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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | States crack down on sale of illegal GM cotton seeds -Vivek Deshpande

States crack down on sale of illegal GM cotton seeds -Vivek Deshpande

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published Published on Jun 8, 2018   modified Modified on Jun 8, 2018
-The Indian Express

Area under ‘unapproved’ herbicide-tolerant hybrids likely to fall this year

Nagpur:
Last year, almost 35 lakh packets of genetically modified (GM) cotton seeds, incorporating unapproved ‘herbicide-tolerance’ or HT technology, were bought and planted by farmers across India. But this time round, state governments seem better prepared to curb this illegal cultivation, even as sowing of cotton is over in northwest India and is about to commence in the main western, central and southern growing regions with the advance of the monsoon rains.

“Last year, the problem (of farmers planting HT cotton) was noticed only around early September and so no preventive action could be taken. This year, we began cracking down on dealers of these seeds from March, while not allowing release of any packets from company/ distributor godowns for retail sales before May 15,” said Subhash Katkar, the chief quality control officer of Maharashtra’s agriculture department. Besides, joint training workshops for officials from the agriculture, police and weights & measures departments were held to check the entry of illegal seeds through state borders.

The state government had, as on June 5, registered 24 cases and seized 16,533 packets of HT seeds worth Rs 4.68 crore from eight districts: Nagpur, Wardha, Amravati, Yavatmal, Chandrapur, Nanded, Jalna and Nandurbar. The illegal seed influx into Maharashtra has been mainly happening through the areas adjoining Gujarat and Telangana. The modus operandi of the sellers is to appoint commission agents in the border villages and distribute the seeds through their networks. “We have completely broken these networks. The supplies have, as a result, been largely plugged,” claimed Katkar.

Subhash Nagre, the joint director of agriculture at Amravati division, noted that the HT seed smugglers were now using the detour route of Gadchiroli — unlike directly through Yavatmal last year — to push the seeds into Maharashtra’s prime cotton belt of Vidarbha and Marathwada. “We found Warora in Chandrapur district to be their main distribution point and identified the main people involved there,” he added.

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The Indian Express, 7 June, 2018, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/states-crack-down-on-sale-of-illegal-gm-cotton-seeds-5207084/


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