Cotton showed the way. Why has India stopped walking it?

Crops & Farming Practices

New Delhi: In March 2002, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee cleared three Bt cotton hybrids for commercial cultivation. On World Cotton Day, it is worth recalling what that single approval did for Indian agriculture, and asking why the country has not built on it since. The numbers are well known but bear repeating. India produced about 1.4 crore bales of cotton in 2002-03. By 2013-14, output had touched nearly 4 crore bales. Yields rose from around 300 kg of lint per hectare to 566 kg. By 2020, Bt cotton covered 117.47 lakh of India's 125.84 lakh hectares under cotton, over 93% of the area, a pace of adoption few technologies anywhere have matched. Farmers did not need persuading. They saw the bollworm, which had ravaged the crop through the 1990s, brought under control, and they saw insecticide sprays fall sharply. The gains were national as well as personal. A country that imported cotton became one of its largest exporters and, by 2015-16, the world's largest producer. Ginning, spinning and textile jobs grew on the back of a reliable domestic supply. India's experience was no outlier. GM crops are the fastest-adopted agricultural technology in history. The global area under them has...