The last two decades have been full of crop pitches that sounded practical on paper and looked convincing in early presentations. Some came dressed as climate friendly alternatives, some as technology upgrades, and some as a switch into horticulture that would supposedly smooth incomes.

On farms of Vidarbha, the results were decided by input costs, water, pests, buyer chains, and whether compensation systems worked when the weather turned hostile.

When those pieces did not line up, the risk landed on the cultivator’s balance sheet. Debt did not come from one bad week. It came from repeated seasons of spending first and getting paid later, or not getting paid at all.

1. Jatropha: the biodiesel crop that never became a farm income crop

Jatropha entered the region as a promise that sounded tailor made for dryland households, a hardy plant that would grow on marginal land and still deliver marketable oilseeds. A high profile push in the late 2000s included talk of large plantation targets, job creation, and even a local processing plant model linked to Khamgaon in Buldhana district. The pitch worked because it combined two powerful ideas, fuel security and rural income, while framing the crop as low maintenance once established.

The problem was that the crop’s real economics were slow and uncertain, with long gestation before meaningful harvests and uneven yields that depended on management, moisture, and genetics. Many programmes treated the crop like a quick cash option, but the farm reality was that time and labour were locked in for years before the first serious payout. When purchase arrangements were weak or buyers disappeared, farmers were left holding a crop with limited local marketing options and no stable price discovery.

National reporting on the biodiesel drive shows how the wider jatropha rollout struggled because seed supply did not scale as expected, plantation maintenance costs were underestimated, and blending targets were not met in the way cultivators were led to assume. Once early enthusiasm cooled, the buyer chain became patchy, and the crop stopped looking like an assured income stream. The economics also did not suit smallholders who could not afford to wait multiple seasons for a return while still meeting household expenses and repaying credit. In many cases, the supposed advantage of being grown on marginal land turned into a disadvantage, because low fertility and low moisture reduced output and made the crop even less profitable. The net outcome was that a crop marketed as a low risk add on became a high risk diversion of land, labour, and patience, especially where plantations replaced food or fodder priorities. In Buldhana and nearby areas, the mismatch between investment narratives and actual farm gate monetisation is what turned the experiment into a loss making episode rather than a durable livelihood option.

2. Bt cotton: a technology promise that met pest resistance and a pesticide cost spiral

Bt cotton was not introduced as an experiment in the casual sense. It arrived as a technology upgrade that quickly became the default choice in much of Maharashtra’s cotton belt. The promise was simple. Bollworm control with fewer sprays and better yields, which would translate into higher net returns after input costs. Over time, the crop’s field performance became more complicated, especially when pink bollworm began breaking through and resistance to Bt traits was reported. A major warning point came when reporting noted that Bt cotton was no longer reliably resistant to pink bollworm in Maharashtra, with research based concerns that resistance to widely used Bt traits had emerged. When resistance spreads, the technology not only loses its edge, but it also flips the cost equation because farmers continue to pay for premium seed while also returning to frequent pesticide applications. That double spend is the core reason many households felt poorer even when cotton acreage stayed high.

The pest problem was not abstract. Coverage and field studies describe extensive damage episodes linked to pink bollworm pressure, with some farmers reporting large losses in standing crop when infestations surged. When yields fall in a credit financed crop, the pain is amplified because repayment schedules do not shrink with the harvest. This is also where the spraying economy becomes central to farm distress. In 2017, the cotton spraying season in Yavatmal district turned into a public health crisis, with hundreds of farmers and farm workers reportedly poisoned while spraying pesticides on cotton fields, and reported deaths in a short period. Investigations and reports described the conditions around these incidents, including hazardous pesticide cocktails, inadequate protective gear, and intense pressure to spray in order to protect the crop. The financial side of this episode is often missed in quick summaries, but it matters because a heavy spray regime means repeated cash outflows for chemicals, labour, and equipment, followed by the risk of crop damage anyway.

For farming families, this turns cotton into a year where cost decisions are made under the fear of pest loss, and each additional spray feels like the only way to protect sunk costs. It also creates dependence on dealer advice and product availability, which can lead to inappropriate mixes and high expenditure. The result is that the technology, which was expected to reduce pesticide use, becomes part of a cycle where pesticide use rises again, and the cost per hectare climbs. In a rain fed setting, one rainfall gap or one pest spike can wipe out the margin that was supposed to justify the crop. When this repeats over several seasons, households do not merely face a bad year. They face a compounding gap between cultivation cost and net returns. That gap is why cotton, particularly under the later phase of Bt performance and pest resistance dynamics, is often cited in accounts of farm debt and distress in the cotton belt.

3. Citrus orchards, including sweet lime shifts: high value farming hit by insurance distrust and weather mismatch

Horticulture has often been presented as the way out of commodity crop volatility, and citrus has long been central to that idea in the Nagpur belt. The orchard model is attractive because it suggests a move from an annual gamble to a productive asset that can generate returns over multiple seasons. Farmers have also switched within citrus, including moves from oranges to sweet lime, with the expectation that a different crop profile may reduce stress from pests, input cycles, and water constraints. On the ground, orchard economics can fail for reasons that look administrative, not agronomic, especially when extreme weather hits, and compensation systems do not respond. A recent reporting account on citrus farmers described a steady erosion of trust in crop insurance, including a marked fall in participation over time and detailed comparisons of premium collections versus claim payouts across years. When fewer farmers are insured, it is often because earlier experiences created a belief that claims will not arrive when they are needed.

The recent dispute over fruit crop insurance payouts shows how this distrust becomes formal conflict. Farmers approached the court complaining that they paid premiums expecting a specified compensation level per hectare for weather related losses, but received a much lower payout amount. The record in coverage of the petition includes the claimed expected figure and the received figure, showing the magnitude of the gap that can make an orchard household feel financially trapped after a damaging rain event. Regional language reporting added further detail on rainfall during the loss window and on the pooled funding contributions for the scheme, reinforcing that farmers viewed the short payout as inconsistent with the promise of the product they bought. When a weather based insurance design fails to match localised damage, the farmer sees it as a denial, not as a technical limitation. That perception matters because orchard farmers invest upfront in saplings, fertiliser, irrigation hardware, and years of maintenance before a full bearing phase, and a single damaging event can erase several years of effort.

The orchard experiment also collides with water realities. Citrus is not a low water crop, and in a region where groundwater stress is repeatedly discussed, the cost of maintaining an orchard during hot spells rises fast. Weather shocks such as heavy rain in short bursts, hail, and storms can directly damage fruiting and can also trigger disease pressure, forcing extra sprays and interventions. If insurance does not cover the loss in a way that feels proportional, the household carries both the crop damage and the continuing cost of keeping trees alive for the next season. Market risks then add a second layer, because even a surviving crop can fetch poor prices if arrival gluts occur or quality falls after weather damage. The combined outcome is that horticulture, often sold as a safer upgrade, can become a slow moving financial squeeze when risk transfer mechanisms fail, and the cost of keeping the asset productive becomes unpredictable. This is why citrus, including sweet lime switches in the broader citrus economy, sits alongside other failed crop experiments when farmers describe how they ended up poorer even after choosing what looked like a premium crop.

These three crop experiments share a common pattern of promises built around one strong advantage, but outcomes are decided by missing links in the chain. In Jatropha, the missing link was a reliable buyer and a realistic timeline for returns that matched household cash needs. In cotton, the missing link was sustained pest control without returning to high cost chemical dependence, especially once resistance dynamics changed field behaviour. In citrus, the missing link was a compensation mechanism that farmers felt was dependable when weather wiped out a season’s income. None of these outcomes required dramatic policy shifts to damage incomes. They were driven by everyday farm economics where spending happens first, and payments arrive later. The losses were also uneven, hitting smallholders harder because they have less ability to absorb a failed season and less room to wait for long gestation payoffs. Together, they show how a crop can be pushed as a solution and still deepen distress when the risk is transferred to farmers, but the protection systems and market certainty do not keep pace.