Syngenta drops plans for Indian rice venture

Monday, 13 February 2012

Syngenta drops plans for Indian rice venture

Katie Mantell

12 December 2002 | EN

The Swiss-based agricultural biotechnology company Syngenta has pulled out of a controversial joint research venture with the Indira Gandhi Agricultural University (IGAU) in Raipur, India.

A statement from Syngenta, released on Tuesday (10 December), confirmed that the company — which would have gained commercial rights to the university's collection of more than 19,000 local rice strains — had dropped the proposal.

Environmentalists and some scientists opposed the deal on the grounds that the collection was a national wealth and not private property. IGAU would have received an undisclosed amount of money and royalties from the company in exchange for access to the collection.

© SciDev.Net 2002

Link to Nature news story

Photo credit: FAO

Add your comment

This is your network: share your views on any of our articles by adding your comments.

Comment

You need to be signed in to post a comment or to email a consenting comment author. Please sign in or sign up.

Email me when someone responds to the discussion

All comments are subject to approval and we reserve the right to edit comments containing inappropriate/unsuitable language. SciDev.Net holds copyright for all material posted on the website. Please see terms of use for further details.

All SciDev.Net material is free to reproduce providing that the source and author are appropriately credited. For further details see Creative Commons.

Back to News
To the top