It’s a blind run for Bt cotton hybrids

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: With the arrival of the South-West Monsoon, sowing of cotton and other crops has begun for the summer season. In this season, 59 approved Bt cotton hybrids are likely to be sown. Biotech industry is upbeat with the spate of new approvals by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC). They have launched their aggressive marketing strategies to sell large stocks of seeds. They expect that the area coverage under Bt cotton will rise to 3.5 million hectare this year.

That the area under Bt cotton would increase this year would not be surprising. Biotech companies know very well how to dispose off their stocks through aggressive marketing strategies. They have friends like the Punjab chief minister, Captain Amarinder Singh, to do the job for them. In the previous year, Mr Singh involved the state agencies in promotion of sales of Bt cotton seeds. He even went public in campaigning for Bt cotton.

In this era of growing consumerism, there is always a tendency to choose newer and newer brands of products — be it air-conditioner, car, TV set or washing machine. The companies know the tendency of class customers, and accordingly design their brands and change their strategies. Farmers as consumers of seeds are no exception. They keep on trying different varieties of seeds which come into the market.

The increase in area coverage under different new varieties of Bt cotton, therefore, cannot be the sole criteria for concluding that Bt cotton is gaining wide acceptance among farmers. Bt cotton is entering the fifth year of its commercial cultivation in India. It is too short a period to judge the acceptance or rejection of Bt cotton in a vast country like India.

In the first two years, three varieties of Bt cotton — Mech-12, Mech-162 and Mech-184 — were in cultivation in south and central India. The area coverage in the first year was 44,500 hectare (ha), which increased to 1 lakh ha in the second year. With the approval of RCH-2 (of Rasi Seeds) for the same regions, the area coverage marked a five-fold increase to 5 lakh ha in 2004. Does this explain the wide acceptance of Bt cotton? Figures are often misleading. We have in this country an increase in suicide rate among farmers, in the midst of agriculture growth.