Time to repeat Bt cotton success in foodgrain: FM

Finance Minister P Chidambaram has called for emulation of the cotton production success story, through the use of genetically modified Bt cotton, in the area of food crops to make the country self sufficient in its food needs.

“It is important to apply biotechnology in agriculture. What has been done with Bt cotton must be done with foodgrains,” Chidambaram said at the opening of the seventh edition of Bangalore’s annual biotechnology event Bio-2007 on Thursday.

Concerns over the safety of genetically modified produce “must be faced at an intellectual level by scientists. It cannot be brushed aside by emotion and political arguments,” he said.

While the biotechnology sector is growing in India fuelled by the growth of the bio-pharma and bio-services sectors, the real need is for the growth of agri-biotech, Chidambaram said referring to the stagnant production of rice and wheat.

“Bt cotton has made India a cotton exporting country. We thought of ourselves as exporters of wheat and rice, but today we import wheat. No country as large as India can survive on imports for its food needs,” the Finance Minister pointed out. The production figures for rice and wheat are far below the world average and yield gaps vary dramatically across different states, he said.

The success achieved in cotton production must be used to make the country self-sufficient in rice, wheat, pulses and oil seeds production, he said.

According to the president of the Association of Biotechnology-led Enterprises (ABLE) and managing director of the agri-biotech company Metahelix, K K Narayanan, cotton production in the country increased from 140 lakh bales in 2002 to 270 lakh bales last year. From being a net importer in 2003-4, India became a net exporter of cotton in 2006-7 with yields increasing from 300 kg per hectare in 2002 to 500 kg at present, he said. India had surpassed China as the country with the largest acreage of BT cotton cultivation and is now one of the largest exporters of BT seeds, he added.

“The total cotton area in India is approximately nine million hectare and 70 per cent of this is hybrid cotton. Of the hybrid cotton area, 9.5 million acres is BT cotton in comparison to 77,000 acres in 2002,” he said.

At Thursday’s inauguration of the Bangalore Bio 2007 event Chidambaram also provided a recipe for building a knowledge society in India.

Source : Indian Express