It is clear that the mounting evidence that is coming into the public domain, including the internal advisory from the agriculture ministry linking farm distress and suicides with Bt cotton, is causing panic among GM promoters and their lobbies in the country as their false hype and failed promises lie exposed. Just two [...] common-sense questions are asked to bust the myth: how can Bt technology increase yields when the pest incidence itself, across crops and not just cotton, has been low over the past decade? Two, how does one explain cotton yield increases in India that have happened at an impressive rate when the same is not present in any other country that has adopted Bt cotton?

The problems and issues related to Bt cotton production in India have been well-documented. But, what is less known is the relationship between Bt cotton seed farming and child labour. A study ‘Dirty Cotton’ by a team of researchers from Jawaharlal Nehru University and research agency Global March has established this link. [...] The report mentions that in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, the worst states in the cultivation season of 2009-10, around 3,81,500 children below the age of 18 years were found engaged as labourers in cotton seed farms. The authors found that profits earned from turning cotton into the final product is 850 per cent. The share of child labour in this is merely 0.8 per cent.

Increasing yields will help farmers harvest a record 270 million tonnes of grains in the 2016/17 crop year, leaving an exportable surplus of 10 million tonnes, Farm Secretary Prabeer Kumar Basu told Reuters. India, the world’s second-biggest rice and wheat producer, is struggling to store grains as bins overflow after years of bumper harvests. [...] “There is no need for us to adopt switch on, switch off policy on exports of grains as we can be a regular supplier of 10 million tonnes by 2016/17,” Basu said. “At least, we can feed our neighbours.”

The state government has decided not to purchase and distribute Monsanto maize seeds to tribal farmers any more following fears expressed by them that these seeds could cause male and female infertility. Instead, these farmers can buy any of the government-certified seeds from open market and then claim subsidy from their respective district agriculture officers. The decision was taken jointly by the state’s agriculture and the tribal ministry on Wednesday following written complaints by tribal farmers from across the state.

Wary of public cynicism, the Supreme Court on Friday spurned repeatedly requests to nominate a retired apex court judge to head the expert committee for recommending rules for bio-safety testing of Genetically Modified Organisms. A bench of Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justices A K Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar said the petitioners, Aruna Rodrigues and Gene Campaign, as well as the Union government must come to a consensus on the name of a retired judge to head the committee. ”We do not have a problem with any name agreed to by the parties. But we are not going to name any judge in this kind of a matter in which there are so many conflicting interests.

The minister of environment and forests, Jayanthi Natarajan, informed the Rajya Sabha during the Budget session of Parliament that the ministry of agriculture and the government’s regulatory body, called the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation, have been telling the apex regulatory body for GM organisms, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, to do away with the requirement for state government clearance before trials on GM crops can be conducted in a particular state. This is blatant indeed. Government agencies are telling the top regulatory body to dilute its rules to benefit the seed industry. The seed industry is naturally lobbying for this dilution because the more lax the rules and regulations, the better off they are. But why is the agriculture ministry and the RCGM lobbying for the seed industry’s benefit?

The agrarian crisis in cotton-growing belt of Vidarbha is going to get worse as production has fallen by 50%. “The cotton crop yield this year is 45 lakh bales. Last year, it was 85 lakh bales,” said Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, minister for agriculture. “The primary reason for the shortfall in the cotton production is delayed rains. The intermittent showers which were unseasonal further aggravated the situation as it damaged the crop. In addition, the BT cotton cultivation is not working in Vidarbha region. It is causing more distress to the farmers.”

University of Calcutta has developed India’s first genetically engineered drought resistant rice variety, a top Indian Council of Agriculture Research official said here Tuesday. ”Genetically engineered drought tolerant rice variety has been developed by Calcutta University. The varsity this month has published a paper on drought resistant rice,” Deputy Director General (Crop Sciences) of ICAR Prof Swapan Kumar Datta told Press Trust of India on the sidelines of a conference here. ”The production capacity of this variety will remain the same as in other crops, but it can survive without water,” he said.

Decrease in the yield from genetically modified Bt. Cotton and increase in the cost of fertilizers have driven many farmers in the region to distress, Sunny D’Souza, a farmer and member of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, has said. He was speaking at a function here on Friday to release a book, ”BT Cotton and Beyond”, which contains deliberations of the Afro-Asian Conclave on ”Status and implications of genetically engineered crops and post-GE technologies for small farmers in Africa and Asia” held in Hyderabad in January.

The cotton export debacle has created an oversupply of Bt seeds in the market with angry farmers expected to plant less area in the coming summer season. [...] Bt cotton seeds account for 25% of the total turnover of private sector seed companies in India. ”There are indications that a price war may happen as distributors know that there are ample stocks with seed companies. Seed companies may offer discounts on seeds for which there is less demand and seeds from the previous year’s stocks,” said the proprietor of a Maharashtra-based private Bt cotton seed company.