AP mulls legislation for transgenic seed

The Andhra Pradesh government is exploring the possibility of enacting a separate legislation to regulate the sale of genetically modified seed in view of a recent high court judgment, which said no permission was required from the government to sell Bt cotton seed in the state.

Disclosing this here on Thursday, state agriculture minister N Raghuveera Reddy said the court had ruled in favour of the petitioner companies as the Centre has removed the Bt cotton seed from the ambit of Essential Commodities Act.

"While we have already requested Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar to reinclude the Bt cotton seed in the essential commodities list, the state government is also consulting legal experts on the possibility of bringing out its own legislation to regulate its sale. An opinion in favour of this move says the genetically modified seed does not come under the concurrent list and therefore the state government has powers to do so," the minister said.

The acreage under cotton cultivation during the ongoing kharif season is expected to completely shift to Bt cotton, which according to the minister, would be about 25 lakh acres as compared with 20 lakh acres covered under cotton crop in the last kharif, of which the Bt cotton cultivation was 16 lakh acres.

Though there was marginal improvement in yield levels on account of Bt cotton cultivation as compared with that of conventional varieties, the biggest relief was that the farmers could save Rs 3,000-Rs 5,000 per acre on pesticide spray, the minister pointed out.

The usage of Bt cotton seed in the state grew significantly from 5.5 lakh acres in the year 2005-06 as the prices were reduced by more than 50 per cent to Rs 750 per packet due to the intervention of Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) based on a complaint made by the Andhra Pradesh government.