Bangladesh Agriculture Minister Matia Choudhury and Indian Agriculture Minister Sharad Power signed an agreement in Dhaka on 08 January 2010 to collaborate on advanced agricultural technology. Both countries will exchange technologies and scientists to build and improve capacity to develop GM and hybrid crop varieties to combat salinity, drought and submergence problems.

In their earlier meeting, Mrs. Choudhury and Dr Mangala Roy, Secretary of India Agriculture Research & Education and Director of India Agricultural Research Institute expressed their views on the positive direction for the production and import of hybrid and GM crops to meet food shortage. "The Bangladesh Government will not be conservative in importing and releasing GM crops if it is found beneficial for the country," she stressed.

Scientists from both countries are trying to incorporate the genes from the resistant sources to develop salinity and drought tolerant rice varieties. BR11 was crossed with the submergence tolerant IRRI lines to develop BR11Sub1 which can survive under 15 day submergence. India developed SwarnaSub1 as a submergence tolerant variety. Moreover, IRRI 64 and Mahasuri varieties were also modified for the purpose. BRRI 47 and BINA Line are being developed as salinity tolerant varieties. Pokkali, Uri and other coastal varieties of rice from both the countries have shown saline tolerance to a significant level.

For more news from Bangladesh, email Dr. Khondoker Nasiruddin of the Bangladesh Biotechnology Information Center at nasirbiotech@yahoo.com

Website: http://www.isaaa.org/kc/

Published: January 15, 2010