Monsanto’s decision to withdraw its application for Bollgard II Roundup Ready Flex technology is posing a big challenge to the government’s policy on licensing seeds technology. The move is significant as it comes at a time when the government is in the middle of a consultation on whether to limit royalty rates of seed-tech companies at 10 per cent of the seed price for the first five years followed by a 10% reduction in each of the following years.

Since this order, by way of a gazette notification, came just before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US, media attention forced the government to pass it off as a discussion paper. Last year, the government came out with a seeds price order which not only resulted in the price of the GM seeds being cut sharply, the cut was far sharper for trait values, or the royalty that firms like Monsanto charge for giving their technology to seed-producing firms.

While the Bollgard II seeds price was cut from Rs 930 per bag of 450 grams of seed and 120 gram of refugia seed to Rs 800, the trait fee was cut from Rs 163 to Rs 42. While the seed company took a hit of Rs 121 per bag, other seed companies took a hit of just Rs 9 per bag.
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Agriculture made a complaint to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and asked it to probe allegations of anti-competitive practices by Monsanto. This was based on the complaints of seed companies who were selling Monsanto’s seeds under license.