EXCERPTS: Most farmers say Bt cotton, which was introduced to put an end to their problems, has now become one of the biggest causes of farmer suicides.

...what were seen as the seeds of hope are turning out to be seeds of debt and death.

COMMENT

When Monsanto's President and CEO, Hugh Grant, flies in to meet India's political leaders next week, he should be arrested for crimes against humanity and slung into jail alongside the CEOs of all the other seed houses that have taken a leaf out of Monsanto's Bt book.

Aggressively pushing this faulty but expensive technology onto poor farmers amounts to nothing less than such a crime. And Monsanto knew what it was doing from the start.

Its in Indonesia - the first country in Asia to accept Bt cotton - had been unambiguous. Despite all Monsanto's corruption of officials, Bt cotton was so unsuccessful Monsanto had to pull its GM cotton out of the country, leaving only a trail of broken promises and illegality.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=58&page=1

But, of course, what Monsanto's CEO will actually be doing next week is trying to keep India's farmers on the GM treadmill. He'll be hyping new products like bollguard 2 as the solution to all the problems, while doing his level best to get the company's critics - like the government of Andhra Pradesh - off his back.
---

AP farmers hit by failed Bt cotton crop
Uma Sudhir, NDTV http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?slug=AP+farmers+hit+by+failed+Bt+cotton+crop&id=83983&category=National
[link for subscribers to NDTV.com can watch the broadcast]
January 22, 2006 (Hyderabad):

Farmers in Andhra Pradesh are grappling with crippling debt and desperation and choosing to end their lives after their cotton crop failed.

Most farmers say, Bt cotton that was introduced to put an end to their problems, have now become one of the biggest causes of farmer suicides.

Failed crop

Twenty-year-old Vijayalakshmi is a widow and she blames the genetically modified Bt cotton for it.

Less than two months ago, her husband Raju drank pesticide because the Bt cotton he grew on four acres left him with a debt of over Rs 1 lakh.

With no buyers even for the land he owned, the humiliation of not being able to even ensure his wife and two little children don't go hungry was too much for the 25-year-old.

"We grew Raasi [Bt] hybrid seeds with great hope but it has ruined us. Never before, had we invested Rs 75,000 in one crop. Now he is dead and I have debts and two children. What should I do?" said Vijaylakshmi.

Rising debts

There were other widows and farmers with similar tales at the public hearing on Bt cotton in Hyderabad.

All of them echo the sentiment that what was seen as the seeds of hope are turning out to be seeds of debt and death.

"Bt Cotton is hardly useful. They had said that it would yield 10-12 or even 15 quintals but I got only 3 quintals," said Devaiah, a cotton farmer.

"It has not significantly reduced pesticide use, it has not reduced cultivation cost. It has in fact increased cultivation cost.

"There's no high yield, farmers have suffered negative returns. That is why the first Bt cotton suicides have started being reported," said P V Satheesh, Convenor, South Against Genetic Engineering.

Hit by GM crops

Activists say they fear the proposed meeting next week of multinational seed giant Monsanto's CEO with the President and Prime Minister could be an attempt to influence prospects for genetically modified seeds in India.

In the last four years that Bt cotton has been grown, every time farmers encountered a failure, they were told, that particular variety had failed for some reason but the technology itself was faultless.

So a new variety was popularised the next year. As one activist put it, Bt cotton has become the story of 'operation successful, patient dead'.

Go to a Print friendly Page

Email this Article to a Friend

Back to the Archive