India's farming crisis (Bt cotton...a total failure)

[nosmokes]

the plight of the indian farmer, something that i have never heard so much as a peep of on our MSM or even that far left 'daring' darling of the DLC *liberal,* NPR or PBS is simply a sign of what's to come. the proverbial canary in the coal mine if you will. and that lil yella fella is laying cold and stiff on the bottom of his cage.
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original-new agriculturist

India's farming crisis

Krishan Bir Chaudhary is executive chairman of Bharat Krishak Samaj, India's largest farmer organisation. He is a farmer and leader, known for his anti - GM and anti-globalisation views, and for speaking out about the losses incurred by local farmers in the light of agricultural globalisation and liberalisation.

The distress of farmers in India can be traced back to the introduction of technology-led, capital intensive farming in the heyday of the Green Revolution. With the advent of 'economic liberalisation' and the globalisation of trade, this distress has been aggravated. Unfair rules of the multilateral global trading regime have depressed global and domestic prices, and denied Indian farmers adequate remunerative prices. The poor farmer is squeezed between high input costs and low returns. Credit obtained from formal or informal banking systems is unable to bail him out of this precarious situation. Caught in a vicious debt trap, many farmers have resorted to suicide.

BT cotton and the debt trap

Misled and misguided, the changeover to Bt cotton proved to be a total failure, causing severe losses for our cotton growers. The enormous loss and the resultant debt trap forced thousands of cotton growers to commit suicide. Bt cotton proved to be a total fiasco. Thousands and thousands of farmers have already committed suicide, and there seems to be no end to this tragic situation. Trends in suicide remain unabated even now, especially among cotton growers.

Significantly, farmer suicide is reported mainly from the high-tech agriculture belts, such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Punjab. All these states have embraced capital intensive and 'cutting edge' technology in the name of boosting production. In areas where traditional agricultural practices and organic farming are prevalent, such as Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, suicide is unheard of.

The ripple effect

As far as agriculture is concerned, it is alarming that India is moving towards a point of no return. From being a self-reliant nation of food surplus, the country is becoming a net importer of food. In this context, policies to promote contract and corporate farming, the use of genetically modified seeds such as Bt cotton, and genetic synthesis in aquaculture and industrial poultry farming, threaten to undermine food security and the livelihoods of poor farmers.
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complete article here

[loudsue]

1. Monsanto raises its ugly head, yet again.

They're trying to kill anyone and everyone that grows REAL stuff on the land, so that they can have a monopoly on everything that Mother Nature has taken care of, herself, for millions and millions of years.

:kick: