JeromeReddy of Fatimapur village owns around 13 acres of land in the village, and isconsidered to be one of the progressive farmers of the village. Last season, heexperimented with Bollgard, the Bt Cotton variety of Mahyco-Monsanto on 10 acresof his land. Looking back, he regrets the decision, and says that he does notfeel good about growing Bt Cotton.

HisBt Cotton crop yielded just 1 ½ quintals per acre! In all, he got 15 quintalsout of his 10 acres. The exact amount that he was told that he would get, andthat he had hoped to get, in one acre of his land with Bt cotton!

Withthe economics working out very adversely, Jerome Reddy, like his brother, ThomasReddy, is all set to experience a loss that runs into tens of thousands ofrupees.

Theinvestment per acre, as per his calculation is around Rs 10,000/- per acre, withthe return being Rs 3000/- per acre (the 1 ½ quintals of yield sold at Rs2000/- per quintal). The investment pattern was like this: on seed, for everyacre: Rs 1600/-; on fertilizers (he applied 3 bags of fertilizers): around Rs1500/-; on pesticides, for spraying Cypermethrin, Monocrotophos, Chlorpyriphos,Ekalux, Endosulfan, “Stop” etc.: Rs 5000/. He also used “tractor pumps”for spraying pesticides. Once the pests appeared, it was uncontrollable, heinformed. In the earlier days, when the pest was spotted, he was advised by thecompany representatives not to resort to spraying. Believing them, he did notspray. But then, the pest attack became intense.   Expensive pesticides like Tracer were also resorted to. In addition, hehad to spend on agricultural operations like ploughing, sowing, weeding,plucking etc., in addition to spending on irrigation (he irrigated the croptwice during the season). The net loss per acre, according to him, is around Rs7000/-. It has failed on the very counts on which promises were made, he said:on low pesticide expenses and on higher yields. 

MrJerome Reddy and Mr Chinnapu Reddy   have some very interesting experiencesand stories to share about Bt Cotton.  

• in 2001, they were all taken to a neighboring village, Reddypalem, where a large farmer called Rayapu Reddy had agreed to grow Bt Cotton of Mahyco-Monsanto on his land, as part of field trials. The crop on this 10- gunta plot was impressive – what was sown on this plot was Mech 12 variety however, and not Mech 162 that was later sold to the farmers; worse yet, the sowing season for the demonstrated variety was delayed by a whole month, knowingly and wrongfully by the Company. Rayapu Reddy was given the seeds only on July 22 ^nd of 2001, while the normal sowing time is in the month of June. Incidentally, neighbors of Rayapu Reddy feel that the incidence of Heliothis was low on his crop during the field trial season because of the adjacent poultry farms with its lights on (these lights attract the insects away from the crops, according to them)  

• the boll size of Bt Cotton was very small, and very less cotton in it. The number of seeds per boll was also less – around 6-7, compared to a normal rate of 10-15. The number of bolls for Bt Cotton was only 20-30 bolls per plant, whereas other varieties in neighboring fields had nearly 100 bolls per plant. In their crop, the non-Bt refuge did not yield any bolls at all. Further, because of the small size of the boll, the plucking activity of cotton becomes more difficult and labour-intensive. The staple length of Bt is short and they had to plead with buyers to take it. While non-Bt varieties fetched around Rs 2500/- per quintal for other farmers, Bt Cotton fetched only Rs 2000/- per quintal. While the other varieties have more weight per volume, the Bt cotton is lighter and the farmer loses out on this count too, according to them. While non-Bt varieties yielded even without irrigation, the Bt Cotton crop of Thomas Reddy, though he irrigated it around 5-6 times in the last season, yielded dismally.  

• The company representatives have stopped visiting them once the crop started showing its true characteristics. When confronted with the utter failure, the company representatives would only ask them to go to Warangal and meet the farmers there who have had good yields.  

• Chinnapu Reddy also narrated the story of Ranga Reddy of neighboring Mallapuram village who incurred huge losses and threatened to kill himself with the very pesticides that he had used on the crop. He reported that Ranga Reddy had to sell two of his bullocks and three buffaloes after the Bt losses of last season. Like Jerome Reddy, Ranga Reddy also tried Bt Cotton on a large extent of land, believing in the promises made.

• “The company guys and the dealers came to our doorstep to deliver the seeds. We should have known right then that something was wrong”, points out Chinnapu Reddy. One day, before the last cropping season, Chinnapu Reddy came back from the town, to find a large gathering and much activity. There were also reporters from the local papers present. When he went closer he discovered that this was about Bollgard, the “miracle Bt cotton” seed. In this “function”, the discussions on the seed were held for one and half hours and more time was spent on a big feast. As Chinnapu Reddy recalls, there was 95 kilos of non-vegetarian food cooked that day and there was biryani and chicken fry. On that very day, “bookings” for the season’s seed supply were made by the dealers and the company representatives. “They had thrown parties and people like us thought there must be something in here. And we agreed to buy the seeds. Now, it has brought the farmers nearer to the gates of suicide deaths again”, he remarks.

Ramulu had grown Bt Cotton in one acreof land, expecting around 18 quintals of yield per acre as per the promises madeto him. He did not get even two quintals of yield! 

He, along with other farmers (thisvillage saw around 23-25 acres of Bt cotton sown in the last season, with justone farmer, Ranga Reddy growing on 12 acres of land) were told that nopesticides would be required, he reported. “Pests could not be controlled evenwith pesticides, leave alone the fact that they will not appear”, he remarks.“It has been a complete loss”.  

It is true that bollworm did not appearfor the first three months, he reports, but when it did appear, there was nocontrolling it. He used Monocrotophos, Ekalux, Pride a couple of times and soon. Sprayed around five times in all and after realizing that the pest cannot becontrolled, stopped. He counts himself as the one who got the worst experiencefrom Bt Cotton – slightly more than one quintal from his one acre. While hecalculates his expenses to be around Rs 12000/- (seed: 1600/; Farm Yard Manureof one tractorload: 3000/; 3 bags of fertilizers – one urea and 2 DAP bags:2000/; pesticides: 2000/; other expenses of ploughing, labor, sowing etc.:3500/), the return was Rs 2000/- only. He laughs deprecatingly, asked about thereturn. The net loss is around 10,000/- rupees.

Asked about what he plans to do now, hejoins the other farmers around him in saying that they are waiting for thecompany representatives to turn up in the area again so that they can bash themup and burn their jeeps! He says that this company’s objective is to makefarmers lose, with varieties and technologies like this. The despair of thefarmers is obvious, with nowhere to turn to. One of them says, “what can wedo? Even earlier, when companies cheated the farmers and we got a top executiveof XXX company arrested, did he not come out soon after? What can we do if thegovernment is not interested in protecting us”?

Ramulu also shared other interestinginformation:

         -          the company representatives used to visit him quiteoften in the beginning. Then they stopped coming, once the problems started manifesting themselves on the crop. Whenconfronted about the losses, they even promised to    give compensation, only to escape and not to be seenagain. Another time, they were told that the company would   “adjust” the losses against the seed price in the nextseason and promised to give the Bt cotton seed at a lower  price to them the next season. Farmers immediately foldedtheir hands and said that they did not want to touch the seeds ever again!

-           Buyers refused to buy the variety separately until mixedwith other varieties and sold. The boll size was smaller and the staple lengthwas also shorter

-           One of the neighboring farmers said that it was because ofthe extravagant feasts that the company threw for the farmers that the farmersbelieved them and lined up for buying the seeds. Now, they know better.

It was Rayapu Reddy’s Bt Cotton fieldtrial plot of 10 guntas (1/4 ^th of an acre) in 2001 that haddrawn many other farmers to the fatal temptation of Bollgard.   What they saw that year on the field trial plot was the Mech 12 variety,that too sown in the last week of July. In this country, one of the mainobjections to the field trials of Bt Cotton prior to 2001, is theunscientificity especially in terms of the sowing time. That is the reason whythe GEAC had asked for one more year of trials. The company, of course, resortedto wrongful procedures in 2001 too to get the approval for commercialization.

Rayapu Reddy owns 25 acres of land inthe village, and between him and his brother Melkior Reddy, they had sown Btcotton in 8 acres of land – 4 acres each. The yield has not been more than 3quintals per acre. Worse yet, when they tried to sell their Bt cotton, the pricethat was quoted was Rs 1300/- only, while other varieties were fetching farmersupto Rs 2400/- per quintal. After they mixed Bt cotton variety with othervarieties, buyers were willing to pay upto Rs 1800/-.

They point out that even the labourersin the village were not too keen to work in the Bt fields since the pluckingactivity from the small bolls is too tedious. The costs on labour for Bt cottonwere double than the normal costs on other varieties.

The brothers had also sown other cottonvarieties in around five acres of land, and the yield was around ten quintals onan average per acre, last season. And these varieties fetched even uptil Rs2600/- per quintal for a couple of days in the market.

They found bollworm incidence to beexcessively high on Bt Cotton after the first 60-70 days. They had to resort tousing pesticides like endosulfan, monocrotophos, cypermethrin and “Tracer”.In fact, a highly expensive pesticide like Tracer was used twice to control thepest incidence. They also found that the flowers and bolls would form but soondry up and fall. Melkior Reddy also opines that the Bt plant itself is not asstrong as non-Bt varieties.

The brothers reported about the factthat Monsanto-Mahyco had given them the seeds for the field trial only in themonth of July (could sow on July 22 ^nd ) in 2001. They feel that withlate sowing and the onset of winter, the incidence of bollworm would expectably,be lesser and that is what the company had shown. But in real growing conditionsof farmers, they cannot afford to sow late because the incidence of other pestsand diseases would be unbearably higher in such a case.

Rayapu Reddy and Melkior Reddy arethoroughly disappointed with the company. While the expenditure was around Rs12000/- per acre, including the irrigation that they provided to the crop, theyield was just 3 quintals per acre, amounting to returns of around Rs 5400/-.Therefore, there was a net loss of Rs 6600/- per acre, and a total loss of Rs52,800/- approximately in all the 8 acres.

They point out that the companyrepresentatives had stopped coming. When they were confronted by an angry mob offarmers during their last visit, they had promised to give seeds for next seasonat a lower price. They said, “we can’t pay you money since there will bemany other who will be asking us for compensation. Therefore, the company can’tpay you money, but we will try and ‘adjust’ against next season’s seedsupply”. The farmers ofcourse refused to get more Bt seeds. It was only thepresence of senior political leaders during the last visit that prevented thecompany representatives from being bashed up by the farmers, they reported.

We have now experienced that thepromises of the company are not true, the brothers say.

Deccan Chronicle, March 4, 2003

Acotton farmer T Ramanaiah of Kapulakanaparthy village told that he invested   about Rs 30,000 to grow the Bt cotton variety in histhree-acre plot. "I was   aghast to get only two quintals of yield per acre, instead of thepromised   seven to   eight quintals per acre", rues Ramanaiah whowas carried  away by the   publicity hype.