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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Protect farmers, don't target them -Vandana Shiva

Protect farmers, don't target them -Vandana Shiva

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published Published on Jun 24, 2017   modified Modified on Jun 24, 2017
-AsianAge.com

Now farmers have started to awaken the nation to the farming crisis with strikes in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

Indian civilisation is based on gratitude to our farmers and all beings who contribute to our food — annadata sukhibhava. Our traditional belief is “Uttam-kheti, madhyam-vyapar, neech-naukri”.

The combination of the Green Revolution in Punjab imposed in the 1960s and the corporate globalisation “reforms” started in the 1990s have created policies for annadata dukhi bhava, undermining our 10,000-year civilisational heritage of Earth-first and farmer-first policies.

Since 1995, approximately 3, 10, 000 farmers have committed suicide with the globalisation of agriculture and the hijack of our seeds, agriculture and food systems. And the suicides continue.

Now farmers have started to awaken the nation to the farming crisis with strikes in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Instead of gratitude and justice, they got bullets. This is not democracy; this is not the expression of our civilisational values.

The Green Revolution works against the Earth. It is based on chemicals, and is a war against the Earth, the farmers — our annadatas — and against innocent citizens who are suffering from an epidemic of chronic diseases because they are being condemned to eat nutritionally empty, toxic commodities, not food.

Debt resulting from the purchase of costly non-renewable seeds and unnecessary toxic inputs is the primary reason for suicides by farmers and protests by them. While the immediate short-term measure is debt relief and higher MSP, the lasting solution to the agrarian crisis is a debt-free internal input ecological agriculture called by a variety of names — agroecology, organic, zero budget, permaculture, biodynamic, vedic krishi, natural farming, etc.

The government driven and controlled by MNCs is planning to deepen the debt trap by creating more markets for costly seeds and chemicals. The 2017 Budget has `10 lakh crore allocated for agricultural credit, which means encouragement to farmers to get into more debt by buying more chemicals and more hybrid and GMO seeds from multinationals. This is a recipe for deeper debt traps and more suicides.

The seeds of the agrarian crisis lie in the seed. The Green Revolution seeds were bred for chemicals. That is why Norman Ernest Borlaug had to evolve dwarf varieties that reduced biomass, triggered desertification and water famine. Monsanto’s GMO Bt cotton increased cotton seed prices by more than 70,000 per cent, trapping farmers in debt and establishing a seed monopoly. Most of the 3,10,000 farmer suicides were in the cotton belt. Monsanto controls 95 per cent of the cotton seed.

Bayer via Deepak Pental is now trying to introduce herbicide-resistant GMO mustard that produces less than non-GMO mustard. Most of the patents linked to GMO mustard are with Bayer. Mr Pental is also advocating that India’s patent laws, which forbid patents on seeds through 3j, must be changed, so his bosses can reap limitless profits from royalties on seeds.

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AsianAge.com, 23 June, 2017, http://www.asianage.com/opinion/oped/230617/protect-farmers-dont-target-them.html


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