Ground reality: Bt cotton crop rises to 8.6 m acres
Refuting the government’s claims on the area under Bt cotton in the country, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) has estimated that close to 8.6 million acres went under genetically modified cotton cr...
By Prabha Jagannathan, TNN |
NEW DELHI: Refuting the government’s claims on the area under Bt cotton in the country, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) has estimated that close to 8.6 million acres went under genetically modified cotton crop in ’06.
That is more than double the 3.2m acres estimated by ISAAA to have gone under genetically modified (GM) cotton in ’05. The Centre has been contending that only a fraction of the total area under cotton in the country is under Bt cotton.
Despite the government's wariness over releasing actual figures on Bt cotton, sector players have projected that a significant percentage of the cotton produced is Bt cotton.
ISAAA’s annual report has been generally used since ’04 to confirm estimates from industry quarters on how much land went under Bt cotton. Last year’s ISAAA report had estimated that 3.2 million acres were under the genetically modified crop. ISAAA is a non-profit organisation that delivers the benefits of new agricultural biotechnologies to the poor in developing countries.
Cotton production in the country witnessed a steep rise after reaching the lowest level during ’02-03. The Cotton Advisory Board (CAB) had estimated a production of 24 million bales in ’05-06, whereas the agriculture ministry had put the figure at 20 million tonnes of cotton from nine million hectares.
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This rise in production coincides with the expansion of area under Bt cotton and is attributed to the rise in yields. CAB figures hold that in ’03 an overall 3% of the total crop produced countrywide was Bt cotton. Among states, Tamil Nadu topped the list (at 18% of the total production) and Gujarat stood second with a 6.3% share.In October, Monsanto India had estimated that farmers who planted Bollgard cotton in ’06 were likely to earn an additional Rs 7,026.5 crore in income, based on a projected 8m-odd acreage penetration achieved during the ’06 crop season.
Apart from the four companies already marketing BollgardT hybrids, nine companies received approvals for commercial cultivation of their hybrids, taking the total number of BollgardT hybrids in India to 48.
Seven hybrids of BollgardT were approved by the Genetic Engineering and Approval Committee for the first time in the central and southern zones, thus hiking up the area noticeably.
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