Team-BHP - The World according to Monsant-Who?

Ok so I had heard about the corporation every now and then as a student of economics and I had a pretty ho-hum attitude at the time.

My mum is pretty much involved in organic/natural farming and she is constantly feeding me with bits of information about the danger of GMO but I would constantly laugh and tease he. But along the way Iv slowly come to take notice of a few things which led me to start reading a little more n the matter.

Recently I watched the documentary "The world according to Monsanto".

Here's some snippets of Vandana Shiva :

YouTube - Patents by Monsanto
YouTube - Monsanto Indian Farmer Suicide

A lot of you are probably aware or already crusaders.

T-Bhp is probably the largest networking tool at my disposal and Im urging everyone of you to watch the movie and educate yourselves about GMO & Monsanto. If it strikes some chords then I urge you to circulate this amongst your other communities (facebook etc).

MONSANTO - The most evil company to set foot on India. They are trying to patent traditional Indian farming methods. Wish our farmers and consumers were more informed.

Conventionally grown food (not GM, not organic): 4 digit PLU
Organic food: 5 digits starting with a nine
GM food: 5 digits starting with an eight

http://www.plantea.com/genetically-modified-foods.htm

Yes, in Bangalore. Unfortunately, heavily guarded premises i believe.

What GM seeds does is that it makes your soil GM dependent. If you buy their seeds or fertilizers once, you will need to buy only from them again, or else your crops wont grow. One of the reasons, farmers falling in debt and committing suicide, so that bunch of foreign guys can live in luxury.

Threads like these wont be of much interest to this community, until the pain builds up further towards upper level of middle class.

YouTube - Monsanto: Seed of Death

Always felt that there was more to the farmer suicide issue than just weak monsoons. Glad to see this thread. Will definitely spread the words buddies. This is a serious issue that affects everyone and I personally am against GM foods and tampering with nature and it's working, specially for it's detriment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aerohit (Post 1309724)

What GM seeds does is that it makes your soil GM dependent. If you buy their seeds or fertilizers once, you will need to buy only from them again, or else your crops wont grow. One of the reasons, farmers falling in debt and committing suicide, so that bunch of foreign guys can live in luxury.

Not just that, major issue in India was that the seeds harvested from the resulting crop could not be sown again. The farmers realized this only next year when they tried in vain, the documentary doesn't mention this.

The doc does mention the case of US farmers who were sued by Monsanto for saving seeds they purchased and sowing them the following year. Apparently there is a clause against this, you cant sow your seed even though you paid for it!

Quote:

Originally Posted by aerohit (Post 1309724)

Threads like these wont be of much interest to this community, until the pain builds up further towards upper level of middle class.

Yep...Until somebody's jewels fall off and children start being born with 4 legs and no hands.

Curious timing of this thread.
I noticed an amply sized advert in TOI/HT the very next day this thread was posted. I wouldn't have cared/known monsant-who if I had not stumbled across this before the advert. Knowing what they do, it was easy to discern what the aim of that ad was: PROPAGANDA.

Or maybe i just love a good conspiracy theory...

just saw all the videos :eek: this is crazy stuff - patenting seeds and then screwing around with farmers and ultimately controlling global economies !! This needs to come to an end - i think like that guy in paris said we can stop respecting monsanto's patents and just go about our farming. We can have an anti-patented-seeds law - unfortunately our politicians are too corrupt to do any such thing :Frustrati

Well OK the economics of it seem to overshadow what is actually a good thing!

I agree that such companies are greedy and created for a profit, but GM farming is an amazing thing!

30% increased yield
Increased innate resistance to predators (Decreased/No use of pesticides)
Increased resistance to climatic changes (Again increased yield!)
In some cases decreased requirement of irrigation. (In our water starved land this is a great advantage)

I mean this stuff is EXACTLY what India needs! HOWEVER it should be provided at a lower cost and the modification to make the crop infertile should be removed. Sad part is that Indian companies are far behind in this technology. The US government had come out to help it's farmers a few years back, providing financial aid to small time farmers to help procure GM seeds and also to those going organic. The Indian government just needs to wake up and do this too. Now just give them some time, that's all they need.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DocG (Post 1319920)

Increased resistance to climatic changes (Again increased yield!)
In some cases decreased requirement of irrigation. (In our water starved land this is a great advantage)

this is one thing which is in contradiction to the above videos - the farmers in india lost their crops and committed suicide because these monsanto cotton seeds needed year round irrigation and could not last on rainy seasons alone !!

Quote:

Originally Posted by jassi (Post 1319982)

I was talking about the genetic alteration possible. It has been done. The fact that Monsanto chose not to do it doesn't mean it isn't possible.

Sir I was just relating the merits of GM farming, I do not support what Monsanto has done in India. But I hope someone wakes up and lends us a helping hand in this. Indian really needs the advances of GM farming.

PS: My mom when she was still working was a tissue culture and genetic specialist working in BARC Mumbai. I'm a bio genius (I'm being modest, but my certificates aren't). Not trying to blow smoke out my orifices but all I'm saying is I have a fair idea of what they can really do, and what they've done...Sad situation really.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DocG (Post 1320250)

I was just relating the merits of GM farming, I do not support what Monsanto has done in India. But I hope someone wakes up and lends us a helping hand in this. Indian really needs the advances of GM farming.

well i understand the advances made in gm farming - and how it can be beneficial, but not at the expense of patents to jeopardize farming itself!! Maybe patents should not be allowed in farming research, instead research should be promoted with awards, noble prizes, etc