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Times of yore in AgBioForum, current science
and many agriculture journal issues have been discussed
Bt cotton safety (Manjunath 2011) controversies (Geeta
Bharathan 2001), success (Camille Gonsalves 2007),
resistance issues (Akshaya et al., 2010) and cost-benefit
analysis (Manjunath 2011) in India a question rose as to
Bt or Non-Bt. Therefore, a typical collective question
must always come to mind that, who pays the costs can
reaps the benefits. Nevertheless, in Bt cotton, that farmer
pays the cost in pain, company reaps the gain, however,
and this is an important time to percept out some bitter
truths and promises of Bt cotton (SAGE 2011), a
punitive authenticity hidden behind the dreadful
publicity created by the biotech industry. The most
poignant tales from south Indian farmers burns out the
economic promise of Bt cotton was an utter lie. Bt cotton
brings the soil toxicity i.e. it kills the soil microorganism
(Robb 2009) and respiratory diseases (Sagari. et al.,
2010) and the loss of animals, when they had grazed Bt
cotton stalks (Venkateshwarlu 2010), these are the recent
reports from southern zone Bt experiences farmers
(Camille Gonsalves 2007) faced many problems in
quantity of yields, pesticides and imperfection of genetic
engineering. The plant had showed good height and full
of branches, but as years progress the plant size have
been decreases (Mayee 2003), today the plant height is
too low we can sit and pick the cotton ball. The dealers,
has suggested that Bt does not require pesticides but
recent research "Bt Crops and Insect Resistance", the
findings had showed that the levels of toxin emitted by
Bt crops varies and at times is insufficient to kill the
targeted pests. This could lead to greater use of
pesticides. There has been reported that more number of
Lepidoptera mainly butterflies were presented in the
Madurai District (Alagumurugan et al., 2011). There has
been a great variation between the some species like
Lepidoptera (Sivasankaran et al., 2011) Furthermore,
fluctuations in the efficacy of Bt crops to the extent that
some insects survive or provide opportunities for insects
to develop resistance to the Bt toxin and yield has been
decreased as well as expenditure was increased year by
year (Vageeshbabu et al., 2011). In addition to these
problems, picking cotton resulted in skin rashes, itching,
reeling sensation etc (Robb 2009), this became double-
edged laborers problem too. According to the cost, the Bt
cotton seed was three times higher than our normal
cotton seed (Carl 2010). The farmers, agriculturist and
environmental scientist were scared to use genetically
modified (GM) Bt crops, because it gives potential
impacts such as genetic erosion and loss of biodiversity.
King Solomon E and Rajesh Kannan V.
Rhizosphere Biology Research Group, Department of
Microbiology, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli,
TamilNadu. India.

BT Cotton: Bitter Truths-Falter in Southern Zone of India

King Solomon E and Rajesh Kannan V.
Received: 07 Mar 2012 Accepted: 27 Mar 2012 Published: 07 Apr 2012
Opinion
Journal of Research in Agriculture
Original Research
Web Address:
http://www.jagri.info
documents/AG0022.pdf.
An International Scientific Research Journal


Crop genetic diversity is considered a source of
continuing advances in yield, pest resistance and quality
improvement. It is widely accepted that greater varietal
and species diversity would enable agricultural systems
to maintain productivity over a wide range of conditions.
Using of GM crops, it influence to soil communities
(Manuela Giovannetti et al., 2005) of biota that are
essential for soil functioning systems, such as nutrient
cycling and decomposition of organic wastes; and it
affect ultimately to soil fertility. There were large-scale
losses of Bt crops in a good number of farms due to the
pods failing to mature and break open naturally and
instances of the plants starting to die off before providing
any good products (Akshaya et al., 2010). A pest has
increased in the neighborhood of Bt cotton, as cost of
seed, agrochemicals and health makes the Bt cotton
failure (Suman Sahai 2002). Cotton is a very important
cash crop for Indian farmers and contributes more than
other domestic product of Indian agriculture (Bennett
2005). Due to these types of indigestible problems they
are wishing to go back to Non- Bt Cotton, finally, it may
falter in southern region of India and at last, even it will
fade in India.

REFERENCES:
Akshaya K, Biswal SM, Balachandran AP,
Padmakumari M, Mohan and Viraktamath. BC.
2010. The Biotechnology of Bacillus thuringiensis and
its environmental impact. Cur scie., 98(11).

Alagumurugan C, Pavaraj M and Rajan MK. 2011.
Seasonal and relative abundance of butterflies in a scrub
jungle habitat of Peraiyur Taluk, Madurai District,
Tamilnadu. Journal of research in Biology 1:44-5.

Bennett RM, Ismael Y, Kambhampati U and Morse
S. 2005. Economic Impact of Genetically Modified
Cotton in India. AgBioForum., 7(3).


Camille Gonsalves. 2007. The success of Bt cotton in
India., SCIDevNet (http://www.scidev.net/en/editor-
letters/the-success-of-bt-cotton-in-india.html)

Carl E, Pray and Latha Nagarajan. 2010. Price
Controls and Biotechnology Innovation: Are State
Government Policies Reducing Research and Innovation
by the AgBiotech Industry in India? AgBioForum., 13(4)
297-307.

Geeta Bharathan. 2001. Bt-cotton in India: Anatomy of
a controversy: Cur. scie., 79(8):1715-1716.

Manjunath TM. 2011. Safety of Bt-Cotton: Facts allay
Fear -Agbio world (http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech-
info/articles/biotech-art/safety-bt-cotton.html)

Manuela Giovannetti, Cristiana Sbrana, Alessandra
Turrini. 2005. The Impact of Genetically Modified
Crops on Soil Microbial Communities., Riv. Biol., 98
(3):393-417.

Mayee CD. 2003. Status report on the performance of Bt
cotton. Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur,
India. http://envfor.nic.in/ divisions/ csurv/btcotton/ cicr.
htm. Assessed on January 2008.

Robb CW. 2009. Bt cotton: weaving a web of infertility:
navdanya. org/news/ 25feb09. htm., http://
m.current.com/ community/89977630_bt-cotton-weaving
-a-web-of-infertility.htm

Sagari R, Ramdas. 2010. Bt cotton and livestock: health
impacts: GmWatch: Thursday, 28 January.

SAGE. 2011. What are the South Indian Farmers sayings
about their Bt Cotton experience?

Sivasankaran K, Babu Thangadurai T, Ignacimuthu
S. 2011. Studies on external genitalial morphology of
subfamily Catocalinae (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). Journal
of research in Biology 8:631-64.


056 Journal of Research in Agriculture (2012) 1: 055-057
Solomon and Kannan, 2012
Solomon and Kannan, 2012
Journal of Research in Agriculture (2012) 1: 055-057 057
Suman Sahai. 2002. Bt Cotton is a Failure: - http://
www.genecampaign.org.

Vageeshbabu S Hanur. 2011. Bt resistance in
Heicoverpa species: Indian policy needs urgent revision..
Cur scie., 101(4).

Venkateshwarlu K. 2007. Genetically modified cotton
figures in a new controversy in Andhra Pradesh as
livestock die after grazing on Bt cotton fields: Frontline.,
24(8).
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