http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_13015.cfm

Monsanto's Gene-Altered Cotton in Asia Developing Pest Resistance from Mealy Bugs & Bollworms

• GM Watch (Europe), June 18, 2008
  Straight to the Source
  
  

1. Mealy bug threatens cotton crop in state
2. The mealy bug has entered Vidarbha cotton fields through the Bt cottonseed 3. Pest resistance rising

NOTE: Evidence out of China has already shown any initial reductions in pesticide use from Bt cotton being eroded by new pest problems. The researchers warned the same patern was likely to be repeated elsewhere, and this seems to be exactly what's happening in India (where major pest problems have been besetting Bt cotton in the Punjab, Vidarbha and Haryana - items 1 and 2), the US and South Africa (item 3). http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7432
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1. Mealy bug threatens cotton crop in state
RAJENDRA KHATRY Express India, June 18 2008 http://www.expressindia.com:80/latest-news/Mealy-bug-thre...

2. The mealy bug has entered Vidarbha cotton fields through the Bt cottonseed
Science in Society #38 Summer 2008 http://freepage.twoday.net/stories/4961144/

Letters to the Editor

Deadly gift from Monsanto to India

To follow up on your articles, Organic Cotton Beats Bt Cotton in India (SiS 27) and Message from Andra Predesh: Return to organic cotton & avoid the Bt cotton trap (SiS 29), I enclose photographs of mealy bugs infested cotton plants in the demonstration plots of different seed companies in Vidarbha: Ganga Kavari, Paras Bbhrahma, and Banny. All of the plots have the Bollgard label. These mealy bugs have never been in our region on any plants before Bt cotton was introduced. I learned about the devastation of cotton in China two years ago. This alerted me to photograph and video the demonstration plots regularly. So, anybody can say with confidence now that the mealy bug has entered Vidarbha cotton fields through the Bt cottonseed.

Now when the cotton plants have died, the mealy bug is shifting to nearby plants. By mid June, farmers will go for the new cotton crop or plant another crop. But before that, the bug will have multiplied like any thing. It has shifted to Congress weed nearby, and many other weeds and plants in gardens.

Read the rest of the letters and see the photographs here
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3. Pest resistance rising

+ USA: INSECT PRESSURE SHIFTING In the Southeast and Mid-South, stink bugs and plant bugs including lygus, tarnished plant bugs and cotton fleahoppers have become the primary problems on Bt cotton, which has provided an ideal environment for stink bugs and plant bugs to flourish.
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8868

+ SUPER BOLLWORM COMETH In the USA bollworms are developing resistance to Bt cotton - bollworms being the pest that Bt cotton was supposed to kill - and commercial pressures look set to weaken the refuge strategy that might have slowed down rising resistance.
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8868

+ RESISTANCE DEVELOPING IN SOUTH AFRICA TOO In South Africa the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) has published trial results that indicate stalk-borer larvae have developed resistance to Bt maize plants.
http://agribiotech.free.fr/van%20Rensburg.2007%20(first%2...