INDIA has become the latest developing country to embrace genetically modified crops. But while several farmers鈥� groups are greeting the government鈥檚 approval of Bt cotton with jubilation, environmentalists have condemned it.
鈥淭his is like the fall of the Berlin Wall for Indian agriculture,鈥� Sharad Joshi, founder of the Maharashtra-based farmers鈥� organisation Shetkari Sanghatana, told 快猫短视频. 鈥淔armers have been deprived of new technology for a long time but now they will have access to it.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 a recipe for environmental and social disaster,鈥� says Devinder Sharma of the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security. 鈥淭his will open the floodgates to genetically modified organisms.鈥�
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Bt cotton contains a gene from the common soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. It codes for a protein that kills pests such as the bollworm. The bollworm has devastated cotton crops in states such as the Punjab for the past four years. Proponents of the technology say Bt cotton will help farmers cut down on pesticides, which are expensive, often damage famers鈥� health and are also contaminating groundwater.
Official trials of Bt cotton have been going on in India for four years. 鈥淭he field trials clearly established that Bt cotton grows in a healthy way in our conditions, and insects are killed by the toxin. There were no adverse effects on soil flora,鈥� says Achyut Madhav Gokhale, chair of the environment ministry鈥檚 Genetic Engineering Approval Committee.
Trials of transgenic mustard have already started. 鈥淲e expect soya, corn and others to follow later,鈥� Gokhale says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a technology we cannot stop.鈥�
He adds that only conditional clearance has been given to the Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company (Mahyco), which is part-owned by Monsanto, holder of the patent on Bt cotton. Farmers will have to fulfil terms such as planting 80 per cent Bt cotton and 20 per traditional cotton to provide 鈥渞efuges鈥� to stop pests developing resistance to the Bt toxin. For the moment, however, Mahyco itself will monitor the transgenic crops.
鈥淗ow is this going to work in a landholding of less than half an acre where a small farmer is supposed to waste 20 per cent of the crop?鈥� asks Suman Sahai, president of Gene Campaign in Delhi. She says the conditions are ludicrous for Indian farms, and the trials scientifically flawed and not transparent.