Starting with only 20 farmers in 2014, the technology of Bt brinjal – a crop developed to drastically lower hazardous pesticide application – reached 65,000 eggplant growers this year, making it the fastest expanding biotech product in Bangladesh.
Now, riding on the huge success of Bangladesh’s fastest expanding biotech crop, breeders are working on developing two new eggplant varieties capable to withstand FSB and bacterial wilt.
The study outcome found that the farmers who cultivated the Bt brinjal gained 55 percent higher income comparing to their peers growing the non-Bt brinjal. The genetically modified Bt brinjal has been developed by inserting a crystal protein gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis into the genome of various brinjal cultivars.