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Friday, October 5, 2007

[vinnomot] GM Crops & GEAC + World Bank On Economy & Innovation + Wheat Imports + Ethanol & Sugar

NEWS Bulletin from Indian Society For Sustainable Agriculture And Rural Development
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On GMOs----
1. GEAC's no to Sungro's Bt brinjal; conditional yes for Bt cabbage
 
World Bank Report-----
2. India to grow faster if firms innovate: World Bank
 
WHEAT IMPORTS----
3. Govt to hedge 1 million tonne wheat in futures market to cover price rise
 
SUGAR & ETHANOL----
4. Sugar fed charts ways for mills to get competitive
5. Pawar asks states to do away with taxes on ethanol
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GEAC's no to Sungro's Bt brinjal; conditional yes for Bt cabbage
 
 
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Thursday , October 04, 2007 at 0028 hrs IST
 
New Delhi, Oct 3 The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has turned down the request of Sungro Seeds Research Ltd for largescale field trials of its six Bt brinjal hybrids.
 
Sungro Seeds has developed six Bt brinjal, namely – SBJ 1 Bt, SBJ 2 Bt, SBJ 4 Bt, SBJ 6 Bt, SBJ 7 Bt and SBJ 8 Bt. The GEAC, in this context, noted that as these transgenic brinjals were developed by transfer of Bt brinjal event developed by Mahyco and "as Mahyco's Bt brinjal is still under review, the present request cannot be considered at this stage."
 
The 80th meeting of GEAC held on Monday, however, gave conditional approval for multi-locational field trials of two Bt cabbage hybrids (SCB-3 Bt & SCB-7 Bt) developed by Sungro. The GEAC noted that as per decision of the Supreme Court on May 8, 2007, field trials of GM crops with new events was specific to 24 items approved in the period May 1, 2006 to September 22, 2006. GM crops approved during this period was rice, okra, groundnut, potato, tomato, brinjal, castor, cauliflower, mustard and cotton. As Bt cabbage was not listed in the 24 items approved by the GEAC during the period in question, the request for multi-locational field trials cannot be considered without informing the court.
 
However, the GEAC finally decided that as the government has moved an application for modification of the Supreme Court's order, permission for multi-locational field trials of Bt cabbage can be given subject to the outcome of court's order. The trials would be conducted as per protocols laid down by the court.
 
The GEAC also approved strip trials of transgenic tomato (cv. Pusa Ruby) developed by National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology in the premises of institutions and companies. It also allowed field trials of Mahyco's Bt rice and Central Potato Research Institute's transgenic potato lines, SP-951.
 
GEAC order commercial release of Bt cotton hybrids ( 113 Bt, 302 Bt, ACH 21-1) and strip trials of some Bt cotton hybrids. It witheld permission to Metahelix Life Science, Bangalore for largescale field trials of its Bt cotton hybrids, pending receiving of complete biosafety dossier and further directions from the Supreme Court.
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India to grow faster if firms innovate: World Bank
 
 
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Thursday , October 04, 2007 at 1938 hrs IST
 
The World Bank has said that if India's innovation potential is unleashed, the country would witness 5-fold increase in economic output.
 
`Unleashing India's Innovation: Towards Sustainable and Inclusive Growth' – a study done by the bank said: "While India is emerging as a top global innovator in sectors such as biotechnology and information technology, less than 3% of the Indian workforce is in the modern private sector, while roughly 90% remains in the informal sector. This heterogeneity translates into wide disparities in productivity levels – wider than those in China, Mexico, Russia and South Korea."
 
Based on a 2006 World Enterprise Survey of roughly 2,300 manufacturing enterprises in 16 states in India, it was found that the output enterprises which adapted innovative technologies increased by 25%, said the World Bank country director for India, Isabel Guerrero on the occasion of the release of the new study here on Thursday.
 
The World Bank senior economist and the editor of the new study, Mark A Dutz said that India's new domestic R&D and knowledge need to be better converted to commercial use. He said that out of the top 50 applicants for patents from India in the period 1995-2005, 44 were foreign firms, while only two were private Indian firms.
 
The Union science and technology minister, Kapil Sibal releasing the study called for global partnership in unleashing India's innovation potential. He also called for public-private partnership and stressed the need for increasing public investment in science and technology to 2% of the GDP.
 
India would specially benefit from fostering more inclusive innovation, the study said and added that this could be achieved by promoting more formal R&D efforts for the poor people and more creative grassroots efforts by them as well as by improving the ability of informal enterprises.
 
According to the study India has one of the largest systems of higher learning in the world, but the small number of high-quality institutions are not enough to meet the country's growing need for skilled personnel. To maintain its share of global knowledge services, India will need 2.3 million knowledge professionals by 2010. If the country does not gear up to the situation, it would face a deficit of 0.5 million knowledge service providers, the study said.
 
World Bank also noted that only 16% Indian manufacturing firms offer in-service training as compared to 92% in China. The firms which provided in-service training are 23% to 28% more productive. The report suggested providing matching public funds to firms for investing in R&D and to explore new ways to leverage entrepreneurs and technologists of India's diaspora.
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Govt to hedge 1mt wheat in futures mkt to cover price rise
 
 
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 at 0044 hrs IST
 
Faced with severe criticism over import of wheat at high prices, the government has now decided to hedge 1 million tonne wheat in the futures market.
It has decided to appoint National Collateral Management Services Ltd (NCMSL), a company promoted by the national commodity exchange NCDEX and other institutions, to render technical advice.
 
Hedging would be launched around the start of the sowing season in major wheat-producing countries.
 
The empowered group of ministers on wheat imports headed by external affairs minister, Pranab Mukherjee which met last month approved the proposal. The empowered committee appointed by the finance ministry has also recommended hedging to cover the risk of increase in wheat price and freight, and also for the risk in fluctuations in foreign exchange.
 
It suggested that exchange traded wheat futures may be bought in order to cover the risk of rise in wheat prices. However, there may be a loss on account of decline in future prices, which will, however, be offset by lower wheat prices for physical imports.
 
In order to reverse losses in the future contracts due to drop in wheat prices, the empowered committee suggested that put options might be bought if considered necessary.
 
Put potion will enable the hedger to minimise its losses in the event of future prices dropping below a certain limit or range. Hedging should be done for the remaining quantity of wheat (1 million tonne) proposed to be imported in 2007-08.
 
The empowered committee has suggested that the government approve the hedging programme for 2008-09 and a long-term hedging strategy for formulating an effective policy. Last year, the government had imported 5.5 million tonne wheat at prices ranging between $178.75 and $228.94 a tonne.
 
Five tenders were floated between February 20, 2006 and August 30, 2006.
In 2007, the State Trading Corporation of India (STC) floated a tender in May which attracted bids for 306,000 tonne at $263 a tonne, but this was subsequently scrapped by the government citing high prices. Later, in response to a fresh tender floated in August, the government finalised bids for import of 795,000 tonne wheat at an average price of $389.45 a tonne.
 
The government's wheat import at high prices has also come under the Central Vigilence Commission's scanner. The CVC has also questioned as to why the government facilitated the food companies to procure 1.6 million tonne wheat from farmers in the current season. The CVC said there would have been no need for imports had the government procured this additional wheat from farmers.
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Sugar fed charts ways for mills to get competitive
 
 
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 at 0322 hrs IST
 
New Delhi, Oct 2 Tell farmers to grow sugar beet and sweet sorghum for cost-effective production of sugar. This is the word of wisdom from the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories (NFCSF) Ltd, the apex body of cooperative sugar mills.

The federation, which has drawn up a long-term perspective plan, has noted that very little efforts have been made to develop cane with high sugar content. The viable alternative would be to encourage farmers to grow sugar beet and sweet sorghum, which has better yield and high sugar recovery. These crops require lesser water as compared to canes.

The NFCSF also suggested that to minimise the cost of cane cultivation, farmers should be advised to use drip irrigation systems and also resort to ring plantation, tissue culture, application of bio-fertilisers and pest control, inter-cropping and timely substitution of seed to ensure healthy crops for high yield of sugar per hectare. Sugar mills have captive area of 15-km radius from where it can source cane from farmers and advise them on cultivation.

The NFCSF study compared the Indian situation with that in Brazil and noted that the sugar production cost in the Latin American country was about 55% of the world average as compared with 94% in India. The average cane prices in Brazil was 50% of the cane prices in India.

Admitting that it was not possible to reduce the cane prices due to socio-political reasons, the study suggested cultivation of alternate crops with high sugar content and technological upgrade of mills for reducing the high conversion cost.

It also suggested that mills go for co-products like ethanol production from molasses and from sugarcane juice (in times of surplus cane production), power cogeneration from bagasse, selling of bagasse to paper industries.

It also recommended adaptation of latest technology to process high-quality refined sugar for selling at a premium price in the global market.
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Pawar asks states to do away with taxes on ethanol
 
 
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 at 2338 hrs IST
 
New Delhi, Oct 3 Food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday asked state governments to remove all impediments on free and unrestricted movement of denatured ethanol and avoid imposition of state taxes to tackle the glut in availability of sugar in the country.
 
Emphasising that ethanol production would succeed only if continuous and adequate demand for ethanol is ensured, Pawar said, "The best way to achieve this is by including denatured ethanol of 99% strength in the list of special goods under the CST Act, 1956. Such a step will lead to many benefits from the point of the national objectives while improving the condition of a sugar industry and the sugarcane farmers to a large extent," he said.
 
Pawar also argued that fixing state advised prices (SAP) by different states over and above the statutory minimum price (SMP) fixed by the Central government is leading to huge cane price arrears. The gap between the SAP and SMP has been widening for some states quite drastically.
 
The gap in SAP and SMP has resulted in huge production of sugarcane and low sugar prices resulting in the sugar mills not being able to meet the cost of sugarcane and building up of cane price arrears. As compared to last year when there were practically no cane arrears, the arrears have risen to the tune of Rs 3,800 crore this year, affecting the entire sugar industry.
 
The domestic consumption of sugar is about 190-lakh tonne a year, production in the coming year is likely to be about 290-lakh tonne. This, together with the closing stock of about 119-lakh tonne of sugar from 2006-07, would result in a very large sugar stock in the country.
 
The minister stated that the measures taken to assist the sugar industry were not enough to liquidate such huge stocks. The answer to the cyclical problem faced by the sugar industry probably lies in converting surplus sugarcane directly to the ethanol, Pawar said.
 
The government has taken a number of steps such as creation of a buffer stock of 50-lakh tonne, waiver of margin requirement on the buffer stock and export assistance. The meeting of state finance minister and ministers in charge of sugar and sugarcane had been called to discuss issues relating to pricing of sugarcane and issues connected with ethanol production from sugarcane.
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