GM Cotton Proves a Disaster for Farmers

GM Cotton crops have proved a costly, labour intensive and environmentally destructive alternative, a U.S. Study has found.

The pesticide savings, claimed by GM advocates as the advantage of the crop, have eroded over time, the Ithaca, New York based Cornell University researchers have reported.

Bt Cotton contains the Bacillus thuringiensis gene, inserted into the seeds to produce toxins to protect the plant. These toxins, however, have only proved lethal to leaf eating bollworms.

Seven years into the study, involving 481 Chinese farmers from five of the countries cotton growing provinces, populations of other insects, particularly mirids, have taken hold. Farmers have had to spray up to 20 times in growing season to control them, a similar amount of pesticide to that used on conventional crops.

The study found that by year three of the study pesticide use was cut by 70 percent. But by 2004 the spraying schedule equaled that of conventional crop farmers and proved uneconomic with the GM crop costing three times the cost of the conventional crop.

Bt Cotton was first introduced in 1996 by the Monsanto corporation, infamous for their role in producing Agent Orange used during the Vietnam War and the controversial Bovine growth hormone. Bt cotton today counts for 35 percent of worldwide cotton production with five million farmers of the crop in China alone. It also is widely produced in Mexico and South Africa as well as the United States, Argentina and India.