INDIAN SUCCESS STORY WITH BT COTTON: NEW HOPE, NEW LIFE FOR COTTON FARMERS AND TO COUNTRY’S ECONOMY *

Due to the onslaught of bollworms and failure to manage the pest through chemicals as resultof development of resistance to insecticides, cotton economy in general and the cotton farmers in particular suffered heavily in India during the end two decades of the last century. It was then the Government of India permitted the commercial cultivation of Bt cotton in 2002 and saved the farmers from ‘spray of pray’ regimes for management of bollworms. The success story of Bt cotton in India lies in the very simple fact that nearly all the seven million cotton farmers have not only endorsed the technology but have adopted it on 93 per cent of the total cotton area, making it the one of the largest Bt cotton hacterage in the World. The speed of Bt cotton spread in the last 11 years is considered unparallel in the history of technology adoption in agriculture anywhere in the world. Everybody celebrates birthdays of men and women but in India, there are farmers who celebrated the 10th birthday of Bt cotton in open farms. Bt cotton has given them the much needed freedom from frequent sprays and removed the fear of bollworms and subsequent yield loss. Bt cotton brought down the share of pesticides on cotton from 45 per cent in 2002 to 20 per cent in 2010. The average yield in this period increase from 300 kg lint to 550 kg lint per ha. At farmers level, they adopted the technology for reduced spray and higher yield but also for some hidden benefits like determinate habit of cotton few pickings with higher output, better quality seed cotton and assisting them in using double cropping system for higher income.In terms of national economy, Bt cotton helped reduced the imports and increased the exports. India became a leading global exporter of raw cotton with exports averaging at 5.5 m bales of 170 kg each from 2003-2011 compared with an average of 0.2 bales prier to introduction of Bt technology. Imports declined from a peak of 2.5 m bales to 0.5 m bales for only extra long staple cotton. Domestic consumption increase from 2.4 m tonnes in 2002 to 4.52 m tonnes in 2010. Vibrant cotton and textile sector account for nearly 1/3rd of total foreign exchange earnings of India each year at an estimate of US $ 20 billion. Besides the main product of cotton lint, cotton seed which provides oil and cake has benefited the nation to partially remove the deficits of vegetable oil production and animal feed.

Keywords:

Bt Cotton , Benefits of transgenic cotton , cotton economy