India 'to approve GM potato'

The commercial growing of a genetically modified potato which contains nutrients lacking in the diets of many of the poorest is expected to be approved in India within six months.

The influential head of the Indian Government's Department of Biotechnology, Dr Manju Sharma, said the potato would be given free to millions of poor children at government schools to try to reduce the problem of malnutrition in the country.

The potato contains a third more protein than normal, including essential high-quality nutrients, and has been created by adding a gene from the protein-rich amaranth plant.

But critics describe the plan as risky, naive and a propaganda tool to promote the merits of GM food in India.

The "protato", as it has become known, is in its final stages of regulatory approval which Dr Sharma said she was very confident of getting. She plans to incorporate it into the government's free midday meal programme in schools.

"There has been a serious concern that malnutrition is one of the reasons for the blindness, the vitamin A deficiency, the protein deficiency," Dr Sharma told the BBC.

"So it is really a very important global concern, particularly in the developing world," she added.

One of India's leading industrialists in biotechnology, Dr Balvinder Singh Khalsi, chief executive of Dupont, said the project had enormous potential for the country.

"We see this as a technology for the future, because the real need for India is to feed its growing population. This technology is really going to the benefit of improving the yields, better quality food, larger quantity," Dr Khalsi said.

BBC text.