Commercialization of Bt cotton seen
by Melody M. Aguiba
Reprinted from Manila Bulletin 02 February 2007
The commercialization in three years of the genetically-modified Bacillus thuringiencies (Bt) cotton marks the revival of the local cotton industry that largely depends on import for its sustenance
After two years of going through import procedures for Bt cotton seed to be shipped from China, the Philippines will finally be able to conduct field testings on the Bt cotton where authorities bank their hopes on displacing the country's yearly Php2.4-billion cotton lint imports and raising farmers' income.
"BPI (Bureau of Plant Industry) already approved the import permit for the seeds. We have settled problems on translating technical documents into the English language," said Dr. Candido B. Damo, chief agriculturist of the Cotton Development Administration (CODA).
From a high production rate of 14,400 metric tons (MT) in 1992, the country's cotton lint output dropped significantly to an average of 1,174 MT during the last 10 years (1996 to 2005) owing to several factors mainly the lack of solution to high-infesting bollworm.
Production accounts now for just five percent of the total demand. The pest's plague can cause destruction of 25 to 90 percent of yield or equivalent to 250 to 900 kilos per hectare.
At present, there are no cotton varieties or their wild relatives that have genes resistant to this pest that may be used to develop hybrid cotton. But with genetic modification, a gene resistant to these lepidopterous pests from a naturally-occuring bacteria found in the soil called "kurstaki" has been successfully transferred to cotton to enable the cotton plant to resist pest.
Bt cotton is thus able to give a substantially higher yield by around 20 percent while at the same time cutting farmers' cost of production. Cost-cutting comes from reduced use of chemical insecticides as spraying is cut from 10 to 12 times to just one to two times in a season or savings of Php12,000 per hectare. Very important, less spraying also saves the environment and farmers' health hazard.