Bt Cotton: Need of today

Indian farmers have generated economic benefits from Bt Cotton whose value was estimated to about $5.1 billion, which cut down the insecticide requirements nearly to its half, thus doubling the yield and transformed India from a cotton importer to a major exporter

By Muhammad Ahsan Asif

BT COTTON is transgenic cotton produced through modern techniques of genetic engineering. It contains insecticidal protein genes from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), an endospore forming gram positive soil bacterium. Bt Cotton has been found to provide an environmentally safe and effective control against cotton bollworms. In the major cotton growing areas the crop is mainly affected by the attack of bollworms right from its infantry to maturity stages. The mode of action starts when insect feeds on it, the toxin proteins transmit into the midgut of insect which subsequently, bind to the specific receptors in the midgut resulting ionic imbalance in the insect body. This ionic imbalance affects insect paralysis leading to its death.

The commercialization of Bt Cotton had started in USA since 1996. Currently eleven countries have been growing Bt Cotton, covering almost half (49%) of the 33 million hectares grown globally under cotton. Even in our neighborhood, India and China are successfully growing Bt Cotton from many years. India started cultivation of Bt Cotton crop in 2002 with an initial area of 50,000 hectares.

According to the report of International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), about 8.381 million hectares of the 9.636 million hectares of the national cotton crop area of India was under the Bt Cotton in 2009. In the short span of only seven years, from 2002 to 2008, Indian farmers have generated economic benefits from Bt Cotton whose value was estimated to about 5.1 billion US$, which cut down the insecticide requirements nearly to its half, thus doubling the yield and transformed India from a cotton importer to a major exporter. In 2008 alone, the benefits accrued from Bt Cotton in India were 1.8 billion US$ which developed a sound economic impression of it in the world.

The Bt cultivation success story in China started since 1997. Last year’s findings of ISAAA showed that 68% of the 5.4 million hectares of cotton area in China was under Bt Cotton benefiting to the seven millions small farmers. Their income has been increased by approximately 220 US$ per hectare due to an increase of 10 % in yield and 60% reduction in insecticidal applications.

In Pakistan, the situation with respect to Bt Cotton is totally different from rest of the world. There has been an increased illegal tendency of growing Bt Cotton among the large masses in the provinces of Punjab and Sindh. According to Ministry of Food and Agriculture in 2009, 80% cotton growing areas of Sindh were under illegal Australian Bt Cotton. Similarly in Punjab 80% areas were cultivated with fake Bt Cotton varieties of BT-121and BT-131. Farmers and seed companies are violating the National Bio-safety laws which emphasized the clearance of transgenic varieties from National Bio-safety Committee (NBC), prior to their commercialization for risk assessment and management.

Most of the Bt Cotton seed supplied in the market are adulterated with limited or no information about the types of the toxic genes, it carried with. There is a general lack of awareness among our farmers regarding the significance and implementation of the bio-safety measures.

The lack of awareness of growing Bt Cotton along with the refuge crop (non transgenic crop), is developing a threat of resistance in real terms in the insects against Bt toxins. The philosophy behind the refuge crop planting with the transgenic (Bt Cotton) crop is to break down the possible chances of resistance developed in the succeeding generations of the feeding insects against the Bt toxins. These illegal practices are increasing the quantum chances of resistance development in insects to its maximum against the Bt toxins. These unapproved Bt Cotton varieties as a result are invariably susceptible to jassid attack highly vulnerable to CLCV disease.

In the recent years Government of Pakistan has taken several decisions regarding legal commercialization of Bt Cotton in the country. A memorandum of understanding has been signed with Monsanto Company for the introduction of the latest Bt Cotton technology (bollgard-II) in the country to increase cotton production. Eight cotton varieties with bollgard-I traits has also got bio-safety clearance from NBC.

Succinctly, Bt Cotton has an immense potential for increase in production and reduction in chemical insecticidal sprays. Pakistan can easily benefit from the Bt Cotton success stories of India and China, whose agro-climatic conditions are very much similar to that of Pakistan. Bt Cotton can provide a number of benefits such as reduced use of pesticides, and consequently reduced apprehension of environment, water and food chain pollution caused by the wide spread use of insecticides.

In many parts of the world Bt Cotton has already demonstrated its capacity to increase productivity and income significantly. In Pakistan it can help for rural economic growth that can contribute to the alleviation of poverty from the small and resource poor farmers and can contribute in real meanings to the agricultural sustainability. Due to the benefits gain from Bt Cotton it will be easy for us to achieve the target of 20.13 million bales by 2015 under the programme of “Cotton Vision – 2015”. It is expected that the farmers of Pakistan will reap the benefits of legally released Bt Cotton very soon.


http://www.technologytimes.pk/mag/2011/jan11/issue04/bt_cotton_need_of.php