Cost Push Drives Illegal HTBt Cotton in Maharashtra
2025-06-30 11:08:47
Stark difference in labour costs pushes Maharashtra farmers to grow illegal HTBt cotton variety
Over the past few years, Laxmint Kauthankar has eschewed using genetically modified cotton variety, commonly known as Bt cotton, and started using completely unauthorised herbicide tolerant Bt (HTBT) cotton. This farmer from Adgaon Budruk village in Akola’s Akot taluka knows that such cultivation is illegal, but claims that simple economics forces him to do so.
“Weed control alone in Bt cotton would cost me over Rs 20,000 per acre. In case of HTBT, the same expense would be Rs 2,000. So why shouldn’t I adopt it?” Kauthankar says that Bt cotton is hardly sold in his village’s input shop – most farmers have moved to HTBT for the same reasons. Like him, other cotton growers in Maharashtra have adopted the cultivation of unauthorised transgenic cotton, fully aware of the illegality of their act.
Central government rules call for fines and jail terms for cultivating unauthorised GM crops. India has so far allowed the commercial release of Bt cotton. Bt stands for Bacillus thuringiensis – the name of the bacterium whose gene has been inserted into cotton seeds. HtBT is the next generation of GM cotton and allows plants to resist spraying of glyphosate, a herbicide commonly used for weed control. But the sale, production and storage of this variety is illegal in the country.
But for farmers like Kauthankar, the ground conditions matter. “Consider this: For one acre of land, I will need about four cycles of weeding during the entire 6-7 month cycle of the cotton crop. For one weeding, I will need about 15 labourers and thus the total labour requirement will be around 60. At a daily wage of Rs 300 per day, the total labour expenditure for weeding comes to Rs 18,000. Even if I arrange the money, where are the labourers?,” said the farmer who cultivates cotton and soybean in over 40 acres of his holding. On the other hand, HTBT cotton requires herbicide spraying, and the total cost of this operation comes to Rs 2,000 per acre in the entire cotton crop cycle.
