The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Ryots in distress over Bt cotton failure

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Friday, Oct 26, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Ryots in distress over Bt cotton failure

K. Venkateshwarlu

HYDERABAD: A fact-finding team of the NGO Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), that studied the reported failure of Bt cotton in three villages in Bhongir area of Nalgonda district has put the crop loss at Rs. 1.2 crore.

In the three study villages – Vangapalli and Cholleru (both in Yadagirigutta mandal) and Ibrahimpur (Turkapalli mandal) Bt Cotton spread over 2,700 acres of about 5,000 acres was severely affected. The yield here was only around two quintals on an average per acre against the expected six quintals per acre.

Confirmed

While confirming that Bt cotton was affected by sudden drying or wilting and had more sucking pests and diseases like black arm and leaf spot, the team observed that the Bt cotton farmers in the region were in deep distress.

Quoting farmers, the team which visited the villages on October 19 said a majority of them felt the loss was due to “seed fault” while a few attributed it to “environmental fluctuations”.

But apparently, this was not the case with non-Bt cotton. Standing side by side, the team found Bt and non-Bt in contrasting states, with damage being high in the former.

Such a difference was found clearly in Cholleru village where both Bt cotton and NPM cotton (non Bt and non-pesticidal) fields were raised next to each other. Loss in each Bt cotton plot ranged from 60 to 90 percent with farmers complaining that they have not faced such disastrous situation in a decade of cotton cultivation.

Further, pesticide use on Bt cotton was found to be high.

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