Price difference of 30 USD of Monsanto Bt Cotton between China and India
"Before I answer, here are some important facts. Bolgard I was priced at Rs 1950 for a 450-gram packet and Monsanto garnered a sale of Rs 260 crore in the first cotton season justifying the astronomical price based on a “trait value” of Rs 1250 per packet. This author, while in China, noted that the same Bt cotton seed was selling at USD 2 a packet (equivalent to about Rs 100 then)–a far cry from the Rs 1950 charged to Indian farmers. An outcry followed, and the Andhra Pradesh government, where cotton is a principal crop, intervened, invoking the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices (MRTP) law and clamped a ceiling price at Rs 750. Still, the company made huge profits. Obviously, Monsanto had different business strategies in India and China. The Bt cotton produced by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences was offering stiff competition, while in India that was not the case, because both ICAR and the Central Cotton Research Institute chose to sleep, and when they woke up and tried, the attempt not only failed, but was a fraud."
[Difference of 30 USD; 32 USD in India and 2 USD in China][Rs = rupees; Crore (/ˈkrɔər/; abbreviated cr) is a unit in the South Asian numbering system equal to ten million][As of September 2014, 1 Indian Rupee = 0.016 US Dollar ; Rs 1950 = USD 32.02]
K P Prabhakaran Nair, "Failure of Monsanto Bt Cotton," The New Indian Express, December 6, 2013, accessed September 18, 2014, http://www.newindianexpress.com/columns/Failure-of-Monsanto-Bt-Cotton/20....