No pink bollworm-resistant seeds may derail Punjab’s big cotton push plans
The Punjab government may have been motivating Malwa farmers to expand the area under cotton as the sowing will begin from the first week of April, in the absence of genetically modified Bollgard-III stage of BT seeds resistant to pink bollworm pest, the efforts may yield the desired results.
As per the figures from the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, the area under cultivation of the cash crop has come down to the lowest of all times since the past three decades to 98,000 hectares in 2024 and what is worrying is the entire area has shifted under was guzzling paddy, which bring fixed income for the farmers, even though it is much less than what was earned from cotton.
The state government is worried that paddy cultivation will lead to faster depleting of the already falling water table. Agriculture tubewells in Malwa are drawing water as deep as 500 feet. The National Institute of Hydrology at Roorkee has set an alert that in case the fall continues at the same pace (state average fall in subsoil water level by one meter annually), the state will turn into a desert with no water available for agriculture.
Agriculture minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian has asked the department to make efforts for increasing area under the crop and has asked farmers to purchase PAU-certified seeds. PAU has recommended 87 varieties of hybrid cotton seeds for cultivation in the state. The cash crop is sown in seven southwestern districts – Bathinda, Fazilka, Muktsar, Mansa, Sangrur, Barnala and Faridkot.
According to a senior officer in the state agriculture department, the matter about BT-III GM seeds was taken up with Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and was requested to fasten the clearances. PAU vice-chancellor Dr SS Gosal said that the seeds involve three years of trials before final clearance and the university has completed first year of the trial.
However, he refused to share the outcome as according to him, results are analysed after completing three years of continuous trials. The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change evaluates and approves the testing and commercial release of genetically modified (GM) seeds. Gosal said the Bollgard-III trials are being conducted on the behalf of the GEAC.
He has also asked the agriculture department to ensure that farmers should not sow spurious seeds which earlier they used to bring from Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.
‘Paddy an easy choice, better remuneration’
According to Dr Gosal and agriculture department, farmers in Malwa who used to grow cotton have shifted to paddy for assured profits and effortless farming. “Lots of efforts goes into growing cotton, however, growing paddy is much simpler, so we have to work hard to motivate farmer to revert to cotton,” said Dr Gosal.
Profits from cotton have reduced with the passage time which is forcing cotton growers to choose alternative paddy crop. An acre of cotton gives yield of 8 quintals which sells at a price of ₹7,100-7,600 per quintal particularly when the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) enters the market for price stabilisation. In comparison, paddy gives a yield of 24-26 quintals, and a quintal is procured on minimum support price of ₹2,320 per quintal for A-grade paddy.
“It is not the same story now, as cotton is no longer white gold. Now, average cotton yield per acre has slipped to 4-5 quintals, which makes the crop unviable,” said a CCI official.
However, the state agriculture department hopes that the area will increase during the upcoming kharif season from what it was in 2024 (98,000 hectares) because last season there was negligible infestation of white fly, pink bollworm, in comparison to the previous years.
To address the persistent issue of pink bollworm and white fly infestation, the department has deployed 264 nodal officers across seven southwestern districts in Bathinda, Fazilka, Muktsar 62, Mansa, Sangrur, Barnala and Faridkot.
