Will run final trial for GM corn once India is ready: Corteva MD Subbarao

DowDuPont Inc will conduct final field trial of genetically modified (GM) variety of corn in India once the regulatory system is ready to permit commercial cultivation of such food crops, the company's senior official said Wednesday.

Recently, the company's Indian arm had deferred field trials of its herbicides and insecticide resistant GM corn in the country.

India has so far permitted commercial cultivation of BT cotton and imposed the moratorium on Bt brinjal. The regulator has sought more tests on GM mustard.

"We are waiting for the trigger for the regulatory approval (for food crops) and readiness of the system," DowDuPont Inc's agri-division Corteva Agriscience Managing Director (South Asia) K V Subbarao told reporters.

As per the norm, four years field trials are required to get the final approval of the regulator to sell the GM corn. So far, the company has done three years of on-farm field trials, he said.

"We are at the last stage of trials. Till the regulatory system is ready for the approval and adoption, we have deferred the trials," he noted.

Subbarao said that the trials were withdrawn not due to concerns related to intellectual property even as he emphasised its importance in the seed sector.

"The final trial will have to conducted in broad agro-climatic conditions on a large scale. The approvals we had was from selective one or two states," he said.

Corteva Agriscience sells both hybrid seeds and crop protection solutions in India. It has manufacturing units one each in Telangana, Maharasthra and Gujarat.