NEW DELHI: Six months after defying ban by planting unapproved variety of genetically modified cotton (HTBt cotton) in several districts of Maharashtra , hundreds of state farmers have now decided to flag their post-harvest success stories by showcasing results of banned transgenic variety of cotton at Hiwri village in Yavatmal on January 5, 2020.

Idea behind this ‘first of its kind’ show is to let farmers, critics of GM technology and experts see for themselves how the unapproved variety fared compared to approved one ( Bt cotton ) in terms of yield and low cost of cultivation.

“We want to show it to everyone that the use of herbicide tolerant (HTBt) cotton is quite beneficial for farmers as it not only gave us higher yield but also cut our cost substantially,” said Vijay Niwal, one of the farmers who had sown the banned variety on his land in Hiwari village.

He told TOI on Sunday that it would be for everyone to see why the farmers have long been demanding such improved GM cotton variety. “If we don’t get approved variety, we may end up getting spurious and unregulated variety of transgenic cotton in the market. It’ll ultimately harm all available seed varities,” said Niwal.

Though commercial cultivation of another variety of genetically modified cotton (Bt cotton) is allowed in India, the HTBt cotton variety is banned in absence of permission from the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) of the Union environment ministry.

The farmers, however, want HTBt variety as it makes it possible for them to use certain herbicide that kills the unwanted weeds and grass in a cotton field, but leaves the cotton plant unaffected.

“This method significantly lowers the cost of manual weeding at the time when cost of rural labour has increased significantly. Use of HTBt variety can make Indian cotton more competitive in a global market,” said Ajit Narde, chief of the technology cell of the Shetkari Sanghatana - a farmer group which had been on forefront of defying the ban.

Asked whether government officials would also visit the farmers in Hiwari to examine the result of HTBt farm and yield, Narde said it was an “open invitation” for everyone to see how beneficial this variety of cotton would be when nearly 90% of picking (harvesting) had already been done.

Though the state police registered cases against the farmers who defied ban, the state government could not weed out the crops from the farms under a court order.

It was the Shetkari Sanghatana which had launched ‘Kisan Satyagraha’ in favour of HTBt cotton by defying the ban at Akot in Maharashtra’s Akola district on June 10. Later, this ‘pro-GM seed’ movement had spread its wings to 10 other districts of the state.

