The Bt cotton crop standing on 13,000 hectares of land at several villages of Perambalur district has been affected by three distinct diseases, causing anxiety among farmers.

A team of scientists from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Anbil Dharmalingam Agricultural College and Research Institute, Tiruchi, along with officials of the Agriculture Department inspected the cotton fields in various villages on Monday and evolved a strategy for saving the standing crop.

Roundup herbicide, which is meant to kill farm weeds, “poses the risk of serious human health hazards including cancer”, says a new study by the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (IITR).

Two Bad Years Impacted Overall Growth

The Green Revolution is said to have revolutionized agriculture in India. However, government data shows more or less the same rate of growth of yields for various crops from 1951 to about 1990, suggesting that the ‘revolution’ might not have been as momentous as it is believed to be.

The area under Bt cotton cultivation in the country has rapidly increased from 29,000 hectares in 2002 — when commercial cultivation of the variety was permitted to — 11.2 million hectares in 2012,

Do you think only ‘Monsanto’ (or any multinational seed company) has the capacity to develop transgenic crops? The answer is a clear ‘no’.

Demanding that steps be taken to increase the country's cotton production, Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA) on Wednesday said field trials on genetically modified (GM) cotton varieties shou