"Shankara, like millions of other Indian farmers, had been promised previously unheard of harvests and income if he switched from farming with traditional seeds to planting GM seeds instead. Beguiled by the promise of future riches, he borrowed money in order to buy the GM seeds. But when the harvests failed, he was left with spiralling debts - and no income. So Shankara became one of an estimated 125,000 farmers to take their own life as a result of the ruthless drive to use India as a testing ground for genetically modified crops.... 'We are ruined now,' said [another farmer's] 38-year-old wife. 'We bought 100 grams of BT Cotton. Our crop failed twice. My husband had become depressed. He went out to his field, lay down in the cotton and swallowed insecticide'"
"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is FDA's job." Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications (referring to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) explained the company's regulatory philosophy to Michael Pollan in 1998. The Monsanto Company is a U.S. -based multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation. It is the world's leading producer of the herbicide "Roundup". Monsanto is also the leading producer of genetically engineered (GE) seed;it sells 90% of the world's GE (genetically engineered) seeds.It is behind introduction of Bt Cotton in India and now trying to push Bt Brinjal. With this kind of philosophy in a company, one can guess what ethics and humanity it could have towards the poor farmers who are their main market.
Farmers in Indiaare finding that the "biotechnologyrevolution" is having a devastating effect on their crop lands and personal debt levels. "In 1998, the World Bank's structural adjustment policies forced India to open up its seed sector to global corporations like Cargill, Monsanto, and Syngenta. The global corporations changed the input economy overnight. Farm saved seeds were replaced by corporate seeds which needed fertilizers and pesticides and could not be saved" Says Vandana Shiva, leader of the movement to oust Monsanto from India in her 2004 article The Suicide Economy Of Corporate Globalisation. "As seed saving is prevented by patents as well as by the engineering of seeds with non-renewable traits, seed has to be bought for every planting season by poor peasants. A free resource available on farms became a commodity which farmers were forced to buy every year. This increases poverty and leads to indebtedness. As debts increase and become unpayable, farmers are compelled to sell kidneys or even commit suicide. Seed saving gives farmers life. Seed monopolies rob farmers of life" .
"Since 1997, 182,936 Indian farmers have taken their lives and the numbers continue to rise. According to a recent study by the National Crime Records Bureau, 46 Indian farmers kill themselves every day – that is roughly one suicide every 30 minutes – an alarming statistic in a country where agriculture is the economic mainstay".
Yet even this number may be underestimated. It is unarguably the Largest Wave of Suicides in History.
This has been called a genocide . Says the Deccan Herald, "Bt cotton requiring more water than hybrid cotton, was knowingly promoted so as to allow the seed industry to make profits. What happens to the farmers as a result was nobody's concern. And never was.... Strange, the country has already jumped into the second phase of green revolution without first drawing a balance sheet of the first phase of the technology era. Such an approach will only worsen the crisis, and force more farmers to commit suicide or abandon their farms. As a result, India is sure to witness the worst environmental displacement the world has known and this will be in the field of agriculture."
"Farmers across India are in distress and despair,' said Kishor Tiwari, a farmer rights activist, 'but Vidarbha is the epicentre of farm suicides'. Vidarbha cotton farmers’ yearly costs – for genetically modified seeds, pesticides, fertilisers, electricity, water and labour – continue to rise, while the price of cotton has been declining with decreased productivity and quality. Scant rainfall last year has exacerbated the crisis, giving rise to drought-like conditions, not favourable for the genetically modified seeds, which require twice the amount of water compared to traditional seeds. A dearth of irrigation facilities has made matters worse, farmers complain".
Recently the pro-GM International Food Policy Research Institute has sought to downplay the connection between Indian Suicides and GM BT. However they also note in their study that "What we cannot reject, however, is the potential role of Bt cotton varieties in the observed discrete increase in farmer suicides in certain states and years". While there may be other factors involved besides GM crops, Monsanto has, predictably, refused to accept any responsibility for the suicides.
"Monsanto has patent rights over BT gene and it has sublicensed its gene to other companies. Monsanto collects huge amounts of money as a royalty from these companies.... Compared to non-BT hybrids, the gap between procurement price [price paid to farmers] and marketing prices of BT hybrids and unofficial BT hybrids is huge. Marketing prices are 12.1 times more in case of official BT.... Though companies obtain huge earnings from selling seed, they do not seem to be making any rational calculation about the cost of cultivation when fixing the procurement price to be paid to their seed farmers. With the current procurement prices of the companies, seed farmers are forced to minimize wages to the labourers"
Ironically, Monsanto itself admits, "Farmer suicide has numerous causes with most experts agreeing that indebtedness is one of the main factors. Farmers unable to repay loans and facing spiraling interest often see suicide as the only solution". What they don't say is that while high interest loans from loan sharks to buy the seeds contribute to the problem they are responsible for the exorbitant costs of their seeds in the first place. In fact some Municipalities in India have gone to court in an effort to try to force Monsanto to lower the price of their seed. Monsanto is fighting it contending that the GM trait is worth the extra cost. The government, however, said that the cost was much higher than that charged to other, less poor countries .
"One of the big headaches in Vidarbha is the state propagandised and favoured the promotion of Bt Cotton. Firstly, Bt Cotton technologies are themselves suspect in a number of ways. However, promoting them in a dry and un-irrigated area like Vidarbha was murderous. It was stupid, it was killing. The Bt Cotton packet was costing Rs 1800 to 1850 for a packet of 450 grams. On each packet of Rs 1850, Monsanto was making a royalty of Rs 1250. Whereas in less than 1800, one gets 1000 times the traditional seeds. Coming back the MNC's, their role in the crisis has been devastating. One, they have been able to corrupt and lobby government policy very significantly changing it in their favour and against the farmers"
The Organic Center has produced a report on the price differences between organic and GM crops. "In recent years the price of genetically engineered corn, soybean, and cotton seed has risen sharply. Seed expenditures per acre are now cutting into net farm income, and transferring earnings that used to stay on the farm to the seed industry.... Surprisingly, the biotech seed price premium is much larger than the organic seed price premium, despite the major differences in the value embedded in each"
Now, they are pushing for Bt Brinjal in India through Mahyco in which they have a substantial stake. There are scientists who are claiming that more tests are still required to see that these brinjals don’t turn out to be toxic for humans as well, with majority of reliable scientific tests claiming them to be toxic for humans. With such a black history, it is anybody’s guess what will be the outcome of introducing the Bt Brinjal in our country.
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