Local and global elites join hands: development and diffusion of Bt cotton technology in Gujarat

While experts and activists question genetically engineered seed technology in the name of farmers’ interests and a greater democratic future, farmers themselves are voting with their feet in its favour.

This paper looks at the development and diffusion of Bt (bacillus thuringiensis) seed technology by farmers in Gujarat and how it finds a smooth insertion in the social and agrarian space shaped by the technological culture of the green revolution. It looks at GM technology as a solution to the problems generated by the green revolution, and discusses how this sustains and reinforces the hegemony of global and local elites.

The author argues that the development and diffusion of Bt seed technology by farmers themselves implies that the technology finds a smooth insertion in the social and agrarian space shaped by the technological culture of green revolution. Technological culture thus both constitutes and creates the configuration of social space in the context of which certain practices are followed. GM technology is therefore a solution to the problems generated in the green revolution has sustained and reinforced the hegemonic supremacy of global and local elites.

The paper concludes by proposing that the incompatibility of a technological culture such as integrated pest management with the dominant hegemonic paradigm of the green revolution could potentially inaugurate a different social space and thus herald a process of democratisation.