[p2p-research] GM foods debate

[Michel Bauwens]

update from alternet on negative impact of GM foods:


*Vandana Shiva* on the link between Monsanto and Indian farmer suicides:

*Tara Lohan: Farmer suicides in India recently made the news when stories
broke last month about 1,500 farmers taking their own lives, what do you
attribute these deaths to?

Vandana Shiva: Over the last decade, 200,000 farmers have committed suicide.
The 1,500 figure is for the state of Chattisgarh. In Vidharbha, 4,000 are
committing suicide annually. This is the region where 4 million acres of
cotton have been grown with Monsanto’s Bt cotton. The suicides are a direct
result of a debt trap created by ever-increasing costs of seeds and
chemicals and constantly falling prices of agricultural produce.

When Monsanto’s Bt cotton was introduced, the seed costs jumped from 7
rupees per kilo to 17,000 rupees per kilo. Our survey shows a thirteenfold
increase in pesticide use in cotton in Vidharbha. Meantime, the $4 billion
subsidy given to U.S. agribusiness for cotton has led to dumping and
depression of international prices.

Squeezed between high costs and negative incomes, farmers commit suicide
when their land is being appropriated by the money lenders who are the
agents of the agrichemical and seed corporations. The suicides are thus a
direct result of industrial globalized agriculture and corporate monopoly on
seeds.

TL: Suicides of Indian farmers unfortunately is not news — how long has this
been a problem, how serious is the problem, what are the underlying causes?

VS: The first suicide that we studied took place in Warrangal in Andhra
Pradesh in 1997. This region is a rain-fed dry region and used to grow dry
land crops such as millets, pigeon pea etc. In 1997, the seed corporations
converted the region from biodiverse agriculture to monocultures of cotton
hybrid. The farmers were not told they would need irrigation. They were not
told that they would need fertilizers and pesticides. They were not told
they could not save the seeds. The cotton seeds were sold as “White Gold,”
with a false promise that farmers would become millionaires. Instead, the
farmers landed in severe unpayable debt. This is how the suicides began.

TL: How has the Green Revolution changed things for farmers? Is the most
significant change in the ownership of seeds by corporations?

VS: The Green Revolution was the name given to the introduction of
chemical/industrial farming in India in 1965-66 under the pressure of the
U.S. government and World Bank. The Green Revolution was based on seeds bred
for responding to chemical inputs. Companies made money from sale of
agrichemicals, the seeds were in the public domain.

Genetic engineering is often called the second Green Revolution. Now, the
seeds are owned by corporations through intellectual property rights. This
leads to a very drastic change in how farming is done and who controls
decisions in agriculture.

TL: How have companies like Monsanto, Cargill and others created what you
call a “suicide economy” for farmers?

VS: Monsanto’s contribution to the suicide economy is by extracting super
profits from farmers in the form of royalties and by intentionally
transforming seeds from a renewable resource that farmers can save to a
nonrenewable resource that they must buy in the market every year. Monsanto
had a big role in shaping the TRIPs agreement [on intellectual property] of
WTO.

Cargill’s contribution to the suicide economy is as the biggest controller
of agricultural trade. Cargill was responsible for the Agreement on
Agriculture, which has promoted dumping and denying farmers of the Third
World their right to fair prices.”

TL: What should the government of India be doing, and what can the world
community do?

VS: The government of India should be playing a major role in public seed
supply. Before Monsanto’s entry, 80 percent of the seed used to come from
farmers’ own fields, and 20 percent came from government seed farms. Under
privatization, government seed breeding has been wiped out. Seed is a public
and common good, and hence seeds should stay in the hands of farming
communities and public-sector institutions.

The government should also impose a moratorium on GMO seeds such as Bt
cotton until full independent assessment of its performance in small
farmers’ fields has been completed. The government should also promote
organic farming, since from the perspective of farmers this is the only way
to get out of the debt and suicide trap.

At the international level, the world community needs to defend seed as a
common good and build a strong movement against seed patents and seed
monopolies. *


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