Every year, the U.S. Government's Feed the Future initiative releases a summary of its biggest accomplishments. This year, Feed the Future recognized IFPRI's Bt brinjal study in Bangladesh, which evaluated the impacts of genetically engineered brinjal, or eggplant, on various outcomes. IFPRI researchers found that Bt brinjal cultivation increased crop yields, farmers' incomes, and decreased […]
Brinjal is a high-value crop that is widely grown and consumed throughout the country. However, it is highly susceptible to the fruit and shoot borer pest. To fight this pest, farmers spray their crops heavily with toxic pesticides, which can have harmful effects on the health of farmers, their families, the consumers of the fruit, and the environment. Agricultural biotechnologies, such as Bt brinjal, have the potential to address this issue.
To this end, IFPRI's Policy Research and Strategy Support Program (PRSSP) designed a study, implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture, to assess the impacts of genetically modified brinjal in Bangladesh. The study was conducted from 2017-2018 in four districts in northwest Bangladesh.
For more information on the Bt brinjal study, please contact the IFPRI Country Representative Dr. Akhter Ahmed.
BLOG: Impact Study Demonstrates Bt Brinjal Helps Farmers Earn More With Less Pesticide
This post was written by Akhter Ahmed, Ph.D., International Food Policy Research Institute; John Hoddinott, DPhil, Cornell University; Paul Tanger, Ph.D., USAID; Lesley Perlman, USAID. Photo credit: Md. Arif Hossain/Cornell University Eggplant, known as brinjal in Bangladesh, is a high-value crop that is widely grown and consumed throughout the country. 150,000 farmers grow brinjal in […]
Merit of Bt Brinjal Technology
Abdul Bayes | October 05, 2019 | The drivers of the current development of Bangladesh are many and they are diverse too. Ranking the drivers on their strengths may not be a simple exercise as hosts of multi-co-linearity problems would complicate the attempt. But apparently agricultural growth, especially of food grains could be touted as […]
Discussion Paper: Impacts of Bt Brinjal (Eggplant) in Bangladesh
A new discussion paper from IFPRI researchers Akhter Ahmed, John Hoddinott, Nusrat Hossain, and Naveen Abedin assesses the impacts of genetically modified eggplant, Bt brinjal, on economic and health outcomes in Bangladesh using a cluster randomized controlled trial design. The study finds that Bt brinjal reduces the cost of pesticide use, the use of pesticides […]
South Asian Biosafety Conference – Keynote on Bt Brinjal Study
Under the South Asia Biosafety Program, the ILSI Research Foundation and Biotech Consortium India Limited organized the annual South Asia Biosafety Conference (SABP) from September 14-16, 2019 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This conference provides a forum to hear from leading scientists representing regulatory agencies, public sector research institutions, and the private sector in South Asia and […]