Home > Yarns & Fibres > Story

Bt and non-bt cotton have yielded same results: Renuka

PTI - New Delhi

Union tourism minister Renuka Chaudhary said the use of both Bt and non-Bt seeds of cotton had yielded positive results in her native state of Andhra Pradesh.

She hit out at the functioning of the crop insurance scheme and expressed concern over massive supplies of spurious seeds, fertilisers and pesticides, leading to large scale damage to crops and huge losses to the farmers.

“There is so much confusion all around. Both non-Bt and Bt seeds have given similar yields in plots at my native place. At times it is difficult to differentiate between the two”, Ms Chaudhary said.

Addressing the national round table on farmers’ issues, she said experts should come forward to demystify the Bt-cotton issue. She said spurious inputs had wreaked havoc in farmers’ plot leading to huge losses making it necessary to crack down on unscrupulous elements.

Ms Chaudhary also criticised the farm insurance scheme, saying that to have a ‘mandal’ as the unit of operation was a faulty decision.

Unless the entire mandal is declared drought hit, farmers are not eligible for compensation, leading to a peculiar situation where an affected village has to hope and pray for similar damages in other villages of the mandal as well.

It is only if crops failed in majority of the villages of a mandal that the compensation will be given, she said adding despite 921 mandals being declared drought affected relief under the crop insurance scheme was nowhere in sight.