When India is moving toward 100 per cent Bt cotton regime,some winds of change has been seen in Gujarat,the leading cotton producer in the country. Due to the deficient monsoon,farmers have taken to cotton over rain-fed crops like groundnut,to the extent that the area under cotton cultivation has increased by nearly two lakh hectares. Significantly,its conventional (non-Bt) cotton varieties and not the Bt cotton variety that has caught the attention of the farmers this season. Cotton acreage has gone up from 24 lakh hectares to nearly 26 lakh hectares,while the area under non-Bt cotton has gone up from 7.5 lakh to 9 lakh hectares in the same period. Last year,Gujarat alone accounted for nearly 1 crore bales of total production of over three crore bales in India. Pockets like Surendranagar in Saurashtra,Ahmedabad in central Gujarat and some parts of north Gujarat have opted for conventional varieties, said N M Sharma,executive director of Gujarat State Cooperative Cotton Federation Limited. Bhatiya Kisan Sangh president Praful Senjalia said: These are the areas where the rains have been very scanty. Surendranagar has remained dry,while the rest of Saurashtra was flooded in the first spell of monsoon. Conventional varieties like Kalyan are the best for areas with deficient monsoon. Hasmukh Patel,a farmer from Dhandhuka,has sown Kalyan on his entire 70 bigha land this season. It requires nothing. No fertiliser,no pesticide and not even much rain. In fact,it gets damaged in the rains. Some of my crop suffered damage when it rained a little in the second spell. At Muli,Sayla,Wadhwan,Chotila,Mandel,Viramgam,farmers have followed a similar pattern. With fertilisers and pesticides not required at all,farmers say their cost of production goes down by nearly Rs 2,000 per bigha,but there is flip side as well. The yield is low. As against 700 kg per bigha yield for Bt cotton,the conventional varieties produce only 400 to 500 kg per bigha. There is a downside in terms of yield. But in situation like deficient rains,it seems to be a good deal, said Patel.
