Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, May 25, 2004 |
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Agri-Biz & Commodities
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Cotton Demand seen rising for Bt cotton variety L.N. Revathy
Coimbatore , May 24 THERE appears to be a mad rush for getting newer Bt cotton varieties approved by the Review Committee on Genetic Modification (RCGM) of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) for field trials. With the RCGM clearing a list, which is just 5 short of 100 from 10 seed producing companies for small-scale field trials at ICAR institutes, the seed producing sector is upbeat about the prospect. But the scientific community is not so. They foresee the cropping up of sundry material and are in the process of limiting the number of entries (for test) by each of the companies. However, with the RCGM approval in place, these varieties are ready for being taken up in ICAR field trials. The All-India Coordinated Cotton Improvement Project (AICCIP) trials, it is reliably learnt, are to be conducted at 5 locations in each of the three cotton zones (North, Central and South) very soon. The scientific community feel that the seed producing companies were over-reacting to the situation, as it was happening within 2 years of getting the GEAC clearance for the three varieties - Bt Mech 12, Bt Mech 162 and Bt Mech 184 — developed by Monsanto in collaboration with its Indian partner Mahyco for commercial cultivation in central and southern India. According to estimates, the area under Bt cotton is still negligible at over 92,000 hectare out the total of over 9 million hectare under cotton. In 2002-03, the first year of its approval for commercial cultivation, the area under Bt cotton at 38,038 hectare was just 0.51 per cent of the area under cotton during that period.
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