The article below provides a perfect example of the industry-driven "hype and concealment" that GM Watch editor, Jonathan Matthews, recently noted was going on right around the world.
Matthews gave this illustration of what's occurring, "In India you've got Monsanto pumping out studies and claims that GM cotton is great for Indian farmers, sales are up etc., etc., and at the same time you've got carefully conducted research in India showing the diametric opposite. You've also got protests going on and even stories of farmers killing themselves because their crops failed, but Monsanto's PR machine captures far more of the headlines."
Matthews noted the extraordinary schizophrenia this could produce: "You've got Indian politicians talking up biotech because they think it makes them look progressive and like they're doing something for the country, at the same time that you've got angy farmers going on the rampage because of the problems they're getting from just this one GM crop. In Indonesia Monsanto had to pull GM cotton out completely because of all the problems, and yet I regularly see claims that Indonesia is one of the Asian giants embracing GM!"
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=49&page=1
Each of these points is perfectly illustrated in the "Biotech Cotton Produces Bumper Crop in India" article, which takes as its starting point recent claims coming out of India's pro-GM ministry of agriculture.
According to the Indo-Asian News Service, "agriculture ministry sources" in India have been claiming that "the large-scale plantation of genetically modified cotton this year has played a big role in helping India achieve a bumper crop"
http://www.bharattextile.com/newsitems/1992992
But compare and contrast that "big role" claim with what an internal ministry of agriculture report revealed. Earlier this year, India's Financial Express reported that despite the claims that India was "a key GM crop cultivator", the actual area planted with India's first GM crop, Bt cotton, was miniscule in terms of the total area devoted to cotton in India.
The newspaper went on to quote an internal agriculture ministry report, "In 2002-03, the first year of its approval for commercial cultivation, Bt cotton covered an area of only 38,038 hectares, representing only 0.51 per cent of the area under cotton in the period. In 2003-04, with good monsoon rains, the area under Bt cotton increased to 92,000 hectares. This area coverage under Bt cotton is almost negligible as compared to over 9 million hectares under cotton crop in the country. This points to the low acceptability of Bt cotton by farmers."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3639
In another Indo-Asian News Service story tIndia's Agriculture Minister was quoted as saying, "The Bt cotton yield was definitely better in quality and quantity, boosting production by 30 to 35 percent in areas it was sown."
http://athens-olympics-2004.newkerala.com/?action=fullnews&id=41109
But even if such yield increases had occurred, given that Bt cotton is still being grown only on a relatively miniscule area (the last official figures placed it under 1%), there is no conceivable way it could be having the big national impact that is being claimed for it.
But even the yield gains themselves are suspect. In the article below, the research quoted is that of "ACNielsen ORG-MARG". This is a marketing survey organisation hired by Monsanto to carry out a survey among Bt cotton growing farmers. This survey involved just one contact with the farmers during the growing season.
It was carried out in the second year of Bt cotton production in India. In the first year Monsanto's Bt cotton is known to have performed extraordinarily badly. A series of studies showed it had proven a total failure and had left farmers in debt. http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2003/India-Bt-Cotton-Failure8feb03.htm
In the second year of production a detailed study was carried out by Dr Abdul Qayoom, former Joint Director of Agriculture in Andhra Pradesh, and Mr Sakkari Kiran, working with farmers continuously, contacting them every 15 days. Unlike Monsanto's study, this showed that Monsanto's Bt cotton had yet again been economically outperformed by non-GM cotton.
The study also showed that the Monsanto- commissioned AC Nielsen study had actually claimed for Bt cotton four times more than the actual reduction in pesticide use, 12 times more than the actual yield and 100 times more profit!!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3405
In the current year despite India's bumper cotton harvest, farmers growing Monsanto's Bt cotton have gone on the rampage in Andhra Pradesh because of the severe losses they've faced. Farmers even resorted to taking a Monsanto official hostage in order to to back up their demands for compensation.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4557
The following Council for Biotechnology Information article is the very model of hype and concealment. It comes from an organisation funded by the industry, and it is being widely circulated on lists supported by the industry, and it makes use of research commissioned by the industry.
And note how it even gives Indonesia - a country where Monsanto had to pull GM cotton out completely because of all the problems and where it is now being investigated for corruption over the manner in which it was introduced - as an example of its GM cotton success story.
------
Biotech Cotton Produces Bumper Crop in India
Enhanced cotton nets yield gains of up to 35 percent
The Council for Biotechnology Information
http://www.whybiotech.com/index.asp?id=4802
Genetically enhanced varieties of cotton led to yield gains of between 30 and 35 percent and boosted cotton production in India to record levels in 2004, according to India's agriculture minister.
And with more of India's estimated 4 million cotton farmers expected to plant biotech cotton in coming years, production - and rural economic development in the important textile sector - will likely be even higher.1
"The Bt cotton yield was definitely better in quality and quantity, boosting production by 30 to 35 percent in areas it was sown," Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar recently told the Indo-Asian News Service.2
But he also noted that relatively low infestation levels of cotton's principal pest, the bollworm, and favorable monsoon rains helped produce the bumper cotton crop.
While less than 1 percent of the 22.2 million acres of cotton planted in India was sowed with biotech varieties in 2003, this could increase to more than 11 percent in 2005, according to industry estimates.3
Since being approved for planting in 2002, Bt cotton - enhanced with a naturally occurring soil protein, Bacillus thuringiensis - has been quickly adopted by Indian cotton farmers because of the dramatic yield and income gains.
Mahalingappa Shankarikoppa, who grows cotton on a two-acre plot in the southern Indian state of Karnatka, said he earns two to three times what he did when planting conventional seeds.
Likewise, farmer Kishore Malviya, who grows cotton on a six-acre plot in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, says his yields are "way above my normal yield" - biotech cotton is "a dream come true for me."4
While there are an estimated 4 million cotton farmers in India, an estimated 60 million people earn a living from the production, processing and export of cotton and cotton goods.5
Textiles are India's No. 1 export,6 and cotton accounts for about 30 percent of the country's agricultural gross domestic product.7 Because cotton plays such an important role in India's rural economic development, government leaders have been eager to improve production. The 2002 approval of three varieties of Bt cotton for planting was just one action taken to encourage rural economic development and raise living standards.
While India plants more farmland with cotton than any other country - 25 percent of the world's cotton acres are in India - it produces just 12 percent of the world's cotton.8 Average yields, about 500 pounds per acre, are among the lowest in the world.9
And in addition to boosting production of this cash crop, India also hopes to increase the availability of edible cottonseed oil to help feed India's growing population of 1 billion people.10
The agriculture minister's comments about the benefits of biotech cotton are reinforced by several studies. A nationwide survey by ACNielsen ORG-MARG of 1,672 biotech cotton farmers and 1,371 conventional cotton farmers found that:
Profits increased 78 percent, on average, over farmers who planted traditional varieties.
Yields increased 29 percent, on average.
Pesticide use declined by 60 percent, on average.11
In that 2003 survey, 90 percent of the biotech cotton farmers said they intended to plant a biotech variety again in 2004, and 42 percent of the non-biotech farmers said they planned to make the switch the next year.
The popularity of this new technology also reflects the experience of cotton farmers in the seven other countries that have approved biotech cotton for planting: Argentina, Australia, China, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and the United States.12
In China, for example, 58 percent of the cotton acres were planted with biotech varieties in 2003. 13In South Africa, the adoption rate is estimated at about 90 percent in the cotton-growing Makhathini region. In the United States, 76 percent of all cotton acres were planted with biotech varieties in 2004.
Because biotech cotton has proven to be so beneficial for Indian farmers, interest is growing in other biotech crops.
According to a December 2004 study by a leading U.S. food and trade policy analyst, India has at least 20 academic and research institutions involved in plant biotech research covering 16 crops.
Among the research is that on a protein-rich potato being developed that could one day be fed to school children to help combat malnutrition and a vitamin A-rich mustard seed oil that could help prevent blindness.
India is one of the world's greatest beneficiaries of improvements in agricultural technology. The so-called Green Revolution triggered a more than threefold increase in rice and wheat production in the developing countries of Asia, including India, between 1961 and 2000, and saved millions of lives.
Indian leaders and others say that what the Green Revolution did for the 20th century, the coming gene revolution can do for the 21st century: increase production with more environmentally friendly farming techniques to feed a growing, more affluent global population.
"The results [from Bt cotton] certainly encourage us to look at other GM crops," said Pawar.14
1 Barwale, R.B. "Prospects for Bt cotton technology in India," Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company, Nov. 17, 2004, <www.agbios.com/main.php?action=ShowNewsItem&id=6025>.
2 "Bt cotton helps boosts India's cotton output to record level," Indo-Asian News Service, Nov. 5, 2004, <http://athens-olympics-2004.newkerala.com/?action=fullnews&id=41109>.
3 Barwale, R.B. "Prospects for Bt cotton technology in India," Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company, Nov. 17, 2004, <www.agbios.com/main.php?action=ShowNewsItem&id=6025>.
4 "Nationwide Survey by AC Nielsen ORG-MARG Underscores Benefits of Bollgardâ„¢ Cotton," AC Nielsen/Mahyco Monsanto Press release, March 26, 2004.
5 James, Clive. "Global Review of Commercialized Transgenic Crops: 2001 Feature: Bt Cotton," International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, December 2002, p. 105, <www.isaaa.org>.
6 James, Clive. "Global Review of Commercialized Transgenic Crops: 2001 Feature: Bt Cotton," International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, December 2002, p. 105, <www.isaaa.org>.
7 Barwale, R.B. "Prospects for Bt cotton technology in India," Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company, Nov. 17, 2004, <www.agbios.com/main.php?action=ShowNewsItem&id=6025>.
8 James, Clive. "Global Review of Commercialized Transgenic Crops: 2001 Feature: Bt Cotton," International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, December 2002, p. 105, <www.isaaa.org>.
9 James, Clive. "Global Review of Commercialized Transgenic Crops: 2001 Feature: Bt Cotton," International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, December 2002, p. 105, <www.isaaa.org>.
10 "Benefits of Bollgardâ„¢ Technology for the Overall Economy," Mahyco Monsanto Biotech (India) Pvt. Ltd., Press release, March 26, 2004.
11 "Nationwide Survey by AC Nielsen ORG-MARG Underscores Benefits of Bollgardâ„¢ Cotton," AC Nielsen/Mahyco Monsanto Press release, March 26, 2004.
12 Barwale, R.B. "Prospects for Bt cotton technology in India," Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company, Nov. 17, 2004, <www.agbios.com/main.php?action=ShowNewsItem&id=6025>.
13 "Double-Digit Growth Continues for Biotech Crops Worldwide," International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, Press release and executive summary, Jan. 13, 2004, <www.isaaa.org/Press_release/Briefs30-2003/press/b30_english.htm>.
14 "Bt cotton helps boosts India's cotton output to record level," Indo-Asian News Service, Nov. 5, 2004, <http://athens-olympics-2004.newkerala.com/?action=fullnews&id=41109>