Indian farmers excluded from debate on GMO cotton

Screen Shot at PM
Photo from The Odd Pantry/Aneela Mirchandani

I am on a phone call with a farmer named Ganesh NanoteĀ [fromĀ Nimbhara, India]…

. . . .

I have been conversing with him over the period of some months to gain his perspective as a grower of GM cotton. What led him to grow itā€Š…? Does he feel duped by corporations like Monsanto, as activists have claimed?…

. . . .

…Ganesh sounds pragmatic as he describes his history with this crop… ā€œI was the first farmer in my local area to try it out… Other farmers have looked at my example and now most (you could say all) are growing GM cotton.ā€

. . . .

…In the 1990s, before GM cotton came into the market, farmers …were fighting a serious infestation ofĀ cotton bollworms. Sometimes, Ganesh told me… farmers would lose more than half their cotton to it, and could not …Ā cover their costs.

. . . .

He bristles at critiques from people who are far removed from farming themselves…

The only way to make people understand, he says, is to include Indian farmers in the conversation… ā€œNo one usually bothers us for our opinions, not even the Indian press.” [he says] … If farmers didn’t like Bt cotton, why would 99% of farmers seek them out in the market?ā€

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post:Ā Profile of an Indian GM farmer: high-tech seeds on a traditional farm.

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