A.P. farmers burn Monsanto cotton crop
Date: 03-12-1998 :: Pg: 10 :: Col: e
HYDERABAD, Dec. 2.
Taking a cue from their Karnataka counterparts, farmers in Andhra Pradesh destroyed an experimental field of the controversial `Bollgard' cotton crop raised by the U.S. multinational Monsanto in Warangal district yesterday.
About 200 agitated farmers, suspecting application of `Terminator seed technology' in field trials, uprooted the crops spread over 500 square yards in Urugonda village and set it afire, a spokesman of the Federation of A.P. Farmers' Associations said here.
The Monsanto, along with its Indian arm Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company (Mahyco), is in the eye of a storm over suspected `Terminator seed' technology which involves introduction of a gene that terminates germiability of seeds after one-time usage.
It is feared this technology would prove suicidal for Indian farmers as they would be forced into buying seeds from multinational companies for each crop.
The genetically improved `Bollgard' cotton crop involves usage of seeds containing a bacterium called `Bacillus thuringiensis' (BT) which protects the cotton from `bollworm,' the most common pest that attacks cotton crops. The seed company contends that this technology would not only obviate the need for applying pesticides but also helps improve yields significantly. As a result, farmers could reap rich profits, it argues. ``The Bollgard cotton seed has nothing to do with the `Terminator' seed technology which is only at a conceptual stage and may take another 10 years for commercial scale development,'' the Monsanto Communications Manager, Ms. Meena Vaidyanathan, said yesterday.
Unconvinced, the farmers' federation alleged that there were attempts to surreptitiously introduce `Terminator seed' technology in the country in the guise of genetically improved cotton varieties.
The federation has constituted three separate teams, comprising agricultural scientists and farmers, which would be deputed to Monsanto trial centres in the State to study the technology from farmers' point of view.