But as is so often the case, neither side’s explanation fully captures the situation on the ground. For that we must turn to a brilliant new paper by anthropologist Glenn Davis Stone, ”Agricultural Deskilling and the Spread of Genetically Modified Cotton in Warangal,” from the February issue of Current Anthropology.

Since 2000, Stone has spent some 45 weeks doing field research on Warangal farmers’ cotton seed choice decision-making process. There is a granularity to his research, embedded in careful anthropological theory, that puts most conventional ”investigative reporting” to shame. And unlike so many commentators on the topic of genetic modification, he comes neither to promote nor condemn. His purpose is to understand.