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Eggplant first biotech food crop in Asia
The first genetically modified food crop in Asia is not rice, but eggplant, grown on 1.5 million acres in India and Bangladesh alone.
The highly destructive fruit and shoot borer (FSB) larvae cuts a swath across southeast Asia, accounting for up to 40 per cent of eggplant crop losses annually. The University of Cornell in New York State and Sathguru Management Consultants of India developed a Bt eggplant that resists the tiny larvae. Another partner, Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds, is on schedule to commercialize the genetically modified fruit by 2009.
Farmers have grown genetically altered cotton in India since 2002.
Cornell economists predict that Bt eggplant will reduce insecticide use by 30 per cent while doubling the yield of marketable fruit. Economists from Cornell and other institutions report that the Bt eggplant would result in lower prices for consumers and higher yields for farmers. By 2015, this would boost the Indian economy by $411 million and the Bangladeshi economy by $37 million. BF|
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