Pricing of Bollgard cotton seeds for Indian market will be one of the major issue of discussion between Hugh Grant, CEO and President, Monsanto, and the Indian President and Prime Minster.
Andhra Government had sued the major provider of agricultural products and solutions for 'overcharging royalty'.
The case has been filed under the MRTP Act, claiming that the Indian farmers had to pay unusually high rates for Bt cotton seeds.
Raghuveera Reddy, Agriculture Minister, explained that Monsanto was charging Rs1250 for 450 grams of seeds while in the US, the same was pegged at Rs108 only.
The Central Government also has expressed its agreement with the step taken and a team of lawyers will be appointed to argue the case.
The Andhra Government reports that the Indian seed companies do not get more than Rs400 per packet from the sale.
The farmer pays Rs1800 per packet, three times more than the normal hybrid and difference goes to Monsanto.
Reddy said that the Government had tried to resolve the issue through several meetings, yet, Monsanto further raised the price to Rs1850 from Rs1700 in 2004.
Andhra Government banned the hybrids after a few failed to perform in the first year but is now one of the largest producers of Bt cotton.
Monsanto's Bollgard technology has been licensed to 21 Indian cotton seed companies which have included the trait into their best hybrid seeds.
Today, 20 Bollgard hybrids are being grown on 3.1 million acres across nine cotton growing states.
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