Orissa’s farmlands have become the battleground for several conflicting interests. There is the familiar battle over what should be grown — traditional food grains versus the more rewarding cash crops — but the more insidious battle is being waged over how the crops should be grown and what technology should be used. Cotton is the focus of this largely covert operation to wean farmers on a genetically modified (GM) regimen in a state which maintains that it intends to remain GM-free.