One warm afternoon several years ago, I was walking with Korianna,* a farmer in Telangana, India, when I smelled something bad. The scent of diesel and sulfur wafted over the dusty red clay and fertile black earth characteristic of the Deccan plateau. Korianna pointed to fields of tightly planted, vibrant green cotton in the distance, where a neighboring villager was using a motorized sprayer to unleash pesticides onto crop rows. “When they start to face losses, they’ll want to join us,” he told me.
March 10, 2021