India agriculture ministry likely to maintain status quo on Bt cotton seed MSP

The India agriculture ministry is likely to retain the current maximum sale price (MSP) for genetically modified Bt cotton seeds prices for the next kharif season.

It is told that after a meeting of the committee constituted by agriculture ministry for recommending MSP for Bt cotton seeds was held on Monday, the government would be coming out with a formal notification within next few days.

Last year, MSP of genetically modified Bt cotton seeds was reduced to R800 per 450 gm packet from R830-1,000 in the previous year.


However, the sharpest cut was on royalty or trait fees which was reduced by 74%, from R163 per packet to R49.

In Monday’s meeting, while one group of seed manufacturers urged for increase in seed price by R30-50 per packet, others demanded trait fee to be hiked to R100 from R49 per packet. “The government would perhaps maintain a status-quo to avoid any dispute,” a source said.

After last year’s cut in the fees to Mahyco Monsanto Biotech (MMBL), a joint venture between the US-based biotech major Monsanto and Maharashtra-based Mahyco, the trait value has been just 6% of the pan-India ceiling price of R800 per packet for the seed.

MMBL had moved the Delhi High Court against the reduction in trait value and the capping of the seed price, arguing that the December 2015 price control order was “illegal and unconstitutional”. The court is yet to decide on the matter.

MMBL has sub-licensed Bt cotton seed technology since 2002 to various domestic seed companies.

About 83% of the country’s cotton area of 10.2 million hectares (in the 2016-17 season) was under Bt variety. The country’s cotton production has risen manifold since the introduction of Bt seeds — from 13.6 million bales in 2002-03 to a projected 32.12 million bales in 2016-17.

After Bt cotton was introduced in India in 2003, it took no time for it to take the lion’s share of the country’s cotton area, but 2016-17 saw the first steep decline in its attraction to the domestic growers of the fibre.

Primarily because cotton farmers in Punjab and Haryana took to native varieties in last year’s kharif season.

Farmers thought these might be less vulnerable to the deadly pest white fly than the genetically modified one, the share of Bt variety in total cotton area sown declined to 83% in 2016-17 from 91% in the previous season.