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The Maharashtra government has decided to promote short duration varieties of Bt cotton from the next cotton year following the severe pink bollworm attack on the crop this season.
The Maharashtra government has decided to promote short duration varieties of Bt cotton from the next cotton year following the severe pink bollworm attack on the crop this season.
According to Maharashtra agriculture commissioner Sachindra Pratap Singh, the state government has decided to stop renewal of licences for the long duration varieties and has notified seed companies to provide a list of the short-term, medium-term and long-term varieties of cotton. The Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR) in Nagpur has recommended short duration varieties of cotton and there are several such varieties of Bt cotton available in the market, he said.
“The long duration varieties are barely 20-30% of the total production. However these end up causing losses to farmers,” Singh pointed out. For the past three months, the government has been attempting to educate farmers that they should not go in for extended pickings beyond March. Singh, however, admitted that this is a difficult task since poor farmer does not realise the relevance of not opting for extended pickings. As a result, the pink bollworm infestation has reached the seed itself, he pointed out.
According to him, cotton in the northern and other states is cultivated in 100% irrigated areas and therefore farmers in these regions go in for rabi crops. In contrast, in Maharashtra cotton is cultivated in dry land areas and therefore farmers have a single crop and they go in for extended pickings of cotton beyond March and April and the cycle is not being broken, Singh said.
Keshav Kranthi, former director of CICR who had extensively worked on this issue, had said that the simplest and most potent way to overcome the problem is to take up timely sowing and cultivate early maturing short-duration varieties of about 150 days duration. Besides, other strategies such as avoidance of excess urea and insecticides, use of light traps, pheromone traps, bio-pesticides, biological control etc are also used. CICR has been attempting to persuade farmers to go in for very high density planting of early-maturing, short-duration varieties at the rate of 44,000 plants per acre for Vidarbha, Marathwada and Telangana which, it says, will help the crop escape bollworm infestation altogether and leave more on the table for farmers. Farmers do not initiate ant control measures against any bollworms on Bt-cotton.
Senior officials at CICR said that they have been issuing advisories to farmers to avoid long-duration varieties/hybrids in rain-fed farms, especially in the absence of any form of protective irrigation. Short-duration varieties get adequate soil moisture during the critical flowering and fruiting phase and escape bollworm attacks during squaring-flowering stage but farmers sometimes tend to continue since cotton is still available for picking.
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Textiles Minister Smriti Zubin Irani said on Tuesday that the hike in customs duty on silk and manmade fibre, announced in the Budget, will discourage cheap imports of textile products from China and benefit the local manufacturers.
“Increase in customs duty on silk and manmade fibre will discourage cheap Chinese textile products from flooding the market and benefit domestic manufacturers in the power loom sector,” Irani said while addressing media in New Delhi on Budget allocation for the Ministry. On reduction of corporate tax to 25% from 30% announced in the Budget, the Minister said that reclassification of micro, medium and small enterprises (MSMEs) and reduction in tax by 5% of enterprises having turnover up to Rs.250 crore will help the manufacturing and increase employability in the textiles sector. “Of the Rs.6000 crore special package, which was announced in 2016, for the textiles sector, Rs.1800 crore have already been released and Rs.300 crore will be released during the current financial year,” Irani informed.
In the Budget 2018-19, an outlay of Rs 7,148 crore has been proposed for the textile sector. The Minister also spoke about 100% increase in allocation for textiles sector for skill development. “The correction in the GST (Goods and Services Tax) rates on hand made and machine made garments has created ease of doing business in these sectors,” she said.
The rate of GST on yarn has been reduced to 12% from 18% and on job work has been cut down to 5% from 18%. Support for merchandise scheme has been enhanced from 2% to 5% for the apparel sector. Attributing the 16% growth in apparel sector to the effective implementation of subsidy schemes, Irani said that the Government has disbursed Rs.138 crore to 28000 weavers under the Mudra Loan Yojana and 1.8 lakh workers from garment industry have formally joined the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). She further said that the second round of Hastkala Shivirs will be organised from February 19 to 24 in various parts of the country with a special focus on North East region, in order to encourage weavers. In the first round Hastkala Shivirs, 394 camps were held in 247 districts all over the country from October 7 to 17 last year.
Tribals of Parvathipuram agency area were on cloud nine for getting good money for their produce. Organic farmers earning good income not only on fruits and vegetables but also commercial crops. Generally, people are willing to pay more price to organic fruits, vegetables, leafy vegetables. Even the farm expenditure is also very less in organic natural farming as they use only cow dung, cow urine and some herbal extracts. The government is also promoting natural farming in the state and imparting training to the farmers across the state. Some foreign agencies are coming forward to pay more to the commercial crop like cotton which is being grown in natural farming mode.
Anvita Organic, Grameena Vikas Kendram, along with Jattu Trust, is working to help cotton farmers to shun chemicals and reduce their cost of cultivation by encouraging them to produce cotton in natural way using natural inputs like non-BT seeds, ‘Jeewamrutham’ and ‘Neemasthram’. By using these inputs, they cut down the cost of cultivation for the cotton farmers by 80 per cent. Anvita Organic and Jattu Trust promoted the cotton farmers towards natural farming in Kothavalasa, Dorjammu, Buddemkarja in Kurupam and GL Puram mandals.
They distributed non-BT seeds to 42 farmers in those villages and supported them in growing cotton in organic module After a successful season, they purchased organic cotton from these farmers by paying at Rs 4,900 per quintal which is Rs 500 more than the cotton grown in modern way. Now, the other farmers are showing interest to follow this method. K Ganapathi, a farmer of Kothavalasa said: ‘I am happy to say that organic cotton brought more price. I have been following the natural farming method and spent very less on my crops. Now, other farmers are also approaching me to guide them in this mode.” Dr D Pari Naidu, executive trustee, said: “Farming in a natural way helps to protect the soil health and we can protect the environment from the chemicals. We have to expand this type of cultivation to other areas. It is our responsibility to save our water, air, soil from the chemicals and pollution.”
A top Indian cotton-growing state has told two local companies that seeds they sold to farmers may have contained traces of an unapproved GM strain from Monsanto, according to government notices seen by Reuters that warn of action against the firms.
U.S. agrochemicals company Monsanto Co told Reuters late last year that local seed companies have attempted to “incorporate unauthorized and unapproved herbicide-tolerant technologies into their seeds” for profit, leading to the proliferation of illegal seeds, according its own internal investigation and that by the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Indian seed firms deny this. The authorities say they are still investigating how the strain has seeped into Indian agriculture.
The southern state of Andhra Pradesh last year launched an investigation after finding nearly 15 percent of its cotton acreage was planted with an unapproved variety of genetically modified seeds developed by Monsanto, which dominates India’s cotton seed market.
A panel of officials inspected some seed production plots and commercial cotton fields and collected “leaf samples” that tested positive for the Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Flex (RRF) strain, which is engineered to tolerate common weedkillers. Farmers told the officials the seeds that produced the positive tests were from brands marketed by Kaveri Seed Co Ltd and Nuziveedu Seeds Ltd (NSL), according to “show cause” notices sent to the Indian companies on Jan. 29 by the office of the state’s commissioner of agriculture.
The notices, which were reviewed by Reuters, do not refer to any other evidence linking the seeds to the two companies. Both companies deny any wrongdoing.
Using unapproved GM strains is illegal and the state earlier said criminal charges can be brought against those found guilty under India’s Environment Protection Act. “Any Genetically Modified Crop in India should be released for commercial crop use only after approval of Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC),” the notices read, referring to a committee of experts under the federal environment ministry.
They asked the companies to explain within five days why their cotton seed licenses “should not be suspended/cancelled”. Contacted by Reuters, Kaveri Seed and NSL said the seeds were not sold through their dealers or distributors. The state authorities should not have issued the notices without further supporting evidence, they said.
NSL later said a court in the southern city of Hyderabad had stayed, or suspended, the notice on Wednesday. Reuters could not immediately confirm that with the court. An official in the state agriculture commissioner’s office, which sent the notice, said it was not aware of any case filed by NSL. Spokesmen for the Andhra Pradesh government and the federal environment ministry in New Delhi declined to comment on the investigation or the companies’ responses.
India approved the first GM cotton seed trait in 2003 and an upgraded variety in 2006, helping transform the country into the world’s top producer and second-largest exporter of the fiber. But India has not approved any other GM crops on concerns over their safety, and large foreign companies have been increasingly unhappy at what they say is the infringement of their intellectual property by widespread planting of unapproved seeds. (reut.rs/2BVrQsC)
Authorities in the southwestern state of Maharashtra are also investigating illegal cotton planting. Monsanto said using its unapproved technology in seeds could leave Indian farmers “vulnerable to exploitation by opportunistic companies”, because they could lose their crops if found to have knowingly planted such seeds.
“We appreciate the efforts being taken by the authorities to curb the sale of illegal and unapproved seeds,” said a Monsanto India spokesman. “We will continue to extend our cooperation in the investigation and efforts to halt the sale of such unapproved products.” Monsanto pulled an application seeking approval in India for the RRF variety in 2016 following a dispute over how much the company should charge in royalties to license its technology to local firms. (reut.rs/2jbDq80)
FINDINGS DISPUTED
Kaveri Seed and NSL are among India’s top 10 seed companies, according to market estimates, and both had agreements with Monsanto to license its GM cotton technology. NSL said the Andhra Pradesh investigating committee should not have issued the “show cause” notice – an official demand that the company explain its actions – based solely on what farmers had told them. “Under the law, the samples have to be drawn in our presence and after ascertaining the source of the seeds purchased by the farmer,” NSL company secretary Narne Murali Krishna said in an emailed statement. “The farmer might have grown a crop from anybody’s seeds.” NSL said Monsanto and its Indian partner had failed to prevent the spread of seeds used in its trial. Monsanto denied that and said it fully complied with Indian regulations. NSL had replied to the notice and was confident that it would, as a result, be withdrawn by the state’s agriculture department, Krishna said, declining to share the content of the company’s reply.
None of the seed samples collected from NSL warehouses and distributors by government officials tested positive for the herbicide-tolerant traits of Monsanto’s strain, he said. Government officials declined to comment on the matter. Kaveri Seed has also replied to the show cause notice, said G. V. Bhaskar Rao, its chairman and managing director. “Sending notices based on the statements made by a few farmers is unprofessional,” Rao told Reuters. “We are not at all producing anything which has any trace of RRF and authorities are always welcome to come and check samples at our seed production centers.”
A senior Andhra Pradesh official, who did not wish to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said interviewing farmers was the only way the committee could trace the source of illegal seeds. “Since planting is over and we can now only collect leaf samples, we will have to rely on farmers to trace the origin of seeds,” he said. Monsanto, which is being bought by Germany’s Bayer for $66 billion, has been at loggerheads with local seed firms, including NSL, and India’s government over how much it can charge for its GM cotton seeds, costing it tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue a year.
A two-member team from the Uttar Pradesh government visited Tirupur to invite knitwear industrialists to invest in a textile cluster to be formed in their state. As part of their two-day programme, Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan, the secretary to UP chief minister, and Sunil Yadav, assistant director of handloom and textiles, visited garment manufacturing units at Nethaji apparel park in New Tirupur and other places, before having a discussion with members of South Indian Hosieries Manufacturers Association (SIHMA) at their office on Wednesday.
Ahead of UP Investors Summit, which will be held on February 21-22, the representatives presented their offers for the interested industrialists. Uttar Pradesh was the seventh state to send its representatives. Earlier, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Odisha have sent their representatives to woo the industrialists.
“Comparing to other states, UP’s offers – subsidies in capital and machinery investments and transportation expenditures, tax benefits, employee provident fund and employee state insurance – were found to be attractive. The UP government team said that they have planned to have special purpose vehicle (SPV) and textile parks to establish needed infrastructure,” said Shashi Agarwal, joint secretary of SIHMA. “They have invited the industrialists to participate in their state’s investors’ summit. They may even have further visits here, if needed. Since Tirupur which has seemed to be attained saturation point in the knitwear business was posing labour shortage and other issues, the industrialists may look for investment options in the states like UP. With a significant part of the industry’s labour force is constituted of people from UP, Bihar, Odisha and north-eastern states, it would be an advantage to get sufficient labour if such investments were made,” Shashi pointed out.
However, the industrialists have admitted that there was no significant migration of such investments in any of the states which were trying to attract the textile sector investments from Tamil Nadu. Because, it would not be easy for other states to replicate the Tirupur’s successful model, they added.
“Since the textile industry is one which can help to generate large number of employments, many states, of late, were trying to woo Tirupur industrialists. There would be expertise in each processes including embroidery and printing in the cluster, which could be thrived significantly with proper knowledge sharing,” said Raja M Shanmugham, president of Tirupur Exporters’ Association.
Even if those states provide attractive investment offers, it would not be more difficult to get either skilled labour force or raw materials or processing units there. For instance, the Karnataka government was trying to lure the industrialists to set up units in an industrial estate in Chamarajanagar district on Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border, there were no takers, said S Govindappan, vice-president of SIHMA.
In the backdrop of upcoming elections in northeastern states, minister of textile Smriti Irani on Tuesday elaborated on the work done by her ministry in the region. From the push given to sericulture in the region, for which an amount of Rs 690 crore has been earmarked, to the setting up of 21 ready-made garment manufacturing units in seven states, the focus was on the development and modernization of textile sector by the Centre.
Irani, who is also planning to visit the northeast soon – as a star campaigner as well as to participate in the hastkala sahyog shivir (camps in handloom and handicraft clusters) – said she would be focussing on the shivirs in the northeast this time around. “I started with UP and hope to visit as many shivirs as possible. This time, I am planning on going to the northeast clusters,” said Irani, who added that the camps will be held between February 19 to 24. The project, added the textile minister, is likely to give a big push to creating more jobs, especially for women in the region, while also leading to enhancement of infrastructure in the N-E like roads, power, water supply and construction of offices. According to the handloom census 2009-10, there are 23.77 lakh handlooms in the country of which 16.47 lakh handlooms (69.28 per cent) are in the NE region.
Irani said that 21 readymade garment manufacturing units have already become fully operational in the seven states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram and Tripura. The one in Sikkim is under construction. “Three factories have become fully operational in each of the seven states in a record time of two years,” said Irani, adding that each factory employs around 1,200 people, mainly women. “The factories are owned by local entrepreneurs and agencies like the Clothing Manufacturers Association of India, Arvind Mills and Apparel Export Promotion Council are guiding the entrepreneurs as part of the pilot project,” added the minister.
Under the scheme, the ministry has provided Rs 18 crore fund to each readymade garment manufacturing unit while NBCC has constructed the units and the state governments provided 1.5 acre land. Irani also spoke about initiatives like the 39 per cent increase in allocation for remission of state levies (ROSL) in the budget, which she said would help boost textile export. The dudget allocation for ROSL scheme has been raised to to Rs 2,163.85 crore from Rs 1,555 crore in 2017-18. Allocations under the technology upgradation fund scheme (TUFS) have also been increased by 15 per cent in the Budget, she said, adding that the Rs 6,000-crore package announced for apparel sector last year, and 39 percent increase in ROSL would help push the exports. The minister added that in the past one year, the government has given the industry close to Rs 1,800 crore as a part of this package and a payment of Rs 300 crore is in the pipeline for this financial year.
Eyeing at boosting the textile sector of the state including the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), the Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (TSIIC) has proposed establishment of small and medium scale textile parks or clusters spread over 50-100 acre each. The state government is likely to provide special subsidies and incentives for the units in these proposed parks. The main focus of the parks would be to encourage reverse migration of weavers to their home state.
TSIIC chairman Gyadari Balamallu during an interaction with textile industry management officials said that weavers along with other stakeholders including entrepreneurs in the recent past have migrated to other place.
Once the textile park becomes functional, it would lead to an inward migration adding to the economy of the region. Also during the meeting, the officials were assured that the government is considering allotting land for residential plots so that the workers at these units can be housed in the vicinity saving time. The mega textile park would be expanded based on the demand from textile industries, he added. Balamallu further informed that besides allocation of 100 acres in the megal textile park, the TSIIC Chairman also stated that a proposal for setting up a small scale textile park was consideration in Pendyala village of Janagaon district.
Herbicide-tolerant seeds do not have govt approval yet
Even as sales of herbicide-tolerant (HT) cotton seeds are being reported from across the country, the Andhra Pradesh government has served show-cause notices on Nuziveedu Seeds Limited and Kaveri Seeds for reported use of the illegal gene in some of their seed samples. The State’s Additional Director of Agriculture (Seeds) has asked the two companies to explain why, having violated regulatory protocols, the government should not cancel their licence to sell the seeds.
The report cited investigations by a taskforce, which was set up to look into alleged violations in a few villages in Guntur and Kurnool districts in October 2017. Along with Telangana, Gujarat and Maharashtra, AP has widespread plantations of HT cotton, which is the third-generation cotton seed technology developed by Monsanto. In fact, a third of the 45 lakh acres of cotton area in Telangana is under illegal HT seeds cultivation.
The Roundup Ready Flex contains a third gene (CP4-EPSPS) that imparts herbicide tolerance to the plant. When herbicide is sprayed on the crop, it kills the worms, while the plant, protected by the gene, can withstand the chemical. “It doesn’t have the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) permission for commercial release of the technology and is hence illegal and unapproved,” the notice observed.
NSL contended that the government’s charge was baseless and “bad in law”. “The samples mentioned in the notice are neither collected from our company premises, offices or fields nor [were they obtained] from our distributors or dealers,” a company executive said. Mayhco Monsanto Biotech Limited said it would cooperate with the investigation. “We had brought the issue of such illegal proliferation to the notice of regulators in 2008. These seeds are being sold without regulatory approval and leave farmers vulnerable to exploitation,” an MMBL spokesperson said.
But no date yet for new policy; North-East given highest priority: Irani
Our Bureau The Textiles Ministry is working on finalising the long-pending National Textiles Policy, but the government is not yet ready to give out a time-line for its announcement. “Following our consultations with various expert groups and industry representatives, three-four things had come up and three different steering committees were made,” said Textiles Minister Smriti Irani at a press conference on Tuesday. These groups are trying to find ways to address various challenges being faced by the sector including identifying natural fibre growth possibilities and global best practices and roping in States for proper certification of jute seeds, she added.
“When we are ready to announce the textiles policy we will let you know,” Irani told reporters. The proposed national textiles policy, which has been under discussions for several years, was initially reported to have set a target of achieving $300 billion textile exports by 2024-25, and creating around 35 million new jobs.
Export scenario
When asked whether she was concerned over the recent decline in garments exports, Irani said that the Economic Survey had highlighted that the incentive package for apparels had increased exports by 16 per cent, which was very encouraging. The pending textiles policy notwithstanding, the Textiles Ministry was continuously identifying the biggest needs of the industry and addressing them, Irani said. “Big steps have already been taken such as announcement of the package for garments sector, enhancement under MEIS (Merchandise Export from India Scheme) and outreach for weavers and the artisan community,” she said.
North-East thrust
Development and modernisation of the textile sector in the North-Eastern States were being given the highest priority by the Textiles Ministry, Irani pointed out. This will create more jobs, especially for women of that region and also improve the infrastructure of North-Eastern states such as roads, power, water supply and construction of offices, she said. There are 23.77 lakh handlooms in the country of which 16.47 lakh handlooms (69.28 per cent) are in the North-East region as per the Handloom Census of 2009-10. Twenty-one ready-made garment manufacturing units are fully operational in the seven States of the North-East. “Three factories have become fully operational in each of the seven States in a record time of two years,” Irani said.
Talking to KNN, G.R Senthilvel, Secretary of Tirupur Exporters and Manufacturers Association (TEAMA) said that the government’s decision come at a good time and is surely to bring a relief for the sector.
Turnover based classification criteria
Senthilvel said that the existing units that earlier did not fall in the ambit of what an MSME will now be categorised as MSMEs, enabling the units to take benefit of the schemes laid out by the central as well as the state governments. Hinting at numbers, he informed that over 98 per cent of the manufacturing units will now benefit from the revised definition. According to the government’s new definition, businesses with revenue of as much as 5 crore will be called a micro enterprise, those with sales between 5 crore and 75 crore will be deemed as small and those with revenue between 75 crore and 250 crore will be classified as medium-sized enterprises.
Under the earlier definition, manufacturers with 25 lakh investment in plant and machinery were termed micro enterprises and those with investments between 25 lakh and 5 crore were regarded as small enterprises.
Firms with investments of up to 10 crore are classified as medium.
RBI’s 180 day extension
Commenting on the extension period announced by the Reserve Bank to declare a unit as NPA, Senthilvel said the move is to add to the growth in the sector. Earlier the units used to be worried with regard to to the deadline, there is a relaxed bracket for the MSMEs now, he added. “While the new NPA bracket surely comes as a relief for the MSMEs, at the same time we are worried as to what would happen if the unit is still not able to make the repayment, the government should come up with a relaxed framework for that as well”, he added.
Earlier, eyeing at facilitating relief to the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) impacted by the teething effects of Goods and Services Tax (GST), the Reserve Bank announced extension up to 180 days to clear the dues to banks, a move that is being welcomed by the sector
