GE Cotton Farmer Kalava Buchhayya

Bt cotton farmer Kalava Buchhayya in the Karimnagar district invested in expensive second generation Bt cotton seeds (Bollgram II) in 2009, hoping for a bumper harvest. His hopes turned bitter as many of the cotton bolls in his farm wilted before ripening. The net income from his 3-acre cotton farm will hardly reach 10.000 Rupees (about 160 Euros), about half of the annual income defined by the Indian goverment as poverty.

Unique identifier: GP020GW

Type: Image

Shoot date: 16/11/2009

Locations: Andhra Pradesh, India, South Asia

Credit line: © Peter Caton / Greenpeace

Size: 5616px × 3744px 7MB

Ranking: ★★★★★★ (B)

Containers

Shoot:

GE and Non-GE Cotton Research in India

Greenpeace researches the difference between farmers growing GE (genetically engineered) and non-GE cotton in India and understands that BT Cotton (a GE variety) does not perform as well as conventional cotton planted and grown using Non-Pesticide Management (NPM) or Organic growing systems. BT cotton is genetically engineered to produce a toxin that protects it from insect pests. Despite having this protection, BT cotton farmers are still advised by seed sellers to spray their crops with a variety of chemical pesticides. Greenpeace has released a report (http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/reports/Picking-Cotton/) documenting the experiences of farmers in Andhra Pradesh. Unlike the seed companies, the farmers Greenpeace met with have not been profiting from BT cotton. Organic farmers have much lower costs of cultivation and therefore are more financially stable than BT cotton farmers who often end the cotton season with crushing debt.

Related Collections:

GE and Non-GE Cotton Research in India

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