After three failed monsoons, Vidarbha cotton farmers quietly switch to millet

The first thing the rain did, when it finally came on the eighth of June last year, was wash away Suresh Bhoyar's last bag of Bt cotton seed.

He did not buy another bag. Instead, he walked to his mother's house, and asked for the brown cloth bundle she keeps on the top of the grain bin.

The bundle contained jowar — sorghum — seed his grandmother had saved in 1987.

Across the Vidarbha region of eastern Maharashtra, a slow and largely unannounced transition is underway.

My grandmother kept this seed for thirty-eight years. It was not for nothing.