Burkina Faso bans GM cotton because of fall in quality

Ouagadougou

BURKINA Faso, Africa's top cotton producer and the sole West African nation to venture into biotech farming, is dropping genetically-modified (GM) cotton on quality grounds.

The world's 10th largest cotton producer, with four million of its 19 million people dependent on the "white gold", Burkina Faso earlier this month said that it was giving up Monsanto's GM Bt cotton because it had proved uneconomical.