The Hindu Business Line : Pricing of Bt cotton should be market-driven, says Monsanto

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Pricing of Bt cotton should be market-driven, says Monsanto

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`Farmers, not Govts, should judge the price of private company seeds'

MR FELIPE OSORIO, MD, Monsanto India, addressing newspersons in Bangalore on Friday. — G.R.N. Somashekar

Bangalore , June 9

Monsanto, whose pricing of the genetically modified Bt cotton is under attack, has said free market and the farmer should judge the price of private companies' seeds and not governments.

The pricing of Monsanto's Bt cotton should be market-driven and any State intervention would go against the interest of farmers, Mr Felipe Osorio, Managing Director of Monsanto for India, said on Friday.

He said confusion had been created over the pricing issue, with the Andhra Pradesh Government fixing the price at Rs 750 against the company's Rs 900-950 per packet of 450 gm of seed.

OPEN FOR TALKS

The State has referred the issue to the MRTPC, while Monsanto had challenged the move in the Supreme Court. The company was open for discussions and an amicable resolution of the issue, Mr Osorio added.

Mr Osorio's statement at a news conference on the concluding day of Bangalore Bio comes even as agriculture ministers of the southern States met in Hyderabad, with Bt cotton on their agenda.

Different practices

Justifying the domestic pricing, he said it was lower than in China and the two practices were different, with China requiring almost 18 times the seed per acre compared to India. Also, Chinese Bt cotton would amount to Rs 1,100-1,250 per packet.

Domestic farmers could reap Rs 5.80 per rupee of investment in Bt seeds. "Farmers measure the value of Bollgard technology by the acre, not by the kilogram of seed. (They) have clearly seen the benefits of Bollgard cotton for the past four growing seasons and continue to plant more acres each season," Mr Osorio said, adding that, "Let the farmer decide what is best for him."

PUBLIC FUNDING

At the Agri Biotech Day address, the Union Minister of State for Commerce, Mr Jairam Ramesh, said public funding of agri-biotechnology should improve. China's agri-biotechnology, he said, was largely led by government funding and in India by the private sector. "Indian agri-biotech needs two locomotives. The one in the front should be funded by public institutions and the back one funded by the private sector."

On Bt cotton, he said cotton production in the last five years has grown though only 8 per cent of 8.5 million acres is under Bt cotton.

BEYOND COTTON

The Chairperson of the Karnataka Vision group on Biotechnology, Ms Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, made out a case for moving beyond Bt cotton and giving speedy approvals for genetically modified soya, corn and other crops.

Dr Villoo M. Patell, Founder and CEO of Avesthagen, said, "Farmers across the world must have access to current high yielding crop-production methods as well as new biotechnological breakthroughs that can increase the yields."

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