Genetically modified crops have better yields, are more resistant to conventional pests than organic crops, and use less fertilizer. India permits the use of genetically modified seeds only in cotton cultivation. Since 2002, when the technology was allowed, India’s otherwise doomed cotton production increased many folds and the nation is today one of the major cotton producers in the world.
But the technology has also been mired in controversy with activists alleging that seed companies, chiefly Monsanto, which produces Bt Cotton, have exaggerated the benefits and played down the reverses. They have accused Monsanto of being responsible for farmers falling into debt traps, and for their suicides. Several independent studies have disproved this hypothesis but the issue has become a matter of belief.
Years of campaign against the technology by both honest and spurious activists, and the tendency of Indian journalists who cover rural affairs to be suspicious of multi-national corporations, have instilled the fear in the minds of farmers that the products of biotechnology would make them beholden to seed companies like Monsanto.
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The fact is that India has an exemplary law in place that protects the Indian farmer from becoming a slave to the monopoly of private corporations. Also, India has consistently demonstrated its will to stand up to the whole world to protect the commercial interests of the farmer, who is politically crucial. Yet, Indian politicians, who are usually practical men of the world, as a result short-term players, see no immediate gain in risking the wrath of farmers, activists and nationalists.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Falling For The Village Romantics
