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Hurdles in approval of new varieties of Bt cotton seed in Pakistan

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Pakistan
June 29, 2009

By Ahmad Fraz Khan, Dawn via Pakistan Biotechnology Information Center (PABIC)

Punjab may be moving towards a cotton crisis as about 70 per cent of its six million acres are sown by untested and unfit seeds, most of them having out-lived their stipulated life.

This year too, the same ratio prevails while some farmers’ bodies estimate that at around 80 per cent of the cultivated area may come under 33 varieties being sold with the name of BT cotton. This is happening despite the fact that a recent study conducted by the Punjab government has concluded that only eight of 33 varieties include BT gene expression..

Still, all these varieties are being sold because the provincial government neither has any list of officially approved varieties of BT cotton nor enacted laws to check the fake ones. The officially approved 16 traditional cotton varieties are sown only on 20-30 per cent of the total area where the government can check seeds and take punitive measures.

In these circumstances, cotton yield continues sliding every year. The government seems resigned to the situation and is not taking steps to correct it.

The Punjab government recently revived “Cotton Control Board” -- a punitive body which can impose a fine on farmers and even set the crop on fire for seed violations – but only to realise that varieties and varietal standards that the body is supposed to enforce are simply missing.

It tried to approve eight varieties, which, according to its reports, have the BT gene expression. But the entire effort lost steam mid-way. A recent meeting of the board delayed the approval process because “it realised that it did not have required data on these varieties.” Another reason was that since sowing was nearing completion, there was no urgency to “approve the varieties right now.” The official approval of new varieties is a long process in which the owner has to prove that the variety is “distinct, uniform and stable.” These three essential elements take years to prove in the field tests. Once these three elements are proven, then comes farming protocol – need and timing for fertiliser, irrigation, plant population, pest position and pesticides etc.

On the top of it, the province needs around 30,000 tons of seed for its six million acres (five kilogram per acre) under cotton crop. How many seasons it would take the owners of new varieties to produce that kind of tonnage is not hard to imagine.

Critics, however, claim that some bureaucrats and influential people are pushing the case of multi-nationals and discouraging local compa nies.They are struggling to conclude agreement with a multinational before allowing local companies into business. The idea of National Seed Commission, which the federal finance minister floated last year in his budget speech, was in fact a “strategy to hand over cotton crop to multinationals.” That is why, approval of all eight indigenous varieties, which had BT gene expression, according to local scientists, has been delayed. If approval does not come by February 2001, another year would also be lost.

They also believe that an equally powerful import group which had taken over the official machinery during President Musharraf’s re gime, is still influencing decisionmaking. Some influential individuals had always been advocating import of whatever is in short supply Their interest lies in promoting mercantilism.

It is because of this group, the imports of food items have gone around Rs200 billion. Now the same group is out to harm the production of cash crop. The local textile industry needs some 15 million bales, and production dipped to 12 million bales in 2007-08. The gap needs to be imported.

Both these powerful groups have joined hands to hamper development of local BT seeds, and keep the country permanently dependent upon import and multinationals.

No one knows what is being sown in the name of BT cotton. There are no protocols of any seed, and farmers do not have any training on how to grow and protect their crop. The BT gene normally disappears from seeds in three years, exposing the crop to every kind disease, and no one knows for how many years the crop is being sown by farmers. All these factors have made the size of crop uncertain.

The authorities need to approve new varieties, train farmers into their protocol and draw the owners of new varieties into extension service.Till such time, uncertainty about cotton crop yield will continue.

Courtesy Dawn

 

 

 

 

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