Articles by Dr. Shiva

BT COTTON AND FARMERS SUICIDES

by Dr. Vandana Shiva  

Bt. Cotton and the Debt Trap

In the year 2007, 1095 farmers committed suicide in Vidharbha, that is one in every eight hours.  

Vidharbha in Maharashtra has emerged as an epicenter of farmers suicides over the last decade  

Vidharbha is also the region where Monsanto sells most of its genetically engineered Bt. Cotton.  

In 2002, the first year when Bt. Cotton was approved for commercial planting, there was no Bt. Cotton in Maharashtra. By 2006 the acreage had shot up to 435000 acres.  

State-wise acreage under Bt. Cotton (2002)  

State-wise acreage under Bt. Cotton (2006)

The correlation is stark. More Bt = More Suicides. The Vidharbha Jan Andolan has also mapped the suicides and Bt. Sales within Vidharbha district wise. Districts with higher Bt have higher suicides.  

Farmers suicides are a direct result of indebtedness. Even the Government has been forced to recognize the agrarian crisis resulting from indebtedness by announcing a Rs. 60,000 crore loan waiver.  

Bt. Cotton is at the center of a debt creating agriculture.  

Firstly, Bt. Cotton seeds are costly. Convention cottonseeds cost Rs. 200 / kg. Bt. Cotton seeds cost Rs. 3600 / kg. The Government of Andhra Pradesh was in fact forced to take Monsanto to the MRTP Court (India's Anti Trust Body) because of it charging exorbitant prices. Since the farmers cannot afford to pay for the seeds, they take credit from the agents selling seeds and are trapped in debt. This is not unique to India. Nearly a decade ago when I traveled to the U.S I asked farmers growing Monsanto's Round Up Resistant Corn why they bought it. The farmers replied that they had no option. "The corporations have a noose round our neck. We have to buy whatever they sell".  

Secondly, Bt. Cotton seeds are non-renewable. They have to be bought every year. This further increases farmers costs.  

Thirdly, while Bt. Cotton is sold as a pest resistant seed, it is in fact only resistant to the American bollworm and that too only until the bollworm has not evolved resistance to Bt. Bt. Cotton is vulnerable to many non-target pests such as aphids and jassids. Farmers must therefore continue to spray pesticides, increasing costs of cultivation.  

Fourthly, the Bt. genes have been introduced in hybrids. Hybrids need irrigation. In rainfed regions farmers must either borrow more money for tube wells or face crop failure in case of erratic rainfall.  

Farmers of Vidharbha are clearly not becoming millionaires by growing Bt. Cotton as the advertisements promise.

Cost Benefit Analysis of Bt. Cotton

The false claim that Bt. Cotton has increased productivity and farmers incomes is manufactured through industry sponsored studies such as these carried out by IMRB International and Assocham.  

The Assocham study puts Rs. 7125 as additional benefit to farmers.

BT Benefit : Cost Ratio to Indian Farmers

Benefit to Cost Ratio : 11.6                                     Benefit to Cost Ratio (2005) : 5.8

Field studies carried out by us give totally different results. The below table shows a study conducted by us about the economics of growing Bt. Cotton, non-Bt. Cotton and Desi varieties in one care, in terms of input costs, yields and output value and found that Bt. Cotton farmers were incurring losses of upto Rs. 6400/acre on an average.

  Cost benefit analysis of Bt. Cotton vs Other Cotton in One Acre in Madhya Pradesh

Similarly farmers in Madhya Pradesh are incurring loss of Rs. 543 per acre in Bt. cultivation but farmers growing non Bt. are making profit of Rs. 6315 per acre  as shown in the above table. The table below shows that in Karnataka too farmers suffered loss of Rs. 1285 per acre in Bt cultivation where as non Bt. farmers have income of Rs. 3750 per acre.

Cost benefit analysis of Bt. Cotton vs Other Cotton in One Acre in Karnataka

The below table gives the comparison of the finding from AC Nielson's study (commissioned by Monsanto) and Andhra Pradesh Coalition in Defence of Diversity (APCIDD), which is very interesting for the contrasting pictures they present.

As is apparent, the industry has claimed four times more than the actual reduction in pesticide use, 12 times more yield and 100 times more profit than the actual.  

A report was released by Youth for Voluntary Action in association with Greenpeace India and Centre for Sustainable Agriculture. This suggested that farmers who used non bt. cotton in the 2005 kharif season had net incomes almost 62 percent higher than those who opted for Bt. Cotton. This was because inspite of having a marginally higher yield, the cost of cultivation for Bt. Cotton was much higher - by over 33 per cent.

In case of Bt. Cotton, average cost of cultivation was Rs. 6184.11 per acre, yield 4.97 quintals per acre and sale price of Rs. 1843.60 per quintal, giving a gross income of Rs. 9148 and net income of Rs. 2963.95.  

For non-bt cotton, the average cost of cultivation was Rs. 4138.16 per acre, yield of 4.71 quintals per acre and sale price of Rs. 1898 per quintal, giving a gross income of Rs. 8929.58 and net income of Rs. 4791/-  

Thus the average income of non-bt cotton farmers was higher by Rs. 1827.05 or 61.64 per cent, due to the lower cost of cultivation. The difference between average cultivation cost was Rs. 2045.95 or 33.08 per cent.  

The economics of Bt and non Bt. production show that farmers who have cultivated Bt. Cotton spent 15% of the total cost of cultivation on the seed as against 5% in case of non-bt. farmers, in the hope that it would reduce their spending on pesticide sprays and improve their yields substantially. Bt in reality, expenditure on plant protection was only around 25 rupees / ha less for Bt. cotton farmers. Non Bt. cotton farmers averaged a yield of 276 kg / ha compared with 180 kg/ha for Bt. cotton farmers, which represents a net 35% decrease in yield. So, inspite of spending 3.5 times more on pesticide resistant seed, a Bt. farmer had only a 4% reduction in pesticide costs, and ended up with a 35% loss in final yield.  

It is therefore not true that Bt. Cotton has brought Indian farmers benefits. The farmers suicides in Bt. Cotton areas is the strongest proof of the negative economy of Bt. Cotton.

Projecting the results of distorted agriculture policy and liberalized trade as gifts of Biotechnology

However the biotechnology industry is fabricating data to present Bt. Cotton as a miracle.  

Behind the hype is the biotech industry group - International service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAA) and its Chairman Clive James. At a press conference in New Delhi on 18^th February, 2008, Clive James announced that India is witnessing the highest growth in GM crops with Bt. Cotton going from 3.8 million ha in 2006 to 6.2 million ha in 2007, a 63 percent increase. Worldwide, the acreage under GM crops rose by 12 percent, from 102 millilon ha in 2006 to 114.3 ha in 2007.  

The first myth about GM crops is that they will reduce hunger  

While GM crops are promoted as a solution to hunger, neither GM cotton nor GM maize goes to feed people. GM maize, which earlier went to feed cattle in factory farms, is now being increasingly diverted to production of biofuels. The price of corn has doubled leading to tortilla riots in Mexico.  

A second myth is that increased cotton production and exports in India is linked to Bt. Cotton productivity. Clive James has stated "Rapid strides that India has made in cotton production since the country embraced Bt. Cotton and the fact that it has overtaken the U.S speak volumes about the technology".  

Firstly, India did not "embrace" Bt. Cotton. Bt. Cotton has been thrust on Indian farmers. And the first entry was illegal. The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology challenged the import and field trials of Bt. Cotton since they violated the "Rules for the Manufacture, Use, Import, Export and Storage of Hazardous Microorganisms, Genetically Engineered Organisms or Cells 1989" framed under the Environment Protection Act 1986. Under these rules, imports and field trials need approval from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee. Monsanto / Mahyco had not got the approval. This is how we delayed the commercialization from 1999 to 2002.

Secondly, the first three varieties of Bt. Cotton approved in 2002 in southern states were rejected for planting in the South in 2005 due to high levels of crop failture.  

Thirdly, the increase in cotton acreage is a function of Government turning its back on food grains and promoting cash crops. Between 1991 and 2001, more than eight million ha of food growing land had been diverted to export crops. Since 2001 this loss of food growing land has further increased.  

Fourthly, when Quantitative Restrictions were removed in 2001, cotton imports shot up

India : Cotton Imports and Exports 1970-2004  

Source : US Department of Agriculture

Cheap subsidized cotton from the U.S was dumped on Indian markets. The $4billion subsidy in the U.S goes to 20,000 farmers, but this subsidy destroys the lives and incomes of millions of farmers in Africa and India.  

Import of Cotton to India

The imports shot up on removal of QR's and have come down since then because Brazil initiated a case against U.S on cotton subsidies.  

Today India is exporting large quantities of cotton. The increase in exports is also a result of the trade liberalization regime, which has led to destruction of India's cotton textile industry. India is exporting cotton to China and importing textiles and clothing from China.  

What is true is that cotton and Bt. Cotton area is increasing. This is a result of policies that are working against food sovereignty and a result of the fact that corporate monopolies have destroyed the seed supply of farmers

That is why we have started the Seeds of Hope campaign - to offer farmers alternatives to Bt. Cotton in the suicide belt of Vidharbha both in terms of bringing back seeds of food crops and non bt. cotton, as well promoting low cost high output ecological farming. Organic cotton and food sovereignty are India's future. Not Bt. Cotton.