Ind. in. ofAgri. Econ. Vol. 57, No. 3, July-Sept. 2002 Bt in : Controversy Visited

Sudarshan Iyengar and N. Lalitha*

INTRODUCTION

Biotechnology has been revolutionising agriculture with many of its applications that are aimed at enhancing agricultural productivity and improving the value of the agricultural products by increasing the shelf life and availability of the product even during off seasons and by providing improved and hybrid seeds. The plant variety protection covered in the Union Pour la Protections des Obtentions Vegetales (UPOV) 1978 and 1991 and the inclusion of plant and animal varieties in the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement to be covered by patents have given a real boost to research and investment in this field. The world over, the area under the transgenic crops has been increasing ever since they were introduced in 1996 (Prakash, 2000; Zilberman, 2000 et al.; Chaturvedi, 2002). The total area under the transgenic crops increased from 3 million hectares in 1996 to 46.9 million hectares in 2000. In the US alone where the area under these crops increased from 1.5 million hectares to 30.3 million hectares (Chaturvedi, 2002), there are apprehensions about the transgenic Bt cotton cultivation among the environmentalists and farmers. The acronym Bt stands for , a naturally occurring bacterium that has been used by farmers for ages as a natural pesticide. Now improvements in have enabled the seed companies to develop BT as a toxin. , a seed company of the US has spliced this BT toxin gene into cotton to protect the cotton crop against budworm, cotton bollworm and . Environmentalists and organic farmers in the US argue that when the Bt toxin is found throughout the plant, it is highly likely that the pests develop resistance faster than if the Bt sprays were used. Agreeably, the impact of pest attack on the Bt cotton in the US has not been uniform and wherever it failed, farmers have filed suit against Monsanto - the seed company for making false propaganda about the seeds. Their concern arises from the fact that the genetic impact of Bt cotton and the pollen movement on biodiversity, environment and wild species has not emerged clearly and still experiments and evaluation studies are going on in different US universities and agricultural centres.

* Director and Assistant Professor, respectively, Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Ahmedabad-380 060. 460 INDIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS

Despite these concerns, Bt cotton cultivation is spreading steadily and farmers from developing countries are also willing to adopt this technology to reduce the pest attack and cost of cultivation without due consideration for the environment. India has also joined these countries recently by adopting the transgenic cotton for commercial cultivation, by hastening the field trials without adequately weighing the impact on different parameters. Hence, in this paper we have focused on issues relating to the introduction of Bt cotton in India and the controversies surrounding it. Section II following this introduction briefly discusses the experience of the US in growing the transgenic crops. Section III presents the issues arising from the introduction of Bt cotton in India. The last section presents the concluding observations.

II

US'S EXPERIENCE WITH BT COTTON

In the US, three federal agencies oversee the commercialisation of Bt crops. Before the Bt crop can be sold, the US Department of Agriculture must determine the probabilities of the said crop becoming a plant pest. Companies must register the Bt crops as pesticides with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which evaluates human health and environmental risks. Finally, the Food and Drug Administration, through a largely voluntary programme consults informally with companies on the safety of transgenic crops for human consumption. In 1996, after getting the necessary approval from these agencies, Monsanto introduced two varieties of Bt cotton. About 5,700 cotton growers planted Bt cotton in nearly 1.8 million hectares or in 13 per cent of total US cotton acreage,' despite a $ 32 technology fee per acre largely guided by the severe cotton crop failure in 1995 due to budworm attack, which varied across the country. The EPA in 2001 extended a conditional registration for Bt cotton for another five years; after evaluating the previous time limited registration and consultation with an independent panel of scientific experts and medical communities it determined that Bt cotton does not pose a risk to human health or environment. However, environmentalists and organic cotton growers were successful in gaining a requirement "that Monsanto implement a pest resistance management plan as a condition of EPA registration (Rissler, 1997) which meant that, for every 100 acres of the Bt cotton plot, 4 acres of refuges - the traditional cotton varieties should be planted". These refuge plants, are not to be treated with any pesticides.' Harvest time reported mixed results with farmers from the West to the East coast reporting of bollworm damage of varying degrees and there was change in the behaviour of the pest attack but a substantial reduction in the pesticides use. Benedict and Altman (in Edge et al., 20013)observes that the negative effects of on non-target animals found in streams, rivers and ponds would reduce due to the reduction in the use of insecticides. They further point out that assuming an average reduction of 2.2 sprays per hectare on the 972,000 hectares cotton produced BT COTTON IN INDIA: CONTROVERSY VISITED 461

in 1998 in the US actually implies that 962,280 kg active ingredients did not enter the environment and local watersheds, thus reducing the potential exposure to non-target animals and farm workers. Interestingly, while Frisvolt et al. (1999) observed a reduction in acreage under Bt cotton from 10,096 to 8,396 acres between 1996 and 1998, yet many studies reported an average net return of $ 94.32 from Bt cotton compared to the non-Bt varieties.4 Implicitly the yield per acre in Bt crop improved. Shiva et al., (1999) point out that the returns from the Bt and non-Bt cotton were the same for the US farmers. Interestingly, North Carolina State University's research study reported that 1 in 350 tobacco budworms carried resistance to the Bt toxin. This estimate forewarns (a) a swift evolution of resistant insect populations and (b) with 4 per cent refuge, the Bt cotton could remain effective against tobacco budworm for ten years. However, Bt cotton has less resistance to other pests such as cotton bollworm and European corn borer and hence this study predicts a boom cycle of only 3-4 years for Bt (Prakash, 1997). Bt cotton is not effective against other pests like boll weevil and whitefly. Pray et al.'s study in China (2001) also reports a reduction in the cost of production and pesticides after the adoption of Bt crops. They further observe that out of 31 insect species found in Bt fields, 23 were found to be beneficial. Exchange of Bt seeds with fellow farmers continued which meant that monetary benefits accrued to the farmers were higher than that of the seed companies, which is attributed to the weak intellectual property rights regime in China. Though it is not very clear whether refuge varieties were planted along with Bt crops in China, the Chinese biotech researchers have pointed out that 80 per cent reduction in insecticide use due to Bt cotton, which comprises 35 per cent of the nations crop, is the biggest environmental benefit (Down to Earth, July 2002). In all the countries so far the produce of the transgenic crops is restricted to industrial applicability alone and has not entered the food chain.

III COTTON CULTIVATION IN INDIA

The area under cotton in India is about 9 million hectares, though the area under the transgenic crops is not known. Cotton cultivation in India has been plagued with rising cost of cultivation, ineffective pesticides, adulterated seeds and other inputs leading to consecutive crop failures and heavy indebtedness ultimately resulting in suicides of the farmers (Mohanty, 2001; Bose, 2000; Parthasarathy and Shameen, 1998; Shiva et al., 1999). Lack of awareness of the suitability of seeds to the different lands and adoption of high-yielding variety (HYV) seeds, which necessitated higher investment in fertilisers and pesticides. These problems were made worse by the unseasonal rainfall in 1997-98, which increased infestation of the pests in Maharashtra and Punjab (Mohanty, 2001). Most often farmers with small holdings buy all the inputs on credit that is repaid through credit from moneylenders raised at exorbitant interest rates and two consecutive crop failures are sufficient to 462 INDIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS

5 push the farmers into debt trap and suicides. It is in this scenario, the decision to commercialise Bt cotton has received mixed reaction from different quarters. Bt Cotton in India

In 1996, Monsanto entered India by creating a 50:50 joint venture with Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company Limited, (the largest commercial producer of cottonseeds in India) called Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech. In 1997, Mahyco crossed one of its seed varieties with Monsanto's Bt variety to obtain a new strain to suit the Indian soil and climate. In 1998, Mahyco conducted the field trials, which raised a few questions among the farmers and the environmentalists. These pertain to: Are the transgenic varieties similar to the terminator genes? Is there scope for saving the seeds or exchanging seeds with fellow farmers? Will the transgenic seeds lead to mono-cropping? Will the pests develop resistance to Bt toxin? What would be the impact on humans, environment and biodiversity of the soil? These questions made the environmentalists to oppose the transgenic seeds on the ground that once a genetically modified organism(GMO) is released in open environment neither it can be recalled nor its impact be controlled easily. The Controversy

The Mahyco-Monsanto trials are clouded with many questions that should have been sorted before the government decided to commercialise the Bt cottonseed.(1) In India under the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MEF), there are different departments, which are in charge of the lab and field experiments and the commercial release of transgenic varieties. The MEF6 has authorised the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM) to draw guidelines specifying procedure for regulatory process that involves GMOs in research use and industry applications. RCGM is also in charge of contained lab experiments. The Approval Committee (GEAC) approves the open field tests and environmental release of GMOs. Field trials by GEAC should be done in consultation with the concerned State Government's Biotechnology Co-ordination Committee (SBCC). Since the SBCCs were not consulted in Mahyco trials, it raises a fundamental question whether the required permission came from GEAC or the RCGM? Neither GEAC, nor RCGM has clarified this aspect. (2) According to Shiva et al. (1999), the field trials have not proceeded on a step- by step basis, where the final stage of open environment trials can be conducted only after contained lab experiment and trials in contained environment.' In the Mahyco case, the first two steps were by-passed and only the open field trials were undertaken (p. 606). (3) Even in the open field trials, permission for the multicentric trials from the advisor to the RCGM came by July 27, 1998 and August 5, 1998. The date of BT COTTON IN INDIA: CONTROVERSY VISITED 463

sowing obtained by Shiva et al. (1999) through field surveys however point out that sowing had already started in June 1998, which makes the trials illegal.' So, in June 2001 when Mahyco sought the required approval from the Government of India's GEAC for commercial cultivation, GEAC ruled that the trial data were unreliable as the crops were grown off-season when the pest attack was low. Hence, GEAC asked the company to repeat the field trials on a larger scale under the supervision of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). It is said that Mahyco had already spent around US$ 8 millions (Jayaraman, 2001) by then by way of developing the seed and in field trials. Around September 2001, scientists from Mahyco observed that transgenic cotton was being grown at nearly 10,000 acres of Gujarat. It was reported that these farmers had purchased the seeds from `Navbharat' - a seed company which is thought to have developed the seed as a hybrid from transgenic seed imported from the US. Since this large-scale plantation was undertaken without GEAC's permission, GEAC ordered to destroy the crop. The farmers, however, were elated because of the higher yield and the reduced pesticide consumption. Incidentally, Navbharat had so far not claimed those seeds as transgenic variety. Interestingly, not only the crop was not destroyed, it also reached the market and entered the different product chain, the impact of which is not yet known.

Commercial Release ofBt and Conditionalities

Leaving all the fears and controversies to rest, in March 2002, GEAC permitted Mahyco to commercially release three of the transgenic cotton varieties (mech 12, mech 162 and mech 184) for sale, since the field trials carried out under the supervision of ICAR showed positive results on all parameters. (Here again, the details of the field trials have not been made public.) This permission is for a three- year period from April 2002 to March 2005 and holds good only for Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, and not in northern states.9 GEAC has stated that 20 per cent of the field should be planted with refuge cotton. Mahyco will have to periodically report to GEAC about the production, varieties sold and the destination of the Bt seeds. The company has also been asked to conduct studies to assess the (a) pest resistance to Bt toxin and (b) impact of pollen transfer on other species (which should be carried out by independent researchers). Farmers should be informed about the Bt cotton in vernacular press by the firm. More importantly, GEAC has said that there is no harm in using the transgenic cotton in food products and no labelling is required for the domestic market, while labelling will be essential for the export market. Further Issues

The field trials in India and the subsequent Bt cotton cultivation in Gujarat clearly bring out the lack of transparency, co-ordination and monitoring among the different r, 464 INDIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS

government departments in an important issue like transgenic crop and the lack of concern and responsibility on the part of the certifying authority. It is evident that the different departments have appeared to bend backwards to release the Bt cotton soon. Neither GEAC nor the RCGM have clarified whether the Mahyco trials were conducted with appropriate permission, and whether any refuge plants were sown during the trials. From the reports available, it emerges that ICAR had asked for open field re- trials only and not for the contained lab and field trials. Further, ICAR trials have also been carried out only for one season, sometime between June 2001 and March 2002. For identifying the possible pest attack and GMOs impact on the soil diversity and environment, the field trials should have been ideally carried for a minimum of three to four seasons. The feasibility of success cannot be ascertained from short run studies alone. In the long run if there are any adverse outcomes, the small and marginal farmers will be ruined. When a country like the US had taken more than ten years to conduct the trials and subsequent commercialisation, it is unclear why the Indian government is in a hurry to release the transgenic crop. Whereas developed countries like the US, Australia and even China have so far not allowed the transgenic products to enter the food chain, India has taken a very bold decision to do so, in spite of the reports on allergic impact on humans caused by the transgenic corn in Mexico. Mahyco and Navbharat are obviously looking for introducing an innovative new product to profit more and farmers are looking for some respite from the recurring crop failure and indebtedness. Hence, they are not immediately concerned about the impact on environment or any other aspect in the short run. The question of farm saved seed may also not immediately affect the farmers.'° The issue of refuge poses a serious concern. In April, Mahyco has decided that for each 450 gm packet of the Bt cotton sold (which will cover one acre), a separate 120 gm non-bt seeds will be provided free of cost (this will cover 0.27 acres). Whereas the hybrid cotton costs around Rs.350- Rs.450 per packet of 450gm, the Bt cotton is expected to cost Rs. 1,350-Rs.1,450 per 450 gm packet (Hindu, Business- line, April 20, 2002). Obviously, any profit motivated company will announce such schemes only as a marketing strategy to promote its new product and might discontinue the scheme once the sales of Bt cottonseeds has picked up. Given the price difference of nearly Rs. 1,000 between the hybrid and the Bt cottonseed and the fact that majority of the farmers being small and marginal land holders, it is not known how many farmers will stick to the refuge schedule. Further, evidence suggests that whenever there is a shift from subsistence to commercial agriculture, the small and marginal farmers join in a big way (Shah et al., 1991). A typical cropping pattern in such an event is that between 70 and 80 per cent area is devoted to commercial/market crops and the rest is used for foodgrains for self-consumption. If farmers are tempted to shift to Bt cotton, they will have to decide between the refuge and food crops. Iyengar (1997) notes that big farmers sold their fertile lands to (1' BT COTTON IN INDIA: CONTROVERSY VISITED 465

the Narmada project authority for resettlement of the displaced tribal, because they had incurred huge debt in trying to cultivate HYV cotton (Shankar IV and VI) that failed repeatedly due to pest attacks. The regulatory authority in the MEF hardly has any idea about the losses that farmers suffer due to failure of farm technology due to inadequate unscientific and half hearted testing practices. There is already a fear that the large-scale funding that is given to the Government of Andhra Pradesh to set up large-scale mechanised farms to grow genetically modified crops, will eventually lead to consolidation of the small farms and render them landless [The Straits Times (Singapore), April 4, 2002].

IV

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

The purpose of the paper is not to suggest that we should shun this technology, but to tread cautiously especially in the context of lack of transparency, co-ordination and monitoring by the certifying authorities in adapting a new technology like the transgenic seeds, which has definite implication for India. In future, it is possible that since the Bt cottonseeds have the government certification to go for commercial- isation, there could be a tremendous demand, which could pave for hike in prices and adulterated seeds. There should be an undertaking by the company for eventual compensation of the farmers if the seeds fail. A very strong institutional mechanism should be built to prevent the sale of'truthful' and adulterated varieties of Bt seeds. Bt cotton's effectiveness on bollworm has been observed in the US, China and even in India (Shiva et al., 1999; Edge et al., 2001). If these claims continue to hold good for India, then the pesticide companies may lobby against the large-scale adoption of this technology. Hence, keeping the positive impacts of this in mind, the government should conduct the trials in a more methodical manner and make available the technology with adequate precautions.

NOTES

1. It appears, the initial permission was given for a period of five years in 1996 since the second permission for the conditional cultivation to Monsanto by the EPA was granted in 2001. 2. In 2004, EPA will review this condition. 3. This study presents a review of all the studies on Bt cotton in the context of the US. 4. This is based on compilation of results from various studies done in different states of the US. 5. To get an average return of Rs. 10,000 per hectare, a cotton farmer had to spend around Rs. 11,000 just to save the crop, where spraying of pesticides alone cost Rs. 7,000 per hectare (Times ofIndia, March 8, 2002). 6. This discussion on the authorities in charge of GMOs clearance draws from Shiva etal.(1999). 7. Down to Earth (April 30, 1992) however tracing the roots of Bt cotton in India mentions about the first field trials in a small plot and limited field trials in five sites and allergenic studies on ruminants, the details of which are not known. 8. Not only in India, even in Thailand, Monsanto through their aggressive lobby and public relations work had violated the Thai plant quarantine laws and illegally cultivated the Bt cotton which is in total violation of the rights of the farmers (Biothai Alternative Agriculture Network, 1999). 9. Incidentally in Punjab, cotton production reduced from 7-8 lakhs bales in 1999-2000 to 0.90 lakh bales in 2000-2001 due to bollworm attack(Sonu Jain, Indian Express, April 10,2002). 466 INDIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS

10. The farm saved seeds are more relevant for self-pollinated crops like paddy and wheat. Farmers even today buy hybrid seeds from the seed companies because hybrid seeds lose vigour with each succeeding crop. Sidhu's (1999) study shows a large gap between the demand and supply of cotton seeds.

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