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M.R. Subramani

Workers weighing raw cotton at a ginning mill in Karhi, some 275 km from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. Raw cotton, including the Bt variety, bought from the markets nearby is ginned, pressed and sold off to spinning mills. Shankar-4, MCH-W, J.K.H. are some of the varieties grown here. Currently, these fetch between Rs 2,450 and Rs 2,700 a quintal against Rs 1,955-2,211 last year.

Recently in Indore

THOUGH cultivation of Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton is on the rise, no provisions have yet been made either for its exclusive sale or ginning. This, industry players feel, could lead to problems at a later stage.

"There is no separate purchase or sale of Bt cotton. We, in fact, mix it with our hybrids like H-4, DCH-32 or JK varieties," said Mr Narendra Patidar of Semarla village in Madhya Pradesh's Khargone district.

In the three raw cotton markets, including Barwah, in and around Indore, Bt cotton is bought off immediately on arrival.

But it is usually mixed with other cottons and ginned before being pressed into bales.

Farmers bring raw cotton plucked from the crop to the market.

From here, it goes to the ginning mills, where the seed is separated, cotton cleaned and then pressed into bales of 170 kg.

While the bales find their way to spinning mills, the seeds are sold off to solvent extractors to be crushed for oils.

The Barwah Market Committee Secretary, Mr Lalit Gaonshinde, told Business Line that separate entries of Bt cotton were being made in the records on arrival in the market.

Bt cotton is a genetically-modified variety in which the plant has been engineered to produce insecticidal toxin to protect cotton from bollworm attack.

The toxin is produced due to the insertion of the genes of Bacillus thuringeinsis, a soil bacteria.

The advantage of using Bt cotton is that growers need to spray fewer pesticides than for the ordinary varieties.

The area under Bt cotton has trebled this year to 2.16 lakh hectares from 72,682 hectares last year.

"Production of Bt cotton is meagre. As such, it will be difficult to have separate purchase procedures for it," a textile industry official said.

Mr Veer Singh Chajjed, a ginning mill owner in Karhi in Khargone district, said: "We buy Bt cotton along with other varieties and press them together."

When contacted, Ms Ranjana Smetacek, Director-Public Affairs, Monsanto India, said Bt cotton was commanding a premium of Rs 50-200 a quintal over conventional varieties. "But we restrict ourselves to sale of Bt cotton seed and we are not involved in marketing of the produce," she said.

But Mr Patidar said offers for either Bt cotton or conventional ones were the same.

A major fear over absence of provisions for separate sale of Bt cotton is that its seeds get mixed with other varieties during the ginning process.

"As a result, cottonseed oil could have genetically-modified organism content," say edible oil traders.

Cottonseed oil is consumed in parts of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. This oil year (November 2003-October 2004), around 60 lakh tonnes of cotton seed are projected to be available for crushing on the back estimates of a record 175 lakh bales (170 kg) production in cotton.

"In view of the Government allowing farmers to grow Bt cotton, these days trader are particular about the origin of cottonseed oil," an analyst said.

Environmentalists opposed to Bt cotton said the Government should address the issue of the sale of this variety immediately.

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