State in a fix over Bt cotton

By Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR, NOV. 2. The Gujarat Government finds itself in a quandary over the Centre's Genetic Engineering Approval Committee's instruction to ``segregate Bt cotton seeds from other varieties and destroy them.''

A State Government spokesman said the instruction had come ``too late'' as nearly 80 per cent of the crop was already on its way to the market and it would be almost impossible to segregate the Bt cotton from other varieties.

Also, destruction of the remaining standing crops would mean giving huge compensation to the growers from the State exchequer. The State Government is unhappy that while the Centre is issuing it instructions to destroy the cotton crops, it has not initiated any action against the private company which was clandestinely selling the seeds to the farmers, violating the country's laws.

The State Government has promised to take steps before the next season to try prevent the farmers from sowing Bt cotton. But even this might not be easy because of the benefits the cotton growers had reaped from the Bt cotton variety, which was already in the third year of production in the State. As the Agricultural Department points out, while about 70 per cent of the cotton of other varieties had been hit by bollworm this year, the pest had no impact on the Bt transgenic seeds.

Much of the State's comparatively good cotton production this year despite the bollworm attack has been attributed to the Bt variety. The State's average annual production is 40 to 45 lakh bales. The production this year has been estimated around 33 lakh bales against the meagre output of 27 lakh bales last year when the State was hit by a severe drought.

``Farmers' choice''

While officials claim that Bt cotton was sown in about 11,000 acres, production figures suggest that the area covered could be much larger. This is so because farmers have found the variety truly ``pest-resistant and high-yielding'' and preferred it to the traditional Shankar-6 seeds.

The State Agriculture Minister, Mr. Purshottam Rupala, while promising a ``thorough survey'' before carrying out the Centre's directive, has also indicated the Government's unwillingness to comply with it. Mr. Rupala refused to see anything wrong with the Bt variety and claimed that the campaign against it might be the handiwork of some pesticide manufacturers who were being threatened with loss of business.

Even the Union Textile Minister, Mr. Kanshiram Rana, who hails from Gujarat, has ruled out destruction of the Bt cotton seeds.

Officials wonder why Gujarat alone was being targeted by the GEAC when the Bt cotton was grown in several other States including Punjab and Andhra Pradesh, the latter being the laboratory where the variety was first tried out and tested by the private company before marketing it to other areas. They also suspect that the campaign by some ``environmentalists'' could be the work of the American company, which was the sole supplier of Bt cotton the world over and was planning to enter India in a big way next year. The company was finding itself at the receiving end because of the ``Indianisation'' of the variety and sees in it a loss of a huge potential market.

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