India urged to expand biotech crops mkt

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New Delhi, Feb 18: The global promoter agency for transgenic crops, International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), has urged India to take advantage of the growing world market of biotech crops currently estimated at $ 7.5 billion.

India has so far approved a single transgenic crop, Bt cotton for commercial cultivation, while a number of other transgenic crops, including some genetically modified (GM) food crops are in the pipeline for approval. According to the recent ISAAA report, adaptation of Bt cotton in India marked a 125-fold increase in the past six years since the first cultivation in 2002 as against the global increase for all GM crop cultivation in 12 years.

ISAAA co-chair CD Mayee said, "Bt cotton cultivation helped India increase its production and today, India is the second largest cotton producer, next to China. India has now become net exporter of cotton." He, however, could not explain the reasons behind farmers' suicides in Maharashtra's cotton belt - Vidharbha.

The ISAAA report said the approval and adaptation of Bt cotton by the two most populous countries in the world, India (1.1 billion people) and China (1.3 billion people) could greatly influence the approval, adoption and acceptance of biotech crops in other countries

According to the report in 2007, global biotech crop area increased 12% to reach 114.3 million hectare, the second highest area increase in the past five years. New transgenic crops were also added to the list as China reported plantation of 250,000 biotech poplar trees. Two countries, Chile and Poland, began cultivation of GM crops raising the number of biotech countries to 23 of which, 12 are developing countries while 11 are industrial countries.