The government plan to officially start the biotech (Bt) cotton sowing is in doldrums after the environment ministry rejected the Bt cotton variety developed by National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (Nibge), official sources told Business Recorder on Sunday.
"It will take another two years or so to grow Bt cotton, which is important for Pakistan to increase the cotton production. This is really a serious blow to the government''s efforts to officially allow and encourage Bt cotton sowing production in the country, the sources added.
The rejection will leave the country far behind India and China, which were first countries in the region to have introduced the new varieties.
Certain reports suggest that India''s cotton production has been increasing at 20 percent per annum for the last few years and the main reason for this is believed to be the timely action of the Indian government to have introduced the Bt cotton in the country.
The Nibge''s variety was cleared by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) early this year, according to the sources. However, the gene used by Nibge in the new Bt cotton variety has become a center of controversy, the sources said.
Minfal had chalked out a plan to start sowing of Bt Cotton from the current Kharif season as it was almost sure that new variety known as "IRFH901" would be approved by the National Bio-safety Committee (NBC), a body comprised members from various ministries and headed by a senior official of the environment ministry.
After a presentation by Nibge early this year, the ministry had decided to formally grow Bt cotton in area of about 5,000 acres in Sindh and Punjab during this cotton season, the sources said.
Minfal and Nibge were in hurry to get the new variety approved from NBC quickly after Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz called for immediate steps to introduce Bt cotton and grow it on mass scale in the country in order to increase overall cotton production.
"The Bt cotton variety has been tested for about five years and this has been cleared after calculating its value for cultivation and use (VCU)," the sources said.
However, the Nibge used the gene which was already used by US Monsanto and the Nibge was required to get NOC from the former before the approval of the new variety from the NBC. The sources said that Nibge had failed to obtain the required NOC.
According to assessment of Nibge, Minfal and other concerned organisations, that variations in test evaluations are only around 0.2 percent, which are negligible. The new variety is efficient to resist ball worms and other leaf viruses of cotton, they said. The Pakistan Central Cotton Committee (PCCC) is responsible for evaluation of new cotton varieties, they added.
They said Bt botton is no more a new concept in Pakistan as this variety has been sown without getting the varieties tested and approved from the National Agriculture Research System (NARS), adding the Bt cotton, which is already grown in the country, is not having authorisation of the government.
The independent agricultural experts are of the view that the concerned government authorities are proceeding slowly in introducing the new technology in farming as the regional countries - China and India - were going well ahead of Pakistan. Most of the countries in North and South America and a considerable number of countries in Asia have made a significant progress on introducing biotech (Bt) crops for increasing productivity.
According to a recent report of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Application (ISAAA) more than 20 million farmers will plant 200 million hectares of biotech crops in about 40 countries.
The report said that Bt cotton has contributed significantly to the yield increase in cotton in India from 308-kg lint per hectare in 2001-02 to 450-kg lint per hectare in 2005-06.