Jasvir Singh Banth, 32, sits surrounded by colourful containers labelled Army, Fighter, Super Fighter, Lethal, Malamaal, Spark, Axe, Arjun, or Rogorin. A small red triangle on the label signifies what the cans contain: poison.

Banth's pesticide shop is the only one in a 7-8 kilometre radius. He started in 1995. He has a diploma in electrical engineering. But another diploma, attained via a correspondence course on agriculture, provided him intrinsic knowledge about the business. Customers throng the shop. "Last season, business was good. But this belt is the worst as far as sale of pesticides is concerned, compared to all of Punjab.' He points to the containers. "We mostly sell 50 ml to one litre packs. In other districts, one litre is the minimum packing size. There, you talk of 10, 20 and 50 litre drums,' he adds. Why is this so? "Small land holdings and the kind of crops grown here,' he says. People here grow vegetables: "Therefore, pesticide use is nothing compared to the cotton belt and rest of Punjab.'

How does the business work? "Most farmers who initially come do not know much about what to use. They just tell us the problem, and we tell them what to use and how much,' says Banth. "We systematically tell the farmers how to apply and in what quantity. If they spray less, it will have no affect and go waste. Certain pesticides, like cypermethrin, will dry up the plants if sprayed in greater quantities. So the farmer has to be careful. Others, like chlorpyrifos and endosulfan, have no adverse affect even if over-sprayed,' says Banth.

A farmer arrives. He wants something to kill termites. Banth hands over a 100 ml bottle of Chlorotox