Plan on cotton seed prices to come next week

NEW DELHI: India’s farm ministry will announce its course of action on cotton seed prices by next week after the Delhi High Court judgement that said Monsanto Technologies’ patents on Bt cotton seed variety Bollgard II were not valid.

Officials in the agriculture ministry said they want to assess implications of the order on cotton seed prices for which the ministry is the regulatory agency.

Meanwhile, the agriculture secretary said normal monsoon forecast by the weather office was a shot in the arm for the sector and good for the agriculture economy. He added that they expected growth in productivity due to availability of water and agriculture growth to be better than that in the previous years.


“By next week, the course of action the government needs to take…we will see. After reading the judgment, if there are any directions to the government… we will abide by that,” said Shobhana K Pattanayak, secretary, department of agriculture, cooperation & farmers’ welfare.