Monsanto In India

[cheeney1]

Monsanto in India

From SourceWatch



The Indian Suicides

"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'" [1] (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide-Thousands-Indian-farmers-committing-suicide-using-genetically-modified-crops.html)
Farmers in India (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=India) are finding that the "biotechnology (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Biotechnology) revolution" is having a devastating effect on their crop lands and personal debt levels. "In 1998, the World Bank (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=World_Bank)'s structural adjustment policies forced India to open up its seed sector to global corporations like Cargill (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cargill), Monsanto (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto), and Syngenta (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=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 (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=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. More than 25,000 peasants in India have taken their lives since 1997 when the practice of seed saving was transformed under globalisation pressures and multinational seed corporations started to take control of the seed supply. Seed saving gives farmers life. Seed monopolies rob farmers of life" [2] (http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2004-02/19shiva.cfm).
UPDATE: "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".[3] (http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090120/FOREIGN/850376237/1103)
Yet even this number may be underestimated. According to P. Sainath, rural affairs editor of The Hindu (http://www.hinduonnet.com/), "the states where these [figures] are gathered leave out thousands from the definition of "farmer" and, thus, massage the numbers downward. For instance, women farmers are not normally accepted as farmers (by custom, land is almost never in their names). They do the bulk of work in agriculture - but are just "farmers' wives." This classification enables governments to exclude countless women farmer suicides. They will be recorded as suicide deaths - but not as "farmers' suicides." Likewise, many other groups, too, have been excluded from that list" The Largest Wave Of Suicides In History (http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/20564).
This has been called a genocide [4] (http://www.countercurrents.org/rai210206.htm). 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." [5] (http://web.archive.org/web/20060825035948/http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/july312004/top.asp)
"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" [6] (http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090120/FOREIGN/850376237/1103).
Why do many Indian farmers continue to buy BT cotton when it has had such a unpredictable success/failure rate? Was it, as Monsanto claims, because of it's obvious success?
"University of Washington researcher Glenn Stone's multi-year study (http://artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/research/stone/stone480102.web.pdf) of Bt cotton adoption in the Warangal district of AP - one of the suicide-prone states the authors mention - showed such adoption was not based on farmers carefully assessing the technology before adopting it more widely but a "craze" reliant on advertising and a kind of herd mentality, where everybody copies everyone else leading to blind adoption. The hype around GM seeds, in fact, had added to the deskilling of the farmers - the undermining of cautious traditional assessment of performance" [7] (http://db.zs-intern.de/uploads/1226402334-BtCottonAndSuicides.pdf). See also: [8] (http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7644)
Recently the pro-GM International Food Policy Research Institute has sought to downplay the connection between Indian Suicides and GM BT [9] (http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/dp/ifpridp00808.asp). 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 [11] (http://monsanto.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=59&item=135).
For more see Selling Suicide (http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/9905suic/suicide1.htm) by Christian Aid. As in other parts of the world, GM farm fields and Monsanto property have been under attack in retaliation [12] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3099938.stm).
Use of Child Labor

Additionally, Monsanto and related companies use many thousands of children in its labor force in India, the reason is simple, they can pay them less and work them more - up to 13 hours a day.
"Farmers employ children, particularly girls, primarily in order to minimize costs. Earlier studies by these authors which examined reasons for child labour in this industry found that labour costs account for about 50% of total cultivation costs. Farmers endeavour to cut these labour costs by hiring children because the wages paid to children are far below both the market wages for adults in other agricultural field work and even further below official minimum wages. Farmers also hire children in preference to adults because farmers can squeeze out higher productivity from children per day: children will work longer hours, will work much more intensively and they are generally much easier to control than adult workers – whether through verbal or physical abuse or through inexpensive treats like chocolate or hair ribbons. Moreover, children cannot complain as effectively as adults do when they are exposed to poisonous pesticides, which are used in very high quantities in cottonseed cultivation. Moreover, children work in the context of partial adult unemployment – children work whilst their parents cannot" The Price of Childhood (http://www.indianet.nl/PriceOfChildhood2005_Final.pdf).
The High Cost of High Price

"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" [13] (http://www.indianet.nl/PriceOfChildhood2005_Final.pdf).
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" [14] (http://monsanto.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=59&item=135). 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 [15] (http://www.outlookindia.com/pti_news.asp?id=385200).
"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. 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 relief package is a bureaucratic sham’ (http://www.tehelka.com/story_main19.asp?filename=Ne090906The_relief_CS.as p)
"The price difference is staggering: £10 for 100 grams of GM seed, compared with less than £10 for 1,000 times more traditional seeds. But GM salesmen and government officials had promised farmers that these were 'magic seeds' - with better crops that would be free from parasites and insects. Indeed, in a bid to promote the uptake of GM seeds, traditional varieties were banned from many government seed banks" [16] (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide-Thousands-Indian-farmers-committing-suicide-using-genetically-modified-crops.html).
There are increasing reports of failed Bt crops in India and elsewhere, see BT Cotton in Andhra Pradesh - A Three Year Assessment (http://www.grain.org/research/btcotton.cfm?id=302) [17] (http://www.ddsindia.com/www/PDF/BT_Cotton_-_A_three_year_report.pdf). See also How GM Crops Destroy the Third World (http://www.indsp.org/chinghoc.php) and A fading cotton bumper crop (http://www.thehindu.com/2006/11/25/stories/2006112502891100.htm)
Articles from India's Vandana Shiva [18] (http://www.zmag.org/bios/homepage.cfm?authorid=90) and Devinder Sharma on the subject
Popular Movement to Oust Monsanto from India: India Cheers While Monsanto Burns

http://thunderecho.blogspot.com/2009/04/1500-farmers-commit-mass-suicide.html :mad:

WIDE ANGLE | The Dying Fields | Excerpt | PBS - YouTube :mad:

Sorry about Cut & Paste Job :o

[cheeney1]

INDIA CHEERS WHILE MONSANTO BURNS
by Paul Kingsnorth
"We send today, a very clear message to all those who have invested in Monsanto in India and abroad; take your money out now, before we reduce it to ashes".
Karnataka State Farmers Association, India
One of the most morally dubious Claims made in Monsanto's recent _ newspaper advertising blitz was the assertion that the widespread use of food biotechnology is the only way to feed the world's poor. The corporation's argument went like this: millions of people currently go hungry in developing countries. In the future, as global population increases, this problem is set to worsen. Only high yield agriculture can possibly produce enough food to meet this increased demand. There fore, quite obviously, only "biotechnology can feed the world."
Monsanto's strategy was to try to por tray its genetically modified (GM) crops as the solution to the hunger and poverty problems of the Third World. The company even tried to round up a group of 'respect ed voices' from developing countries to endorse an advert entitled 'Let The Harvest Begin', which praised biotechnology as the seed of the future", which will "feed the world in the next century." Monsanto was playing a clever game: it was trying to portray opponents of food biotechnology as selfish and insular. What right, asked the corporation, do well fed Western environ mentalists have to deny the poor farmers of the Third World access to this wonderful new technology, which could teed their families and improve their living standards dramatically in years to come?
But this tactic is beginning to backfire spectacularly. In trying to use developing countries as pawns in its game, as it plays for dominance of the world's food markets, it is alienating the very people it claimed to be supporting: the poor. In India, where millions of peasant farmers still live a life of small scale, subsistence agriculture, the corporation is facing nothing less than a crisis. Its trademark evasion, deception and subterfuge has enraged farmers all over the country. And if it won't go voluntarily, they are prepared to chase it out, by any means necessary.
At 1.30 in the afternoon on 28th November 1998, in Sindhanoor, in the Indi an state of Karnataka, the leader of the Kar nataka State Farmers Association (KRRS), a movement which claims a membership of ten million, arrived at one of India's first Monsanto test sites. The owner of the field, Basanna Hunsole, came out to greet him. With the help of Basanna's neighbours, a number of KRRS members, other local grassroots organizations representing 'untouchables' and landless farmers, they proceeded to tear up every one of the genet ically modified cotton plants growing there. They stacked them in a heap in the middle of the field, and set them on fire. In minutes, Monsanto's test crop was reduced to ashes.
This was the first strike in a grassroots campaign that is spreading rapidly across India: 'Operation Cremate Monsanto'. Pro fessor Nanjundaswamy, a committed Gandhian and leader of the KRRS, issued a statement to the press as the field burned. "We denounce the ignorance, incompe tence and irresponsibility of the Union gov ernment to gamble with the future of Indian agriculture," said the Professor. He went on to demand that all tests of genetically mod ified crops in India be stopped, that the country's Patent Act be amended to stop the patenting of basic crop varieties, and that Monsanto be banned from the country. Otherwise, he said, Indian farmers would continue to take the situation into their own hands .
Since that first action, at least three more Monsanto test sites have been burned, in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, and more cremations are promised. The tactic has spread from the KRRS to other grass roots organizations. In December 1998, following actions by local farmers and con cern about illegal growing of GM crops, the government of Andhra Pradesh ordered Monsanto to stop the seven trials it was operating in the state. The first shots have been fired by Indian farmers in what is increasingly looking like a war against the giant corporation.
Monsanto has been operating in India since 1949, and is a market leader in agri cultural chemicals. In recent years it has spent much time and money trying to win over Indian politicians and officials to the cause of GM crops, on which it has staked its future. It operates three Indian sub sidiaries: Monsanto India, Monsanto Enter prises and Monsanto Chemicals, and early in 1998, Monsanto quietly acquired a 26 per cent stake in the Indian seed company Mahyco.
Mahyco Monsanto is the organization through which Monsanto is attempting to push its GM crops onto the Indian people. The company is already claiming patent rights over thirty 'new' crop varieties including corn, rice, tomatoes and potatoes which it has genetically altered to be resistant to its own herbicides. But Mahy co Monsanto's biggest effort in India at present is going into the testing of GM cot ton. Cotton is grown widely in India, and Monsanto hopes that its GM variety known as 'bollgard' cotton can corner this market. The cotton is modified to be resistant to the boll weevil, a major cotton pest.
Of course, Monsanto wouldn't be Mon santo without a bit of subterfuge, and this is where the tale gets murkier. Monsanto apparently doesn't trust Indian farmers to swallow its propaganda as easily as it would like. So, in order to avoid having to persuade farmers of the case for GM crops, it has tried a different tack: growing CM crops on the farmer's land without telling him. This is what happened to Basanna Hun sole, on whose land the first cremation took place. According to the farmer, he was approached in July 1998 by officials from Mahyco Monsanto, who offered him the chance to grow free of charge a new variety of cotton, which they claimed would give him wonderful results. They omitted to tell him that the cotton was genetically modified, or that it had not been approved for testing by the government. In effect, Monsanto tricked Basanna Hunsole into unknowingly growing illegal crops on his land. Moreover, Basanna was unim pressed with what he saw. Despite Mon santo's claims, he said that the GM 'bollgard' cotton grew "miserably", and reached less than half the height of the tra ditional strains he was growing in nearby fields. Worst of al}, they were heavily infested with boll weevils.
These illegal tests on Basanna Hun sole's land were carried out with no safe guards in place. There was no 'buffer zone' around the field, and none of the farmer s neighbours was notified of the potentially hazardous crops that were growing near their fields. Basanna only discovered the truth about what was growing on his land when Karnataka's Minister of Agriculture publicly announced, in November, the locations of Monsanto's test sites in the state.
Monsanto had obviously calculated that Indian farmers were easily fooled and too ignorant to bother informing about what was really happening on their own land. It is this corporate arrogance that has enraged farmers' groups all over India, and seen support for 'Operation Cremate Monsanto' spread rapidly since its inception. After the truth about Basanna Hunsole's field was discovered, Monsanto belatedly signed a statement in which they admitted their deception, and promised to behave them selves in the future. But when, a few weeks later, the government of Andhra Pradesh announced it was stopping all Monsanto trials in the state, it cited similar deceptions as the reasons for its decision.
So, what future for Monsanto in India? None at all, if another group of campaign ers the 'Monsanto Quit India' campaign has its way. 'Monsanto Quit India' is a coalition of NFOs opposed to GM crops, and to Monsanto's attempts to monopolize Indian agriculture. It was launched on 9th August 1998 the anniversary of the day when Gandhi famously told the British to 'Quit India'. Now, say the coalition, the same message is being sent to Monsanto's headquarters in Illinois. The Monsanto Quit India campaign has already distrib uted thousands of 'Quit India' postcards to NGOs, community groups and farmers across the country. So far, just four months after the campaign began, over 10,000 peo ple have signed these postcards and sent them to Monsanto's headquarters.
Resistance to Monsanto, and to their vision of a future where farmers every where will be dependent on global corporations for their livelihood, and where consumers have no choice about the food they eat, is growing fast in India. The recent decision by the Indian government to allow the mass import of American soya beans is beginning to alert the Indian pub lic to the potential hazards of GM foods. Campaigners say that, due to the lack of labeling, there is no way of telling whether or not the beans from America are geneti cally modified.
The Monsanto Quit India campaign already claims tens of thousands of sup porters, as do the various organizations and local efforts concentrating on burning Monsanto's crops until the corporation begins to listen to those who have worked the land for generations. Perhaps in future, before Monsanto claims that its super crops are the only way to save the people in developing countries from a future of penury and hunger, they might care to ask those people themselves. In India, at least, they will find themselves increasingly unwelcome.

[cheeney1]

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Monsanto will own all seed - YouTube

INDIAN FARMERS DRIVEN TO SUICIDE! US Farmers Are Next! (monsanto seeds food conspiracy diet) - YouTube

[cheeney1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2BMOM3XZwE&feature=PlayList&p=18C43A2CCCF7F085&index=0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDPGHleukz8&feature=PlayList&p=18C43A2CCCF7F085&index=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUhNzUnRrLM&feature=PlayList&p=18C43A2CCCF7F085&index=2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCWGycGSgz0&feature=PlayList&p=18C43A2CCCF7F085&index=3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTjPLTcrFcQ&feature=PlayList&p=18C43A2CCCF7F085&index=4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riSOihZuEcY&feature=PlayList&p=18C43A2CCCF7F085&index=5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORVOdSuzhWg&feature=PlayList&p=18C43A2CCCF7F085&index=6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg3SOF7kyJ8&feature=PlayList&p=18C43A2CCCF7F085&index=8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg3SOF7kyJ8&feature=PlayList&p=18C43A2CCCF7F085&index=8

[gilly]

Thank you for posting it Cheeney1.

I just hope the good people here will read this, if they're not already up to speed with what's going on in India, and it will motivate people to get involved with this thread...

http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65824