02.04.2012 | permalink
Bt cotton completed 10 years in India this week and Vidarbha farmers used the moment to raise their voice against the seed that once promised them gold. Instead, they cry, it has turned them into paupers. India commercialised its first transgenic crop, Bt cotton, in March 2002. [...] But in the impoverished belts of eastern Maharashtra, Bt technology started losing its sheen in 2005 as crops began to fail. [...| On the 10th anniversary of the introduction of this technology in India, as Punjab’s farmers return to organic farming, the Bt story seems to have come full circle.