NOTE: Looks like Monsanto's greed may have backfired on them.
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Pakistan may scrap Monsanto BT cottonseed deal
Textile News, 27 Feb 2009
http://tiny.cc/6txmz

Pakistan may scrap the deal with Monsanto on BT cottonseed after signing the agreement with China, reliable sources told Business Recorder on Thursday. Recently, Pakistan has signed an agreement with China on BT cotton. Sources said that China itself introduced BT cotton seed in its country after signing a Letter of Intent (LoI) with Monsanto in 1996 but it developed its own Bt cottonseed after re-inventing it in Chinese laboratories.

The government had signed a LoI with Monsanto a year ago in order to initiate collaboration in biotechnology. Monsanto cotton traits are currently approved in 13 countries of the world. The LoI signed between India and Pakistan outlines a strategy to enhance co-operation in the field of transgenic technology.

According to the sources, the Monsanto has demanded $16 per acre as royalty, which according to Pakistan is a huge amount. Sources said that the government is not ready to pay even a single penny to Monsanto that is why even after signing the LoI, Pakistan has not finalised its agreement with Monsanto in this regard yet.

In the agreement signed between Pakistan and China on Bt cotton, later has promised to transfer its 'double gene technology' of cotton to the former, they said adding that this technology has been invented by fusion of the gene invented by Monsanto into the gene of its own cotton variety.

Monsanto is an agricultural company. It invests almost $1.5 million a day globally to look for and bring to market innovative technologies. The company has developed Bollgard cotton, commonly known as Bt cotton in order to control pest injury in production agriculture.

Sources said that another issue with Monsanto was that the government is in favour of bringing a new model of BT cotton to Pakistan and had insisted on Bollgard II technology of BT cotton from Monsanto. Sources further disclosed that earlier, Monsanto brought 20 varieties of BT cotton but nothing has been performed up to the mark.

Due to the non-availability of approved BT cottonseeds in the market, the farmers have started smuggling these seeds from India. Almost 60 percent farmers in Punjab and 40 percent in Sindh are making the use of illegal and unapproved BT cottonseeds. Raw material from unapproved BT varieties, result in reduced quality cotton, which the traders refuse to export.

Sources in the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (Minfal) told Business Recorder that it might take another two years to develop our own BT cottonseed that would be most resistible against the attacks of mealy bug and the Cotton Leaf Curl Virus (CLCV). He said that Pakistani laws ask for the owner of a transgenic seed to guarantee that the crop variety will have no harmful and disastrous impact on the environment as well as the human being.