Local Production: Solution to High Cost of GM Cotton Seed?
Kholowa: we need affordable seed. |
While almost all of
the Malawian cotton farmers have now turned to the GM seed available on the
market, BollGaurd II, the worry for many is on the price as it costs several
times higher compared to the conventional varieties.
This year, some
farmers resorted to mixing GM and non-GM cotton seed as a way of cutting costs,
a development which led to insect infestation in some fields as the efficacy of
the improved variety was compromised.
To overcome the
challenge, efforts are being made to produce the seed locally. But is this
plausible? George Kalungwe has been finding out.
Cotton, Malawi’s
third most important cash crop after tobacco and tea, is mostly grown in
low-lying hot areas of the country. Its cultivation in Malawi started in the
17th century. Since then, it remains an important foreign exchange earner,
contributing to about 10% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product.
Despite its strategic
importance, for many years Malawi’s average yield for cotton remained between
500 kilos and 800 kilos per hectare due to wide-ranging challenges, including
low prices for seed cotton but most notably pest and disease.
Cotton Bollworm is
one of the most devastating, locally and world over. Without effective control,
it can cause losses of up to 70%. Salimu Makiyi, a farmer from Salima, Central
Malawi, knows this better.
“The last time I
planted the old cotton varieties, I grew almost three acres but that year I did
not harvest anything. Even a handful. And because of that, I got frustrated and
I was very furious.
“I gave up cotton
farming. So even after I was introduced to Bt cotton, I did not just rush into
growing it because I was still reeling from the devastation that I suffered. I
only started growing it after noticing that it was doing well in other people’s
fields,” he says.
Dealing with the
bollworm in cotton is costly and time consuming.
Explains Makiyi:
“The old varieties were costly because we could apply chemicals every week. For
example, a bottle of Cypermethrin would cost K2500 ($2.40) for a single application
on an acre field. If you have five or six acres, it meant the same number of
bottles was needed to apply just once. So, imagine if you were to apply eight
or 15 times, that’s a lot of money.”
The genetically
modified cotton seed commonly known as Bt cotton was developed several years
ago through biotechnology, a science that involves modification of living
organisms to make new products beneficial to mankind.
Bt stands for
bacillus thuringiensis, a species of bacteria that lives in the soil. It produces
proteins that are toxic to selected insects when eaten. The proteins are not
toxic to people because the human body cannot activate them.
It is this bacterium
that is infused in the hybrid cotton seed to enable it build a natural-like
resistance to the bollworm.
It is now almost
four years since Malawi commercialized GM cotton.
“The problem that
we’ve had with cotton is the bollworms. For conventional cotton, the farmer has
to spray maybe at least three or four times. But now, the modification that was
done was to make this plant able to defend itself. When the bollworm feeds on
the cotton, the cotton becomes toxic and it kills off these bollworms, and in
doing so it means the farmer will have to stray very few times. It is less
labour intensive; it is also less costly, and the farmers are also assured of
much better harvest,” says Dr. Dalitso Kafumbata, a molecular biology science
lecturer at the University of Malawi who also works on issues of biosafety.
Farmers growing Bt
cotton attest to the benefits. Their yields have risen to about 2000kgs per
hectare, and capable of reaching 4-5 thousand kilos.
Samson Chinkhadze,
the District Cotton Officer for Balaka, says field demonstrations that they
have been having have been very helpful.
“It is about seven years
or so since we started. These demonstrations have helped the farmers to learn a
lot in the sense that for the old varieties for farmers to make significant
gains in terms of business the investment was high because the varieties were
very much prone to pests, especially in the category of bollworms,” he recalls.
Another farmer,
Nellie Kholowa from Balaka, concurs with Chinkhadze on the benefits.
“After planting, we
scout the field to check if there are any weeds. If you can afford to buy
herbicides, you do apply. If you can’t, you just do weeding with a hoe and do
banding as well because this variety produces a lot of bolls, so if you don’t
do banding, it sometimes falls down because it is heavy.
“Although this is an improved variety, it still gets attacked by some insects, especially aphids, other than the bollworm. We scout the field and if there are any aphids, we apply chemicals. That's the only problem, we see.”
The flipside
These benefits
aside, there is a setback - the high cost of seed for GM cotton as currently it
is entirely imported. In the 2023/2024 farming season, farmers bought GM cotton
seed at K32000 ($31) per kg, yet on the market the government set a minimum
price of K580 (60 cents) per kg for seed cotton.
Herbert Lukiyo, a
farmer from Salima, is concerned about the pricing of GM cotton seed.
“In terms of income,
the benefits are not that much because the seed is expensive. We are buying
half a kilo at K16000 [$15.16], so for two acres you need K64, 000 [$62.23].
For two acres you need at least 4 kgs. We plant two seeds per station just in
case one fails to germinate, and sometimes you need to buy more seed for
replanting.”
Some farmers this
year resorted to planting a mixture of GM and non-GM cotton seed as a
cost-cutting measure but this led to insect infestation in some fields.
“We’ve received
information that in some pockets within the district some farmers have used
uncertified seed but the majority of the farmers accessed the quality seed
through the formal agro-dealer system. The few that we have, they have seen
some effects, especially at individual farm level. We don’t expect them to have
high yields because the seed that they planted is of low quality,” says
Chinkhadze.
In Malawi, Bollguard
2 is marketed by Quton Malawi, whose General Manager, John Lungu, admits the
challenge.
In an effort to
counter this, he says they are now finalizing research to start producing the
seed locally which will make it cheaper.
“We do admit that
the seed is expensive on the face of it, but there are so many things that go
into bringing this seed into the country. However, we have decided to start
multiplying the seed locally so that we should stop importing the seed from
India.
“We have been
training farmers for the past four years. And, we have just finished reviewing
last year’s harvest; it’s impressive. Some farmers have been able to achieve
98% perfection. That’s what we want. This year we had almost 300 farmers which
has given us courage that it is indeed possible to start producing the seed locally
and make it cheaper.”
More Than Just Funding
However, Dr
Kafumbata points out the need to do more research on the matter and ensure that
there is competition among seed companies.
“Surely, that’s
right… The pricing may be on the higher side for the average farmer because,
like with every new technology, there tends to be associated expenses that push
up the cost but also there is also little competition on the market so it is
easy for seed suppliers to take advantage of that.”
He says his
department is ready to help in efforts to produce the seed locally, but is
quick to point out the need for government’s intervention.
“We do have capacity
locally to scale up seed multiplication. Of course, to get the full realization
of that, we have the people; we have the science; we have facilities to support
production, so that moving forward we no longer need to rely on importing seed
from elsewhere.
“However, there may
still be a need for the government to provide incentives, may be in the form of
tax breaks and so on for companies that actually do the production because
research is one thing and actual development is quite another. And on the
development side, we still need to pull up our socks in order that we can help
the farmer so that they get seed that is cheap, if not cheaper, comparable to
conventional cotton seed.”
The National
Commission for Science and Technology is at the centre of biotechnology
research in Malawi. So, what is its stand on the farmers' concerns?
“NCST is a
coordinating body. Apart from the coordinating aspect, we are also there to
provide support and regulate issues of research, science, technology and
innovation in this country.
“In this particular
case, NCST will come in as a coordinator – coordinating all the various
stakeholders in this particular field so that we have a common understanding on
how the prices of seed can be reduced. On our own we cannot do anything but
play our coordinating role to ensure that the farmer out there is able to
benefit from the science that has already been done on Bt cotton so that the
price can go down and they should be able to make profit.
In Malawi, around
300, 000 farmers grow cotton on average covering over 300,000 hectares, and it
directly benefits about 1 million people in a country of a population of about
18 million.
The current
government policy is that all cotton grown in Malawi should be genetically
modified as a way of improving yields and income.
For this policy to
be effective, something urgent must be done to make the price of seed
affordable for the farmer, otherwise compromises will prevail if what some
farmers in some areas did this year is anything to go by.
...
This article also appeared at https://zodiakmalawi.com/nw/national-news/65-news-in-central-region/6512-local-production-solution-to-high-cost-of-gm-cotton-seed
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