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Tuesday August 5th, 2008In this issue:Indian Farmers Moving Toward Organic Farming & Shunning Genetically Engineered CropsIndian farmers shun GM for organic solutionsBy Sue Branford Straight to the Source "My family was one of the first to stop using pesticides," says Sattemma, a lively Indian woman in her mid-40s, confidently talking to a group of visiting farmers. "Three years ago, we realised we were spending over half our income on chemicals. It was too much. We were getting into debt and the pesticides were making us ill." Sattemma is in the village of Lakshminayak Thanda in Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh. The visitors are keen to know how she and other villagers are progressing after their decision to stop using pesticides and Bt cotton, the genetically modified variety manufactured by US biotechnology firm Monsanto. Bt cotton was engineered to combat pests, with the introduction into the cotton seed of a gene from a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which has a natural insect-killing poison called Bt-toxin. When it was introduced into India at the turn of the century, it was promoted as the "wonder product" that would solve the serious problem of pests, which many of India's 17 million cotton farmers were facing. Many of the farmers had not been growing cotton as a cash crop for very long. In the late 1980s, under pressure from the International Monetary Fund, India had opened up its strongly protected economy and encouraged its farmers to switch to modern farming, with its hybrid seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. The idea was to turn India into an important exporter of commodities, including cotton. At first, cotton farmers did well. They got high yields and enjoyed a real increase in income. But then problems arose. The hybrid cotton proved susceptible to pests and diseases, and it was not uncommon for farmers to spray their fields up to 30 times in a single season. Production costs went through the roof and farmers got trapped in debt. They became desperate for a technical fix, and Bt cotton seemed to be the answer. In its first year of sales, Mahyco-Monsanto sold its entire stock of Bt cotton. According to the company, the area in India under Bt cotton rose from 3.1m acres in 2005 to 14.4m acres in 2007. According to Sekhar Natarajan, regional leader of Monsanto India, Bt cotton yielded 700kg-900kg per acre, compared with 300kg-400kg an acre with conventional seeds. However, some say that what has been happening on the ground has been very different from the official success story. Scientists Abdul Qayum and Kiran Sakhari assessed Bt cotton's performance in the first three years and found that, despite claims by the company, farmers were not achieving big yields. This perhaps was to be expected, because Bt cotton had been engineered to reduce pesticide use, not to increase yields. But, more surprisingly, they found that pesticide use was not falling either, because farmers were facing serious problems with secondary pests. They worked out that, on average, the income of non-Bt farmers was 60% higher than that of Bt farmers. Monsanto contests these numbers. There have been other, more alarming problems. In her chat with the visiting farmers, Sattemma says she had seen several of her neighbour's goats die after spending all day grazing on post-harvest Bt cotton plants. Such a story could be dismissed as anecdotal, if it were not backed up by more solid evidence. In 2006, more than 1,800 sheep died in similar circumstances in other villages in Warangal district. The symptoms and post-mortem findings suggested that they had died from severe toxicity. Hundreds of agricultural workers had also developed allergic symptoms when exposed to Bt cotton. Full Story: www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/30/gmcrops Collapse of WTO Talks: A Victory for Small Farmers & Local-Based Sustainable AgricultureCollapse of WTO Doha Negotiations: A Blow to the U.S. - EU Hegemony… The Collapse Paves a New Way Forward for Developing CountriesBy Anuradha Mittal Straight to the Source Their responsibility is evident in their extreme market access demands,
combined with a lack of commitment to real development objectives
in the so called "Development" round. The rich nations,
along with the International Financial Institutions such as the WTO,
World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, presented the rapid
conclusion of the Doha negotiations as a solution to the current food
price crisis. However, it is widely recognized that opening of markets,
removal of tariffs, and withdrawal of state intervention in agriculture,
has turned developing countries from net food exporters to net food
importers and burdened them with huge import bills. This process which
leaves the poor dependent on uncertain and volatile global markets
for their food supply, has wiped out millions of livelihoods and placed
nearly half the humanity at the brink of hunger and starvation. The Oakland Institute is a progressive policy think tank working to increase public participation and to promote fair debate on critical social, economic, and environmental issues. Join Online and Support the Oakland Institute -OR-Make your check payable to our fiscal sponsors, the International Forum on Globalization and note that it is for The Oakland Institute. Please mail your checks to: Upcoming Events |
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