Agriculture seed major Mahyco, which has been accused of black marketing its seeds and distributing it without informing the State Government, could well stand to lose its license to sell seeds in Maharashtra. Maharashtra’s Minister for Agriculture, Mr Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, told Business Line that the State Government was left with no other option but to cancel the company’s licence, given the nature of the complaint. He charged that the company was involved in black marketing of Bt cotton seeds and added that an FIR was lodged against certain company officials. A few arrests have already been made, he said. The matter was discussed in the Assembly.

“Seed is the basic input and is the lifeline of agriculture. Local farming communities have preserved and reused their diverse indigenous seed varieties over generations,” said agriculture minister Narendra Singh while inaugurating the two-day festival. [...] The minister said it was a proud moment to share with agriculturists from all corners of the country. Bihar has become the first state to ban the genetically modified seeds in the larger interest of farmers. He also vowed to block entry of any company permitted by the Centre to conduct field trials of genetically modified corns in the state.

The need for the application of new technologies to increase farm output and seed yields, including genetically modified crops, was discussed at a seminar on ‘Technology as a Driver for Agriculture Growth,’ organised by Ficci here today. Several speakers, including officials from seed manufacturing companies and agriculture scientists, were strongly in favour of encouraging genetically modified crops to raise productivity. [...] Mr Ram Kaundinya, Chairman of the Association of Biotechnology-led Enterprises , said there was a “paralysis” of policy and support to GM crops by the Government, which was “unfortunate” for Indian agriculture.

IN THE 1920s, the freedom struggle was marked by Mahatma Gandhi promoting handspun khadi (cotton) and initiating a movement to boycott foreign cloth. I choose to remember this part of our struggle for independence as I feel it becomes significant and symbolic in the fight against Bt cotton. Then, it was about challenging the takeover of British imperialistic forces of our textile market, now it is about an American multinational seed giant taking control over the very basis of our cotton sector, the seed, using the tool of genetic engineering. Bt cotton was controversial at the time it was introduced in 2002 and a decade later the controversy still remains, though you can hear many a time the biotech seed industry ranting falsely about its success.

BHIMRAO Kaviram Kadam of Dhanora Tathod village in Maharashtra's Washim district is, in more than one way, going back to his farming roots. And so is Pandurang Shende of Brahmankheda in Yavatmal district. They are among 160 farmers across the Vidarbha region who have turned their backs on genetically modified or Bt cotton, which they have been growing for several years and plumped instead for Desi (Indian) cotton varieties. This is a dramatic change and it has been prompted by soaring costs of inputs and poor yields that have made cultivation of Bt cotton hybrids untenable in the extremely harsh, rain-shadow terrain of Vidarbha.

We urged Matin Qaim, professor of agricultural economics and rural development at Georg-August-University of Goettingen and all other authors of the study to the dying field of vidarbha where more than 9000 cotton farmers committed suicide and 100% farmers who opted Bt.cotton seed are in distress and debt where as Indian Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar himself admitted in Indian parliament that vidarbha cotton farmers’ are losing more than Rs.2000 crore due to wrong selection of rain sensitive Bt.cotton in rain fed region of Maharashtra and study also contradict the official report of Central Institute of Cotton Research Director Keshav Kranthi that the cost of seeds of straight varieties is much lower than Bt varieties [Kishor Tiwari of vidarbha advocacy group Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti says]

With a figure of at least 14,027 in 2011, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, the total number of farm suicides since 1995 has touched 2,70,940. The State of Maharashtra shows a rise in numbers yet again, logging 3,337 against 3,141 farmers' suicides the previous year (and 2,872 in 2009). This, despite heavy massaging of data at the State level for years now, even re-defining of the term ”farmer” itself. And despite an orchestrated (and expensive) campaign in the media and other forums by governments and major seed corporations to show that their efforts had made things a lot better. Maharashtra remains the worst single State for farm suicides for over a decade now.

The agricultural gains by Bt cotton farmers seems to be at the cost of other farmers. The bollworm, which the Bt cotton is resistant to, has now found new hosts in other varieties of plants, putting them at risk. [...] the insect, which belongs to the butterfly family, has migrated to non-Bt plants such as tomato, pigeon pea, chickpea, sorghum and maize. [...] field observations show that the shifting of bollworm from Bt cotton to food crops has resulted in farmers losing at least 20 per cent of their yield. Thanks to the pest migration, the bollworm has found a continuous life, from one season to another, said M.A. Qayyum, who has conducted field research studies on Bt cotton for about a decade now.

Already hit by the sharp rise in the prices of Bt cotton seeds, farmers of Andhra Pradesh are now faced with an acute shortage of seeds leading to an unprecedented crisis in the state this year due to hoarding and black-marketing by seed dealers, besides flooding of spurious seeds from neighboring states. [...] Though the agriculture department officials have claimed that there are adequate stocks of Bt cotton seeds, the demand is so heavy that at several places, department officials are forced to allot seeds to farmers through draw of lots or even through auction, so that whoever pays higher rate would get the seed packets.

The debate over regulating genetically modified crops in India is back after two years of silence that followed the moratorium on the Bt brinjal, a genetically modified eggplant. This is thanks to the government’s wavering policy on agricultural biotechnology. [...] The government released its report on the hills of the Western Ghats nearly nine months after the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel submitted it, and then only under a court order. The report, among other things, warned that genetically modified organisms were a threat to biodiversity in India. The government attached a disclaimer to the report, saying that it has not formally accepted the conclusions.