© The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).

The Dawn of a New Era

In 2008, 5 million small farmers in India planted and benefited from 7.6 million hectares of Bt cotton, equivalent to 82% of the 9.3 million hectare national cotton crop, the largest in the world. This is a significant increase over 2007 when 3.8 million farmers planted 6.2 million hectares equivalent to 66% of the 2007 cotton crop. The Bt cotton story in India is remarkable, with an unprecedented 150-fold increase in adoption between 2002 and 2008. In the short span of six years, 2002 to 2007, Bt cotton has generated economic benefits of US$3.2 billion, halved insecticide requirements, contributed to the doubling of yield and transformed India from a cotton importer to a major exporter. Socio-economic surveys confirm that Bt cotton continues to deliver significant and multiple agronomic, economic, environmental and welfare benefits to farmers and society. A 2007 study reported that 70% of the middle class in India accept biotech foods, and furthermore are prepared to pay a premium of up to 20% for superior biotech foods, such as Golden Rice, with enhanced levels of pro-vitamin A. India has several biotech food crops in field trials, including biotech rice. However, Bt brinjal, an important vegetable that requires heavy applications of insecticides, is the most likely to be the first food crop to be commercialized in India, requiring significantly less insecticides and capable of contributing to the alleviation of poverty of 1.4 million small, resource poor farmers who grow brinjal in India.

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