India’s GEAC Approves Public Sector Bt Cotton Variety

Matt Hopkins Posted by Matt Hopkins|27 May 2008

India’s biotech regulatory agency, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), has approved the commercial release of an indigenous Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton variety called Bikaneri Narma (BN), the first public sector biotech crop in India.

Developed by the Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR) with the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharward, Karnataka, the public-sector variety allows farmers to save the seeds for planting the following season once it was allowed for large scale trials.

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