In 1853, Karl Marx wrote how British domination “broke the profession of Indian hand and destroyed the wheel that turns”, chased its textiles from the European market, “introduced Twist in Hindostan” and finally “flooded the very country of the cotton mother with cotton”. Something similar has happened with Indian cotton in the past decade or more. In this case, however, it was not by a great imperialist conception, but by pure paralysis of domestic policy and nonsense.
Consider the following: between 2002-2003 and 2013-14, India cotton production almost tripled from 13.6 million to 39.8 million balls (MB; 1 ball = 170 kg). During the three years of marketing (October-September) completed 2002-03, its average imports of 2.2 MB exceeded exports of 0.1 MB this completely changed during the three years finished in 2013-2014, imports directed in half to 1.1 MB and exports which increased much more than a hundred to 11.6 MB.
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Cut in 2024-25, when the production of India is projected at 29.5 MB, the lowest since the 29 MB of 2008-2009. In addition, imports at 3 MB would exceed exports of 1.7 MB. In short, we are back to a net importer of natural fiber. A country that had transformed the N ° 1 in the world in 2015-2016 and a second largest exporter in the United States in 2011-2012 were “flooded” by American, Australian, Egyptian and Brazilian cottons.
How has India has become a pre-eminent cotton producer and exporter? The answer is technology. India had some of the best cotton breeders. CT Patel has developed “H-4”, the first cotton hybrid in the world released for commercial culture in 1970 and obtained from two varieties of Gossypium Hirsutum, Gujarat-67 and Nectariless American. BH Katarki Bred “Varalaxmi”, The World’s First Inter-Specific Cotton Hybrid-A Cross Between A Hirsutum (Lakshmi) and Barbadense (SB298 E) Species Variety of the Same Gossypium Genus-That was released in 1972. Singh – His “LSS” (Labh Singh Selection) Variety, released in 1933, was grown extensive in punjab and was used for hybridization even in Pakistan.
This tradition of opening to new technologies and reproductive innovations has also enabled the marketing of genetically modified BT cotton hybrid (GM) in India. The first of them – incorporating a gene isolated from a soil bacteria, Bacillus thuringiensis, producing toxic proteins for the American deadly parasites of Bollworm – was planted from the 2002-2003 cultures season. This was followed four years later by GM hybrids based on second generation Bollgard-II technology, deployment of two BT genes to confer protection against the cotton leaf of the spotlight.
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Bt Cotton’s Widespread Adoption-Covering Some 95 per hundred of the Country’s Total 12 million hectares under Cotton Cultivation by 2013-14-LED to the Fiber’s Second Revolution: If H-4, Varalaxmi and Other Hybrids Helped more than double the National Average Lint yield from 127 kg to 302 kg per hectare Between 1970-71 and 2002-03, Bollgard Pushed it up Further to 566 kg by 2013-14.
It is regrettable that India’s cotton production was on a drop-down slope of peaks in 2013-2014, falling on an average of 33.8 MB in the last five years and less than 30 MB in 2024-25. Charpie’s national yields also plunged within 450 kg per hectare. It is a disaster, in a country where references in Karpasa (non -line raw cotton) and Karpasika (the country of cotton) date back to the 10th century doctor on the 10th century doctor, Vrikshayurveda and even Mahabharata. And it is a disaster caused not by Marx’s “British intruder”, but largely self-inflicted.
The slide began in the second mandate of the UPA government, which announced a “moratorium” on GM BT Brinjal, canceling the green light from the genetic engineering approval committee for its plantation by farmers. For the first time, Credence was given to “public consultations” – hearings mainly assisted by environmental activists and so -called Swadeshis – on scientific validation and evaluation. The surrender to the interests of Luddite was brought to another level under the NDA, with trials in the very field of interrupted GM cultures. The treatment of GM cultures as “dangerous substances” under the 1986 environmental law – again guided by a fear of unknown scientific opinion rather than sustained from evidence – has not helped either.
It is not only the GM technologies of Cotton or Monsanto-Bayer which were at the end. A crowd of other GM cultures and even transgenic events developed natives – Delhi Hybrid mustard and cotton of the university demand higher levels of expression of BT protein “Cry1ac” than Bollgard, at the Lucknow– The cotton resistant to white and pink lenses of the National Botanical Institute – has struggled to jump through regulatory hoops, ostensibly erected to protect themselves against the “risks” that their liberation can pose to the country’s agricultural ecosystems, to biodiversity and human and animal health.
The courts also intervene to decide better questions left to those who have technical expertise and knowledge in the field, the regulatory blocking was total: even after three seasons of confined trials in the 2010-11 field and the submission of a file of 3285 pages with biosenirated data generated by the breeder in 2015, GM Hybrid Mustard is still planted in the Fields of farmers. The same goes for cotton; No new technology was approved after Bollgard-II in May 2006.
These chickens came home to perch. India cotton imports doubled in April-January 2024-25 in April-January 2023-04 (from $ 518.4 million to $ 1,040.4 million dollars) as well as the drop in exports (from $ 729.4 million to $ 660.5 million). There were indications that the pink worm becoming an emerging threat to cotton cultivation, from 2014 in the central-west and southern regions of the country, and from 2018 in the northern zone. At a time when infestations have assumed serious proportions, the damage caused by the blocking of reproduction efforts, citing risks based on presumption as opposed to concrete evidence, were carried out.
The ultimate beneficiary of India who transforms a net importer would be the best exporters in the world, the United States and Brazil. They – The first in particular – are likely to put pressure for the withdrawal of import rights of 11% now on cotton. India had, in August 2021, imports authorized at 1.2 million tonnes of soy meals and cake derived from GM Soybean. We can expect similar pressure to allow imports of GM corn in the coming days – in the name of the softening of non -pricing barriers.
During all this time, the Indian farmer was denied access to technology. No one asked him, no one will do it today. Will activists who blocked the field tests of GM cultures will block the entrance to soy and GM corn through the Nhava Sheva or Visakhapatnam ports?
Hary.damodaran@expressindia.com