I have a cotton fetish: synthetic clothes are a strict no-no for me. From the day I have had a say in the matter, my wardrobe has consisted of one single fabric -- cotton. I even believed that I was realising the ideals of our founding fathers, supporting the nation's race towards becoming the world's largest cotton producer, and therefore a nation of cash-rich farmers. Lofty ideals and cool cottons. I thought I was so chic and cool, but Guntur changed all that.

This small town in the heart of the cotton-growing region of Andhra Pradesh sits deep in a pall of pesticide mist. As you get off the train, the first thing to hit your senses is the overwhelming smell of pesticides.

At the only 'decent' hotel in town, while being checked in, I was given a small bar of soap, a sachet of shampoo, and a mosquito repellant kit along with my keys. One would have thought that no mosquitoes or for that matter no insects would ever survive in this heavily-fumigated town.

A short walk around town established that besides being an important trading post, Guntur is also the main cotton ginning centre, with scores of mills where cotton fibre is separated from the seeds to produce lint, the raw ginned cotton ready for baling. Bullock-carts, trucks, tempos and tractors brimming with this white fluffy material are a pre-dominant feature of the traffic here.

I was here to investigate field trials of a new variety of cotton, Bt Cotton, a genetically altered species of cotton plant that its inventors, Monsanto, believe will be resistant to cotton's worst enemy, the bollworm (Helicoverpa Armigera). BT Cotton has been at the centre of global controversy over Genetic Engineering (GE) or Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in agriculture. The proponents see it as a permanent solution to the pest-pesticide cycle and the opponents are questioning both the scientific and social veracity of these claims. The European Union has rejected the technology and even small countries like Thailand and Japan have recently banned field-trials of GMOs.

Bollworms, of course, have a long history of playing havoc with the crops and lives of poor cotton farmers. Those self-same farmers who are helping our country beat USA and China to achieve record production and reach the exalted status of the world's third-largest cotton producer. Insects destroy an estimated 15 per cent of the world cotton crop each year. Various types of bollworms and boll weevils do most of the damage. Traditionally, cotton growers have controlled insects mainly with chemical insecticides. Cotton takes up 52-59 per cent of the pesticide share in the country when its cropped area only equals 5 per cent.

Progressively deadly poisons have been developed by corporations like Monsanto as insecticides to control these persistent pests, the enemies of the crop, the farmer and the nation. But after over 50 years of rampant pesticide use, the bollworms grew resistant to the poison. With subtle alteration in its likes and dislikes, the bollworm decided to accept pesticides as a staple diet and grew from strength to strength, to the dismay of the poor farmers. For many who were caught in debt-traps carefully laid out by either moneylenders or the local seed-fertiliser-pesticide suppliers, the failure of yet another crop meant suicides among farmers.

Meanwhile, Monsanto changed their line of business and decided to play god and alter the basic genetic make-up of the cotton seed in the hope that subtle changes of the plant's characteristics would chase the bollworm away.

Driving around the farms, the constant drone of the ubiquitous spraying machines drowns all sounds. Farm labourers carrying spraying machines on their backs trudge through four-five-feet-high cotton fields releasing a steady white spray of deadly pesticides. The labourers have no visible protection except maybe a gamcha wrapped around their faces.

They are spraying dicofol, illegal ddt, kjj jjlkj jlj...anything they can get their hands on which has an impressive skull-and-bone sign and the word DANGER in at least 32 languages. At an ITC-sponsored tobacco research centre the showcase developments include a bullock-cart-borne tank with a huge multiple sprayer attached on two long booms. They were developing the 'soak' technology here.

On some farms, cotton plucking was on in full swing, with men and women using both their hands to pluck the white fluffy balls from the plants and shove them into bags on their backs.

Finally we arrived at ANGRAU, Lam Farm (Agricultural Research Station) where I witnessed history growing on a small plot. My first-ever sighting of the controversial field trials of a genetically altered crop, the new frontier of science and food production. A small red board simply stating 'Bt Cotton - Field Trials' identified the historic plot. The sheer proximity of the plot (way less than the stipulated 50 mts) to other fields had me wondering whether any lessons were learnt from the chemical disaster that the modern agricultural sector has unleashed on humankind.

Bt cotton was introduced commercially in the USA in 1996. The Bt toxin occurs in nature and has been safely used in many organic pest control sprays. Genetically engineered BT cotton incorporates the toxin in the seed itself where the Bt protein crystals pierce the intestine of a small number of insects, of which the cotton Boll weevil is the prime target. Unfortunately Bt does not discriminate between 'pests' and beneficial insects such as the monarch butterfly, lacewings and ladybirds. Populations of these could be severely depleted, making it difficult to get out of the chemical-dependence cycle, and causing impacts higher up the food chain.

According to environmentalists, Monsanto-Mahyco first attempted to field test Bt cotton in India in 1998. Controversies and illegalities were exposed; the trials were stopped. Monsanto had flouted rules and applied to the wrong committee for permission. Evidence also showed that planting had taken place before permission had been granted. Despite this and the fact that a Supreme Court case challenging the previous field trials is ongoing, permission was granted to Monsanto-Mahyco in July 2000 to conduct large-scale field trials and even commence with the production of seed. Claims were made that due to the 'satisfaction' of laboratory experiments and small-scale trials conducted so far, permission to conduct large-scale tests had been given. No information regarding the results of any tests conducted so far has been released publicly.

No wonder environmentalists are crying themselves hoarse. Most of the plants in this plot were obviously ridden with pests, which in itself is self-defeating. To top that, the sheer lack of transparency as well as the stealth and hurry employed in starting the field trials is extremely curious. Apparently the plot that I was witnessing was planted in November (way after the usual sowing season of June-July). At Lam agricultural research station, the sheer lack of interest in the GE plot was probably because the plot was planted purely for paper-pushing purposes. "Look, we have done field-trials successfully and we are, therefore, allowed to commence seed production," is the argument that Mahyco will soon put forward and then go into high gear, dumping Bt cotton seeds on unsuspecting farmers through their vast network of distributors in rural India.

The same distribution network that has unleashed chemical poisons on our rural landscape. The poor debt-ridden and frustrated farmer by then will have very little choice and before we know it, large tracts of land will be under Bt cotton. In a country where there has been no debate whatsoever on whether we should accept genetically modified organisms to begin with. After the initial hue and cry when KRRS, a Karnataka farmers' political party, burnt down field trials, only Vandana Shiva, Greenpeace and a few scientists have questioned the veracity of claims by the proponents of the new technology. A technology that is being rejected by a growing number of European countries: even Thailand has banned genetically modified organisms.

So do I give up my fetish for cotton? Not necessarily, I am informed. The concept of Non Pesticidal Management (NPM) is the new buzzword in organic circles. NPM came about to restore the natural ecology in the villages and is based on conservation of bio-diversity, sustainable system of crop production which leads to maximum productivity and profitability. This is done with the help of locally-available, environmentally-sound pest control components such as neem, chilli-garlic, parasites, predators and so on.

Some of the methods of NPM are deep summer ploughing, intercropping tolerant varieties to sucking pests, planting trap crops, neem seed kernel extract, chilli-garlic extract, tobacco decoction, cattle dung-urine extract, pheromone traps, light traps and bonfires.

By the time I was on a train back to Hyderabad I was convinced that organic cotton was the future. I decided to mend my ways and demand only organic cotton when it came to replenishing my wardrobe the next time.

(Shailendra Yashwant is a senior photo-journalist who has worked with The Hindu, Outlook and The Independent. He is associated with the toxic campaign of Greenpeace and has been documenting the subcontinent's ecological problems for several years.)