[Ngo-sanrm] Monsanto threatens to exit India if govt imposes cuts on GM royalties

Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources Management Working Group ngo-sanrm at ngocentre.org.vn
Mon Mar 7 09:22:23 ICT 2016


*Reuters, New Delhi
<http://www.hindustantimes.com/business/monsanto-threatens-to-exit-india-if-govt-imposes-cuts-on-gm-royalties/story-wM9mptHi2rCV6yVT1esbiO.html>*

Mar 04, 2016



*Monsanto threatens to exit India if govt imposes cuts on GM royalties*
[image: Inline image 1]

Monsanto Co, the world’s biggest seed company, threatened to pull out of
India on Friday if the government imposed a big cut in royalties that local
firms pay for its genetically modified cotton seeds.


Mahyco Monsanto Biotech (India)(MMB), a joint venture with India’s Mahyco,
licenses a gene that produces its own pesticide to a number of local seed
companies in lieu of royalties and an upfront payment.

MMB also markets the seeds directly, though the local licensees together
command 90% of the market.

Acting on complaints of local seeds companies that MMB was charging high
fees, the farm ministry last year formed a committee to look into the
matter.

The committee has now recommended about a 70% cut in royalty, or trait fee,
that the seed companies pay to MMB, government sources said. The farm
ministry is yet to take a decision on the committee’s recommendation.

“If the committee recommends imposing a sharp, mandatory cut in the trait
fees paid on Bt-cotton seeds, MMB will have no choice but to re-evaluate
every aspect of our position in India,” Shilpa Divekar Nirula, Monsanto’s
chief executive for the India region, said in a statement.

“It is difficult for MMB to justify bringing new technologies into India in
an environment where such arbitrary and innovation-stifling government
interventions make it impossible to recoup research and development
investments,” she said.

Shares of Monsanto India dropped as much as 7 pct to a near 2-year low
before ending down 2.4 pct.

MMB does not publish revenue figures or say how much it contributes to
Monsanto’s overall revenue.

Separately, MMB has filed a case in a Delhi court, challenging the
authority of the committee to determine the trade fee agreed upon by MMB
and a number of Indian seed companies.

In a partnership with Mahyco, US-based Monsanto launched a GM cotton
variety in India in 2002 despite opposition from critics who questioned its
safety, helping transform the country into the world’s top producer and
second-largest exporter of the fibre.

In a ruling last month, the Competition Commission of India, the antitrust
regulator, said there were indications that MMB had abused its dominant
position in the country and asked its director general to complete an
investigation within two months.

The government-appointed committee has also recommended cutting Bt cotton
seed prices to about 800 rupees for a packet of 400 grams. Currently Bt
cotton seeds are being sold between 830 and 1100 rupees in different parts
of the country.



*=============================================== CHUCK SEARCY International
Advisor, Project RENEW*

*Tư Vấn Viên Quốc tế, dự án RENEW*

*Co-Chair, NGO Agent Orange Working Group*



*Đồng Chủ tịch, Nhóm làm việc Phi chính phủ về Chất độc da cam Vice
President, Veterans for Peace Chapter 160 (Hoa Binh) Phó chủ tịch, Cựu
chiến binh vì Hòa bình, Chương 160 (Peace)*






*71 Trân Quốc Toản, Hà Nội, Việt Nam Tel:           +844 6684 2622  Mobile:
    +849 0342 0769  Skype:       chucksearcy Email:
chuckusvn at gmail.com  <chucksearcy at yahoo.com> Web:
       www.landmines.org.vn <http://www.landmines.org.vn/> *


*Web:          www.veteransforpeace.org
<http://www.veteransforpeace.org>**Web:
     vfp-vn.ning.com <http://vfp-vn.ning.com/>*

*===============================================*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://ngocentre.org.vn/pipermail/ngo-sanrm/attachments/20160307/285b73e8/attachment-0006.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.png
Type: image/png
Size: 348563 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://ngocentre.org.vn/pipermail/ngo-sanrm/attachments/20160307/285b73e8/attachment-0006.png 


More information about the Ngo-sanrm mailing list