India imports cotton as domestic prices climb due to limited supply

India, the world's biggest cotton producer, has contracted to import 20,000 bales from Pakistan after Indian prices jumped because of limited supply.

So much for India's Bt cotton miracle. The country’s GMO Bt cotton crop has failed under an onslaught of non-GMO-friendly pests and weather.

Meanwhile a stream of GMO promotionals have until very recently continued to appear in the “scientific” literature and the media, claiming yield and profit benefits for farmers growing Bt cotton.

The UK Royal Society’s report on GM crops, which was published this year, touts Bt cotton in India as part of the global Bt crops success story which has enabled the application of “450,000 tons of insecticide” to be avoided.

You can bet that the Royal Society ignored in this calculation the highly toxic insecticidal seed treatments that are now routinely applied to cotton seed, as well as seeds of other commodity crops like maize and soybeans.

We should bear in mind that papers and reports claiming benefits from Bt cotton are based on ancient data, before pests and non-GMO-friendly weather took their toll on India’s almost entirely GMO cotton crop.

And even claims made for yield benefits due to Bt cotton in the early years of cultivation are questionable. An analysis by Prof Glenn Davis Stone shows that chemical insecticides, not GM Bt cotton, were likely responsible for the temporary rise in yields in the early 2000s (“temporary” because the rise was not sustained).