1. Coca-Cola Corporation
PRACTICAL ISSUES IN CULTIVATION OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS IN INDIA.
NRAFORD, Thallapusalapally Village, Kesamudram Mandal, Warangal District, Andhra Pradesh, India.
1.Introduction:.
GEAC (Genetic Engineering Approval Committee) of Ministry of Environment and Forests of Government of India sanctioned commercial cultivation of genetically modified (GM) Bt (Bacillus Thuringiensis) Cotton from the Kharif season of the year 2002-03 amidst raging controversies. On one hand, certain environmentalists of the country are tooth and nail opposing the cultivation. On the other hand, companies like Mayhco-Monsanto alliance and some indigenous alliances of breeders are keen to promote cultivation of Bt Cotton. Scientists like Norman Borlaug, the pioneer of Green Revolution also expressed the need for adoption of transgenic crops in countries like India (Borlaug 2002). ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) has also recently certified that cultivation of Bt Cotton is found to be safe as per its own trials. Government, Media, Researchers and experts are busy in expressing their opinions on this issue. Andhra Pradesh is an important region as far as cultivation of cotton is considered and in the last few years, several cases of suicides of cotton farmers were also reported from this region. These suicides can mainly be attributed to the unsustainable nature of present farming practices and skewed systems of marketing. The farmers incur huge expenditure in purchase of inputs like pesticides by incurring huge debts with a hope that they would reap a good harvest of cotton and make good profit. But, on several occasions, dealers indulging in sale of duplicate pesticides cheat them. Even if the farmers reap a bounty, it is of no use because he would not get a decent price due to absence of a protective marketing system. Few deaths of farmers and laborers are also reported due to pesticide poisoning at the time of spray.