Vatic Note: Well, India's government has more civic concern over Monsanto's contribution to the demise of their farming community than our government does. Is the difference "Corruption" vs "Community?" or is it simpler than that? Look at the photo below and see what devastation that seed has created on those farmers. There is virutually no cotton production from those seeds.
Well, the weapons the khazars are using against us are those which are not designated as weapons, like food, water, and toxic air and other chemically infested products, such as mercury lightbulbs with no plans for environmental disposal that would accommodate such toxic poisons.
India Revokes Monsanto’s GMO Cotton Seed License
http://ens-newswire.com/2012/08/09/maharashtra-state-revokes-monsantos-cotton-seed-license/
NEW DELHI, India,
August 9, 2012 (ENS) – This was a difficult day for the proponents of
genetically modified crops in India. In Parliament, the Agriculture
Committee tabled a report seeking a ban on genetically modified food
crops and a halt to all field trials. And the state of Maharashtra
cancelled Mahyco Monsanto Biotech’s license to sell its genetically
modified Bt cotton seeds.
Mahyco
Monsanto Biotech is a 50:50 joint venture between Mahyco and Monsanto
Holdings Pvt. Ltd. The company has sub-licensed the Bollgard II and
Bollgard technologies to 28 Indian seed companies, each of which has
introduced the Bollgard technology into their own germplasm.
But now, all trade activities of Mahyco Monsanto Biotech are illegal in Maharashtra.
If there
is any violation of the government’s orders, there will be criminal
action taken against Myhyco Monsanto, the Director of Inputs and Quality
Control Dr. Sudam Adsule said in Pune today, as he announced the
license cancellation.
“If the
company challenges the order,” said Dr. Adsule, “we have already moved
in Mumbai and Aurangabad high court benches. We have given fair chance
to the company and all charges of unfair trade practices have been
proved. Hence, under the existing cotton seed act we have taken action
and it can’t be revoked.”
“We welcome the decision,” said Kishore Tiwari, who heads the farmers’ advocacy group Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti.
“We
demand all other 28 companies sub-licensed by MMB should be banned and
replaced by traditional Indian cotton seed, as the cost of seeds of
straight varieties is much lower than Bt varieties", Tiwari said.
“Bt cotton seed has played a key role in the Vidarbha farm suicide saga since June 2005,” he said.
The
drought-prone Vidarbha region of Maharashtra state has recorded more
than 8,200 farmers’ suicides in the past decade, 209 in 2001 alone.
Trapped
in a spiral of rising costs and in debt for costly genetically modified
seeds that are supposed to repel cotton pests, as well as the pesticides
they must buy when pests take over anyway, many farmers kill themselves
by drinking pesticide or hanging themselves from trees.
Across
India, farmer suicide figures are much higher. According to the National
Crime Records Bureau, between 1995 and 2010, more than 250,000 farmers
took their own lives.
Bollgard®
II was developed by Monsanto by inserting two genes from the soil
bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) into cotton. These genes produce
two proteins toxic to the main insect pest of cotton, the cotton
bollworm, Helicoverpa, so that when the Helicoverpa caterpillars eat
Bollgard® II cotton they die.
About 90
percent of India’s cotton-growers have adopted Bt cotton, paying high
prices for the seed in the hope that they could save money on
pesticides. But the cotton bollworm has been developing resistance to Bt
cotton.
At first
it appeared as if Bt cotton was going to be good for India’s small
farmers. A study published in 2007 by Jonas Kathage and Matin Qaim from
the University of Goettingen showed that growing Bt cotton caused a 24
percent increase in cotton yield per acre through reduced pest damage
and a 50 percent gain in cotton profit among 533 small farmers in four
cotton-producing Indian states.
But in
January 2012, for the first time, the Indian Agriculture Ministry linked
farmer suicides to the declining performance of the Bt cotton.
An
internal advisory sent by the ministry to cotton-growing states said,
“Cotton farmers are in a deep crisis since shifting to Bt cotton. The
spate of farmer suicides in 2011-12 has been particularly severe among
Bt cotton farmers,” the “Hindustan Times” reported.
The
declining performance of its Bt cotton is not Mahyco Monsanto Biotech’s
only problem. The Maharashtra government is going to dig into the
reasons behind the farmers’ suicides.
On
Tuesday, Maharashtra Agriculture Minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil said
the government has ordered a socio-economic study of Bt cotton by
independent institutes. The survey will be carried out by the Tata
Institute of Social Sciences and the Institute of Rural Management,
Anand. A report is due to the state government in three months.
Patil
said the state also has directed Maharashtra universities to adopt
villages in their regions to study how farmers’ lives have been affected
by state policies on Bt crops.
“Our
system has failed to live up to the expectations of the farming
community, which has suffered because of the introduction of a series of
policy and technology measures in the past,” said the agriculture
minister. “It is time we studied what has led to a state’s agrarian
problems resulting from Bt.”
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