Environmentalist warns about GM crops

`GM crops will increase yield and it is solution to poverty in the country is a myth created by the advocates of GM crops`, Vijayan told reporters here today.

Vijayan`s statement is in the back ground of CPI-M polit bureau member S Ramachandran Pilla`s recent remark that benefis of GM crops should be made available to farmers. Vijayan wanted the government to stick to its declared stand of`GM crop free Kerala and GM Crop free India`.

Opposing the move to conduct field trial of GM rubber crop in the state, Vijayan said GM crops would only increase the burden of farmers by `making cultivation more costly`.

In the case of BT bringal, he said Kerala alone has more than 2500 variety of brinjal. `Once BT brinjal is introduced, the traditional seeds would be contaminated and finally terminated`, Vijayan said. The environmental problems the GM crops would create would be irreversable, he added.