Unable to repay their debts, more than 500 farmers committed suicide. Investigation revealed that unscrupulous pesticide traders had sold adulterated stock or advised farmers to spray more often than necessary, leading to the pests quickly developing resistance to the chemicals. Unlike artificial pesticides, organic pesticides like Bt do not have adverse environmental effects, scientists say. For more than 50 years, organic farmers have sprayed plants with Bt, a pesticide produced by a soil bacterium. Monsanto's scientists spliced the Bt gene into seeds of cotton and potato plants.
Plants sprouting from the genetically modified seeds produce their own pesticide.
From root to shoot, flowers to fruit, all parts of the plant contain the Bt pesticide. The United Nations estimates that 840 million people are hungry around the world, mostly in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and sub-Saharan Africa. The problem will worsen as populations rise but the amount of arable land remains the same at 1.7 billion acres, it says. Still, there are widespread worries around the world about whether genetically engineered plants have unknown risks. Consumers in Europe have rejected or demanded stricter labeling of genetically engineered foods.