...Monsanto and company are evil 'people.'
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Deregulation destruction... another corporate induced disaster...
Had read this article about 200,000 Indian farmers committing suicide... had to do more research...
Before 2000, there were no reports of any farmer suicides.
In 1998, the World Bank’s structural adjustment policies forced India to open up its seed sector to global corporations like Cargill, Monsanto and Syngenta. The global corporations changed the input economy overnight. Farm saved seeds were replaced by corporate seeds, which need fertilizers and pesticides and cannot be saved.
Corporations prevent seed savings through patents and by engineering seeds with non-renewable traits. As a result, poor peasants have to buy new seeds for every planting season and what was traditionally a free resource, available by putting aside a small portion of the crop, becomes a commodity. This new expense increases poverty and leads to indebtedness.
The shift from saved seed to corporate monopoly of the seed supply also represents a shift from biodiversity to monoculture in agriculture. The district of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh used to grow diverse legumes, millets, and oilseeds. Now the imposition of cotton monocultures has led to the loss of the wealth of farmer’s breeding and nature’s evolution.
There is a Seeds of Hope campaign to stop farmers suicides. The transition from seeds of suicide to seeds of hope includes:
A shift from GMO and non renewable seeds to organic, open pollinated seed varieties which farmers can save and share. A shift from chemical farming to organic farming. A shift from unfair trade based on false prices to fair trade based on real and just prices.The farmers who have made this shift are earning 10 times more than the farmers growing Monsanto’s Bt-cotton.
ClimateStoryTellers.org
