

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Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics

‘Misrepresentation’ of Bt Brinjal farmers for corporate interest

Farida Akhter || Monday 17 April 2017 || READ BY SUBJECT: Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics Deb Carstoiu, Managing Director of plant biotech communications at CropLife International wrote a report on Bt Brinjal farmer Anisur Rahman Sheikh in a northern district of Bangladesh. According to Carstoiu, ‘Rahman Sheikh recently planted biotech eggplant for the first time. The biotech variety (Bt eggplant) repels or kills the fruit and shoot borer, and Rahman Sheikh is confident that it will make a difference for him and his family’. (see Deb Carstoui's 'PPPs: Planting the seeds of prosperity for Bangladeshi farmers'.) A farmer who has been growing local variety brinjals for last 10 years and has been surviving on its yield, now feels, according to Carstoiu, that Bt Bri...

21Aug

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Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics

Bt brinjal failed in farmers’ field

Jahangir Alam Jony and M.A. Sobhan Bt Brinjal affected by aphid Brinjal is the most important vegetable in Bangladesh, a common crtop farmers grow for family consumption as well as for the market. Nationally it is grown in about 50,000 hectares of land in two major seasons: winter and summer. However there are varieties that can be grown round the year. However seasonal varieties are culturally preferred. Indigenous nutritional knowledge claims that those fruits and vegetables are best for health if they go by seasons. Bangladesh is a country of wide range of varieties of brinjals. Despite the widespread erosion of genetic dioversioty there are still at least 248 varieties of brinjals. Most of the varieties are resistant to major disease and pests. The major...

4Mar

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Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics

Bt Brinjal: Put a label on it

Farida Akhter Consumers have the right to know what they are buying The field cultivation of genetically modified brinjal (also known as Bt Brinjal) was conditional. In October 2013, the National Committee on Biosafety (NCB) imposed seven conditions to be followed in field cultivation. One of these conditions was labeling -- if Bt Brinjal is brought to the market, they must be labelled, ie it should be clearly stated if it is GMO. Since 2014, two rounds of cultivation showed very poor performance, and the brinjals which were brought to the market were not labelled. Consumers did not know what they were buying. This is indeed a violation of the conditions of approval. Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) always refused to label them, insisting that it was impossibl...

Third round of Bt Brinjal: farmers are not interested

31Jan

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Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics

Third round of Bt Brinjal: farmers are not interested

Farida Akhter Bt Brinjal, the genetically modified brinjal introduced in Bangladesh despite concerns and failures in performances, is imposed again for the third round with newer farmers during 2015 – 2016 winter crop season. No report has been published as research findings of the first two rounds of field cultivation except some propaganda news. The website (both Bengali and English page) of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) has no information. It only says Bt Begun (Bt Brinjal). That’s all. The page is just blank. Even International Service for the Acquisition for Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) did not publish any report after its Brief 47: The Status of Commercialized Bt Brinjal in Bangladesh, in 2014. There is nothing in 2015 which could have reported about...

Bangladesh NGO report challenges BBC claim of 90% success for Bt brinjal

23Nov

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Btbrinjal & Corporate Politics

Bangladesh NGO report challenges BBC claim of 90% success for Bt brinjal

The narrative of GMO success is unravelling, writes Claire Robinson Recently we published an article about a report by the policy research organization UBINIG, which presented the results of its investigation into the performance of GM Bt insecticidal brinjal (eggplant) in its second year of cultivation in Bangladesh.UBINIG’s report found that officials from the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) and the Department of Agriculture nannied the GM brinjal plants through their short and fragile lives, providing farmers with a large arsenal of pesticides to combat the host of pests and diseases that besieged the plants. In many cases the officials even took over management of the crop from the farmers.The report also alleged that failing Bt brinjal plants were replaced by the...