GMW:_Secretive_deal-making_that_devastates_lives._How_many_people_must_die?

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> Subject:

Secretive_deal-making_that_devastates_lives._How_many_people_must_die?

 

> " GM_WATCH " <info

> Mon, 16 Aug 2004 13:55:17 +0100

 

> GM WATCH daily

> http://www.gmwatch.org

> ---

> Excerpts from an illuminating article, reproduced in

> full below, by Ashwin Mahesh, co-founder of India

> Together.

> http://www.indiatogether.org/agriculture/

>

> The article is published by the online publication,

> rediff.com, where Mahesh has a regular column.

>

> " ...we [india's midle class] have become so deluded

> by our minor privileged sphere that we are unable to

> comprehend what great numbers of Indians experience.

>

> " The inattentiveness to agriculture has made it

> easier for policy decisions to be made that are

> catastrophically harmful to the rural poor.

>

> " Hundreds of millions who depend on [agriculture]

> for their livelihood have no way of engaging the

> secretive deal-making that devastates their lives...

>

> " Another example of the under-the-radar developments

> in agriculture is what's happening with genetically

> modified (GM) crops. These are plainly risky to

> public health, and the claims of improved nutrition

> from them are mostly unproven. Don't take my word

> for it; that's also what the Indian Council of

> Medical Research had to say about this recently. "

>

> " There's something else you should know about GM

> foods. The 'high-yielding strains' are touted as the

> answer to the world's problems of starvation and

> malnutrition. But how true is that? ...What is

> really being starved is the truth, while GM foods

> that are banned in many European countries are now

> being pushed in the Third World under the banner of

> benevolence. "

> ---

> The majority of the truth

> by Ashwin Mahesh

> Rediff.com, August 16, 2004

> http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/aug/16ash.htm

>

> How many people must die before we will end the

> injustice that marked their lives when they were

> alive? The inevitable consequence of the neglect and

> indifference that agriculture has been subjected to

> is that more of our farmers will die in the coming

> months too, as they have each month for the last few

> years -- first by the few, then by the handful, the

> dozens, and now the hundreds.

>

> Each death is a personal tragedy, one that not only

> ends the faint hopes that may have lingered to the

> end, but also leaves survivors behind who are

> scarred forever and must live with their own

> burdens. And yet, even the smallest regard -- or

> respect -- for their deaths does not appear upon the

> face of our nation's policies towards agriculture

> and the abject poor who toil our lands.

>

> Agriculture engages more Indians than any other

> occupation does. Indeed, by most accounts, anywhere

> between one-half and two-thirds of the people are

> dependent on agriculture for their livelihood

> directly or indirectly. In such an overwhelmingly

> agrarian society, the government's attitude to

> agriculture is significantly more important than its

> position on other issues.

>

> Similarly, given this enormous footprint from one

> line of work, one would expect that the majority of

> news reports, analysis and commentary from the

> country's major media institutions would focus on

> it. Every major news organisation should be crawling

> with farming types pointing to all sorts of

> developments; by contrast, other less popular

> activities should occupy a small corner of space

> once in every few weeks. Right?

>

> Alas. You would be fortunate to read one-tenth of

> the coverage of agriculture that is necessary to

> understand what is really going on with the

> livelihoods of the nation's majority. By now, the

> indifference to agriculture has reached such heights

> that in 'elite' publications, it can hardly be

> noticed that India is a largely agrarian nation.

>

> But in fact it is, and however much we choose to

> ignore that, eventually we are forced to confront

> that reality. The plain truth is that if the news

> you are reading everyday does not include

> significant coverage of agriculture, then it is

> grossly incomplete, and for that reason, bears very

> little resemblance to the reality of India. Our

> expressions of surprise at 'unexpected' political

> developments are in fact more surprising for a

> different reason -- that we have become so deluded

> by our minor privileged sphere that we are unable to

> comprehend what great numbers of Indians experience.

> The most recent example of this disconnect is the

> election result in Andhra Pradesh, where the

> agricultural crisis swept our most celebrated chief

> minister from a glory that we imagined to near-total

> irrelevance in the blink of a political eye.

>

> The inattentiveness to agriculture has made it

> easier for policy decisions to be made that are

> catastrophically harmful to the rural poor. Two

> recent developments in agriculture should remind us

> of this.

>

> In the past fortnight, most news reports of the

> World Trade Organisation's negotiations on trade in

> agriculture have declared progress. Somehow, it

> seems the developing and developed countries have

> found a formula by which poor farmers in Third World

> nations will be protected against the illegal

> subsidies that US and EU farmers get from their

> governments. These subsidies have allowed Western

> producers to lower their prices so much that small

> Indian farmers simply cannot compete. Reforming this

> state of affairs has been an absolute must for many

> years now.

>

> Any progress, therefore, must make the playing field

> a little more level, one would think. But the WTO

> doesn't work like that. In Geneva, what matters more

> is not leveling the playing field, but being able to

> make an announcement that the arena for competition

> is now more fair. The actual terms of the deal

> brokered become unimportant if a loud enough claim

> is made that the negotiations have been successful.

> Thus, trade representatives in the US and EU have

> both been quick to point to the lowering of

> subsidies in those countries, and this is parlayed

> around the planet as a breakthrough in the

> hitherto-stalled negotiations.

>

> But read the fine print. Cuts in subsidies that

> America and the European Union agreed to are not

> based on their actual current levels. Instead, they

> are based on a maximum permitted level of subsidy

> which is considerably higher than it is now. The

> 'cuts', therefore, will have no meaningful effect on

> the amount of money doled out to First World

> farmers. And understandably, as a result, this

> 'progress' on paper is unlikely to make any

> difference to unfair competitive conditions that

> Indian farmers actually face. They are merely being

> told to accept that their condition could have been

> worse, and that their current plight must therefore

> be seen as a boon in comparison to that worse

> alternative.

>

> The bait-and-switch is so blatant that one can

> scarcely believe that this is the outcome of a

> negotiation. And yet, incredibly, so far I've been

> able to find only one Indian entity that is

> unequivocally happy about all this -- the

> government!

>

> Another example of the under-the-radar developments

> in agriculture is what's happening with genetically

> modified (GM) crops. These are plainly risky to

> public health, and the claims of improved nutrition

> from them are mostly unproven. Don't take my word

> for it; that's also what the Indian Council of

> Medical Research had to say about this recently.

>

> If tests on animals show that a particular gene may

> be causing stunted growth and damage to the immune

> system, how happy would you be feeding on this

> variety of potato? How would you respond to

> 'nutritional imbalances' from eating your daily diet

> of GM rice? If the country's leading medical body is

> concerned about this, shouldn't the government be

> going slow on providing clearances for planting and

> sale? The agri-businesses contend that the risks of

> GM foods must be proven before they can be banned.

> But is that any way to guard public health? Wouldn't

> it be wiser to demonstrate their safety first before

> permitting widespread planting?

>

> Genetically Modified crops have been tested in India

> in only the most rudimentary manner. The test

> results aren't public, and the claims aren't

> verifiable. The few tests that were conducted failed

> to show any advantage and in some cases actually

> showed losses compared to non-GM alternatives. So

> much so that farmers sought compensation from GM

> seed producers for making false claims. Under those

> circumstances, why are unapproved GM cotton seeds

> available so widely in the country, and what are the

> regulators doing about it? They are supposed to care

> about Indian consumers' health and about Indian seed

> security, but what do they actually do when faced

> with the inconvenient data? They allow further

> 'testing' of GM crops on such a large scale that it

> is ridiculous to call it testing anymore.

>

> There's something else you should know about GM

> foods. The 'high-yielding strains' are touted as the

> answer to the world's problems of starvation and

> malnutrition. But how true is that? The ICMR report

> notes that three-fourths of genetic modification is

> for tolerance to herbicides, and another fifth is to

> ward off insects. Less that 0.1 per cent, in fact,

> is modification for yield improvement and enrichment

> of vitamins. What is really being starved is the

> truth, while GM foods that are banned in many

> European countries are now being pushed in the Third

> World under the banner of benevolence.

>

> That, then, is agriculture. Hundreds of millions who

> depend on it for their livelihood have no way of

> engaging the secretive deal-making that devastates

> their lives. And while this great majority of the

> nation is steered into a complete corner, the

> privileged are led by the media on an endless

> fantasy -- of an India that is growing in economic

> strength, and about to challenge the global powers

> and take her 'rightful' place in the family of

> nations.

>

> That's not going to happen. Not unless we connect

> the personal fortunes of the rural poor with the

> ambitions of the privileged few. The increasingly

> leftist politics that is taking hold in New Delhi is

> the price of neglecting this connection. Remember

> India Shining? There's an elementary amount of math

> to all this. While reality isn't the exclusive

> domain of one profession or another, when

> overwhelming numbers of the people are engaged in

> one line of work, it follows naturally that the

> particular reality they experience is the overriding

> reality for the nation as a whole. In this case, the

> reality that counts is this: countless families face

> the loss of their livelihood, and thousands of them

> are driven to such desperation that they have taken

> their very lives.

>