P. Sainath The shift from cotton to soybean has major implications for agriculture, livelihoods and the future of the Vidharbha region. "The shift began a few seasons ago but has picked up' "Cotton gets more risky each season' "Soybean input costs are far lower' "Yes,' says Babanrao Khatale in Ashti. "In our village, 80 per cent of farmers have shifted from cotton to Soybean.' In Lonsawla in the same Wardha district, Prabhakar Argude, also a farmer, confirms "a major shift away from cotton. As for jowar, it has almost disappeared. It's now soybean all the way.' In Washim district, the changeover has already occurred. District Agriculture Officer N.V. Deshmukh says, "soybean cultivation shot up by 80,000 hectares between 2003 and last year when it touched 1.93 lakh hectares. And it might go up more.' In the same period, cotton fell to 59,000 hectares and could decline further. Even in Panderkauda, heart of cotton territory in Yavatmal where the fibre is still King, there could be a regime change this year. The agriculture office says that soybean might just slide past cotton. Historic Vidharbha is witnessing a historic shift as King Cotton loses ground to soybean. A shift that has major implications for agriculture, livelihoods and the future of the region. "It began a few seasons ago but has now picked up rapidly,' says Vijay Jawandia, a farmers' leader and the region's foremost thinker on agriculture. He says that the price for soybean today is more than double what farmers got just a year or two ago. That is, Rs. 2,600 a quintal against Rs. 1,200. Simply put: soybean is selling at more than twice the minimum support price. The prices have gone up, says Jawandia, because of problems hitting big producers like Argentina amd Brazil. "And reduced acreage for it in the United States. That cannot remain the case for long,' he points out. With cotton prices fluctuating over seasons and often declining sharply, lakhs of farmers have been lured by soybean. By end-2004 farmers were getting less than Rs. 1,800 a quintal of cotton on average. That has risen considerably this past year. Mainly because of large acreage shifts to biofuels in the United States. Since Vidharbha's prices had earlier tanked due to EU-U.S. subsidies to their cotton producers, they rose again with this shift. "But it's hard to see how long it can remain that way,' says Jawandia. Dismal cotton prices from the late 90s to last year were a major factor in the wave of suicides by indebted farmers. Soybean input costs are far lower. In Washim, Agriculture Department official P.D. Lokhande calculates that "input costs of soybean are at least Rs. 2,500 less for an acre than those of cotton.' That's a conservative estimate. Many farmers in Vidharbha run up input costs of over Rs. 13,000 an acre on cotton. Particularly those using Bt and other expensive technologies and chemicals. An acre of soybean can cost half that much to cultivate. "Cotton seed costs were even higher two years ago than they are now after government intervention,' says an agriculture department official. "Then, Bt cost Rs. 1,650 a bag of 450 grams. And people often stick to the practice of using two bags an acre even when not needed. Soybean, you can buy the 30 kilograms you need for an acre for Rs. 1,000.' "Labour costs are cheaper, too,' says Prabhakar Argude in Lonsawli. "In cotton you pay for sowing, spraying, five pickings and so on. With soybean it's for a couple of sprays and then the harvesting. What's more, soybean matures in four months