Hybrid Bt Cotton:A Stranglehold on Subsistence Farmers in India

Cultivation of long season hybrid and GMO Bt-hybrid cottons is unique to India. The hybrid technology prevents seed saving, requires annual purchases of high cost seed that leads to sub optimal planting densities. These factors contribute to stagnant low yields and to increases in insecticide use that induce new pests that are increasingly resistant to insecticide and Bt toxins. Subsistence farmers growing rainfed Bt cotton in south and central India have been particularly affected by this hybrid technology.

Pure line high-density short-season (HD-SS) rainfed cotton varieties are available or in development that would greatly increase yields, reduce yield variability, decrease costs of seed and insecticides and increase profits. The high costs of Bt hybrid seed make the technology incompatible with the HD-SS applications. The article questions why pure line HD-SS technology has not been implemented in India.