go mali

Good on them. I hope they can resist the giant seed manufacturers. These people aren’t stupid, something the big biotechs were banking on, I suspect.

“The claims they are making for this cotton are absolutely false.”

Ms Samake explains that BT cotton has been modified with the introduction of genes of the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensi so it can secrete toxins to resist two or three major cotton pests.

She says that in Mali there are thousands of cotton pests and that when a few are removed from the natural equation, others will flourish and farmers will still need pesticides.

“If BT cotton is so profitable, why do they have to subsidise their cotton farmers with billions of dollars in the United States?” Ms Samake asks.

“Our farmers in West Africa achieve record production using just their digging sticks and regular seeds and they have great difficulty selling what they produce, because subsidies in America and Europe have made the world price for cotton fall.

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