While there will surely emerge a lot of opportunities with the opening up of trade and commerce activities with India, however, one of the principal advantages to Pakistan in the process will come in the shape of ‘access to information’. Economically, India today is ahead of most countries in the world and it is only natural that as it strives to remain ahead of the curve, it leaves behind a trail of successes and some failures which can either be emulated or avoided. Given our geographical proximity and historic similarities in operating environment, our economic managers are in an ideal position to learn from and make use of this. One such example where the Pakistani side can benefit from is the experience of India vis-à-vis sowing of different varieties of cotton.
Cotton and textiles represent the largest sector in Pakistan and 2011-12 has been a rather successful year in terms of cotton production at home. With the official figure of the cotton crop output this year being placed around the 14 million bales’ mark (unofficial would be higher as a considerable portion of the crop also gets consumed in the undocumented sector), it would be good to evaluate our future strategy in this regard with respect to the varieties of cotton we would like to pursue going forward; especially in light of the recent news on Bt cotton coming from across the border. As we know that India mostly plants the ‘Bollgard Bt Cotton’, a genetically modified (GM) variety first developed by the biotech firm Monsanto. Monsanto commercialised the Bt cotton technology in 1996 in the USA and it was Mahyco (Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company) that entered into an agreement with Monsanto to import the technology into India for which the commercial approval on its usage was given by the Government of India back in April 2002. However, after a period of great euphoria in the formative years of its plantation, what we see today (a decade later) is that India’s Bt cotton dream going terribly wrong.
In an exclusive report prepared by a leading print media house of India, for the first time, farmer suicides, including those in 2011-12, have been linked to the declining performance of the much hyped GM variety adopted by 90 percent of the country’s cotton-growers since being allowed. The Indian policymakers have hailed Bt cotton as a success story, but an internal governmental advisory report issued in January 2012 and subsequently sent out by the Agriculture Ministry to the cotton-growing Indian states (also subsequently picked up by the media) instead presents quite a grim picture. According to this report, “Cotton farmers are in a deep crisis since shifting to Bt cotton. The spate of farmer suicides in 2011-12 has been particularly severe among Bt cotton farmers.” Bt cotton’s success in India, it appears, lasted merely five years. Since then, yields have been falling and pest attacks going up. India’s only GM crop has now had to be genetically altered to destroy cotton-eating pests. As for their farmers, rising costs - in the form of pesticides - have not matched returns, pushing many to the brink, financially and otherwise. Simply put, Bt cotton is no more being perceived as being as profitable as once thought to be.
In fact, as the cost of cotton cultivation went up significantly in recent years - mainly due to the rising costs of pesticides and related inputs - the total Bt cotton production in the relative terms over the last five years also reduced significantly. And according to the Agriculture Ministry’s advisory report, this could have larger implications for Asia’s third largest economy where rural prosperity has been a key driver of overall growth. This concern about Bt cotton in India is now also very seriously shared by the Indian Council of Agricultural Sciences, which administers farm science, and the Central Cotton Research Institute, the country’s top cotton research facility. However, the Indian officials at this stage are being very careful by neither denying, nor outrightly confirming the concerns being highlighted by the Ministry of Agriculture’s advisory report. To downplay the advisory and avoid spreading any type of panic, Mr Swapan Kumar Dutta, India’s Deputy Director-General of crop science, in his last month’s interview even went as far as to deny any knowledge of such a report and, on the contrary, reiterated that Bt cotton still continues to drive India’s cotton production! When confronted on the issue by the representatives of the media the Agriculture Secretary, Mr Prabeer Kumar Basu, also ironically took a similar line to that of Mr Dutta.
While it is understandable on the part of the Indian officials to display caution at this stage, the reality on the ground is that alarm bells have been raised and the romantic affair of India with the GM Bt Cotton may just be coming to its premature end. Of the nine Indian cotton-growing states, Maharashtra has seen the largest number of farmer suicides. In the state’s Vidarbha region, a cotton growing belt comprising six districts, 209 farmers committed suicides in 2011 due to ‘agrarian causes’. In February 2010, the Environment Ministry put an indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal, India’s first GM food crop, days after the country’s biotech regulator cleared it for cultivation. Among many reasons, the Ministry thought it necessary to review the performance of Bt cotton first. Moreover, the reaction of livestock to Bt cotton by-products, cake and animal feed, is yet another story that is making strong waves. Reportedly, the incidence of mortality at birth and declining milk yields is on the rise amongst the buffalo and cow livestock of the farmers using resultant products from Bt cotton.
All in all, there seems to be serious concern on this across-the-board - and it is not just in India, but in all the cotton-producing countries of the world. What our government needs to do is to wake up to the fact that there are dangers in planting Bt cotton and, more importantly, there exists a lack of clarity on the matter, which it needs to clarify. It can learn from the Indian experience, because only proper guidance and proactive steps by our Ministry of Agriculture can ensure that we continue to provide the right advice and environment to our farmers where they can continue to keep up their good work.
n The writer is an entrepreneur and economic analyst.
Email: kamalmannoo@hotmail.com