For Arul Venkatesan, a cotton-growing farmer in the Aroor block of Dharmapuri district, the stand that Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa took in the Assembly in August, that her government will not “promote” GM crops in the State, “struck the ears like music”. Venkatesan was one among the thousands of farmers in the State who shifted to Bt cotton in 2005, after it was widely publicised as a “pest-resistant” and “high-yielding” variety by “scientists”, who held orientation programmes in the villages. [...]

“I sowed all my four acres with the 6,918 variety seed that they guaranteed would give huge profits. The plant grew well as we devotedly followed every instruction. But the crop never flowered. Zero yield pushed the entire belt of 2,500 hectares where farmers like me had cultivated Bt cotton, into distress,” he recalls.