Minister for National Food Security and Research has certified 19,857 metric tons cotton seed so far against the total cotton seed requirement of 40,000 metric tons.
The Federal Seed Certification and Registration Department (FSC&RD) is monitoring sale of fake and below standard cotton seed to ensure its availability quality.
An official at the ministry on Sunday highlighted the steps taken for development and promotion of new high yielding Bt and non Bt cotton varieties and said there was no protection available in copyright law to genetically modified seeds. He said the toxin level ranges from 0.5 to 1.9 ug/gm of fresh weight in leaves. The approved Bt cotton varieties are comparatively low in germination strength due to early sowing – February and March.
The official said the value approved by TAC is appropriate for their region and added National Biosafety Committee (NBC) approves varieties of seed from environmental point of view.
He elaborated the procedures adopted for this purpose and said the applications on prescribed format are prepared and submitted to Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) of the organization concerned for evaluation and scrutinizing before recommending to NBC for approval.
While the applications are processed at National Biosafety Centre and placed before the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) for evaluation on scientific and technical parameters and recommendations are furnished to NBC for decision.
The applicants are provided an opportunity to defend their cases in the TAC meeting, he said and added the NBC on the basis of TAC recommendations and as per current policies of government decides to approve or reject the application. The proceedings are transparent in all respects.
