Bt Cotton all fluffed up ; A surge in prices has transformed cotton farmers' lives, helped by Bt Cotton in no small measure.

On a hot afternoon late in April, about a dozen of farmers atHalvad tehsil in Gujarat's Surendra nagar district, 160 km southwestof Ahmedabad, are busy cleaning their fields and tilling the soil.The sowing season will begin from the middle of May and most farmersare anticipating the hybrid Bt (Bacillus Thuringiensis) cotton seedswill, like last year, yield a bountiful harvest again.

Ashwin Babulal, a 27-year-old in the group, has been farming Btcotton since 2003. His cotton cultivation on six acres has given himmuch higher yields - around Rs 40,000 each acre - apart fromreducing his expenses on pesticide by Rs 4,000 per acre. Theincreased income over the past …