Horrors of genetically modified crops
Billy Ahmed | Saturday, 12 July 2008
MAJOR biotech companies like, Monsanto, Syngenta, Bunge, Cargill, etc. are all bent on controlling the world's food supply. Monsanto has played the leading role in destroying organic agriculture and millennia-old biodiversity.
They have no respect whatever for the lives and the livelihood of farmers or, for that matter, any concern for the people who are exposed to severe health hazards from eating genetically modified foods. Corporate profit is all that counts.
About 5,000 activists marched through the German city of Bonn on 12 May to protest against genetically modified food at the start of a U.N. conference to discuss risks linked to the technology.
Campaigners, many waving colorful flags and banners with slogans like "Biofuel Creates Hunger" and "Good Food Instead Of GM Food", walked and danced through the Western German city.
"We are protesting for biodiversity and against the destruction of nature, against GM, for the protection of biodiversity," activist Amira Busch told Reuters Television.
"We want biodiversity to be part of humanity's wealth and a precondition to overcome hunger," said Greens EU lawmaker Friedrich-Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf.
"We demand that all other activities, which probably boost industry's profits, do not endanger food security for future generations," he told Reuters Television.
In Europe, consumers are fairly skeptical about GM crops but the biotech industry says its products are as safe as non-GM equivalents.
The greatest long-lasting danger from these biotech companies is destruction of the earth's eco-systems - degrading of the soil, depleting of water resources and the proliferation of pests.
The biotech industries have taken a big and dangerous leap to destroy the earth as it has been known for thousands of years.
But to make short-term profit from monocultures of the genetically modified products, these biotech giants are falsely marketing those as saviours of the world from hunger and poverty.
One woman is in the forefront of the fight against the biotech industry. Her name is Vandana Shiva. She is based in Delhi, India.
Dr. Vandana Shiva, a former particle physicist, has for the past three decades done more than anyone else as an activist to attract the attention of the world to the deadly corporate horror story of genetically modified products.
She attacks the problem from all angles, educating and organizing protest demonstrations through her organization Navdanya.
Dr. Shiva addresses principally the dangers of GM farming in India. However, the danger to the environment and to the livelihood of millions of people is obviously world-wide.
Take India for example. It has been severely hit by the biotech industry with accompanying disasters.
What follows the farmers' shift to GMO seeds after millennia of planting and making a livelihood in organic farming is a horror story of bad harvests, huge debts, increased costs for herbicides and fertilizers and the suicides of thousands of farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala. Among the Indian states that have been the worst hit.
This has been going on for decades and if it were not for many acts of activism focused on this problem, there would be no chance that anything would change, since the corporations are tied firmly to the governments.
The farmers are lured into buying the GM seeds because of low-interest loans and propaganda about big harvests, less work and lower costs.
Biotech PR claims that there is no need for pesticides and less need for fertilizers.
But such claims have proved to be inaccurate. Added to this is the fact that these seeds are not adjusted to the eco-systems where they are being planted. They frequently need more water than is available and the results are disastrous.
The way farmers have been cultivating the land for millennia is Dr. Shiva's central argument, while monocultures in practice at the giant industrial farms are her principal enemy.
She talks about food fascism and the biotech industry sees her as their most prominent enemy in their vicious attempt to control the world's food supply.
"For example, the generally acknowledged argument that the Green Revolution, at the very least, led to an increase in food production is one of them.' No, it did not increase production.
Wheat and rice production increased, not the overall food production,' argues Shiva, and launches into a lecture that concludes that whatever increase there was had nothing whatsoever to do with the Green Revolution, and that overall it has been a disaster for agriculture and food security in India."
The latest horror news on GMOs is the Mealy Bug that has been said to be "the deadly gift from Monsanto to Vidarbha, set to destroy all crops and plants".
Vidarbha is the eastern part of Maharashtra state, in western India. It is India's most developed and urbanized state.
In a press note Kishor Tiwari, President of 'Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti' - a farmer's advocacy group - writes that the Mealy Bug is a virus that is imported with the Bt Cotton sold by multinational corporation Monsanto.
This is of the most urgent importance to save more than 3 million distressed and debt-trapped Vidarbha cotton farmers.
The London-based Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) on their web site has published a letter from Ram Kalaspurkar who refers to a study where they have found that 'Organic Cotton Beats Bt Cotton in India'.
They firmly recommend a return to organic cotton, saying that Bt cotton is a trap that has to be avoided. All the infested plots had the Bollgard label, which is supposed to control pests. It is made clear the Mealy Bugs have never been found in the region before BT cotton seeds were introduced.
After the death of the cotton plants, the bug goes over to nearby plants and it has already shifted to congress weed and many other weeds and plants in fields close by.
This is just one example of what has proved to be the false propaganda from Monsanto.
Several Non-Governmental Organizations are working in many villages promoting non-pesticide management (NPM).
The government has until now supported high-chemical-input cotton production at national and state level and this has sent the wrong messages to farmers.
GM cotton is falsely promoted as the answer to reducing pesticide use, and it is one of many reasons why farmers are giving in to the pressure to grow GM cotton.
"Farmers initially saw the system of industrial production as timesaving and requiring far less knowledge of soils and pests; however it soon proved to be a relentless treadmill.
It degraded the soil, depleted scarce water resources and proliferated cotton pests beyond the farmers' worst nightmares, as both yield and profit progressively diminished."
There are vast numbers of beneficial insects that get killed off from GM Bt cotton. Those insects are predators that attack and kill off most of the harmful insects and pests.
"The skill of managing pests without recourse to synthetic pesticide requires knowledge of life cycle and behaviour, vigilance, an armoury of pest specific deterrents, and a healthy community of natural predators of pests.
To control pests such as the spotted bollworm, American bollworm, tobacco caterpillar, pink bollworm, aphids, jassids, thrips, white fly and mites, each of which is capable of causing between 30 and 50 per cent damage to a crop, natural predators are the most effective year after year."
Conclusion: The Bangladesh government on July 19, 2006 declared a National Biotechnology Policy in order to keep pace with the fast advancing field of modern biotechnology and achieve world class competence in the fields of research and innovation.
The policy draft says in biotechnology research, problem arises concerning the protection of intellectual property for innovations in this field beyond legal and ethical questions.
In view of the special quality of living organisms the scope of patents has to be clearly defined to find balance between innovation and public interest.
Under the policy, legal measures will be taken to achieve a balanced system for protecting the interest of the innovation without compromising public interest.
Genetically modified seeds will lead to increased use of agri-chemicals and will thus increase environmental problems as well as human health problems.
Biodiversity represents the sustenance and livelihood base of small farmers all over the world and a sane environment is naturally the key to continuing healthy lives for the billions of people in the world.
So, Bangladesh is watching a global debate over genetically modified (GM) foods, which is opposed by many Europeans while favoured by tthe United States, as its own BR29 variety of GM rice awaits testing and government approval says M.A. Salam, research director at the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI).
The writer is a tea planter,
columnist & researcher
They have no respect whatever for the lives and the livelihood of farmers or, for that matter, any concern for the people who are exposed to severe health hazards from eating genetically modified foods. Corporate profit is all that counts.
About 5,000 activists marched through the German city of Bonn on 12 May to protest against genetically modified food at the start of a U.N. conference to discuss risks linked to the technology.
Campaigners, many waving colorful flags and banners with slogans like "Biofuel Creates Hunger" and "Good Food Instead Of GM Food", walked and danced through the Western German city.
"We are protesting for biodiversity and against the destruction of nature, against GM, for the protection of biodiversity," activist Amira Busch told Reuters Television.
"We want biodiversity to be part of humanity's wealth and a precondition to overcome hunger," said Greens EU lawmaker Friedrich-Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf.
"We demand that all other activities, which probably boost industry's profits, do not endanger food security for future generations," he told Reuters Television.
In Europe, consumers are fairly skeptical about GM crops but the biotech industry says its products are as safe as non-GM equivalents.
The greatest long-lasting danger from these biotech companies is destruction of the earth's eco-systems - degrading of the soil, depleting of water resources and the proliferation of pests.
The biotech industries have taken a big and dangerous leap to destroy the earth as it has been known for thousands of years.
But to make short-term profit from monocultures of the genetically modified products, these biotech giants are falsely marketing those as saviours of the world from hunger and poverty.
One woman is in the forefront of the fight against the biotech industry. Her name is Vandana Shiva. She is based in Delhi, India.
Dr. Vandana Shiva, a former particle physicist, has for the past three decades done more than anyone else as an activist to attract the attention of the world to the deadly corporate horror story of genetically modified products.
She attacks the problem from all angles, educating and organizing protest demonstrations through her organization Navdanya.
Dr. Shiva addresses principally the dangers of GM farming in India. However, the danger to the environment and to the livelihood of millions of people is obviously world-wide.
Take India for example. It has been severely hit by the biotech industry with accompanying disasters.
What follows the farmers' shift to GMO seeds after millennia of planting and making a livelihood in organic farming is a horror story of bad harvests, huge debts, increased costs for herbicides and fertilizers and the suicides of thousands of farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala. Among the Indian states that have been the worst hit.
This has been going on for decades and if it were not for many acts of activism focused on this problem, there would be no chance that anything would change, since the corporations are tied firmly to the governments.
The farmers are lured into buying the GM seeds because of low-interest loans and propaganda about big harvests, less work and lower costs.
Biotech PR claims that there is no need for pesticides and less need for fertilizers.
But such claims have proved to be inaccurate. Added to this is the fact that these seeds are not adjusted to the eco-systems where they are being planted. They frequently need more water than is available and the results are disastrous.
The way farmers have been cultivating the land for millennia is Dr. Shiva's central argument, while monocultures in practice at the giant industrial farms are her principal enemy.
She talks about food fascism and the biotech industry sees her as their most prominent enemy in their vicious attempt to control the world's food supply.
"For example, the generally acknowledged argument that the Green Revolution, at the very least, led to an increase in food production is one of them.' No, it did not increase production.
Wheat and rice production increased, not the overall food production,' argues Shiva, and launches into a lecture that concludes that whatever increase there was had nothing whatsoever to do with the Green Revolution, and that overall it has been a disaster for agriculture and food security in India."
The latest horror news on GMOs is the Mealy Bug that has been said to be "the deadly gift from Monsanto to Vidarbha, set to destroy all crops and plants".
Vidarbha is the eastern part of Maharashtra state, in western India. It is India's most developed and urbanized state.
In a press note Kishor Tiwari, President of 'Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti' - a farmer's advocacy group - writes that the Mealy Bug is a virus that is imported with the Bt Cotton sold by multinational corporation Monsanto.
This is of the most urgent importance to save more than 3 million distressed and debt-trapped Vidarbha cotton farmers.
The London-based Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) on their web site has published a letter from Ram Kalaspurkar who refers to a study where they have found that 'Organic Cotton Beats Bt Cotton in India'.
They firmly recommend a return to organic cotton, saying that Bt cotton is a trap that has to be avoided. All the infested plots had the Bollgard label, which is supposed to control pests. It is made clear the Mealy Bugs have never been found in the region before BT cotton seeds were introduced.
After the death of the cotton plants, the bug goes over to nearby plants and it has already shifted to congress weed and many other weeds and plants in fields close by.
This is just one example of what has proved to be the false propaganda from Monsanto.
Several Non-Governmental Organizations are working in many villages promoting non-pesticide management (NPM).
The government has until now supported high-chemical-input cotton production at national and state level and this has sent the wrong messages to farmers.
GM cotton is falsely promoted as the answer to reducing pesticide use, and it is one of many reasons why farmers are giving in to the pressure to grow GM cotton.
"Farmers initially saw the system of industrial production as timesaving and requiring far less knowledge of soils and pests; however it soon proved to be a relentless treadmill.
It degraded the soil, depleted scarce water resources and proliferated cotton pests beyond the farmers' worst nightmares, as both yield and profit progressively diminished."
There are vast numbers of beneficial insects that get killed off from GM Bt cotton. Those insects are predators that attack and kill off most of the harmful insects and pests.
"The skill of managing pests without recourse to synthetic pesticide requires knowledge of life cycle and behaviour, vigilance, an armoury of pest specific deterrents, and a healthy community of natural predators of pests.
To control pests such as the spotted bollworm, American bollworm, tobacco caterpillar, pink bollworm, aphids, jassids, thrips, white fly and mites, each of which is capable of causing between 30 and 50 per cent damage to a crop, natural predators are the most effective year after year."
Conclusion: The Bangladesh government on July 19, 2006 declared a National Biotechnology Policy in order to keep pace with the fast advancing field of modern biotechnology and achieve world class competence in the fields of research and innovation.
The policy draft says in biotechnology research, problem arises concerning the protection of intellectual property for innovations in this field beyond legal and ethical questions.
In view of the special quality of living organisms the scope of patents has to be clearly defined to find balance between innovation and public interest.
Under the policy, legal measures will be taken to achieve a balanced system for protecting the interest of the innovation without compromising public interest.
Genetically modified seeds will lead to increased use of agri-chemicals and will thus increase environmental problems as well as human health problems.
Biodiversity represents the sustenance and livelihood base of small farmers all over the world and a sane environment is naturally the key to continuing healthy lives for the billions of people in the world.
So, Bangladesh is watching a global debate over genetically modified (GM) foods, which is opposed by many Europeans while favoured by tthe United States, as its own BR29 variety of GM rice awaits testing and government approval says M.A. Salam, research director at the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI).
The writer is a tea planter,
columnist & researcher