IN DEFENCE OF TRANSGENIC COTTON
Cotton is very vulnerable to pests. "Out of the Rs 2,400 crore worth of pesticides used in India, Rs 1500-1600 crore is spent on cotton. About Rs 1000-1100 crore are used for bollworm alone,' says P K Ghosh, adviser to the Union government's department of biotechnology.
The American bollworm ( H armigera ) is a major problem: it causes losses estimated at Rs 10 billion in the country. As the pest keeps developing resistance even to the latest pesticides, scientists feel that cotton engineered to contain a gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringeinsis will make the plant resistant to the bollworm. Environmentalists warn of dire consequences and advocate an Integrated Pest Management Programme (IPM) instead.
Since the First Five Year Plan, the government has given cotton research and production priority. Four decades and nothing to be proud off. With the largest area under cotton production, the average yield per hectare is still below the global average. Inputs are intensive. Pest attacks are taken for granted. Pests survive pesticides. Farmers do not. More than 200 farmers committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh in early 1998. Pest-resistant varieties could be a blessing. Hence the potential of transgenic cotton.
IPM programmes of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), aimed at lowering the use of chemicals for pest control, was initiated in the late 1960s. But it has few takers. Scientists at ICAR feel that the IPM programmes for cotton have not been able to catch on because of the strong pesticide lobby.
"I estimate that Bolgard cotton can bring down the expense on pesticides for bollworm alone down to Rs 100-200 crore,' says Ghosh. D M Shah, Monsanto's director of research and development in India, claims that agricultural biotechnology will cause a decrease in pesticide usage: "My guess is that in the years to come, we will eliminate between 70- 80 per cent of all pesticides used.
' India's pesticide lobby stands to gain from the failure of Bolgard trials. However, Mark Wells, marketing manager, South Asia, Monsanto (India), denies the hand of the lobby in generating false and adverse publicity against Bolgard.