While the production of cotton has risen over the past few years with the shift towards Bt cotton, the cost of production has also gone up. Add to this the fact that selling prices have not kept pace and the ad hoc export policies of the government and we have a large number of heavily indebted farmers. A bad harvest, mounting debt and unsustainably low prices have pushed over 50,000 cotton-growing farmers in Maharashtra to suicide between 1995 and 2010.
