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'India ready for biotechnology crops'

Having shed its initial conservative stand on entry of transgenic crops into the country, India is all set to reap the rich harvests of biotechnology that has taken the western world by storm, an international expert said in Kolkata on Wednesday.

"With farmers in India endorsing Bt cotton as a miracle crop, which has none of the negative impacts earlier feared, the era of transgenics in this country is just round the corner," eminent biotechnologist and advisory committe member of the Department of Biotechnology C S Prakash said.

Prakash, a professor of plant biotechnology at the College of Agriculture of Tuskegee University, USA, expressed hope that full scale introduction of Bt cotton could clearly double the current Indian production of 250 kg per hectare in about four years.

Though USA, armed with the benefits of biotechnology, was the highest grower of cotton, India had the best average and could reach the Chinese average of 450 kg per hectare with Bt cotton, he said after delivering an address on 'Agricultural Biotechnology in India' at the Bose Institute in Kolkata.

An Indian company Pro-Agro Seeds collaborating with the French major Aventis is considering trial production of mustard and tomato in the country in the near future.

"But ask me which crops India should take up in order of priority and I would name rice, chickpea and staple crops like Bajra and Jawar," he said.

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