Wait and watch situation for Bt cotton farmers
Category :
City |
Posted Date :
04/08/2011
NAGPUR: Although the state has finally taken cognizance of farmers' complaints regarding poor quality Bt seeds and promised to appoint a single agency for supplying Bt seeds to farmers in future, it is literally a wait-and-watch situation for the farmers. They have to wait until the plants grow big enough to show the changes that can either be visually picked up by farmers as non-Bt or they get the plants tested for Bt gene by testing laboratories.But the fact that the agriculture minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil on Wednesday promised to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a single company (to be chosen later) to supply Bt seeds to farmers all over the state is proof enough that at highest levels, government is aware of sale and purchase of fake Bt seeds this year.It is after many years that fraudulent companies or black marketers got a chance to bring in fake Bt seeds in market this season due to a sudden rise in price. The cost of a packet of 450 gm Bt seeds this year increased from about Rs 650 and 750 for boll-guard II last year to Rs 960 this year. With area increasing under Bt every year in state (almost 42 lakh hectares) as well as country, this year demand was at peak initiating illegal trade. The problem was noticed right in beginning of season in many states."All the booked seeds in Maharashtra, especially Vidarbha, were bought by Andhra farmers creating shortage and entry of fake seeds. Government allowed the situation to reach to such a volatile state that farmers were forced into panic buying. Situation wouldn't improve until government will allow seed companies to continue with self certification and compromising on quality," said farm activist and president of Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, Kishore Tiwari. He said that there were seeds with all kinds of new and funny names like Obama and Laxmi seeds. "Minister has shown a carrot to farmers for future. But what about the loss they would incur this season," he added.Tiwari apparently has a point which was rightly proved when police caught a seed packaging machine red handed in Munjala village in Yavatmal mid July this year. But where does the farmer go in case he suspects fake seeds? One solution he has is that he buys the extremely handy 'Bt seed testing kit' developed by the city based Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR) and tests his crop himself. But that won't be of much help to him as only formal complaint to agriculture department to seize and test such suspected seeds, can bring the culprits to task.The question thus arises is whether the agriculture department is equipped to test. Also, does it actually act on farmers complaints?? The department claims it is both equipped and does the testing. But farmers claim that the government agencies have just five labs in the state and they did not pick up any samples at all from market or farmers. But city joint director agriculture, JC Bhutada, said that though the lab has the CICR kit and trained staff, there were no complaints this year from region.However, the harsh reality is that fake Bt seeds were sold across country including Vidarbha this year. "After a gap of many years, we suddenly got many samples from different states in our Bt referral lab. Initially, we tested the samples. But this year, the institute declined to test samples as we already have supplied testing kits and trained staff from agriculture department. Now it is the job of the state to develop their own testing facility labs, it is not a part of our mandate," said Keshav Kranthi, the CICR director.
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