Sharad Joshi tells farmers to protect Bt gene

ahmedabad: the sharad joshi-led shetkari sangathan has rallied support for cotton farmers in gujarat who are being threatened that their standing crops would be destroyed because they had used an unapproved hybrid variety of genetically engineered seeds. joshi, in a statement on behalf of the kisan coordination committee (kcc), said the khedut samaj of gujarat would hold a kisan rally in bharuch on october 30 on this issue.the rally will be addressed by sharad joshi, bhupender sing mann (punjab) and prem simha dahiya (haryana), among others. joshi said gujarat's farmers had been able to save their crop of cotton from the attack of bolloworms, thanks to the use of a special seed. the crops from all other seeds have been devastated by the pest. use of bt-gene cotton seed in india was blocked by the union ministry of environment and forests last may, even though other cotton-producing countries have gone ahead with the use of transgenic cotton. joshi said the ''green lobby'' in india is all out to have the plots in question uprooted. this lobby, led by vandana shiva and karnataka rajya ryot sangh president nanjunda swami, have been uprooting trial plots of bt-gene cotton and are happy that the government security forces are doing the uprooting now. the kcc, he said, had always stood for freedom of access to markets and to technology for indian farmers. the kcc had strongly protested against the blocking of the bt-gene seed and had alleged that ''the government's decision is equivalent to sending the jawans to kargil armed with .303 rifles to face the enemy wielding automatic machine guns.'' he said the government's decision to destroy the standing crop without any compensation was entirely unjust. the farmers used the seeds that they could procure through normal channels and could not be faulted if the seed eventually turned out to be of transgenic variety. it was government's duty to ensure that the proscribed seed was not marketed. this year, cotton crop has failed in gujarat with the exception of that form the proscribed variety.