[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Will the World Survive 。。。

[Bill Totten]

。。。GM Cultures and the Damage to the Earth's Eco-Systems?

by Siv O'Neall

axisoflogic.com (June 13 2008)


Monsanto and the other major biotech companies - Syngenta, Bunge,
Cargill, et al - are all set on owning the world's food supply. Monsanto
is by far the leader in this nightmare of destroying organic agriculture
and millennia-old biodiversity.

They have no respect whatsoever for the lives and the livelihood of
farmers or, for that matter, any concern for the people who are exposed
to severe health hazards from eating genetically modified foods.
Corporate profit is all that counts.

The greatest long-lasting danger from GMOs is the destruction of the
earth's eco-systems - the degradation of the soil, the depletion of
water resources and the proliferation of pests that were until now
barely known, since they were kept under control by the natural balance
of predatory insects keeping those that are harmful to the crops from
having their potentially damaging effect. More later about this natural
equilibrium.

The bio-tech industries have taken a big and dangerous step towards
destroying the earth as it has been known for thousands of years.
Organic agriculture, biodiversity and natural pest control have made the
earth a place for sustainable farming for millennia. However, at this
point of delicate balance for the earth's survival, bio-tech
corporations want to put an end to everything that is natural in order
to make short-term profit from huge monocultures of the genetically
modified products that they are falsely marketing as our saviors from
world hunger and poverty. {1}

India is one country that has been severely hit by the bio-tech industry
with accompanying disasters.

What follows after the farmers change over to GMO seeds after millennia
of planting and making a livelihood in organic farming is a horror story
of bad harvests, huge debts, increased costs for herbicides and
fertilizers (in spite of the companies' promises of lower costs), and
the suicides of thousands of farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra,
Karnataka, Kerala - among the Indian states that are hit the worst.

This has been going on for decades and if it were not for a lot of
activism being focused on this problem, there is no chance that anything
would change, since the corporations are tied in firmly with the
governments in the heavy-handed corporatism that rules the world today.
The farmers are lured into buying the GM seeds because of low-interest
loans and obscene propaganda about giant harvests, less work and lower
costs. Bio-tech PR claims there is no need for pesticides and less need
for fertilizers, all of which has proved to be inaccurate. Added to
this, these seeds are not adjusted to the eco-systems where they are
being planted. They frequently need more water than is available and the
results are disastrous.

One woman is in the forefront of the fight against the bio-tech
industry. Her name is Vandana Shiva and she is based in Delhi.

Dr Vandana Shiva, a former particle physicist, has for the past three
decades done more than anyone else as an activist to attract the
attention of the world to the deadly corporate horror story of
genetically modified products. She attacks the problem from all angles,
educating and organizing protest demonstrations through her organization
Navdanya {2}.

Navdanya  means "nine seeds", and is a movement promoting diversity -
fighting against the privatization of water, campaigning against Basmati
biopiracy and generally leading a fight for the rights of rural farmers
to a decent livelihood, uncompromised through biopiracy such as is
taking place in India and all over the world. Biodiversity, the way
farmers have been cultivating the land for millennia is her central
argument and monocultures at the giant industrial farms are her
principal enemy. She talks about food fascism and the bio-tech industry
see her as their most prominent enemy in their vicious attempt of
controlling the world's food supply.

Vandana Shiva says on her Navdanya website {2}:

"When I found that dominant science and technology served the interests
of [the] powerful, I left academics to found the Research Foundation for
Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), a participatory, public
interest research organisation.

"When I found global corporations wanted to patent seeds, crops or life
forms, I started Navdanya to protect biodiversity, defend farmers'
rights and promote organic farming.

"Navdanya/RFSTE's journey over the past two decades has taken us into
creating markets for farmers and promoting tasty, healthy, high quality
food for consumers. We have connected the seed to the kitchen,
biodiversity to gastronomy. And now we have joined hands with Slow Food
to celebrate the quality and cultural diversity of our food."


SIU {3} magazine writes about Vandana Shiva:

"In fact, listening to her may make you rethink many of the world's
established social and political paradigms.

"For example, the generally acknowledged argument that the Green
Revolution, at the very least, led to an increase in food production is
one of them. 'No, it did not increase production. Wheat and rice
production increased, not the overall food production', argues Shiva,
and launches into a lecture that concludes that whatever increase there
was had nothing whatsoever to do with the Green Revolution, and that
overall it has been a disaster for agriculture and food security in India."


The Mealy Bug, the deadly gift from Monsanto

The latest horror news on GMOs is the Mealy Bug that has been said to be
"the deadly gift from Monsanto to Vidarbha, set to destroy all crops and
plants". Vidarbha is the eastern part of Maharashtra state, in western
India. It is India's most developed and urbanized state.

In a press note Kishor Tiwari, President of 'Vidarbha Jan Andolan
Samiti' - a farmers advocacy group - writes that the Mealy Bug is a
virus that is imported with the Bt Cotton sold by multinational
corporation  Monsanto. In the coming summer season it will have an
effect on a larger area covering almost all crops and next year it will
be set to destroy not only cotton crops but all other food crops as well.

Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) {4} has urged the Indian Prime
Minister, Manmohan Singh, to ban Monsanto Bt. Cotton seeds in the
agrarian crisis that has hit West Vidarbha. This is of the most urgent
importance in order to save more than three million distressed and
debt-trapped Vidarbha cotton farmers.

The London based Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) {5} posts the
following from Ram Kalaspurkar, organic farmer, Vidarbha Organic Farmers
Association, Yavatmal, Maharashtra, India:

"I am an organic farmer residing at Yavatmal in the state of
Maharashtra. Our organisation, Vidarbha Organic Farmers Association, has
been propagating organic farming since 1994. We have been helped a lot
by Dr Vandana Shiva. She was the first person to tell us about
terminators. Right now, we are working for her organisation Navdanya."

ISIS {6} on their web site has published a letter from Ram Kalaspurkar
who refers to a study where they have found that 'Organic Cotton Beats
Bt Cotton in India'. They firmly recommend a return to organic cotton,
saying that Bt cotton is a trap that has to be avoided. In the article
published by ISIS there are photos of plants infested by mealy bugs.

All the infested plots had the Bollgard label, which is supposed to
control pests. It is made clear that the mealy bugs have never been
found in the region before BT cotton seeds were introduced. (The mealy
bug had, however, been found in China two years earlier.)

After the death of the cotton plants, the bug goes over to nearby plants
and it has already shifted to Congress weed and many other weeds and
plants in fields close by.

The Monsanto website claims {7}:

"Bollgard II technology offers cotton growers efficient, effective pest
control with fewer pesticide applications than in conventional cotton
crops".

This is just one example of what has proved to be the totally false
propaganda pumped out from Monsanto.

Rhea Gala reports from Andhra Pradesh - from VIDARBHA JAN ANDOLAN SAMITI
{8} (the following quoted passages are excerpted from the same VJAS source)

"In the fertile regions of Andhra Pradesh 'white gold' monocultures of
the high-yielding hybrids of  'Green Revolution' cotton had turned the
state into the pesticide capital of the world even before the advent of
genetically modified (GM) Bt cotton. Now, however, the revolution is
turning full circle as more and more farmers are opting for low input
organic methods that are healthier and economically far more rewarding."

The message is now:

"Return to Organic Cotton and Avoid the Bt Cotton Trap. No more debt,
pesticides and suicides for Indian cotton farmers who avoid Bt-cotton
and regain livelihood, health, independence and peace of mind with
organic methods."


Several Non-Governmental Organizations are working in many villages
promoting non-pesticide management (NPM). The government has until now
supported high-chemical-input cotton production at national and state
level and this has sent the wrong messages to farmers. GM cotton is
falsely promoted as the answer to reducing pesticide use, and it is one
of many reasons why farmers are giving in to the pressure to grow GM cotton.

"Farmers initially saw the system of industrial production as timesaving
and requiring far less knowledge of soils and pests; however it soon
proved to be a relentless treadmill. It degraded the soil, depleted
scarce water resources and proliferated cotton pests beyond the farmers'
worst nightmares, as both yield and profit progressively diminished".


Research backs up the case for NPM and organic cotton.

A report entitled "Bt cotton vs Non Pesticidal Management of cotton:
Findings of a study by the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture 2004-05
compares Bt and NPM cotton in Andhra Pradesh".

The findings are unequivocally in favor of organic cotton. There are
vast numbers of beneficial insects that get killed off from GM Bt
cotton. Those insects are predators that attack and kill off most of the
harmful insects and pests.

"It reports conclusively that Bt cotton is more prone to pests and
diseases and that beneficial insects are more prevalent on NPM cotton.
It also reports that the cost of pest management of Bt cotton is 690
percent higher than in NPM farming systems and that seed cost of Bt
cotton is 355 percent higher than conventional varieties ('Organic
cotton beats Bt Cotton in India' SiS 27)".


Recreating the natural balance of predators and pests

"The skill of managing pests without recourse to synthetic pesticide
requires knowledge of life cycle and behaviour, vigilance, an armoury of
pest specific deterrents, and a healthy community of natural predators
of pests. To control pests such as the spotted bollworm, American
bollworm, tobacco caterpillar, pink bollworm, aphids, jassids, thrips,
white fly and mites, each of which is capable of causing between thirty
and fifty percent damage to a crop, natural predators are the most
effective year after year."


Conclusion

Vandana Shiva {9} by no means limits her activism to Bt cotton. She sets
as her goal to recreate natural biodiversity in rice and all the other
crops that the bio-tech companies are trying to take over with their GM
seeds and products. There exist 100,000 varieties of rice evolved by
Indian farmers and the diversity and the 'perenniality' have to be kept
alive if we want to save our environment. Genetically modified seeds
will lead to increased use of agri-chemicals and will thus increase
environmental problems as well as human health problems.

Vandana Shiva addresses principally the dangers of GM farming in India,
but the danger to the environment and to the livelihood of millions of
people is obviously world-wide. Biodiversity  represents the sustenance
and livelihood base of small farmers all over the world and a sane
environment is naturally the key to the continuation of healthy lives
for the billions of people in the world.

Notes & Links:

1. The problem is global, but strong resistance to GMO seeds and foods
contaminated by GMOs is taking place in Corporate-friendly governments
are trying to follow in the steps of pro-GM policies. The European
Commission is ambivalent on the issue, but the people of Europe
represented by numerous NGOs are leading the fight against this scourge
of industrial GM farming in order to save the world from the dangers to
people's health and from the destruction of the earth's eco-systems.

See report from ISIS {10} - "Dr Mae-Wan Ho warns that further indulgence
in GMOs will severely damage our chances of surviving the food crisis
and global warming; organic agriculture and localised food systems are
the way forward"

2. http://www.navdanya.org/about/founder-message.htm

3. The Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Higher
Education (SIU) is a Norwegian agency that promotes international
cooperation in education and research

4.
http://vidarbhacrisis.blogspot.com/2008/06/mealy-bug-deadly-gift-from-monsanto-to.html

5. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Deadly_Gift_from_Monsanto.php

6. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/OCBBCI.php

7. http://www.monsanto.com.au/layout/cotton/bollgard_ii_cotton/default.asp

8.
http://vidarbhacrisis.blogspot.com/2008/06/mealy-bug-deadly-gift-from-monsanto-to.html

9. For more information on Vandana Shiva and her activism, see '
Monocultures, Monopolies, Myths and the Masculinisation of Agriculture'
http://www.aislingmagazine.com/aislingmagazine/articles/TAM24/Masculinisation.html

10. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/contact.php
_____

Siv O'Neall was born and raised in Sweden where she graduated from Lund
University. She has lived in Paris, France and New Rochelle, New York
and traveled extensively throughout the US, Europe, and other
continents, including several trips to India. Siv retired after many
years of teaching French in Westchester, New York and English in the
Grandes Ecoles (Institutes of Technology) in France. In addition to her
own writing, Siv has also provided Axis of Logic with translation
services. She has been living in France for thirty years, first in Paris
and now Lyon. In addition to her political activism and writing, her
life is filled with family, music, animals, reading, traveling and she
also feels that 'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever'. Siv can be
reached via e-mail at siv at axisoflogic.com

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