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India’s pro-GMO cotton farmers make case for relaxed biotech crop rules to prime minister

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GM crops in India: farmers clear, politics muddled

Farmers who want to grow GM crops have met senior ministers of the federal government to represent their case. A senior minister has said that the government would want farmers to have access to better and latest technology.

A section of cotton farmers, headed by Maharashtra’s Shetkari Sanghatana, and a group of farmers’ organizations, some of them non-governmental bodies (NGOs), have locked horns over the planting of HTBT (herbicide-tolerant Bacillus Thuringiensis) cotton by growers in some parts of the country.

Reports said that the farmers organizations such as Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, Jatan and Coalition for GM-Free, have threatened nation-wide agitation if the prime minister Narendra Modi doesn’t stop “illegal cultivation” of genetically-modified crops like HTBT cotton. The Hindu Business Line reported that farmers in Maharashtra have vowed to resist attempts to destroy HTBT cotton planted by them.

All these developments only make people curious about what is happening with regard to GM crops in the country. Details made available to Swarajya are interesting. The controversy over cultivation of GM crops began when a farmer in Fatehabad in Haryana was found cultivating Bt brinjal in May, 2019.