Bt Cotton–Groundnut Intercropping System: A Pragmatic Approach for Increasing Edible Oilseeds Production in India

Abstract

There are little possibilities of horizontal expansion of area under oilseeds at country level. This necessitates taking up some alternate measures of expanding the area under oilseeds and simultaneously taking the advantages of crop diversification in major cash crop of Bt-cotton in India through legume oilseeds like groundnut intercropping. For this purpose, the authors used change-point analysis to examine the changes in the groundnut area in major groundnut producing states of India after adoption of Bt-cotton during last decade. Trend of significantly increasing area under cotton and decreasing area under groundnut has been observed in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and at the national level in the last decade. Several studies in India concluded that Bt-cotton hybrids are sown at wider row spacing (90–120 cm) hence provide sufficient space for cultivation of short duration oilseed intercrop like groundnut. Farmers have an alternative option as Bt-cotton ? groundnut system which can yield more diversified income than the realized one from sole crop of Bt-cotton on one hand and to obtain the oilseed ingredients without extra allocation of land, on the other. If this technology can be adopted farmers may get at least half of the cotton producing area of India i.e. 5 million hectares and minimum 2 extra groundnut pod yield of 0.5 t ha -1 . India can thus produce 2.5 million tonnes more groundnut pod yield that can contribute to around 0.8 million tonnes of edible oil which can reduce the import load of edible oil.