What is the issue?
Indian farmers started to return towards the traditional cotton cultivation from the Bt-cotton.
What is the reason for the return?
- Bt-cotton’s gradual lost resistance against the devastating bollworm insects.
- It has failed to resist new pests like whiteflies.
- Indian cotton, can withstand most of these pests, besides some common diseases.
- Technology developers and seed companies have failed to diversify pest-repellent traits in BT-cotton.
- Farmers cannot follow the recommended precautions in cultivating Bt-cotton.
What are the advantages of Indian cotton over Bt-Cotton?
- It has evolved indigenously and better acclimatised to local agro-ecological conditions
- It needs lower amounts of inputs like fertilisers and pesticides and is, on the whole, less costly to cultivate.
- It is early maturing and can be harvested before pests like bollworms and whiteflies become active.
- It is amenable to closer planting to accommodate more plants in a field, it is an easy way to raise crop yields and net profits.
- Due to the small staple length and absorbent nature of its fibre, it is in demand for surgical and medical use.
What are the other issues in Indian cotton cultivation?
- There is no diversity in the cotton cultivation carried out in India.
- Lack of diversity has led to the development of immunity among pests.
- The GM cotton occupying nearly 95 per cent of the crop area.
- Seed approval protocols discouraged public sector research bodies from entering this field.
- With respective to this few companies are becoming the monopoly in the selling the seeds.
Source: Business Standard
