Philippines: Bt eggplant safe for human consumption, according to BPI

Published Jul 26, 2021

Tridge summary

The Philippine government has approved Bt talong, a genetically modified eggplant, for human consumption, finding it as safe as conventional eggplant. The Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Plant Industry has issued a biosafety permit for the food, feed, and processing use of 'EE-1' event of Bt eggplant. This approval, which is the latest milestone in the biosafety regulatory process in the Philippines, follows Bangladesh's lead as the only other country to certify the safety of Bt eggplant. The adoption of Bt eggplant is projected to bring significant health, environmental, and economic benefits, including reduced pesticide use and increased marketable yield.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

The Philippine government ruled that Bt talong, a genetically modified (GM) eggplant that contains a gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), is just like a conventional eggplant and is safe for human consumption.This was according to International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), a not-for-profit international organization that shares the benefits of crop biotechnology to various stakeholders, particularly resource-poor farmers in developing countries like the Philippines. To complete the biosafety regulatory process, Bt eggplant will now just need commercial propagation approval for environmental safety assessment before it can be made available to the public.ISAAA was the first to reveal that after rigorous biosafety assessment, the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) has already approved Bt eggplant event ‘EE-1’ for direct use as food, feed, or for processing (FFP). BPI subsequently issued Biosafety ...

Source: Mb