Notwithstanding the resounding failure of its Bt cotton, Monsanto has begun to introduce another genetically modified (gm) crop into India, its proprietary maize variety called Roundup Ready corn. The government's Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation has given permission for Monsanto to bring in breeding material and start work. It clearly appears the government has no coherent policy for gm crops. Transgenic crops are being introduced whimsically.

Roundup Ready corn is a herbicide-tolerant maize variety which offers no advantages to the Indian farmer with respect to yield, protection against disease, an ability to tolerate saline soils, drought tolerance and improved grain quality (all usually the reasons new varieties are introduced). The maize will tolerate the herbicide Roundup, which will kill weeds in the field. So after spraying Roundup in the field, the Roundup Ready variety will be the only vegetation left standing. Everything else will die.

Roundup is a herbicide that also belongs to Monsanto, which until recently held the patent on it. This means that the farmer must go in for a package: Roundup Ready corn and matching herbicide Roundup. Herbicide tolerance is obviously a clever strategy. It allows Monsanto to make a double killing, on the seed and then on the herbicide. Monsanto has succeeded in promoting its herbicide-tolerant crops to the extent that globally, herbicide tolerance is the single most prevalent trait in gm crop cultivation (in 2002, of the total gm crop acreage, over 80 per cent was devoted to it).

Herbicide tolerance as a trait in crops suits industrial countries, where landholdings run into a few thousand acres and where there exists practically no labour for farm operations. With just two to five per cent of the population in farming, agriculture is largely mechanised. The preferred way to kill weeds is aerial spraying, a wasteful and ecologically destructive method. The wastefulness makes it expensive, but in the oecd countries