Even as he moved to put Bt brinjal in cold storage, the environment and forests minister Jairam Ramesh admitted that he is all for Bt cotton. But if we consider all the good that Bt cotton has wrought, the idea of setting aside India?s first genetically modified food crop becomes all the more problematic.
Consider the Cotton Corporation of India numbers. Till a few years ago, India used to be known only for producing large quantities of short staple cotton?below 20 mm. It has now become a leading producer of long staple cotton?28 to 33.5 mm. This transformation has largely been driven by the new seed variety.
That?s not all. India?s per hectare cotton production was languishing at around 302 kg per hectare in the late nineties. It has risen by almost 75% to around 526 kg per hectare. This jump assumes even more significance when we consider that per hectare yields of most other crops are abysmally low.
The big change came around 2002-03, when Bt cotton started making inroads into Indian fields. Between the 2002-03 cotton crop year?that runs from October to September?and 2004-05, average per hectare yield rose by almost 56%. As a corollary impact, the country?s total cotton production went up from 140 lakh bales in 2000-01 to around 243 lakh bales in 2004-05, a rise of around 74% (with a bale equalling 170 kg).
The whole cotton dynamics in India has seen a massive revolution as high-yielding, pest-resistant varieties were introduced. Production of the high-value, long staple cotton jumped from 71 lakh bales in 1997-98 to almost 243 lakh bales in 2007-08, a phenomenal rise of over 240%.
Subsequently, the production of short staple cotton, which was the main variety grown in India, dropped from 10 lakh bales in 1997-98 to a mere 4 lakh bales in 2007-08. And India, which was one of the big importers of cotton till early 2000, has now turned into a big exporter of the fibre, posing a strong challenge to the Chinese and American stronghold in global markets.
Cotton imports from 2000-01 to 2008-09 fell by 68.3%, while exports rose from just 0.65 lakh bales to almost 85 lakh bales in 2007-08. As mills started purchasing Indian cotton in large quantities, their consumption of foreign cotton dropped from 21.51 lakh bales in 2000-01 to 10.05 lakh bales in 2004-05.
What?s harder to quantify is all the ways in which increased productivity has transformed the lives of the farmers for the better. What Bt cotton has reaped, Bt brinjal also promises?benefits to consumers, producers and the country.
sanjeeb.mukherjee@expressindia.com
