Monsanto's Gene-altered Crops Finding Resistance In India

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Monsanto's Gene-altered Crops Finding Resistance In India

 

By S. SRINIVASAN | Associated Press 02/10/2003

 

ENAKENAKONDA, India - Here, under a blazing sun in a southern Indian

cotton field 9,000 miles from U.S. biotechnology giant Monsanto Co.'s

headquarters, Chikkappa Nilakanti has literally sown seeds of

discontent.

 

Nilakanti is one of 55,000 farmers in India who recently planted

cotton genetically engineered by Monsanto to fight pests without

pesticides.

 

India permitted the crop into the country last year after a raucous

four-year battle and that decision is still being hotly contested in

a country that has always been skeptical of biotechnology.

 

Even now, no edible biotechnology crops are legally grown for

consumption in India, the world's second-most populous country.

 

Nilakanti's small plot of land and thousands like it throughout India

have become yet another front line in the global battle over

biotechnology, which is demonized as the near-exclusive domain of the

United States.

 

Still, slumping U.S. biotechnology companies are aggressively

pressing to sell their wares in new places overseas, including

pressuring the Bush administration to force open European markets.

 

St. Louis-based Monsanto is looking to shake off a yearlong profit

slide sparked by patent expirations, increased worldwide concern over

biotechnology and a drought at home. The company forced its longtime

chief executive to step down last month and promised angry

stockholders it would do better this year. And so it is pinning some

of its turnaround hopes on emerging international markets, including

India.

 

India's cotton industry is notoriously inefficient: It has the most

land under cotton cultivation but is only the third-largest producer

of cotton. Consequently, Monsanto's promise of improving yields by

as much as 60 percent resonated with the government.

 

Monsanto's cotton seed is spliced with genetic material taken from

bacterium called bacillus thuringiensis and commonly referred to as

BT. The bacterium harms bollworms but not people.

 

The biotech seed costs three times as much as the natural stuff, but

Monsanto and its Indian partner, Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Co.,

promise that the cotton crop, brand name Bollgard, will increase

farmers' yields and cut costs because fewer chemical pesticides are

needed.

 

But Nilakanti and pockets of other Indian cotton farmers who planted

the biotech cotton seed complained that the pricey technology was a

bad investment because their yields have not improved. The ruinous

boll weevils have not disappeared.

 

Nilakanti paid about $33 for a 450-gram packet of BT seeds, nearly

four times the cost of traditional seeds.

 

Standing in his field, Nilakanti watched boll weevils pop up their

heads as if in a greeting and then resume their business of eating

away his cotton crop.

 

" BT bedaappa, " Nilakanti said in his native tongue, Kannada. " I do

not want BT. "

 

Meanwhile, the same anti-biotechnology activists who fought to keep

biotech cotton out of India have continued with their vocal campaign.

 

A survey conducted by an anti-biotechnology advocacy group, Research

Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, called Monsanto's

technology a failure, saying it has left " farmers in a great economic

and livelihood crisis, " and led to the emergence of " new pests and

diseases. "

 

Government and company officials dispute those findings and argue

that the complaining farmers are in the minority. Even more gene-

altered cotton is expected to be planted this year.

 

" BT cotton has done very well in all the five states where it was

planted, " said Ranjana Smatecek, Monsanto India's public affairs

director.

 

Smatecek said Monsanto's genetically engineered cotton doesn't repel

all bollworms but does reduce the amount of pesticide needed to

control thepest. He said it's not surprising that farmers are

finding bollworms onsome of their engineered crops, because it takes

up to three days for the insects to die.

 

Environment minister T.R. Baalu told Indian Parliament that

Monsanto's cotton had performed " satisfactorily. "

 

In the Feb. 7 issue of the journal Science, two Western professors

published a paper supporting the government's position. David

Zilberman of the University of California, Berkeley and Matin Qaim

of the University of Bonn said they found that BT dramatically

increased yields and significantly reduced pesticide use.

 

The study's authors argue that BT cotton and similar technologies

involving genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, hold particular

promise for poor farmers in developing nations.

 

" It would be a shame, " Zilberman said, " if anti-GMO fears kept

important technology away from those who stand to benefit the most

from it. "

 

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EDITOR'S NOTE: AP biotechnology writer Paul Elias in San Francisco

contributed to this report.