People started flowing into the IMA hall premises from 6am in the morning to participate in the public consultation on Bt Brinjal in Nagpur, which was the fourth in the series of seven consultations. Everyone wanted to express their views and be part of one of the historic events in the history of Agriculture in the country.

The hall with a seating capacity of 500 people was full in no time. With hundreds of people left outside, the atmosphere was tense. Inside the hall the farmers started raising slogans against Bt. Soon, Sharad Joshi walked in with his small pro-GM crowd and there were slogans for Bt Brinjal. But their voices were shadowed by the anti-Bt Brinjal slogans.

Minister Jairam Ramesh speaks to the protesters outside the venue after the consultation in Nagpur

Minister Jairam Ramesh walked in at around 11 am. The minister made it very clear that he came to Nagpur to find out the impacts of Bt cotton, even though he didn’t want to compare Bt cotton with Bt Brinjal.

Farmers were given the chance to speak first. Ghanshyam Chopde, a natural farmer from Vidharbha was the first to speak. He set the tone with a strong discourse against Bt Brinjal. Shalini Sudhagar, who came with two widows whose husbands committed suicide after the failure of Bt Cotton, spoke next. The entire hall went silent while she gave her speech.

Among the prominent farmer leaders, Vijay Jawandhia and Avinash Kakkade opposed the introduction of Bt Brinjal while Sharad Joshi supported it. Farmer group discussion was mainly focused around Bt Cotton. Majority of the farmers equated Bt cotton with farmer distress and suicides. Altogether 21 farmers spoke out of which only 7 spoke in favour of Bt Brinjal.

The scientists spoke next. The corporate scientists and few ICAR scientists spoke in favour of Bt Brinjal. Generally they were trying to counter the arguments against Bt. But they were given contradicted by scientists like Prof. Nimbalkar, Prof Tharakate, Prof Thakare and Ashok Bang.

Civil groups, consumer forums and government officials were next in line. Chhattisgarh government’s official delegation opposed the introduction of Bt Brinjals and the Vidharbha Industries Association’s representative made it clear that these technologies should be treated with caution and hence should not be introduced in haste. Only 6 out of 19 people who spoke in this session supported the introduction of Bt Brinjal.

After the consultation, Jairam Ramesh spoke to the media and confirmed that he had received official letters from Chief Ministers of Orissa, Bihar, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Kerala asking for a moratorium on GM crops. West Bengal CM also opposed hasty introduction of Bt Brinjals.

The minster also listened to the concerns of the people who could not enter the consultation venue. Overall, Bt Brinjals received a negative response in Nagpur.

Signing off
Team Nagpur

Bookmark this