NOTE: You can see USAID, ABSP II and similar US interests lurking behind this. It's not only designed to deny careful scrutiny to Bt brinjal approval in the Philippines, but to undermine India's Environment Minister by expressing support for the discredited GEAC.

EXTRACT: "Our decision to use the Indian dossier is a testament to the quality of your biosafety framework and to the work of your Genetic Engineering Approval Committee" Philippines Science and Technology Secretary Estrella Alabastro
---
---
Jairam trashes his own panel, Manila swears by it
Amitabh Sinha
Indian Express, March 4 2010
http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/586648/

New Delhi : While Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh doesn't trust the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee’s green flag to Bt brinjal, Philippines has relied on the very same results to fast-track its own process to grant approval to the crop.

Philippines, like India, is in the process of developing Bt brinjal and has decided to use the biosafety data presented to the GEAC by the Indian developers in order to "leverage valuable research time and resources".

A communication to this effect has been sent to Science and Technology Minister Prithviraj Chavan by his counterpart in Philippines, Science and Technology Secretary Estrella Alabastro.

"The Filipino Biosafety Authority reviewed the biosafety dossier presented to your department for Bt brinjal and decided to allow this dossier to be presented for their own approval rather than require the University of the Philippines-Los Banos to duplicate the work," Alabastro has written in a letter dated February 26.

"Our decision to use the Indian dossier is a testament to the quality of your biosafety framework and to the work of your Genetic Engineering Approval Committee," she said.

Philippines, home to the world-renowned International Rice Research Institute, is one of the leading countries engaged in research in genetically modified crops. It was the first country in Asia to approve a GM food crop when it cleared the commercial cultivation of Bt maize five years ago. Currently, it is in advanced stages of developing GM varieties of rice, papaya and brinjal.

Accepting the results of Indian tests on Bt brinjal would enable Philippines to skip the middle stage ”” that involves tests to ascertain the effect on human health ”” of its three-stage process to grant approvals to GM food. Philippines had taken a similar step while granting approval to Bt maize, accepting the test results of the US Food and Drug Administration.

While announcing his decision to put an indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal, Ramesh had said last month: “While there may be a debate on the nature and number of tests that need to be carried out for establishing human safety, it is incontrovertible that the tests have been carried out by the Bt brinjal developers themselves and not in any independent laboratory. This does raise legitimate doubts on the reliability of the tests, doubts that I cannot ignore.”

Alabastro, in her letter, said the experience of Philippines with the Bt gene in Bt maize has been very positive. “In the Philippines, we faced challenges in deregulating Bt maize. It was the first genetically modified food crop to be introduced in our country and some groups initially expressed concern about its introduction. Nevertheless, we moved forward and Bt maize has had a positive impact on our agriculture sector. Small land-holder farmers have particularly benefited from the resulting increased yields and reductions in pesticide use and exposure,” she said.

Following Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s criticism of his decision, Ramesh has convened a meeting of top scientists of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) for March 9.

He is also learnt to be planning to invite GEAC members for dinner on March 15 where the issue could be discussed “informally.”

Meanwhile, Ramesh told the Lok Sabha today that the establishment of the National Centre for Assessment of Genetically Modified Organisms (NCAG), a state-of-the art testing lab, may be built into the proposed National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority.