The website GlobalResearch has done an analysis of the influence of globalization on the agricultural business. The conclusion is not in the favor of the big corporations.
In the article GlobalResearch talks about how big international finance corporations have usurped local democracies in different developing countries under the guise of globalization. Big business corporations have managed to structurally adjust local economies and traditional agricultural practices. Farmers are now encourage to focus on producing single crops in order to earn money to pay off debts. The debts themselves have been created through the construction of more dams to maintain the water intensive, chemically based new form of agriculture that was introduced. Eventually farmers end up losing their land and move to the city to get a job. Capitalist would rather see the move as the miracle of job creation through globalization.
As stated by David Harvey, it is apparent that the problems created by capitalism don’t really get solved, they are just shifted around. GlobalResearch sees the role of United States in the Indian Agribusiness as proof of the shift in strategy without really solving the problem.
Before Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) became a problem in India, the “Green Revolution” in the U.S. had already proving itself not to be able to bring about a real solution the agricultural problem it was faced with. GlobalResearch made mention of Gautam Dheer’s recent analysis on the India’s Deccan Herald newspaper. According to that articles, agriculture in Punjab is facing a crisis that is inevitable. That is due to the use of pesticides that cause cancer, the fact that the crops yield is falling and the depletion of groundwater. It is clear that this model of agriculture is unsustainable. Actually Punjab was just the original poster boy for the so called “Green Revolution” so seeing what happened there could just be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the use of chemical in the Indian agricultural world.
It is becoming more and more evident that the new agricultural business model can’t provide long term solution to the problem it created through the use of GMOs, the patenting of seeds and monopolizing the business.
GlobalResearch referred to a recent report in Business Standard showing the production of Genetically Modified Cotton in India had dropped to a 5 year low. Bt cotton is the genetically modified cotton that was approved by the Indian government in 2002. For the first few years it was approved, yields did go up yet, according to Glenn Davis Stone, the increase in production had nothing to do with the Bt cotton itself. Stone is a Professor at Washington University who has studied Anthropology and Environmental Studies.
Originally the farmers in India were told that by switching to GMOs, they will not ever need to spray their crops, they just had to plant the seed and water them because the plants were genetically designed to resist insect infestations. Yet with the introduction of Bt cotton it seems bollworms are rather the ones who have developed resistance. It is now quite surprising that Monsanto spokesperson stated in an article on Business Standards that such a resistance (from bollworms) is to be expected.
On the same article from Business Standard, the Monsanto’s spokesperson is now found blaming the Indian farmers for what is happening, claiming that they may have used “limited refuge planting” or the “wrong” biotech seed and that may have contributed to the bollworm’s resistance.
To combat the fall in agricultural production the biotech industries intend to come up with new technologies to enable it to stay ahead of insect resistance. They are still claiming that the innovations they are going to come up with will guarantee higher yields. But according to GlobalResearch, that is what they’ve been saying about ten years now. It is one of those massive con-tricks again.
The Professor of Environmental Studies said that the drop in yield started in 2007. For the biotech technology the solution has been to increase the number of hybrid seeds offered. Even after that farmers yields are still steadily dropping. Yet the GM Sector is offering more of the same solution. Apparently the failing technology continues to be replaced by another technology that is also destined to fail.
Indian farmers have lost control over their business and whether they like it or not are now tied to the U.S. agribusiness that took control over it. The American technological agribusiness is a failure yet that will never be admitted by the big corporations investing in it.
Loic
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