Toxic kinnows, anyone?

BT may soon come to stand for 8216;beyond transgression8217; in Punjab. Unleashed onto a state with little or no knowledge of farming bio ...

BT may soon come to stand for 8216;beyond transgression8217; in Punjab. Unleashed onto a state with little or no knowledge of farming bio transgenic crops, Bt cotton is rapidly compromising all agriculture in areas where it is being grown.

One of the most scary trends to emerge in recent days relates to the intercropping Bt cotton with regular crops. The pest-resistance USP of Bt comes from a gene introduced into the seed: Its impact on the soil, or on surrounding crops, is yet to be studied in Punjab. But with even regular cotton blacklisted as an intercrop, the fallout of growing fruits with Bt cotton can only be guessed at.

Or, just wait for a couple of years. That8217;s how long it will take for farmer Raghbeer Singh8217;s kinnow orchard to bear fruit. In the meantime, he has sown Bt, like many farmers in this belt who took to kinnow after cotton failed repeatedly.

8216;8216;Abohar has some of the largest kinnow orchards, and they8217;re doing very well. So a couple of years ago I decided to develop an orchard on five acres of my 30-acres of land as well,8217;8217; says Raghbeer Singh, a farmer.

Kinnow-harvesting is largely a contracted business in this belt, with bids starting from Rs 50,000 and going upto Rs 2 lakh, depending on the bounty.

8216;8216;I am not particularly keen on cotton, but since it8217;ll be another two-three years before the orchard bears fruit, I sowed Bt too this year,8217;8217; says Singh.

But wasn8217;t he aware that it wasn8217;t advisable to plant the highly toxic Bt cotton in close proximity with regular crops? Singh confesses ignorance. 8216;8216;But other farmers in the area have also intercropped Bt with kinnow,8217;8217; he defends his decision. 8216;8216;No one, not even the state department of agriculture, has told us if Bt cotton will affect other crops.8217;8217;

The names change, but similar cases abound in Abohar.

Cotton Quiet

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The farmer8217;s ignorance about the toxicity of Bt crops is reflected in the higher echelons of the state bureaucracy. 8216;8216;I am not sure whether Bt deserves a special category, but I do know we do not advise intercropping cotton with anything else, because the pesticide load on cotton is far higher than on any other crop.8217;8217; says Punjab8217;s director of Agriculture B S Sidhu. 8216;8216;The pesticides which leach onto the soil surface can travel to the root system of the other crop.8217;8217;