Role of Pakistan Government Institutions in Adoption of Bt cotton and Benefits Associated with Adoption

Abstract

Pakistan is the world fourth biggest maker of the cotton and positions tenth in productivity. Many factors such as poor seed quality, primitive agronomic practices, improper use of fertilizers and pesticides, lack of access to modern machinery, slow adoption of modern farming practices and use of low Bt expression varieties can attribute to it. In this study focus was on the slow adoption of the advanced generations of Bt cotton and that the role of government institutions in endorsement of Bt Cotton in Pakistan and the prognosticating benefits of adopting it more widely. Bt cotton contains specific type of proteins that when consumed by a specific type of insect larvae, damage the insect gut walls by creating holes in it, which causes larvae to stop feeding and eventually die. The Bt gene is inserted in plants by genetic alteration in which the source code of the DNA is changed to produce the proteins / toxins which reduces the need for the application of insecticides. Brought in Pakistan during 2005 illegally and formally approved in 2010 the productivity increase in Bt cotton remains yet to be seen. This is more surprising when in India and throughout the world, the productivity of Bt cotton increased manifolds. Bt cotton’s main function is not to increase productivity but to check the role of the boll worms in decreasing productivity and through decreasing the pest attacks on the crops; Bt cotton serves to increase productivity by decreasing sub economic threshold levels damages and creating more reliable insect control in all weather conditions. This paper will consider Progress of government institutes, different companies and Government agencies involved that correlate directly to the production of the Bt cotton in Pakistan.