Nagpur: Shetkari Sangathana continues with planting HT seeds

NAGPUR: After Nagpur, Shetkari Sangathana activists and farmers supporting the organization continued to plant the unapproved herbicide tolerant (HT) seeds in other parts of the state. After the seeds were planted in a five-acre farm at Patan Sawangi village of Saoner taluka in Nagpur on Wednesday, the drive took place in one village each of Ahmednagar and Aurangabad districts of the state on Thursday.
The Shetkari Sangathana is pressing for allowing mass use of the genetically modified (GM) HT seeds apart from similar varieties of brinjal and mustard. It started an open defiance movmennt from June 10, named as Kisan Satyagraha in which activists and farmers are openly planting the HT seeds despite the ban.
The Shetkari Sangathana has been stressing that despite being illegal the seeds have been accepted by farmers at large, on account of the advanced technology. The seeds are genetically engineered to be resistant to herbicides made out of glyphosate. Farmers can easily get rid of overgrowth on the fields by spraying glyphosate instead of manually removing the weeds which involves a major labour cost.