Allowing a corporation to control our food supply is idiocy of a dire order...

[unusualmusic_lj_archive]

Monsanto, a corporation, might be more powerful than the nation of Germany!

Germany has banned the cultivation of GM corn, claiming that MON 810 is dangerous for the environment. But that argument might not stand up in court and Berlin could face fines totalling millions of euros if American multinational Monsanto decides to challenge the prohibition on its seed.

So let me get this straight. A nation cannot simply ban Monsanto's product, even after said nation decides that it's bad for the environment? Even though EU law says that they, indeed, can ban such things? Wow.

...

1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India

Over 1,500 farmers in an Indian state committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure, it was reported today.
The agricultural state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels.
"The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago," Shatrughan Sahu, a villager in one of the districts, told Down To Earth magazine.

I'm sure there's no connection between the crops failing due to a water shortage, and GM crops being planted that require twice as much water as the traditional varieties. MORE

Comments

[yud.livejournal.com]

(My browser spectacularly glitched the first time I tried to post this comment)

There was a story on NPR the other day about the "Green Revolution" program in India. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102944731&ps=cprs) Apparently in the 1960s India decided to "modernize" their farming practices. it started off great, digging some shallow wells and throwing down a bit of fertilizer and pesticide greatly increased their harvests.

But every year the wells had to be dug a bit deeper, and the farmers had to use a bit more fertilizer and pesticide, and the harvest was a bit smaller. Now many farmers are horribly in debt, having to get loans to buy bigger well pumps and more chemicals to use on their crops.

Banks won't lend to them anymore, so they're having to go to the local loan sharks and accept 20-30% interest rates.

[bossymarmalade.livejournal.com]

The Green Revolution happened in many places, didn't it? Not just India, as far as I know. And wow, that NPR article has some pretty loaded language in it -- farmers "abandoned" traditional farming? And India was importing grain "like a beggar"?

What I've found particular about the Indian experience are the attempts by multinational corporations like Monsanto and RiceTec and whatnot to "copyright" plants and seeds that Indian agriculturalists have been growing and saving for CENTURIES. It's so goddamn hideous, especially paired with the water depletion. Thank goodness for organizations like Navdanya!

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. I didn't read the article, how in the hell did they think that using that kind of language was cool? What in the hell is wrong with white liberals, exactly?

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

yeah the green revolution was a spectacular fuckup where India is concerned. Vandana Shiva has been writing tons of books about it.

[bossymarmalade.livejournal.com]

Every time I even SEE the word "Monsanto" I get enraged. How did we get to this fucking place, where they can have the *legal right* to fuck up our food/human security? God, all those poor farmers and their families.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

Easy. Profit trumps all. Once that ideology takes hold, anything is possible. It won't be scifi for too much longer, the idea that corporations will run our world.

[kali921.livejournal.com]

Thank you for these links. May I repost with credit? Not enough people understand the destruction that corporate agriculture wages on the world, and the genetically modified crops thing terrifies me. It's terrified me for years.

[unusualmusic.livejournal.com]

by all means.

[voz-latina.livejournal.com]

Have we already forgotten the lessons of the Texas strain? The US lost 90% of its corn one year in the 80s from a monoculture, and that wasn't as pure as the GM FrankenFoods being made now

Monocultures are deadly to human agriculture, and are a direct threat to me and my family.

I have had this fight with my partner before, too:

"no, we can't buy that seed, it's GM"

"But the organic seed is so much more expensive"

"but you only buy it once. Here let me show you the math of seedsaving"

(long ass segue into the cost savings...I know better than to try to convince her that the seeds make plants that kill the land)

"ohhs"

Three weeks later, same damn argument. I love her, but some days I wanna just scream.

[color-blue.livejournal.com]

So let me get this straight. A nation cannot simply ban Monsanto's product, even after said nation decides that it's bad for the environment?

mm, is that really so surprising? Corporations have been setting the global agenda for decades now; we have international copyright laws that are stringently enforced and yet no international labor rights laws or environmental laws or etc. Only a handful of nations have ever had the power to stand up to them (the same handful that are in collusion with those corporations).

It's not often that a country as powerful as Germany gets thwarted, though.

Also, I HAVE SO MUCH HATE FOR MONSANTO. SO MUCH. Companies such as that have wrecked so much destruction in India, and the increasing rate of Indian farmer suicides over this past decade is awful.

[the-willow.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

I associated Monsanto with the depletion of the Amazon and starving people in South America, not to mention their monoculture IS bad for the environment. They've genetically modified their seed to grow plants that do not seed fruit which can be replanted.

It's not strictly Cash Rules Everything Around Me. It's Corporations pushing the CREAM. Cash for them. Cash forever.