Bt cotton
Critics including Vandana Shiva said that the crop failures could "often be traced to" Monsanto's Bt cotton, that the seeds increased farmer indebtedness and argued that Monsanto misrepresented the profitability of their Bt Cotton, causing losses leading to debt. In 2009, Shiva wrote that Indian farmers who had previously spent as little as ₹7 (rupees) per kilogram were now paying up to ₹17,000 per kilo per year for Bt cotton. In 2012 the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the Central Cotton Research Institute (CCRI) stated that for the first time farmer suicides could be linked to a decline in the performance of Bt cotton, and advised, "cotton farmers are in a deep crisis since shifting to Bt cotton. The spate of farmer suicides in 2011–12 has been particularly severe among Bt cotton farmers."