Indian farmers shun GM for organic solutions - Guardian report

The following is not a regular report as we find in our newspapers. We are still vary of comparing GM technology with organic farming. GM is seen as 'scientific' and organic seen as 'people knowledge', hence the two cannot be compared.  GM is corporate (hence professional) driven whereas organic is NGO (and thereby suspicion) driven.  This news item has not said anything not known to people regularly following the GM stories, but, the brevity of the title is powerful and needs to be taken note of. The quote in the end is from the friend who has forwarded the news item and not part of the article, but, so apt it is worth resending.

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Indian farmers shun GM for organic solutions
Sue Branford
The Guardian, July 30 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/30/gmcrops.india

*Genetically modified cotton was to be the saviour of India's farmers, but ill-health and financial worries are fuelling a backlash*

"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.

Safety investigation

One might have expected such reports to have led to a thorough investigation into the safety of Bt cotton but, according to the US-based Institute for Responsible Technology, this has never happened. Again, Monsanto contests this account. According to Natarajan, Bt cotton was exhaustively tested for six to eight years before it was authorised for release and there were no reports of adverse impacts on the health of humans or animals.

Less controversial is the financial risk that Bt cotton, along with other hybrids, brings to small farmers. Farmers have traditionally saved seeds from one harvest to another, but this is not possible with hybrids, as they lose vitality. So farmers purchase on credit from middlemen a package of hybrid seed, fertiliser and pesticide, paying back the loan once the crop is harvested. The problems start when a farmer loses a crop through bad weather. Unable to repay, they can easily get caught in a debt trap. Problems were serious before Bt cotton but have got worse because Bt cotton seed is expensive.

Despite these problems, the Indian government believes that cotton has proved a success. In 2006, India overtook the US to become the world's second largest cotton producer (after China). The biotechnology industry is taking the credit, though some farmers are reporting new problems, saying Bt cotton is highly susceptible to wilt. On one occasion a Mahyco-Monsanto representative was taken hostage by irate farmers demanding compensation. More difficulties could lie ahead: a recent study by the Nagpur-based Central Institute for Cotton Research showed that the main cotton pest, bollworms, is becoming resistant to Bt cotton.

Many farmers, like Sattemma, have not followed the debate around Bt cotton. She says it was practical considerations that led to the change in farming. "It was the 15 women in our village's self-help group who got things going," she says. "We were worried about the health of our children. We got the men on our side by showing them that they would save money." Sattemma points to a chart on the wall of a nearby house, on which, with the help of a non-governmental organisation, they have recorded side-by-side the expenses of growing cotton with and without pesticides. Non-pesticide management (NPM), as the system is called, is clearly more profitable, not because yields are higher but because expenditure is so much lower.

In Yenabavi, about 30 miles away, the farmers have gone further, becoming organic and declaring their village GMO-free. Their conversion also began with dissatisfaction with pesticides, this time because they didn't work. "Ten years ago, this field was covered with red-headed hairy caterpillars," says Malliah, the farmer who has led the change. "I kept applying more pesticides but I couldn't get rid of them." By chance, an organic agronomist was visiting. He showed Malliah how to set up solar-powered light traps and, to Malliah's delight, they worked. Since then, he and the other farmers have developed other natural pest controls.

Other villages are following suit. Almost 2,000 in Andhra Pradesh have adopted NPM. Raghuveera Reddy, the state's minister for agriculture wants 2.5m acres under community-managed sustainable agriculture within a few years. The long-term goal is for 10m acres, 45% of the state's cultivable land.

Sustainable agriculture involves hard work and does not guarantee huge profits, but it will not harm the farmers' health, brings personal satisfaction, and involves fewer financial risks. It is crucial to remember what is truly sustainable for small farmers.

"It is now 30 years since I have been confining myself to the treatment ofchronic diseases. During those 30 years I have run against so many histories of littlechildren who had never seen a sick day until they were vaccinated and who, in the severalyears that have followed, have never seen a well day since. I couldn't put my finger onthe disease they have. They just weren't strong. Their resistance was gone. They wereperfectly well before they were vaccinated.. They have never been well since. "---Dr. William Howard Hay

GM Food in India: Bt Brinjal tests bio-safety shocking says expert

I had earlier blogged on the shocking videos about Monsanto, the global corporate that is trying to enter every kitchen in the world and take control of what everyone eats. In the videos it is evident how the corporate can be irresponsible about its data, particularly when it comes to getting approval from the regulatory authority. Authorities in the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) of USA, whose approval is essential there, have on camera admitted that the decision on Monsanto was , 'political' and many questions remain on the safety test of its products.

When Monsanto entered India, they did a high speed take over of the seed industry by the act of simply buying out some of the major seed companies in the country including Mahyco, the countries largest producer of vegetable seeds. Yes, this is the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) that enters the country which Mr. Chidambaram & C0., are all the time excited about. Much of the early day FDI (and perhaps even now) went into to Merger and Acquisition (M&A) of this kind. It did not produce any new jobs (indeed biotech industry is NOT a big employer, some other time on that) and instead it transfers the ownership of an existing asset from an Indian owner to a foreign owner, period.

Since then Mahyco is the leading proponents of GM Seeds in India. The Department of Bio-Technology (DBT) is the other major government agency involved with GM technology. Often one may find that there isin't much difference between the statements emanating from the two as DBT was not a centre of power until the GM technology and Monsanto came into India. The department was rejuvenated because of this technology about a decade back and since then has been happy to tow the corporate line. In India, Monsanto uses extensive PR and lobbying to get its seeds sold to the system.

So, to a politician, it is the magic seed that will 'eliminate poverty', 'provide more food', 'help overcome' all the problems that he wants to be seen eliminating. To the bureaucrat this is another area where he wields power over people and is called upon to decide their fate and to the scientist community that is reeling under the guilt of green revolution, this is a aphrodisiac that can make them go on for the rest of their lives / careers pursing a new found love. To many of the new generation technical savvy, who understand less of technology and follow more of it as a faith system, this is an unquestionable technology that needs to be integrated with lives. Monsanto plays to the ego of each of these categories very well, from central ministers to economic columnists to prophetic past-presidents, everyone tries to promote GM technology in India.

Here is a recent report on the un-reliable data that Monsanto has provided to GEAC, a regulatory body of the government in which the key people are from DBT!


http://www.indianexpress.com/story/306823.html

Scientist P. Bhargava, special invitee to the regulatory body on GM crops, says Mahyco's field trial data on bio-safety "shocking"

NEW DELHI, MAY 6: The clearance for the first genetically modified food crop, Bt brinjal, may not be smooth going by the recent developments in the apex regulatory body. One of the Supreme Court-appointed special invitees to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has raised strong objections to the quality of data provided by Mahyco in the final trials for Bt brinjal before its commercial release. He has also asked for a review of data on Bt cotton approved in 2002.

"The lack of data on health and bio-safety is shocking," said P. Bhargava, molecular scientist who founded the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), now a special invitee to GEAC. He has asked for independent tests to determine safety rather than just the data that the company provided to seek clearance for the GM crop.

His letter to the GEAC chairman expressing strong reservations coincides with a protest in New Delhi on Tuesday by farmers from 15 states under the banner of 'Coalition for a GM-Free India' against allowing field trials for GM crops.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court had sought the appointments of eminent scientists Bhargava and M.S. Swaminathan to the government's regulatory panel, saying it would usher transparency in the regulatory process. Swaminathan is yet to attend a GEAC meeting. The appointments followed an interim order on a petition by Aruna Rodrigues alleging that the government was liberalising norms for allowing multinational companies to go in for open field trials of GM foods and crops in India.

Bhargava has attended one meeting so far. Though he does not have a vote in the 29-member GEAC, his views are to be considered. When contacted, GEAC chairman B.S. Parsheera said: "It will not be possible to review the earlier decisions. He is welcome to make his observations on the cases that come up in subsequent meetings. The committee will take his views into consideration but the law that is laid down will be followed."

After a moratorium of more than a year by the Supreme Court on any field trials of GM crops in the country, the government had given the green signal for large-scale field trials of Bt brinjal in February this year. It was accompanied by a whole battery of additional tests to determine health and biosafety of release of the first GM food crop..

The data has been presented to the GEAC after the first season of trials. In one of the tests to determine the presence of Bt protein in cooked brinjal, Bhargava has pointed to "glaring" discrepancies. According to him, the results conclude that the Bt protein is unstable and does not remain when the brinjal is roasted or cooked and hence is safe for human consumption. According to Bhargava, the data for this test shows "negative" for Bt brinjal when cooked. When seen for non-Bt brinjal, it says "positive". "This is absurd. It can only happen because it is the company that is doing the tests. They are the ones who are providing both the Bt and the non Bt brinjal to the lab. How do we know if they are actually providing the right samples?" he said.

In the last meeting, when he raised these objections and asked for more advanced tests like DNA fingerprinting, GEAC members told him that institutions such as the Indian Council for Agricultural Research and state agricultural universities are involved in the monitoring and evaluation of field trials of Bt cotton. "I don't hold any brief for any NGO. Any scientists will vouch for the tests that I am asking for," he said.

"We at Mahyco R&D Centre, as well as scientists at other government research institutions around the country, have done extensive studies to assess the impact of these insect-tolerant plants and they have so far shown positive results," said a company statement from Mahyco.

World According to Monsanto: A Film all must watch, with links

Shocking World by Monsanto is a well made documentary which exposes the company comprehensively. I don't know whether the movie is available in full anywhere, but, it is available in 12 parts as short clips of approximately 8-9 minutes each in You Tube. It completely destroys our faith in the regulatory system in USA and shows how the system could be bought over, subverted or just subjugated by a greedy corporate which wants to have its way. Needless to say, it follows everywhere else across the world including India. The movie follows the journey of Monsanto across the US, in Washington among the power brokers, in research institutions and the few scientists who dared to protest against it, in farm lands where farmers have been sued by this company and among regulatory agencies which seem to have succumbed with no resistance in front of the company. The movie later follows the journey of Monsanto to India and Mexico to show how the Bt Cotton farmers in India and Corn farmers in different parts of Latin America meet similar fate when the MNC that employs over 16,000 people in about 50 countries decides to have its way.

We in India need to be aware of this story because we are getting big-time into GM now. Bt Cotton made an illegal entry (in Gujarat) and was pushed as a political decision on us a few years back while the decision was still being made by the government (some Latin American governments seem to have gone through a similar situation). The story of the continuing suicides among the cotton farmers after Bt Cotton has almost become 100% across the country today is appearing in our newspapers everyday. With the Bt Brinjal up for commercial approval and other products on the pipeline, we need to know how this control has come about.

Here under I provide with a short summary of each of these clips along with a link to the same. Please take time to view it if you care to know what is it that you are eating and are likely to eat made of. It only takes about a couple of hours.

Part - I: Starts with the history of the company of Monsanto, how it hid for decades the toxic PCB dumping it was doing in USA. Also talks about how it had to withdraw the word, 'biodegradable' from its 'Roundup' herbicide.




Part -II: More on the status of victims of the PCB dumping, horrible to watch the victims who are helpless in the most powerful consumer movement country, USA. How the company settled its suit with the community after decades with pittance in compensation. The clip ends with classified documents that show that the company was not willing to forego even a dollar of loss and would rather the public suffer and ends with question, 'how could you believe a company that lies like this?'



Part - III: further investigation on Roundup Ready Soybean. Admitting by the former Secretary of Clinton administration how it was not a scientific decision but a political decision to approve biotech products and even at the highest levels when he attempted to suggest stricter regulations for biotech engineered foods,he was 'slapped around'. Also admission by an executive of FDI regarding how it was a political decision to keep GM food at par with the non-GM food.



Part - IV: Uncovers how the person especially recruited by FDA to formulate the GM Food policy was till then working with Monsanto and had just finished drafting for them as to how should a industry favourable regulatory regime be. Also interesting to watch the video footing of the Vice President of George Bush Sr. announcing the de-regulation policy in biotechnology because, 'we have been leaders and want to continue to be so', clearly the USA unleashed on itself and the world this technology as a ego ride for a 'de-reg' fancy President. Ends with an investigation of the Bovine Growth Harmone and how it was introduced. The scientist from FDA who questioned the data was side tracked and later fired, threatened by the Monsanto lawyer that if he were to reveal any company secrets in his defence, he will be sued.



Part - V: '...we got 44,000 documents from the FDAs own files and it shows that the FDA has been lying since 1992 to the world...claiming that the genetically modified foods are as safe as their non-GM counterparts', statement by a lawyer who asked for and examined FDA documents on GM Food.



Part - VI: Starts with Dr. Arpad Putszai, Scientist from Britain saying how he found that the problem was, 'not with the transgene, but, with the technology'. He was fired for saying on BBC interview based on his own scientific understanding that, 'it is unfair to use your fellow citizens as guinea pigs' the day after the interview. This part goes on to question the sheer power with which Monsanto steam-rolls its opponents including on the issue of dioxine exposure and the deadly 'agent orange' which the company produced and was used by US Army in the Vietnam War. There is shocking clipping of preserved child emroyos severely deformed.



Part - VII: 'They had all the data and then decided how they wanted to interpret it, this is never done', says a lawyer in the context of Monsanto's lies on the issue of dioxine exposure. He states that in a series of studies they where the same set of people with cancer appeared under 'exposed to dioxine' in one study appeared under, 'not exposed to dioxine' in another study and then these studies were used to prove that cancer occurs equally among those exposed or un-exposed to the dioxine. Many were denied compensation because of this.
An Eurpoean Scientist who reviewed the Monsanto paper on effects of GM feeding by animals (which according to him became the 'base for substantial equivalence') says how the paper contained many ambiguous terms. He says, 'lot of data that they should have shown, they didn't...if there was nothing to hide there you should be willing to share'.
It examines the claims of Monsanto on the issue of intellectual property and presents a US Government report that documents more than '100 lawsuits and many bankarapcies' due to the agressive stand of the company in dealing with farmers in whose fields the traits of their products appear.




Part - VIII: About the Gene Police and how they destroy farmer families in America. As the documentary progresses, it switches to India, Warangal district in Andhra Pradesh which is a large cotton growing area. Here two agronomists debunk the claims of Monsanto both about higher yields and Bollworm pest resistance. It also tells the story of how the cotton seed price has now shot up now by 400% and how there is almost no other seed available for the Indian farmer today. This clip ends with the funeral processing of a 25 year old farmer, who relied on the company's promise and bought Bt Cotton after borrowing heavily and suffered huge loss. He committed suicide by drinking a litre of pesticide.



Part - IX: This clip starts with the Vidharbha situation and has two of the known farmer activists of that region, Kishore Tiwary and Dr. Tarak Kate profiling the entire region and showing how the spread of Bt Cotton has also been the spread of suicide among farmers. There is a typical cotton market scene where farmers are protesting against the dropping prices for cotton. This is followed by an interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva where she spells out the difference between the first and second Green Revolution, she says that there are two major differences, the first one had a hidden agenda to promote chemical inputs consumption however the primary state goal being higher food production, food security, this one has only one objective, to promote the return of investment for Monsanto. The first one was imposed by a coalition of government and international agencies, the second one is just imposed by one company, Monsanto, this is what she calls, 'Monsanto revolution'. This is followed by an interview with Scientist Chapela in Mexico about how they were shocked to realize that now all varieties of corn are contaminated by the GM ones corn in the most corn diverse part of the world, Mexico.




Part - X: This part continues to investigate how the Mexican diversity is under severe threat thanks to the gene-transfer through the pollens carried through the wind from transgenic corn crops to traditional ones. Though Mexico has banned the GM Corn, thanks to treaty signed between Mexico with USA and Canada, it cannot avoid the entry of GM Corn into its territory. The heavily subsidised GM Corn from the US costs lesser than the locally grown indigenous varieties. This clip shows how farmers are troubled and already abnormal occurances and diseases are observed among the corn crops across Mexico. Farmers are afraid that in future they may have none of their ancestral varieties and may have to buy seeds, pesticides and fertilizers from Monsanto.



Part - XI: When Chapela came up with his findings, there was an internet based war to ensure that almost anything can be written to defame him. The Norfolk based GM Watch shows how fake (non-existent) scientist names appeared in the web in networking sites and biotech promoting sites with articles defaming the study and trying to initiate hate against anyone who dared to stand against the company, Monsanto. As the GM Watch executive says, 'it shows the determination of a company that wants to push its products in every part of the world and it will destroy the reputation of anyone who stands in its way'. Then the scene moves to Paraguay, where a helpless government had to legalise GM Soya in 2005 because the gene-transfer from the GM crops that had illegally entered the country had contaminated their entire non-GM crops and thereby rendering their exports no longer possible. The Agricultural Secretary of the country opines that Monsanto very well could have been involved with the 'unorthodox' entry of the crop. It shows how the small farmers in this country are fighting a losing battle against Monsanto and against their lands being turned into 'Green Deserts', as they put it, where the entire area is covered with a single mono-crop and no other crop grows there at all.



Part - XII: The last of the clips shows the helpless small farmers in Paraguay and how even small children and farm animals get affected by the large scale usage of the Round-up herbicide in their farms. Of course, Monsanto would not like this video and it is unlikely that this video will be viewed by many who are already under the influence of this company globally.



The film ends with the audio recording of a Monsanto representative refusing to meet the team that made the movie. Sure, one can almost see a PR initiative coming from Monsanto globally defaming the team that made this movie, everyone who featured in it, (most of them have already been defamed enough)and also you tube for retaining these clips.