Agreement among Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), Mahyco and Sathguru on Bt Brinjal research revealed that ownership of the genetically engineered brinjal variety will go to Monsanto's Indian subsidiary Mahyco, an official of the ministry of agriculture (MoA) said.
Although the agriculture minister, BARI and a few others are continuously claiming that ownership of the Bt Brinjal seed will be of Bangladeshi farmers, the agreement signed on March 14, 2005, shows a deferent thing.
Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company Ltd (MHSCL) is a subsidiary of US-based multinational seed company Monsanto and Sathguru Management Consultants Private Ltd is the regional coordinator of the South Asian region for Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II (ABSP II) of USAID.
The MoA official told the FE requesting anonymity that the agreement for sublicence of genetically modified organism (GMO) variety, Bt Brinjal, shows that the IP (intellectual property) right of the Bt Brinjal is surely of Monsanto-Mahyco's.
"The most striking point of the agreement is that it has given an indemnity or BARI has given indemnity to Monsanto-Mahyco and Sathguru for any kind of disaster concerning Bt Brinjal research," the official said.
Meanwhile the BARI director general said the right of the seed developed by the institute will be of BARI's, but the Bt gene and the technology will be of Mahyco's.
He admitted that under the agreement BARI has to take permission from Mahyco if it wants to infuse Bt gene to new varieties.
IPR expert and lecturer of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology at Dhaka University Zobair Al Mahmud said by reading the agreement anyone can understand that the sole right of Bt Brinjal will be of Mahyco and in that case nine indigenous varieties of Bangladeshi brinjals, which were infused with Bt gene by BARI, will be out of the farmers' reach.
"It is surely a kind of bio-piracy," he remarked.
Biodiversity expert and ethno-biologist Pavel Partho told the FE that for not having a Biotechnology Act, BARI no has the right to go for GMO open trial, but the institute has been conducting GMO tests openly at six districts for last seven years.
Pavel said the agriculture minister and BARI are either lying or not realising the agreement properly which has clearly stated that Bt Brinjal varieties developed by BARI will be of Mahyco's.
Agriculture specialist Dr M A Sobhan told the FE: "Bt Brinjal is cross-pollinating and its introduction at the farmer level also poses serious threats to crops in other adjacent crop fields."
He said India and the Philippines have banned the controversial seed variety in their country.
"Why is Bangladesh taking such a tough decision when her neighbouring countries are neglecting these?" he questioned.
He said brinjal has a surplus production in the country as farmers grow 0.369 million tonnes of the crop while its demand being hardly 0.31 million tonnes.
He said post-harvest loss is the highest (39 per cent) for brinjal, an average rate considering other vegetables.
"We can curtail excessive use of pesticide by appropriating IPM (integrated pest management), why then will we go for making our crop poisonous?" he said.
In explanation he said pesticide use reduced by 15 per cent in 2013 compared to that of 2012 as its use has decreased significantly in paddy farming.
It has been possible thanks to introduction of IPM clubs across the country.
However, on October 30, 2013, Bangladesh National Committee on Bio-safety (NCB) permitted BARI for a limited-scale cultivation and marketing for Bt Brinjal.
