On a sunny morning in the summer of 2017, a women’s Self-Help Group (SHG) at Jana, a village in the Gumla district of Jharkhand, congregated beneath a tamarind tree, their usual meeting place. They were discussing loans to be given to members to buy chemical fertilizers and hybrid seeds. Since costs of these inputs were high, members needed loans.
A few elderly people in the village got up and shared their concerns. They were worried about the increasing use of hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Were the villagers getting overly influenced by advertisements put out by. . .