During the 2005-2006 period the total land under cultivation came up to around 140 million hectares of which 9 million is used for cotton production with about 1.5 million hectares for Bt cotton.
However, the land under the cultivation of Bt cotton is expanding steadily, which is led to reduction in the usage of pesticides.
While the production of Bt cotton rises, the demand for pesticides drops as the crops do not get attacked by insects like bollworm or caterpillar.
Pesticide sale during the 2005-2006 fiscal year is estimated to be lower at Rs35 billion from the previous year's sales of Rs38-40 billion.
Nevertheless, the problem will be much bigger when the almost 20 million hectares of land will be used to produce genetically modified crop.
Experts defend that the continuous rains also contributed to the fall in pesticide sales as the crops were mostly pest free.
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