19th September, 2015, New Delhi
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the South Asia Biotechnology Centre (SABC) to accelerate the deployment of public bred genetically engineered crops in India. The MOU was signed by Dr. S. Ayyappan, DG ICAR & Secretary DARE and Dr. C.D. Mayee, founder director of SABC, coinciding the executive council meeting of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) on Saturday, 19 September 2015. The ICAR and SABC will work jointly to create an independent platform to support technology assessment and deployment, biosafety and regulatory approval and outreach activities of biotech products developed through national agricultural research system.
Dr. S. Ayyappan lauded the efforts and expressed hopes that the collaboration would improve understanding of the regulatory science protocols and guidelines of biotech products which is crucial for taking biotechnology from lab to land through a multi-layer regulatory system involving different ministries in India. He further emphasized that “Translating biotech research by ICAR into ultimate products is a key challenge for our scientific community. Regulatory science and biosafety assessment studies assume a great significance to navigate through the regulatory system”.
Speaking on the occasion Dr. Mayee termed the MOU as a historic milestone in taking biotech products to farming community. “Our endeavor is to provide technological intelligence to National Agriculture System and help them with wherewithal to deal with technology deployment, biosafety and regulatory science and approval of improved crops and biotech products developed by NARS”.
Key scientists from ICAR and science administrators from the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) witnessed the pleasant signing in ceremony held at National Agriculture Science Complex, New Delhi.
(Source:Crop Science Division, New Delhi)
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