Government snubs Monsanto, caps price of Bt cotton seeds

NEW DELHI: The government has capped the price of Bt cotton seeds, rebuffing US giant Monsanto which had threatened to review business plans and withhold new technology if controls are imposed on the tech fee it charges.

The decision follows a series of measures such as a crop insurance policy and budgetary proposals to increase expenditure on irrigation and other schemes to support distressed farmers, who have suffered two consecutive poor monsoons and crop failure in the intervening period due to hailstorms.

A formal notification issued late on Wednesday recommended that Bt cotton seeds packets of 450 grams would be sold at a maximum price of Rs 635 for Bollgard I version and Rs 800 for Bollgard II.


The Trait Value (tech fee) including taxes has been cut to Rs 49 from Rs 183.46 per packet. The packet of seeds was being sold at a range of prices such as Rs 1,000 in Punjab and Haryana, Rs 830 in Maharashtra and Rs 930 in Telengana.

Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said the move will help farmers. “As there was no uniformity in pricing of Bt cotton seeds across the country, the Centre has recently intervened and issued a Cotton Seed Price (Control) Order, 2015, to fix a uniform price of Bt cotton seed across the states in the country to be notified on or before March 31 every year for the next financial year for the benefit of farmers,” he said.

Monsanto said it was studying the situation. “We are in the process of examining the notification in detail and will be able to comment only after we study the document in its entirety.” The company had earlier challenged controls on cotton seed prices and said: “Such a drastic intervention overrides existing private bilateral commercial contracts, and undermines the overall operating environment in India.”

The Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises Agriculture Group said the government should reconsider the decision, which he said was populist and anit-innovation.

“By slashing trait fees the government has clearly shown that it is going for short-term populist measures rather than supporting innovation in the long term. Such a decision is a discouragement of research and is contrary to the respect for IPR in Agriculture and ‘Make in India’ initiative encouraged by our Honorable Prime Minister,” association’s executive director Shivendra Bajaj, said.

ET View

Let Indigenous Seeds Take Root The issue is not whether the government has the right to cap the price of Monsanto’s GM cotton seeds but whether it makes sense for the government to cap the price, effecting a price reduction that ranges between .`30 and.`300. Instead, the government should focus on facilitating the setting up of a public seeds company that would bring to market the much cheaper, indigenously developed GM seeds, such as the one by the Nagpur-based Central Institute of Cotton Research or the Indian Bt Bikaneri Nerma developed by the University of Agricultural Sciences at Dharwad.