GM Watch Warning: India next target of GM crops.

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GMW: India grist for U.S. mills/Bt cotton suicides will hauntplanners"GM WATCH" <infoTue, 14 Feb 2006 23:14:25 GMTGM WATCH dailyhttp://www.gmwatch.org---1.Bt cotton suicides will haunt planners2.Grist for the U.S. mills---1.Bt cotton suicides will haunt planners...the Indian farmer must be taught about crop diversification, cropshifting and the effect of genetically developed seeds and fertilisers.The bitter experience of Bt cotton growers across the country andsuicides by many of them will continue to haunt the planners. So, thefarmers must be protected from the hype

that surrounds new biotechseeds and fertilisersand educated about their compatibility to theIndian environment.[sudhansu R. Das, Villagescope - Reviving the rural economy,BusinessLine, 14 February 2006http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/127424/1/5339]---2.Grist for the US millsKP Prabhakaran Nair, (Down to Earth Feature)http://www.centralchronicle.com/20060214/1402302.htmThe Indian media has a penchant for the sensational. Caught up in thescandals over former minister K Natwar Singh's Iraq liaisons and thesurrender of Abu Salem, it paid short shrift to a landmark memorandumof understanding (MoU) that was signed between India and the US onNovember12,

2005.The treaty will open up the country's most important public sectoragricultural research establishments to private players from the US.It is a follow-up of what transpired between Prime Minister, ManmohanSingh and the US President George Bush, when the former visited the USin July 2005. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research - with anetwork of 47 national institutes, including four deemed universities- the New Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute, theNational Dairy Research Institute in Karnal, Haryana, the IndianVeterinary Research Institute in Izatnagar, the Central Institute ofFisheries Education in Mumbai, 29 National Research Centres, 11Project Directorates and 4 National Bureaus will now be open to USAmerican private sector companies to "help identify research areas,that have the potential for rapid commercialisation."But will "rapid commercialisation" benefit the Indian farmer? It

can,if there are appropriate policies and safeguards to protect poorfarmers from trade-related shocks and other vagaries ofcommercialisation. But the country does not afford its farmers muchsecurity against the whims of the market. Lest we forget, not too farback, the BT cotton fiasco drove farmers to suicide in Andhra Pradeshand Vidarbha: there was no insurance umbrella to cover theseagriculturists from financial loss.The treaty has other perils. It threatens to expose the country's biowealth to the machinations of US-based corporates and researchinstitutes. Agro-interests in the US have had designs on the country'sbio-resources for quite some time now. In 1995, the medicine centre ofthe University of Michigan even managed to secure a US patent oncertain therapeutic uses of turmeric. And then in 1997, a privateagricultural company in the US patented basmati rice as "texmati".Such biopiracy happened clandestinely. But

now it can take place withofficial sanction. The MoU to open up our agricultural researchinstitutes to private players from the US will ensure exactly that.The treaty is a partnership between two unequal partners. Americanagriculture is highly mechanised and organised, energy intensive andmarket centric. Indian agriculture, in contrast, has been formillennia, a way of life for a vast majority of people in the country.This is the main reason why former agriculture minister, Nitish Kumarinsisted on a "livelihood box" in the World Trade Organization'snegotiations on opening up our agricultural sector. This would havegiven us an option to deny import of food items from the developedcountries and protect the livelihoods of their farmers and the poor.And then former commerce minister, Murasoli Maran, also did amagnificent job of pushing for the livelihood box at the World TradeOrganization's negotiations in Doha in

2003.But, nothing has ever been heard about this protective clause eversince. It is only the farm subsidies and tariff walls that are doingthe rounds. The developing word did gain some minor concessions at therecent WTO ministerial in Hong Kong. But, it will not be until 2013that the developed countries will have to phase out their agriculturalexport subsidies.One thing is very clear. What the US wants is a captive market for itsfarm goods.What better way then to achieve it than getting into the web of ourown research and developmental activities? Indian farmers certainlydeserve a much better deal.But, will it come out of the American purse?------ "Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit." -

Aurobindo.

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