The Maharashtra government has ordered the Indian unit of Bayer Crop Science, the world’s largest agrochemicals company, to pay 45 lakh as compensation to 164 farmers as one of its BT cotton hybrids did not deliver the promised yield, the first instance of a seed company being asked to make good farmers’ losses. “We welcome the fact that the government has taken the side of farmers,” said Kavitha Kuruganthi of the Association for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, an umbrella body for farmer-rights NGOs.