Bt Cotton set to receive nod?

By Mukund Padmanabhan

NEW DELHI, JUNE 15. It is a defining moment for Indian agriculture. Next week, a high- level committee under the Union Environment Ministry will determine whether to grant environmental clearance for what could become India's first commercially grown transgenic or genetically modified crop.

On June 19, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) will decide the fate of Bt Cotton, a product of the seed company Mahyco, in which Monsanto India has a substantial minority stake. Although the outcome of the GEAC meeting is anybody's guess, the betting is that the committee will put the final stamp of approval on the seeds, probably with certain conditions.

Mahyco's Bt Cotton, which derives its resistance to specific insects from a gene transferred from a bacterium, received its first nod last month when it was okayed by the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM). The Committee, constituted under the Department of Biotechnology, had, among other things, monitored Bt Cotton during controlled field experiments and reviewed it from a number of safety viewpoints.

If the GEAC grants approval on the basis of the RCGM's findings, this would the first time a living genetically modified organism (GMO) is formally cleared for introduction into the Indian environment. ``By any definition'', says Dr. P.K. Ghosh, adviser to the Department of Biotechnology, ``this marks an important step for the country.''

The GEAC clearance, however, may not be synonymous with permission for commercial production. The lack of a single regulatory authority and confusion over archaic laws (such as the Seed Act which does not cover GM seeds) may require Mahyco to seek additional and separate clearances from other Ministries such as agriculture and health.

If these Ministries decide to take more time, the company's hopes of selling its Bt Cotton seeds during this planting season, which gets under way shortly in the southern States, will be frustrated.

In a country which contributes over 15 per cent of the world's cotton production and where almost 9 million hectares of land are under this crop, Mahyco is eyeing an enormous market. Bt cotton plants are resistant to the bollworm complex (specific caterpillar pests), an enormous source of damage to cotton fields. It is estimated that of the Rs. 2,800 crores spent on chemical pesticides used in agriculture in India, Rs. 1,100 crores is spent on trying to control bollworms in cotton alone.

Bt cotton is commercially grown in the United States, China, Australia, Mexico, Argentina and South Africa over an area of some 2 million hectares. It is also under development in a number of other countries. China, which has embraced genetically modified crops even as some other third world countries hesitate, has developed its own Bt Cotton, which contains a gene which is different to that developed by Monsanto.

In India, Bt Cotton has a controversial past with protests against the Mahyco-Monsanto field trials in 1998-99 culminating in burnt fields in Karnataka, which then went on to ban all further field trials. Apart from general fears about genetically engineered agriculture, the protests seemed partly fuelled by misapprehensions that Bt Cotton contained the so- called terminator gene technology developed by Monsanto.

The final decision on Bt Cotton and the kind of response it evokes from those opposed to GM crops is being keenly watched by the large numbers of companies and institutions engaged in transgenic work in foods and crops. The feeling is that any decision will have a bearing not only for Mahyco- Monsanto but also for the broad future of GM in the field of agriculture in this country.

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Section  : Opinion
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