BT COTTON - BITTER HARVEST

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AgBioIndia Mailing List
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27 August 2002

Subject: Bt cotton -- bitter harvest

The Bt cotton bubble is beginning to burst. Reports reaching from Khargone distrct in Madhya Pradesh, in the heart of the cotton-growing belt in India, indicate 100 per cent crop failure. Farmers are naturally demanding compensation from the company. In the northern regions of the country, Bt cotton has been afflicted with the 'leaf curl virus'. Elsewhere, the economics that was worked out by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to promote the unsustainable technology has turned out to be untrue.

 In Indonesia, Agri Research Station for Tobacco and Fibre (Balittas) of the Department of Agriculture has accepted that Bt cotton yields less than the popular cotton (and non-transgenic) variety Kanesia 7. To know more about Indonesian findings, click here: http://www.agbioindia.org/story3.asp

 Another hidden cost of the Bt cotton cultivation is its water requirement. Neither the ICAR nor the department of biotechnology is willing to tell us that the water requirement for Bt cotton is much more than the traditional varieties.

The Bt cotton story has been mired in controversy from the very beginning. We have repeatedly said that entire exercise to approve Bt cotton for commercial cultivation was scandalous. While the distinguished panelists on the three committees that accorded clearance at different stages --GEAC, RCGM, and MEC -- will go scot-free, the resulting cost of the bitter harvest will have to be borne by the farming communities.

1. Bt cotton: bitter harvest
2. Bt cotton prone to leaf curl virus in north India.
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1. Bt cotton - bitter harvest

By Mihir Shah & Debashis Banerji

The Bt cotton story in India had all the makings of a terrible tragedy, even before official permission was granted for its cultivation.

First reports from Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh, one of the cotton headquarters of India, endowed with fertile black cotton soil, speak of a 100 per cent failure of the Bt cotton crop. Farmers are up in arms demanding compensation from the company that supplied these seeds. While other cotton varieties have also been adversely affected by the drought, they report a failure rate of only around 20 per cent. This is a performance that has shocked even the worst critics of genetically-modified (GM) crops. We do not expect such a complete disaster to be repeated everywhere. But the Bt cotton story in India had all the makings of a terrible tragedy, even before official permission was granted for its cultivation in March 2002.

The tragedy began unfolding in Gujarat where over ten thousand acres of Bt cotton were planted illegally last year. The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, whose permission is required for cultivation of any GM crop, ordered the destruction of this illegal Bt cotton. But the decision was never implemented.

In March this year, three hybrid Bt cotton seeds supplied by the Mumbai-based company, Mahyco, were approved by the GEAC for cultivation in central and south India. The U.S. multinational Monsanto has a 27 per cent stake in Mahyco. Bt cotton seeds have been genetically engineered to produce a toxin that can kill the bollworm, a major headache for cotton farmers. They are ineffective against other pests and even according to their suppliers do not have any mechanism to raise yields. The idea is that they would raise the net incomes of farmers since they are expected to reduce spending on pesticides.  But a simple calculation shows that the economics does not quite work out. Seeds currently being used by farmers cost an average of Rs. 325 per hectare. The pesticide cost is around Rs. 400 per hectare. The Bt cotton seeds are about four times as expensive as existing seeds, i.e., Rs. 1,300 per hectare. Some pesticide has to be used even with Bt seeds, particularly because 20 per cent of Bt cotton fields need to be covered with non-Bt seeds (to ensure that pest resistance to Bt cotton does not rapidly develop). Even if Bt seeds are presumed to lead to a dramatic reduction in pesticide costs to say Rs.150 per hectare, the total cost of seeds and pesticides would still be double in the Bt case - Rs. 1,450 compared to Rs. 725 per hectare for seeds currently in use.

The mandatory requirement of growing non-Bt cotton in each Bt cotton plot is based on "resistance management plans" devised in the U.S., where farmers have huge land holdings. The idea is that the surviving resistant insects to the Bt crop will intermate with susceptible ones on the non-Bt crop. But Indian cotton farmers with much smaller land holdings have found it quite impossible to set aside land for these "refugia". Their inability to do so will only accelerate the development of pest resistance to Bt cotton. There are also a large number of technical specifications for refugia management with which Indian farmers have not even been made remotely familiar. This is obviously not a technology meant for the poor, dryland small farmers of India.

Inquiries in the field reveal that the attraction for Bt cotton had much to do with the kind of hype that surrounded its sale. Farmers worried about the cost were falsely promised dramatic increases in yield. Coercion was also employed - availability of credit and other inputs was linked to purchase of Bt. But, most farmers remained unconvinced because of the high price. And this is where the tragedy got really compounded.

Much to the consternation of Mahyco-Monsanto, illegal Bt seeds from last year's Gujarat harvest (that the Government failed to destroy) began flooding the market. A large number of illegal dealers started offering Bt cotton much cheaper, at anywhere between Rs. 100 and Rs. 800 per hectare. In Gujarat last year these seeds were covertly sold under the brand name "Navbharat 151" by the Navbharat Seeds Company. This year, with Bt cotton having being cleared by the Government, and with no action against Navbharat, the seeds obtained from last year's harvest, were openly sold as "Maxi 151" by a Vadodara-based company describing itself as "B.T. Cotton Trial Farm". Its proprietor, Piyush Patel, published huge ads in prominent Gujarati dailies not only extolling the higher yields of "his" Bt cotton, but also claiming its superiority over that supplied by "big companies" (which he described as a "terminator seed"). Following several representations to the GEAC, Mr. Patel was finally arrested in May 2002. But much damage had already been done. Many illegal F2 and even F3 (second and third generation) seeds are reported to have been sold to cotton farmers of Punjab and Haryana, where Bt cotton has yet to be approved. They have also found their way into Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. A khadi institute in Gujarat that apparently used last year's Bt seeds, reported uncommon itching and rashes among users of cloth produced from this cotton.

As this illegal trade of bogus operators spread, the Government largely remained a silent spectator. The irony is that those who set so much store by Bt cotton are also passively watching their magic product being made a complete mockery of! We are more concerned that farmers are being taken for a ride. We have consistently argued that any new technology must be introduced only after farmers and consumers have complete information on all its aspects. So that they can make an informed choice. Such a choice has been denied to our people, who are being forced to learn the hard way.

Why can't a large number of public debates be organised in our cotton growing areas, with the participation of the Government, companies, scientists, farmers and consumers? Where this has been done, as in Chitradurga in Karnataka and Medak in Andhra Pradesh, farmers have overwhelmingly rejected GM crops. But the Government has still not placed in the public domain, data generated by Bt cotton trials in India. Ridiculously, the monitoring and regulation of Bt cotton has been entrusted to the very same company that is producing and selling it. Meanwhile, evidence against Bt cotton continues to accumulate worldwide. A study by the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences under the Chinese State Environmental Protection Agency reveals that Bt cotton is harming natural parasitic enemies of the bollworm and seems to be encouraging other pests. The Chinese experience needs to be taken seriously since Bt cotton accounts for more than 1.5 million hectares (35 per cent of total cotton acreage) in that country. The study finds the diversity index of the insect community in Bt fields much lower than in conventional cotton farms in China. It also finds that the populations of pests other than bollworm have increased in Bt cotton fields and some have even replaced it as the primary pest. It would be pertinent to remember that since Bt cotton was developed in the U.S. to tackle only one main pest, the bollworm, its applicability to regions of the world with higher pest diversity was always suspect from the word go.

(The writers are scientists in the field of alternatives to genetically-modified agriculture)

Source: The Hindu, New Delhi, India; Aug 24, 2002
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2. 'BT COTTON PRONE TO LEAF CURL VIRUS IN NORTH INDIA'

By L.N. Revathy

COIMBATORE, Aug. 19. THE initial euphoria for the Bt cotton appears to be strangely missing, with growers adopting a 'wait and watch attitude' to see how it performs this season. Sowing is yet to commence in Tamil Nadu but in the northern and central parts of the country, the growers seem to have evinced more interest for the Bt cotton crop to tackle the heliothis menace.

Even while preliminary reports from the North zone reveal that the crop performance has been good this far, cotton scientists say the Bt cotton raised in the northern belt has been found susceptible to the leaf curl virus (LCV), though in a 'limited way' in about 5 to 10 per cent of the area.

Dr Venugopal, ex-project coordinator of the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR), Coimbatore told Business Line that while some of the private hybrids and varieties released earlier were resistant to LCV, Bt cotton was found susceptible to LCV.

In some pockets, the spotted bollworm infestation was noticed, he added.

He pointed out that the craze for raising the genetically-modified cotton crop looked real with cotton farmers in Punjab taking to cultivation of 'Udang Super' Bt cotton, which is yet to be cleared by the Government.

Having toured the entire cotton belt in the north and central zone, he said 'Udang Super' Bt cotton was sown in vast areas of Punjab. "It is a wrong tendency, but then the State Government can intervene and legalise it," he said and observed that this was found resistant to both LCV and drought.  "The fear psychosis is looming large among the farmers as 70 per cent of the area under cotton is rainfed and with the monsoon playing truant, there is widespread apprehension particularly because of the high cost of Bt seeds," he said.

According to him, private hybrids continued to be raised in about 20 per cent of the area, despite the steep decline in the area under cotton this year. The estimated shortfall in area is said to range between 10 and 20 per cent in the north zone comprising of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. He conceded that the extreme drought conditions with temperatures hovering at over 43 degree Celsius had been bad for germination and the spoilage due to wet weather conditions was not there.

Source: Business Line; August 20, 2002

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