Story by Bhagirath Choudhary, Founder Director at South Asia Biotechnology Centre (SABC)

On 1 Oct 2015, African delegates visited Bt cotton fields of farmer Deepak Arun Ambore of Shel Gaon, Aurangabad, Maharashtra. Farmer Deepak, aged 41, lives with two brothers in a joint family in a village 1km from his field. He was saccompanied by his father and two brothers in the field to demonstrate the performance and efficacy of Bt cotton hybrids in field conditions. The joint family of farmer Deepak has a land holding of 20 acres. His family grows cotton on 10 acres of land, and remaining land with vegetables, pomegranate, pigeonpea and hybrid maize. Of the 10 acres of Bt cotton, he was very keen to showcase the field of Extra Long Staple (ELS) Bt cotton hybrid which he planted for the second time on 3.5 acre on the land adjacent to road leading to his village.

Farmer Deepak was jubilant to take every member of African delegation to ELS Bt cotton field, a lush green tall and erect plant type field. He briefed the African delegation with the advantages of ELS Bt cotton hybrid, which he claims that ELS Bt cotton fetches around 40% more return as compared to medium and long staple cotton. He also highlighted the value of ELS Bt cotton by holding busted bolls which carry a very fine quality threads of cotton. He brought bolls of medium to long staple cotton from another field and gave both bolls to delegates for them to compare the quality of cotton threads. African delegates were very pleased to notice the striking difference between the quality of medium and long staple Bt cotton with the Extra Long Staple Bt cotton.

Farmer Deepak introduced his two brothers to the African delegates. Both his brothers work on the field full time to raise cotton and other crops. However farmer Deepak runs a small stone crushing plant in the outskirt of Aurangabad district of Maharashtra. Farmer Deepak and his brothers surprised the delegates when they shared the parameters of ELS Bt cotton hybrids. They harvest 33-36 mm staple length of ELS Bt cotton much higher than the medium to long staple Bt cotton. As a result, the ELS Bt cotton fetches very high price in the market. They harvest around 120 bolls per plant per season, which is twice the numbers of bolls harvested by Punjab and Haryana cotton farmers. The cotton crops in this dryland areas is a long duration crop whereas farmers in Punjab and Haryana grow short duration cotton. In this area, farmers pick cotton bolls 5-6 times whereas 2-3 picking by farmers in Punjab and Haryana.

For read more about what the African delegation witnessed in Deepak’s farm, click here.