Illegal HTBt Cotton: India's GM Crop Debate Is Back - And This Time It Is More Complicated

Aspiro Living | UPSC Current Affairs | 9 min read

Here is something the standard GM crop debate misses: the most important GM crop question in India right now is not whether to approve new GM varieties.

It is about a GM trait that is already growing across thousands of hectares, without any regulatory approval, in fields from Gujarat to Telangana. A recent field-based study highlighted the spread of unauthorised herbicide-tolerant GM traits in cotton, as reported in The Indian Express. HTBt cotton is illegal. It is also widespread. And it has created a regulatory situation that India's current framework is not well-equipped to handle.

The Basics: Bt Cotton and What Came Next

What Is Bt Cotton?

Bt cotton contains genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that produce proteins toxic to certain lepidopteran insects - particularly the bollworm species that devastated Indian cotton before Bt introduction. The two primary Bt genes used in India are Cry1Ac and Cry2Ab, which target different bollworm species.

Bt cotton was approved by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in 2002. It transformed Indian cotton cultivation. Pesticide use for bollworm control fell dramatically. Cotton yields rose. India went from a cotton importer to one of the world's largest exporters within a decade.

What Is HTBt Cotton?

HTBt cotton combines the Bt insect-resistance trait with an additional herbicide-tolerance gene - specifically, tolerance to glyphosate, a broad-spectrum herbicide. Glyphosate kills all plant material it contacts except the engineered crop. A farmer growing HTBt cotton can spray glyphosate across the entire field, killing weeds without damaging the cotton.

This herbicide-tolerance trait has never been approved by the GEAC for cultivation in India. It was never submitted for biosafety assessment. It entered Indian fields through unauthorised seeds - either smuggled from countries where herbicide-tolerant varieties are approved, or through informal farmer-to-farmer seed exchanges once the trait began circulating.

Why HTBt Is Controversial: Every Dimension

Regulatory Dimension

The GEAC is the statutory body under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 responsible for evaluating GM organisms for environmental release. Any GM crop must undergo multi-year biosafety assessment covering toxicity, allergenicity, environmental impact, gene flow to wild relatives, and socioeconomic effects before approval.

HTBt cotton has bypassed this process entirely. This is not a procedural formality. Biosafety assessment exists because genetic modifications can have consequences - intended and unintended - that are not apparent from the modification itself. A trait approved in the United States for its specific agroecological context may behave differently in India's diverse agricultural landscapes.

Weed Management and Herbicide Resistance

Glyphosate is the world's most widely used herbicide. The evolution of glyphosate-resistant weeds - documented extensively in the United States, Brazil, and Argentina where herbicide-tolerant crops have been cultivated for decades - is one of the most significant agricultural consequences of the technology. Amaranthus tuberculatus in the US Midwest is now resistant to multiple herbicides, requiring escalating chemical interventions.

India has not yet documented widespread glyphosate-resistant weeds. HTBt cotton cultivation at scale would accelerate selection pressure for resistance, potentially creating weed management problems for all farmers in affected regions, not just those growing HTBt varieties.

Farmer Concerns: Both Sides

The farmers growing HTBt cotton are not doing so blindly. They are responding to a real problem: labour costs for manual weeding have risen sharply as rural wages increased. Glyphosate application by a single person replaces days of manual weeding labour. For a marginal cotton farmer facing acute cost pressure, the economic logic of HTBt is immediate and compelling.

The counter-argument is that glyphosate dependency creates its own vulnerability: if resistance develops, the farmer has no fallback. And the health and environmental implications of expanded glyphosate use in Indian agriculture - already contested globally following the IARC's 2015 classification of glyphosate as 'probably carcinogenic to humans' - have not been assessed in the Indian context.

Intellectual Property

HTBt cotton cultivation also raises IP questions. The herbicide-tolerance technology is typically patented by seed and agrochemical companies. Farmers growing unapproved varieties through informal seed channels are, in addition to violating biosafety regulations, potentially infringing on IP rights. The legal and economic consequences of this are largely unresolved in India.

The GEAC and India's GM Regulation Framework

India's regulatory framework for GM crops is one of the most complex in the world - and, critics argue, one of the most permissive in some respects while being restrictive in others.

The GEAC operates under three ministries (Environment, Agriculture, and Science and Technology) with overlapping jurisdictions. State governments also have a role: following a Supreme Court judgment, states were given the ability to refuse GM crop cultivation even after central approval. Several states have used this power to block Bt brinjal, which received GEAC approval in 2010 but has never been commercially cultivated.

The spread of HTBt cotton exposes a specific regulatory gap: the enforcement capacity for illegal GM cultivation. The Seeds Act, 1966 and the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act, 2001 provide some enforcement tools, but field-level monitoring of what gene is in a cotton plant requires laboratory testing. Neither the state agriculture departments nor the GEAC have the resources for systematic field monitoring at scale.

Mains framing: How should India balance agricultural innovation with biosafety and environmental precaution in GM crops? Strong answers cover: GEAC's role, the specific HTBt situation, farmer economics, resistance risk, the Bt brinjal precedent, and a reformed regulatory framework that can handle both approved and unapproved GM material.

UPSC Mapping

Prelims MCQ Practice

1. GEAC is under which Ministry? (a) Ministry of Agriculture (b) Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (c) Ministry of Science and Technology (d) Ministry of Commerce | Answer: (b)
2. Bt cotton was approved for commercial cultivation in India in: (a) 1998 (b) 2000 (c) 2002 (d) 2005 | Answer: (c)
3. The Cry1Ac gene in Bt cotton is derived from: (a) A soil bacterium (b) A plant virus (c) A synthetic DNA sequence (d) Another cotton variety | Answer: (a)
4. HTBt cotton is controversial because it: (a) Has no insect resistance (b) Contains an unapproved herbicide-tolerance trait (c) Was approved without farmer consultation (d) Is patented by an Indian company | Answer: (b)
5. Which Act governs the environmental release of GM organisms in India? (a) Seeds Act 1966 (b) Biological Diversity Act 2002 (c) Environment Protection Act 1986 (d) Forest Conservation Act 1980 | Answer: (c)

Mains GS-III Question

How should India balance agricultural innovation with biosafety and environmental precaution in the regulation of genetically modified crops? Discuss with reference to the spread of unauthorised HTBt cotton in India.

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