Fact Finding Visits by civil society groups

Monitoring of Bt Cotton on the ground by civil society groups was mainly in the form of systematic, season-long scientific investigations. In addition to that, monitoring was also done by other means by these groups.

Civil society groups tried to draw the attention of the regulators to various new issues cropping up, including new diseases, pests, large scale crop failure etc., by organising fact-finding visits to various cotton-growing locations.

Some of the fact finding visits organised by the Monitoring & Evaluation Committee [MEC] of civil society groups include visits to:

Warangal-2004, Warangal-2005, Khammam-2005, Guntur-2005 - all in Andhra Pradesh,

Salem-2005 in Tamil Nadu,

Nanded-2005 in Maharashtra and

Badwani-2005 in Madhya Pradesh.

The Monitoring & Evaluation Committee was set up by 20 civil society groups across five states during 2005-06 in response to the non-existent monitoring from the official MEC which is supposed to function under the DBT.