Punjab and Maharashtra have asked cotton farmers to step up pesticide sprays to ward off potential harmful bug attacks. Despite plentiful rains in most parts of the country, monsoon has been patchy in some areas of Punjab and Maharashtra. Dry weather conditions encourage pest attacks like the plant-eating whitefly.

While Punjab is not a major producer of cotton, Maharashtra is the second-biggest grower of the fiber. Farmers in Vidarbha and Marathwada regions have been asked to be vigilant for the next eight to ten days, when the crop is vulnerable to pest infestations. Whitefly hit cotton crops in Punjab and neighboring Haryana in 2015, when India suffered back-to-back drought years for only the fourth time in over a century.

India grows cotton on 11 million to 12 million hectares and is likely to have harvested 33.63 million bales in the 2016/17 season that started on October 1, slightly down from 33.78 million bales a year earlier. Cotton output has jumped fourfold since India allowed the genetically modified variety in 2002, transforming the country into the world’s top producer and second largest exporter of the fiber. Monsanto's lab-grown seeds yield nearly all of the cotton produced in India.