The Hindu Business Line : 27 m packets of Bt cotton seeds sold this season

According to industry sources, of the 26.5 million-27 million packets sold, roughly 23 million incorporate the US agri-biotech major, Monsanto’s proprietary ‘Bollgard’ (BG) gene construct technologies.

These include 17 million packets of BG-I (based on the cry1Ac gene isolated from Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt, a soil bacterium) and six million packets of the second-generation BG-II construct (containing a stacked combination of cry1Ac and cry2Ab genes).

Technology

Further, an estimated one million packets of JK Agri Genetics Ltd’s ‘Event-1’ technology and 0.5-0.75 million packets of Nath Biogene’s ‘GFM’ event have been bought by farmers this season. While JK Agri’s alternate cry1Ac gene construct has been developed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Nath has sourced its `cry1Ab-cry1Ac fusion gene’ technology through a Chinese tie-up.

In addition to these three ‘legal’ sources, two million-odd illegal Bt seed packets are said to have been marketed this year, taking the total to almost 27 million, against the 16 million of 2007.

Planting area

“Roughly 90 per cent of the country’s 9.3 million-9.4 million hectares (23 million acres) cotton area this year will be planted under Bt hybrids”, the sources told Business Line.

The Bt genes, incorporated into the existing cotton hybrids through various proprietary technologies (‘constructs’ or ‘events’), synthesise proteins that bind themselves to the mid-gut of insect pests such as the American bollworm, inhibiting their metabolic activity.

In the process, the plants exhibit ‘in-built’ resistance against the specific pests, reducing reliance on pesticide sprays.

Since 2002, when Bt hybrids were cleared for commercial cultivation, the area under Bt cotton in India has expanded from a mere 50,000 hectares to 0.1 million hectares (mh) in 2003, 0.5 mh in 2004, 1.3 mh in 2005, 3.8 mh in 2006 and 6.2 mh in 2007.

coverage

This year, total Bt coverage is expected at 8.3-8.4 mh — the highest in the world and representing perhaps the most rapid rate of diffusion of any technology after the mobile phone. The main reason for widespread adoption has been higher yields, reflected in an increase in the country’s cotton output from 13.6 million bales to 31.5 million bales between 2002-03 and 2007-08.

The second factor has been prices.

In 2002, the year of introduction, a packet containing 450 gm of Bt seeds and 120 gm of non-Bt seeds (which farmers are supposed to sow as ‘refuge’ to minimise the potential for development of Bt-resistant insect races in the long run) was being sold for Rs 1,600.

But with State Governments stepping in, firms have been forced to reduce prices by fiat.

For the current year, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh have fixed the maximum retail price of Rs 650 a packet for BG-I hybrids and Rs 750 for BG-II packets, while Andhra Pradesh has mandated a uniform Rs 750 rat. In Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, BG-I has been priced at Rs 750 and BG-II at Rs 925-950.

Reduced prices have meant that while farmers were initially planting only one packet of seeds for every acre, they have now raised it to 1.5 packets in the northern States and to 1.2 in other parts.

The trait fee charged by Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech India Ltd (MMB) — the licensor for ‘Bollgard’ — has also reportedly come down to Rs 140-150 a packet.

Among individual companies this year, Nuziveedu Seeds has sold about five million packets, followed by Rasi (four million), Mahyco (three million) and Tulsi Seeds (2.5 million). Others, including Ankur Seeds, Emergent Genetics India and Vibha Agrotech, have done business of 0.5-1 million packets each. All these firms are sub-licensees of MMB.