Economic benefits of Bt Brinjal: an ex-ante assessment
This policy brief covers factors such as yield gain, reduction in insecticide use, benefits to farmers and consumers, and policy implications of adopting Bt brinjal hybrids.The brief estimates economic gains from the Bt brinjal hybrids annually to be Rupee 577 crore (US$126 million) assuming adoption rate of 15%, Rupee 1167 crore (US$255 million) at 30% adoption rate and Rupee 2387 crore (US$ half a billion) with 60% adoption rate in India. It is a significant benefit in absolute terms for a vegetable with an aggregate area-coverage much smaller than that of any major food or fibre crop. The analysis revealed that use of Bt brinjal hybrids could result in a significant reduction in insecticide use with overall quantity of insecticides used against FSB reduced by 77.2%. This amounted to 41.8% reduction in the total insecticide-use in brinjal.