Bt contaminating organic cotton

Bt contaminating organic cotton

Cotton exports from India might suffer as there are wide spread reports in Europe of Bt traces in 30% of cotton garments and the source of the cotton is supposed to be India.

India accounts for half the global supply of organic cotton, so this can be a real set back for farmers. Even A category (certified for 3 continuous years) farmers from district of Yavatmal, Maharashtra have lost their organic certification this year, reason their crops tested positive for Bt contamination. Now the farmers are worried because they fear their seeds which have been used since 1990's might have been contaminated.

The cotton industry of India was in the grip of westerners once before ie. British. History is repeating, now the farmers are at the mercy of MNC's from far west the US.

Cotton was first cultivated seven thousand years ago (5th millennium BC-4th millennium BC), by the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization, a civilization that covered a huge swath of the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising today of parts of Eastern Pakistan and Northwestern India. The Indus cotton industry was well developed and some methods used in cotton spinning and fabrication continued to be used until the modern Industrialization of India, well before the Common Era the use of cotton textiles had spread from India to the Mediterranean and beyond.

So with such a long and sustained tradition in cotton farming, why do the scientists from India have their hopes tied to American seed companies?

If this is the fate of cotton, without real intervention we will not be able to preserve our local Brinjal varieties.