PATNA: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said he will write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi against commercial cultivation of genetically modified (GM) mustard.
“I will write to the Prime Minister urging him not to allow the cultivation of GM mustard which is not good for the environment as well as mankind,” he said after meeting a national level delegation of farmers from Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) in Patna.
The delegation sought a ban on GM mustard farming. The Chief Minister told the delegation that Bihar has been promoting organic farming on a large-scale.
“Organic farming and GM cultivation cannot go together,” Mr Kumar, who was the Union Agriculture Minister in the AB Vajpayee government, said.
The delegation included ASHA national coordinator Kavita Kurugantti and its members, including Kapil Sah and Pankaj Bhusan.
They told Mr Kumar that efforts were being made by a unit of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee to give a green signal to commercial farming of GM Mustard from the current month.
PTI