Chapter 466 Bt Cotton and Primer

The breeding rights of the two varieties brought by Tianhe have been "occupied" by Professor Satnam of the Agricultural College.

In India, sugarcane is harvested twice a year and contributes even more to the economy than cotton.

The sugarcane varieties cultivated this time were propagated last autumn, and the planting area reached nearly 10 acres this spring.

Although this number is not large, these 10 acres produced nearly 100 million tons of sugarcane!

Some yields even reached 12 tons per mu!
This output is extremely amazing!

In this country, the annual sugarcane production is unstable and is easily affected by the monsoon climate, which causes a reduction in production.

Not to mention a sugarcane yield of 12 tons per mu, even a yield of 3 to 4 tons per mu is already considered a high yield.

Within just one harvest period, these 10 acres of sugarcane in Mabang caused a huge sensation.

Major media outlets reported on the incident one after another, and Satnam became a celebrity, even receiving invitations from high-ranking officials.

In the hotel's tea restaurant, Guo Yang and Cheng Di had a private conversation. For some things, the fewer people who know about them, the better.

Cheng Di said: "Satnam has recently appeared frequently in public to publicize the hardships he experienced in breeding. Now these two varieties are deeply bound to him."

"This is the best possible outcome. Greed is the original sin. Perhaps one day, he will pay the price for it."

Guo Yang smiled. This season there are only 10 acres, but when the harvest comes in the second half of the year, it will probably be millions of acres.

By next year, it will be popularized nationwide.

The lethality will increase little by little from now on.

At this time, the waiter brought two desserts. Cheng Di picked up one and put it in his mouth. It was indeed very sweet, in line with its status as a major sugar-producing country.

"The expansion of cotton propagation will be slow, and the area can only be slightly expanded next year. In addition, Monsanto Bt cotton controls more than 90% of the seed market, and I don't know whether this is good or bad for promotion."

Bt is the Latin abbreviation for Bacillus thuringiensis, a gene from a soil bacterium.

The Bt gene can induce plant cells to produce a protein that is toxic to major cotton pests such as the cotton bollworm, spotted bollworm, and pink bollworm.

Monsanto inserted this gene into the cotton genome.

Crops such as Roundup Ready soybeans can tolerate herbicides, and Bt crops, including Bt cotton, can resist pests.

With the deepening of technology research and development.

These two traits are beginning to appear stacked in the same crop and are widely distributed in all GM crops grown around the world.

India approved the commercial cultivation of Bt cotton in 2002.

Despite controversy over illegal distribution, farmer suicides, and the development of insect resistance, Bt cotton has spread rapidly.

Today, the Bt cotton planting area in India has reached 1.5 million acres.

Guo Yang also ate a piece of dessert, chewing it slowly and tasting it. It tasted pretty good.

“Before coming here, Tianhe’s legal department also studied Monsanto’s situation in India. In fact, the controversy over Bt cotton has always been very serious.”

Cheng Di should have studied the Indian seed market, but he did not have enough power and naturally did not have enough information.

Guo Yang asked: “Do you know Monsanto’s sublicensing model?”

“I know something, but I don’t know the details.”

In order to maximize profits, Monsanto invented royalties.

Simply put, in addition to paying for seeds, farmers also have to pay Monsanto a royalty when soybeans, cotton and other products are harvested.

From simply selling seeds, it has directly intervened in the farmers' planting and production links.

This is a private intellectual property system that circumvents public policy and regulations.

A special law enforcement fee collection system has also been established for this purpose.

But in rural India, millions of farmers hold small plots of land, making it difficult to enforce the law and therefore inconvenient to sign individual licensing agreements with farmers.

So the sub-licensing system was invented.

In 1988, Monsanto established a joint venture with Mahaico, a well-known Indian seed company: Mahaico-Monsanto.

Monsanto then donated 100 grams of Bt cotton seeds to the company for free.

Monsanto has sublicensed the Bt gene to about 50 Indian seed companies.

The Bt trait was introgressed into local cotton varieties through traditional cross-breeding techniques, but open-pollinated varieties were not involved.

Hybrid seed can be saved during the planting process, but the yield will gradually decrease, so farmers need to buy new seeds every year.

With this design, the sublicensee would pay $10 per year.

At the same time, for each package of Bt cotton seeds sold, seed companies need to pay three-quarters of the seed price to Monsanto as a royalty.

Cheng Di was surprised and asked, "Three quarters?"

“It’s outrageous, isn’t it? In the beginning, the royalty for one acre was about $26, and over the years, Indian states have resisted and even forced reductions in royalties.

But Monsanto ignored these regulations and continued to collect high royalties.”

In fact, when Monsanto Bt cotton entered China, it also charged royalties, but only US$1 per acre, which is just over RMB 1 per acre.

But in India it is 25 times higher.

This is unacceptable to Indians.

However, that was because the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences successfully cultivated its own Bt cotton varieties, bringing fierce competition to Monsanto.

In recent years, Monsanto has even given up collecting royalties in China. “So royalties are Monsanto’s lifeblood in India.”

Cheng Di touched his chin with his hand. "We can keep our own seeds, which is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Farmers are happy to plant them, but seed companies are unwilling to promote them. This is the most troublesome thing."

Guo Yang smiled and said, "We brought Qu Yang here this time because he is here to discuss cooperation with several major seed companies."

Only then did Cheng Di laugh.

It is precisely because of the emergence of hybrid seeds that seeds can be commercialized and evolved into the seed industry, allowing seed companies to complete their original capital accumulation.

The emergence of plant genetic engineering technology has greatly promoted the commercialization of seeds.

Seeds that can be kept for personal use naturally stand in the opposite direction of seed companies.

Sugarcane seeds are easy to obtain and can generally be saved.

But cotton seeds are a huge market for agricultural biotechnology companies, on par with soybeans and corn.

Although there are many conflicts between Monsanto's various subsidiaries and the company, most seed companies will choose to refuse to promote cotton seeds that can be kept for self-sustaining.

Cheng Di's initial idea was to let the farmers spread on their own. It would be very slow at the beginning, and he wanted to wait for fission, but he didn't know how long he would have to wait.

Now that Qu Yang was personally in charge of the matter, he felt relieved.

"By the way, is it convenient for you to go to the breeding research and development center these two days?" Guo Yang asked casually.

"Of course, Satnam has been busy with interviews and social events lately. He is a very busy man now and has no time to care about the R&D center."

"I originally wanted to ask Qu Yang to invite him for tea, but now it seems we have to wait in line."

The bulk of the funding for this R&D center came from Tianhe, a total of 300 million yuan. The center is fully equipped with experimental equipment and a germplasm resource bank, which is filled with seeds introduced from Tianhe.

The seeds native to India are in the resource library of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Mumbai.

But Cheng Di has the right to call it.

Guo Yang seemed to have just glanced through it the next day, but in fact he had obtained the information he wanted.

Another day later, Guo Yang quietly replaced several newly introduced rice and wheat seeds in the germplasm resource bank.

Qu Yang has not been idle these two days.

Through people from Avic Investment Bank, we got in touch with India’s largest seed company: Nuzvidu.

Before this, it was difficult for Cheng Di to meet the company's senior management with his identity, but with Qu Yang's appearance, their identities became equal.

When Guo Yang completed the task at the breeding center, Qu Yang also had his first meeting with Nuzvidu Company.

"Their CEO Rao said Nuzvidu had applied for direct commercialisation of Bt cotton since 2003, but the Genetic Engineering Assessment Committee rejected the application late last year."

“My appearance came at the right time. If it had been a little later, Nuzwidu might have been forced to become a sublicensee of Monsanto in Mahaico.”

"What a perfect timing!"

"Do you really think I'm just changing my schedule casually?" Guo Yang smiled complacently, "Is it settled?"

Qu Yang said: "We reached a preliminary agreement. The other party wanted to cooperate with Tianhe in many fields such as corn, soybeans, rice and cotton. I agreed."

"Rao is also the chairman of the National Seed Association of India and has close ties with the Ministry of Agriculture.

The relationship between the government and business circles is very good, the market channels are all over India, and they are very strong in promoting seeds. "

Guo Yang nodded and looked at Cheng Di again, "Is Professor Satnam back?"

Cheng Di shook his head. "Maybe we have to wait until tomorrow."

Qu Yang has already made an appointment with Satnam, which shows how popular Satnam is recently.

He didn't wait that long to meet Rao.

Guo Yang did not intend to show up, as not many people knew that he had come to India. "Then I'll leave the matter of variety authorization to you."

"Boss, you can go without any worries."

Funny enough, the varieties cultivated by Jiahe ultimately needed to be licensed to Nuzvidu by Satnam.

But it's worth the detour.

The muddier the water, the better.

Before leaving, Guo Yang asked Cheng Di to collect several reports on Indian sugarcane varieties.

Related articles have been published in domestic and foreign media such as The Hindu, Times of India, The Times, and Reuters.

The title of a newspaper article well reflects the popularity of the new sugarcane variety: "Super big harvest, a sugarcane variety that breaks new ground!"

Among the many sections, Guo Yang did not see any reports about soil.

Only the Indian Agricultural Union mentioned that this variety consumes a lot of water.

But sugarcane is a water-consuming crop, so it did not cause much response.

On the contrary, Indian farmers strongly demanded vigorous promotion, just as they had originally demanded that the government relax restrictions on Bt cotton.

The farmers here are no different from farmers in most countries in the world, they are equally profit-seeking and short-sighted.

It only takes a small spark to ignite the entire country.

At the same time, Guo Yang laid several triggers.

(End of this chapter)