THURSDAY, 10 MAY 2012
22:34
SUDHIR MISHRA |
BALANGIR
HITS: 45
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Only one hybrid cotton seed dealer of the district turned up in
the meeting held on April 19 last to ensure the supply hybrid cotton seed to
the farmers this year, which makes it amply clear that the farmers would not
get seeds adequately and go for the banned BT cotton cultivation in Balangir
district.
Before the commencement of the cotton cultivation season,
we convened a meeting of all seed dealers/company representatives of approved
hybrid variety cotton and told them to keep the seed ready for forthcoming
season. We issued letters to the seed dealers/company representatives in April,
but none turned up except one, pointed out an official here.
According to official sources, the area under cotton
cultivation in the district is increasing steadily from 19,409 hectares in
2009-10 to 35,330 hectares in 2011-12.
This year the target for cotton cultivation in Balangir
district is 34,200 hectares. We require around 85,500 packets of cotton seeds
for our district as per acre usually one packet of cotton seed is required,
said an official.
The Government lacks clear cut policy to ensure seed to
farmers and it should make necessary arrangement so that the farmers would get
the seed easily and monopoly of seed companies be ended, said Jati Pradhan, an
activist. The absence of seed dealer in the meeting would make it easier for
the entry of Bt cotton, he said.
Bt Cotton, which is a Genetically Modified (GM) seed, has
been banned in Odisha but it has caught the craze of Balangir farmers in last
few years. Unmindful of ecological consequences of the BT cotton cultivation on
soil and its surrounding and notwithstanding of the high cost of the
cultivation, the farmers are taking it up for farming in a big way, said
sources.
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