Study Flags Widespread Illegal GM Cotton Cultivation:
A field study found that cotton hybrids with unapproved genetically modified (GM) traits were grown on 24–30% of India’s cotton-growing area in 2025–26. Around 26.2-29 lakh hectares out of India’s 114.8 lakh hectares under cotton had such hybrids.
- GM Traits Found: The hybrids carried:
- cp4-epsps, which makes cotton tolerant to the herbicide glyphosate.
- Vip3A, which protects the crop from a wider range of bollworm larvae.
- India allows farmers to grow GM cotton hybrids and varieties containing only cry1Ac and cry2Ab genes, obtained from the soil bacterium Bt
- These genes help cotton plants produce proteins that are toxic to certain bollworm pests.
- In India, Bt cotton is the only GM crop approved for commercial cultivation. The unapproved traits found in these hybrids have not been cleared by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC).
- GEAC functions in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).
- It assesses the environmental safety of using hazardous microorganisms and genetically modified organisms on a large scale in research and industry.
