Cotton production in the country has more than doubled due to the use of Bt cotton seeds, said Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar today, batting in favour of the contentious genetically modified cro

Despite having unleashed more than 780 Bt cotton hybrids in India during the last decade, yields have turned stagnant and farmer suicides in the cotton belt are multiplying.

In fact, although Bt cotton now covers more than 90 per cent of the total cotton growing area in the country, yields in the last five years have gone up marginally from 470 kg per ha to 481 kg per ha though input costs have increased several fold, warned member NGOs of the Coalition for GM-Free India.

Protests marked the 10th anniversary of the introduction of genetically modified (GM) Bt cotton in the country. Angry farmers urged parliamentarians to hold a special session to discuss the issue and ban the technology.

Charging a few seed companies, particularly Monsanto, with monopolising the seed industry and setting the agenda for the government, social activists urged policy-makers and farmers to reject the hype around Bt cotton and demanded a comprehensive review.

CACP’s chairman on why Indian agriculture is trapped in a cycle of mediocre growth and low productivity.

GANDHINAGAR: The Gujarat government wants the price of Bt cotton seed to be regulated and put under its control despite opposition to it from the country's top seed producing companies.

Intervening in a debate in the state assembly, state agriculture minister Dilip Sanghani blamed the Centre for "supporting the seed companies", who are part of the National Seed Association of India (NSAI), the apex organization representing the Indian seed industry with more than 250 companies as its members.