09.05.2012 | permalink
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.