Atrend of recent years has had serious impact on farmers and food and farming systems. This trend has three components. Firstly, it is very clear that there is increasing concentration in the seeds and agri-chemicals industries. In other words, big companies have been buying up or displacing smaller companies so that a bigger share of the business is concentrated in just a handful of giant companies or their subsidiaries. Secondly, the seed and agri-chemical businesses are getting integrated. In other words, the company which sells seeds, or its subsidiary or affiliate, is also likely to be the one which sells the pesticides and the weedicides. Thirdly, these giant companies are increasingly involved in selling genetically modified or GM seeds, as these are more suitable for control by a few giant companies compared to seeds obtained from conventional methods. These trends can be seen in the recent $ 66 billion purchase of Monsanto by Bayer.
Here, in India, we have witnessed in recent times, stringent efforts to introduce GM food crops in the form of a GM mustard variety called transgenic mustard hybrid DMH-11. It is surprising that such efforts are being made so soon after the case against GM food crops was made out so convincingly at the time of the very broad based inquiry on Bt. Brinjal. The opinion of many eminent scientists as well as specially constituted panels and groups of scientists on the many-sided hazards of GM foods and crops is easily available. In such a situation, if efforts to introduce GM food crops are being stepped up in a big way, then this needs to be understood in the context of the wider international situation of GM crops and seeds industry.
It is well known that while the European Union has always been very cautious and suspicious about GM crops and seeds, the USA has emerged as the biggest centre of GM crop cultivation, particularly in the case of soybean and corn. But even the American farmers seem to be now turning away from GM crops. This growing disillusionment is linked to renewed and desperate efforts for the introduction of GM food crops in India, for the sake of maintaining the powerful business interests of the world’s big GM seed companies.
However, the supporters of GM mustard say that this has been developed by India’s university scientists, and multinational companies are not directly involved. But it is well known that the technology of GM crops at the world level is controlled by just a very few big companies, and any approval for GM food crops in a big and important country will ultimately benefit only them as they are just waiting with their own GM varieties and seeds.
At this stage we need to establish another important linkage – the linkage of the experiences of US farmers with the recent $ 66 dollar agreement for the German chemical conglomerate Bayer to purchase the biggest GM seed company Monsanto. The US Department of Justice may raise some tough questions, and the European regulators with their distrust of GM crops may be even tougher, but at least for the time being, this is the most discussed deal in the seeds and agrichemicals market.
Again, this deal also has relevance for high power efforts to introduce GM food crops in India. It is becoming clearer with Bayer Monsanto type of deals that these interests are becoming more and more powerful. They are trying to combine seeds (increasingly GM seeds) and agri-chemicals in such a way that the same interests will control seeds and agri-chemicals. These dominant companies are now not confined to Western countries alone, but also include China, as is evident from another recent deal in which Syngenta AG agreed to a $ 43 billion sale to the China National Chemical Corporation. So it is now all the more important to carefully resist the increasing control of the food and farming system by a few giants.
[/column][column size=”4/5″]
Bharat Dogra
Bharat Dogra is a Delhi-based freelance journalist who writes on social concerns.[/column]