They are a step closer to getting the geographical indication tag for Matti gulla, the local vegetable variety.
The small farmers’ group from a village in Udupi, which has been fighting to secure the Geographical Indication (GI) tag for matti gulla (an endemic variety of brinjal), is in a cheerful mood.
The Mattu Raitha Sangha has got a letter from the Geographical Indication Registration office at Chennai, signed by a senior registration official, stating that the GI Registration office has found matti gulla to be fit for receiving the tag.
The tag ties the right for marketing a product to a geographical territory and the manufactured goods should be produced or processed or prepared in that territory.
Matti gulla is a special brinjal variety grown only in Mattu, a village between the Udyavar and Pangala rivers in Udupi district. It is a green, round vegetable with a thorned juttu (hook). It is seasonal and gives two crops per year. A part of the first crop is offered to the Udupi Krishna temple.
“Many multi-national companies from the west, including Monsanto, had come to Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts, and one of the fabled types of brinjal — matti gulla — was facing the threat of bio-contamination through gene transformation from them,” Vasudeva Bhat, who led the fight against bio-contamination, told DNA.
“About 150 farmers growing matti gulla in Mattu filed an application with the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) for protection of plant diversity in the region,” Ramakrishnaiah, a scientist with the GI Registration office at Chennai, said.
“The ministry has directed the central information commissioner to post all information pertaining to genetically engineered crops, particularly brinjal, on the website of the Genetically Engineered Food Assessment Committee (GEAC), under the ministry, and on the website of the department of biotechnology,” he said.
Ramesh V Bhat, former secretary general of the Federation of Asian Nutrition Societies, who has been aiding the farmers to seek the GI tag, said the cultivation of matti gulla was a 500-year-old system.
Bhat and another scientist MN Madhyastha, who are the guiding force of the Mattu Raitha Sangha, have filed objections with the ministry of environment and forests against the move of Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company to genetically modify the seeds of matti gulla. The University of Agricultural Sciences had given the seeds to Mahyco, Bhat said.
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