1. Case Study: Bt Cotton in Warangal Glenn Stone Anthropology and Environmental Studies Context: global GMO debates Focus on actual operation small farms

2. Hybrid Cotton, Gujarat, 1970s Also New World species (Gossypium hirsutum) rather than indigenous (G. arboretum, G. herbaceum)

3. Nationwide data OPV’S (Commercial proprietary hybrids are less tested, and have been released in swarms )

4. Percentages of proprietary hybrid cotton seeds

5. Effects: Pesticide Treadmill & Debt Cotton crops ravaged by pests Lepidopteran bollworms Flies (sucking pests) Pesticide sprayings skyrocket

6. Bt cotton

7. But 56% rise in 2002-4 when Bt adoption was under 6%

8. And yields declining for last 3 years when Bt adoption was highest

9. Declines continued for 4 th straight year. In A.P., yields are lower than they were before Bt became popular

10. Effects: Agricultural Deskilling Due to rapid change in seeds & pesticides Vendors in Warangal City: collectively sold 125 cotton brands (61 companies) between 2003-05 of the 78 brands in 2005, only 24 had been around since 2003 Pesticide treadmill. Ever changing menu of hybrid seeds

11. Theorizing Agricultural Deskilling Disruption of ongoing process of learning to perform with available technology Proximate causes mostly from proprietary hybrid seed market: Unrecognizability Inconsistency Rapid change in technologies & products Over-reliance on social learning when environmental learning is inaccurate / costly Reflected in pure social learning without environmental basis Stone, G. D. 2007 Agricultural Deskilling and the Spread of Genetically Modified Cotton in Warangal. Current Anthropology 48:67-103.

12. Theorizing Agricultural Deskilling H. Braverman 1974, Labor and Monopoly Capital : The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century Behavioral ecology (Boyd & Richerson 1985, Culture and the evolutionary process; Henrich, McElreath) Cultural biases (e.g., conformist bias) Rely increasingly on emulation when environmental payoff info is scarce, expensive, unreliable Information cascade theory (Banerjee 1992, “A simple model of herd behavior.”; Bikhchandani et al. 1992, “A theory of fads, fashion, custom, and cultural change as informational cascades”) Decision-makers follow others’ example rather than own signal, encouraging others to override own signal

13. Breakdown in Environmental Learning

14. `

15. Deskilling Reflected in Seed Fads Seed brands follow boom & bust cycles Neighboring villages often have different favorites No agro-ecological rationale

18. VillageFad seedYearFarms censused% buying fad seed GudeppadRCH-220056896% GudeppadMallika20086192% SRPMallika20085890% KalledaMallika20082588% RavuruMallika20086386% SRPRCH-220056673% KalledaRCH-220052763% RavuruBrahma20023658% KalledaBrahma20032952%

19. Bt introduced Bt adopted Villages Lumped

21. Sociological writing on fashion Veblen (1899, Theory of the Leisure Class) Finding new fashion beautiful followed by “aesthetic nausea” Period length governed by “intrinsic odiousness of the style” Analog here: seeds inherently unproductive? (not really) Simmel (1904, Fashion) Fashions are adopted by elites to demarcate themselves As non-elites emulate, elites change style to again demarcate Assumption of technological progression Farmers bombarded with narratives of agriculture depending on external science Reinforced by ongoing experience with generations of pesticides Leads to implicit belief that new seeds are superior (directly opposing the narrative of seed saving) Theorizing Fads