Returns and Economics of Bt Cotton vis-a-vis Traditional Cotton Varieties in the State of Maharashtra in India

摘要

The study examines the performance and returns to Bt cotton vs Non-Bt cotton in the state of Maharashtra. The study has been undertaken at the request of Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. It is part of a coordinated project undertaken to examine this issue across the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. There have been major advances in biotechnology in the recent years and this has made it possible to directly identify genes, isolate them, know their functions,sequence them and transfer them from one organism to another. These developments have spanned the entire biological sciences. The development of Bt cotton is one outcome. Between 1996 and 2003 the global area under transgenic crops has increased 25 foldfrom 1.7 million hectare to 68 million hectare. In the year 2005, which marked the 10* anniversary of commercialization of transgenic or biotech crops, the global area was estimated to be around 90 million hectares. This came from 21 countries, 11 developing and 10 industrialized countries. Bt Cotton was developed by Monsanto and it is now one of the most widely grown transgenic crops currently grown in many countries including United States, China, India, Australia, Argentina, South Africa and Indonesia. The adoption of Bt cotton has been rapid, from an estimated 0.8 million hectares in 1996 to about 6 million hectares in 2003 globally.