As poor farmers kill themselves as a consequence of growing the "seeds of debt and death", India is being lobbied to provide state subsidies for GM seeds - the most prevalent of which are being aggressively marketed by a multi-billion dollar US corporation and its local partner (Mahyco-Monsanto) - to "enable technology penetration".
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Indian fund for biotech subsidy of transgenic seeds
Kerala.com, January 26, 2006
http://www.checkbiotech.org/root/index.cfm?fuseaction=news&doc_id=12119&start=1&control=187&page_start=1&page_nr=101&pg=1

The Association of Biotechnology led Enterprises (ABLE) has sought the Centre to provide for a Rs 200 crore fund to compensate states that provide subsidy specifically to approved transgenic seeds besides relaxing of export oligation for biotech parks availing Special Economic zone status.

In a pre budget memorandum to Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, ABLE had stated that the deployment and growth of BT cotton seeds in the last three years has unequivocally demonstrated the benefits of transgenic technology in Indian Agriculture.

The transgenic seeds were currently costing three to four times more than the price of the non-transgenic counterpart, basically due to high ivnestments in developing and in licensing the technology besides the high regulatory costs that commercialisation of such technologies entailed.

Though the high seed cost was more than compensated by the tangible benefits that the technology provided, it made the technology unaffordable, at least in the initial years to the small and subsistence farmers of this country. Hence it sought partial subsidy to the seed cost for small farmers which would not only enable technology penetration but also help farmers gain the most from such technologies. Further, subsidy for the approved varieties of transgenic seeds would also effectively curb the menace of unapproved and fake transgenic seeds, which is rampant in the country today ABLE said.

ABlE referring to the investment in the sector said Biotech entrepreneurs face great difficulty in obtaining bank financing as this sector has a high risk profile with long gestation period which were not conducive to lending. Currently, lending to the Agri-business sector as well as to Venture Funds was categorised as +Priority Sector Lending. Whilst Agri-Biotech could avail of such lending, the rest of the sector which was equally risk prone was unable to access such finance and hence it recommended that lending to the Biotechnology sector be categorised as Priority Sector Lending. This step would surely spur the Biotech business in the country, ABLE said.

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