These (Bt….) are technologies developed for mega scale agriculture of the west, where individual crops are grown on very large holdings under massively controlled environments. Where incidentally Bt cotton along with maize have been cultivated since the mid nineties, and profits have not dipped at all, nor are there disaster stories….. But as you rightly say when subsistence farmers become targets of such untried technologies in environments that have traditionally been used for multi-crops, multi-purposes where small land holdings are used for a major crop, food and vegetable farming and may also include small animal farming, highly sophisticated technologies like GMO that have not been under prolonged field tests under such conditions naturally give unfavorable, unpredictable results. These farmers cannot experiment with a crop or a subset of crop to see if it really works better for them. As even one seasons crop failure will put him on a track of events that cascade only downhill. Add to this innate corruptness from government agencies, middle men, moneylenders and a loud NGO sector that never seems to decide whether it is fighting for the farmers or for its own survival.

The extreme monitoring that goes on in the west where GMO are being grown can be seen from the fact, that an alarm has been sounded that some resistant forms of pests have started to appear in the US, that is all flora and fauna in and around these fields are completely under surveillance, collection of pests and changes in their habits are recorded meticulously. And when something amiss is noticed be assured steps will be taken to trouble shoot it. In other words they still consider the GMO technology as a huge experiment, where it is anticipated that things may go wrong. Whereas in the developing countries we receive such technologies as the end to problems, end to low yields and low profits and hence set ourselves or rather the subsistence farmer for disaster as is being played out in Vidarbha……………other than technology misuse or rather ill use, market practices where the west has its vested interest in having their cotton flooding our markets may be the bigger reasons or the main reasons that this situation has come about in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Madya Pradesh, until all the factors responsible are analyzed by a group of non partisan experts, scientists and economists, separating correct facts from wrong facts is very difficult and the chances to remedy the situation seems to slip further and further away from us.