The Guardian: Indian farmers shun GM for organic solutions

[JohnyCanuck]

Indian farmers shun GM for organic solutions
Genetically modified cotton was to be the saviour of India's farmers, but ill-health and financial worries are fuelling a backlash

Sue Branford

SNIP

At first, cotton farmers did well. They got high yields and enjoyed a real increase in income. But then problems arose. The hybrid cotton proved susceptible to pests and diseases, and it was not uncommon for farmers to spray their fields up to 30 times in a single season. Production costs went through the roof and farmers got trapped in debt. They became desperate for a technical fix, and Bt cotton seemed to be the answer.

In its first year of sales, Mahyco-Monsanto sold its entire stock of Bt cotton. According to the company, the area in India under Bt cotton rose from 3.1m acres in 2005 to 14.4m acres in 2007. According to Sekhar Natarajan, regional leader of Monsanto India, Bt cotton yielded 700kg-900kg per acre, compared with 300kg-400kg an acre with conventional seeds.

However, some say that what has been happening on the ground has been very different from the official success story. Scientists Abdul Qayum and Kiran Sakhari assessed Bt cotton's performance in the first three years and found that, despite claims by the company, farmers were not achieving big yields. This perhaps was to be expected, because Bt cotton had been engineered to reduce pesticide use, not to increase yields. But, more surprisingly, they found that pesticide use was not falling either, because farmers were facing serious problems with secondary pests. They worked out that, on average, the income of non-Bt farmers was 60% higher than that of Bt farmers. Monsanto contests these numbers.

SNIP

Many farmers, like Sattemma, have not followed the debate around Bt cotton. She says it was practical considerations that led to the change in farming. "It was the 15 women in our village's self-help group who got things going," she says. "We were worried about the health of our children. We got the men on our side by showing them that they would save money." Sattemma points to a chart on the wall of a nearby house, on which, with the help of a non-governmental organisation, they have recorded side-by-side the expenses of growing cotton with and without pesticides. Non-pesticide management (NPM), as the system is called, is clearly more profitable, not because yields are higher but because expenditure is so much lower.

In Yenabavi, about 30 miles away, the farmers have gone further, becoming organic and declaring their village GMO-free. Their conversion also began with dissatisfaction with pesticides, this time because they didn't work. "Ten years ago, this field was covered with red-headed hairy caterpillars," says Malliah, the farmer who has led the change. "I kept applying more pesticides but I couldn't get rid of them." By chance, an organic agronomist was visiting. He showed Malliah how to set up solar-powered light traps and, to Malliah's delight, they worked. Since then, he and the other farmers have developed other natural pest controls.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/30/gmcrops.india

[IndyOp]

1. Thank you for posting this Johny - this is important information.

Pro-people, pro-community, pro-organic, pro-planet, pro-long-term solutions, anti-corporate one group of people at a time.

:thumbsup:

[bananas]

2. k&r nt

[Tumbulu]

3. thanks for posting this.

Organic farming is so much better for the farmers themselves. And the earth around them is relieved.

[JohnyCanuck]

4. Check out the web site of i-sis.org.uk for more articles on unpublicized hazards of GMOs

For those who haven't run across it before, that's the web site of the UK based Institute of Science in Society. Here's a link to a list of articles they have just dealing with problems of GM cotton.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GE-cotton.php

Here are some encouraging articles on organic agriculture including some stories from farmers in various parts of the world who found it more profitable to reject the industrialized, high input agriculture model and switch to traditional and organic methods.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/susag.php

Moses has not been a farmer for long. He used to work for Zambian Airways in ground transport. But one day in 1995, he and his fellow workers went to work only to find the gates firmly shut; the airline had gone out of business.

So he decided to become a farmer instead, something he had always wanted to do, as his father was also a farmer.

He started to farm conventionally and “almost gave up”, because he had great difficulty making ends meet.

At that point, Brother Paul of the Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre invited Moses to come and see what they were doing at the Centre. After a week's training on sustainable agriculture in Kasisi in 1996, Moses started to reduce pesticides and fertilizers, substituting for organic inputs until he stopped applying agrochemicals completely in 1998 and became fully organic.

“The most important thing for me is the freedom I now have,” said Moses, “I don't have to depend on loans, I can grow whatever crops I like, save and replant my own seeds.” The farm provides all the needs of his household, for him, his wife, and their five teenage sons aged thirteen to nineteen. All the sons are attending school , which is quite an achievement, as Zambia does not have free education, and few farmers can afford to send their children to school. Apart from all the food they eat, the family makes about 12 million Kwachas (US$3 000) a year selling seeds.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/OrganicFreedom.php