GM crops in India: Sweet myths and bitter facts by Xavier Jeyaraj SJ

GM crops in India: Sweet myths and bitter facts Xavier Jeyaraj SJ [this article was published in Italian in Popoli Feb. 2013 issue] About thirteen years ago, one of my cousin brothers committed suicide by drinking pesticide because of the agricultural and Genetically Modified (GM) crop related debt trap he was caught into. He was unable to repay the loan he had taken from money lenders. The bitter cry of his wife and 2 young children are too vivid in my memory. In fact, this is just one more of the many unreported cases of farm related suicides by a farmer that happens every day in India. According to the official data of the government of India, around 250,000 farmers have killed themselves since 1995. “Every 30 minutes a farmer in India kills himself” has become the catch phrase of the recent documentary film “Bitter Seeds” by Micha X. Peled that portrays the harsh reality of the farmers in India today. Who is responsible for such a human-made calamity in the country? Personally speaking... I am a son of a farmer from a small village, Kombadimadurai near Paramakudi in Ramnad district of Tamilnadu in India. In 1960s and 70s, my father and other villagers used to cultivate traditional varieties of paddy and innumerable varieties of millets such as Barnyard millet (kuthiravaali), finger millet (kelvaragu or keppai), foxtail millet (tenai), Kodo millet (varagu), Pearl millet (kambu), Sorghum (cholam) etc. besides vegetables, pulses, chillies etc., that needed no chemical fertilizers or pesticides. These crops only needed a little water, since the rainfall in this area is very low. Every family had small plots of land and cultivated them. My father preserved seeds from previous year’s crop and used fertilizer made from cow dung and compost. But today, there is hardly anyone cultivating any of these rich millets, or traditional varieties of paddy or vegetables that are not GMO crops. In fact, many farmers in the village today have sold their land for a cheap price and moved out to cities in search of jobs, because the land has become infertile, hard and yields almost nothing, in spite of hard labour, all due to the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides. It was in 1980s, I remember, the farmers slowly gave up the traditional crops and began cultivating the new varieties of GM paddy that came into the market. It is true that they yielded better results initially but needed more water and chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which the farmers never realized then. They borrowed from the money lenders and spent more money on fertilizers and pesticides, depended on the market for seeds and often had no option when the rain gods too failed them, except to commit suicide. Sweet myths and bitter facts of GMO in India Research on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) began only around 1980s but it has become the major killer of farmers within these 3 decades. India, being an agrarian nation with around 80% of its population depending directly or indirectly on agriculture, will it not be a huge risk to force GM crops on farmers? Does GM crop become a boon or a bane for the nation? The promoters of GMO claim that GM food will a) reduce and solve the problem of hunger and malnutrition; b) lower the cost of production, labour and agricultural waste; c) reduce poverty; d) improve the agricultural yields with better nutrients and resistance to pests; e) improve the food security for the fast growing population, and f) improve the health and the life span of people. Unfortunately, all these claims have remained merely as concocted myths of the corporate sector who want profits, nothing but profits and maximum profits, at the expense of the lives of the poor and innocent small farmers. If GM food would reduce and solve the problem of hunger, then how come that 350 million people in India go to bed hungry every night? In fact, India had a surplus wheat production of 53 million metric tons last year, irrespective of the GM crops. Recently, Mr. Sharad Pawar, the agriculture minister himself stated in the Indian parliament that 20 per cent of the food stored goes waste every year. If so, is it not a problem of proper storage and distribution, rather than lack of food grains? If the 53 million metric tons of surplus food could not feed the 350 million hungry, how will the GM food remove hunger in the country? Again, the claim of lowering the production cost and reducing poverty in the nation is nothing but a sweet myth. In fact the farmers have always claimed that they spend more now and have even lost their land which sustained them for centuries. If this is the bitter reality, why is the Indian government accepting the GM crops and GM food? First of all, India has been under tremendous pressure from the biotechnology industry to allow GM crop experimentations on maize, mustard, sugarcane, sorghum, rice, tomato, brinjal, potato, banana, papaya, cauliflower, oilseeds, castor, soyabean and many indigenous medicinal plants. Experiments are also underway on several species of fish. In fact the desperate so called scientists, who least bother about the ethical norms, are trying to insert Bt gene into any crop they can lay their hands on, not knowing whether this is desirable or not for India. The powerful MNCs - interested only in profit – have been pumping in enormous financial resources to mobilize scientific and media opinion as well as political support. Some of the main stream media have become a puppet in the hands of these MNCs to create myths and to tell blatant lies. For example, Times of India published a full page article twice in 3 years, saying that there was not a single suicide in two villages in the state of Maharashtra, even though the farmers confirmed that 14 people had committed suicide after Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech’s Bt Cotton began to be cultivated. It is interesting to note that this article was published as a full-page colour advertisement for 5 days just at the time of introducing the Biotech Regulatory Authority of India bill in Parliament in August 2011. Many of the scientific experiments conducted in India clearly reveal that such GM crops are not suitable for Indian conditions. These experiments show that the country is fast moving into an unforeseen era of biological pollution, which will be more unsustainable and destructive to human health and environment. Probably, if India paid attention to already existing sustainable farming systems of the indigenous people and provided better irrigation facilities where it is not available, India would have created a unique model of agriculture where farmers would not be forced to commit suicide, where the land would not be polluted and where water would not be poisoned. The GM technology has continued to threaten our Indigenous genetic resources and the traditional wisdom of the people. India has already lost control over many plant, animal and microbial genetic resources. A copy of roughly 150,000 plant accessions that have been collected in India, are with the US department of agriculture. India has no control over these resources. If something good has happened, it is because of the continuous struggle of the people and the civil society. Farmers and civil society action Since 2002, Indian farmers have been experiencing the stark reality of GM crop cultivation in the country in the form of Bt cotton. The small farmers faced with the bitter reality of illnesses, pests, and deaths in their own families, together with the support of a few human rights organizations and NGOs, formed an informal network called “Coalition for GM Free India” in 2006, representing farmers’ movements, unions, organizations and individuals from more than 15 states of India. They have been fighting the thick battle to preserve their rich biodiversity and their traditional agricultural wisdom, in spite of the impending tsunami of the corporate sector trying to steal their collective intellectual and biodiversity heritage in the name of patent and intellectual property rights. Their fight against the rich Indian industrialists, pharmaceutical and agri-biotech industries, politicians, media and corporate sectors have become stronger day by day. Following a series of farmers’ protests and public outcry by civil society movements and organizations since 2006 in many states, Indian government was forced to relook at its approach to GM crops and even withdraw its approval granted in 2009 on GM Bt brinjal in February 2010. When the promoters of GM crops went for an appeal to the Supreme court of India, it set up a Technical Expert Committee (TEC) which recommended a 10-year moratorium on field trials of Bt transgenics in all food crops (meant for direct human consumption) until specific sites for conducting the trials have been marked and certified, and competent monitoring mechanisms put in place. Church and Jesuit involvement A biggest challenge for India is to educate its farmers to cherish the richness of their heritage and not to be fooled or cheated by the false claims of the corporates. Many Church groups and Jesuit social centres have been working in the remote villages among the farmers, dalits and the indigenous people, to educate, to promote, and to preserve the rich biodiversity of the land and also to protect the rights of the farmers and indigenous over their natural resources such as land, water, forest and minerals. One of the areas where Jesuits have been in the forefront is watershed, water-harvesting and tree plantation. In some states, the farmers have been systematically educated on vermin-culture, compost making, methods of preserving their traditional variety of seeds and methods of using natural and organic pest controls. The Jesuit-run Entomology Research Institute of Loyola College, Chennai has formulated a bio-pesticide called Ponneem, an oil formulation containing neem and pungam, a much cheaper and an easier way of controlling pests. In some Schools and Colleges students are taught and are taken for exposure trips to explain the biodiversity and importance of preserving the ecology and environment. Creation of eco-gardens, herbal gardens, environmental clubs, nature clubs, reforestation programs, etc., both in the villages and among the student community is a regular feature. A few Jesuits and church groups have also been part of the larger peoples’ and farmers’ movements to oppose the GM crops and seeds with focus on advocacy in favour of the farmers, probably an area where Jesuits and the Church needs to become more active today. Conclusion India, which was fast turning into a dumping ground for GM crops during the last 30 years has finally woken up and has put the moratorium for 10 years on field trials. I only hope that the policy makers and agricultural experts do not get bullied by the corrupt corporate sectors and open up the can of worms. At the same time, the civil society and the farmers’ movements must not be elated with a little success achieved but remain as watchdogs to protect the future generation and the environment forever.