Last year, India was marked as the fastest biotech crop growing country, especially on the back of biotech cotton cultivation. India also beat China by almost 0.3 million hectares to become the largest biotech cotton grower.
Director at California University's Biotech Research & Education Program, Martina Newell-McGloughlin, is currently visiting India and seemed impressed by the cotton industry's growth.
Also a celebrated biotech expert in the US, McGloughlin said that India's biotech cotton area is around 3.8 million hectares, while that in China comes to about 3.5 million hectares.
Speaking at Indian Chamber of Commerce meeting in Kolkata, she said, “India has developed 62 biotech cotton hybrids by 2006 compared to 3 biotech cotton hybrids in 2002. Biotech cotton exports from India have also gone up from 0.9 million bales in 2004 to 4.7 million bales in 2006. Indian biotech cotton cultivators are registering 88 percent increased profit per hectare which is about $250.”
Calculations show that global biotech crop cultivation had reached 252 million acres across 22 countries, with majority of the cultivating countries being the developing economies. Biotech crops have also cut-down pesticide footprint by 14 percent.
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