Does the Genetically Modified cotton, known as Bt Cotton or Bacillus Thuringiensis, give higher yield than the traditional variety of cotton that the Vidarbha farmer has been planting? Some studies have suggested it does. Qiam and Zilberman (2003); Qaim, 2003; have concluded after studying the field trials of Bt Cotton in India that it successfully reduces pest damage and increases yield. Bennet, Ismael, and Morse’s (2005) study shows that the official variety of Bt cotton outperform the unofficial variety.
However, this seeming ‘change’ in planting unofficial hybrid variety to official variety is not simply a matter of habit for the farmer. Because, the seed that the now sows doesn’t come from the produce he got from the previous crop cycle. It now comes at a very high cost from a multinational corporation called Monsanto. Bt Cotton seed, aptly called the terminator seed, is designed in such a way that it terminates itself after one production cycle. The terminator technology would be theoretically capable of producing plants that don’t produce viable seeds, forcing farmers to buy new seeds each season (Herring, 2005).
The
transgenic variety of cotton requires much higher inputs. It needs sufficient
water; and the agriculture in drought-prone Vidarbha is rain dependent.
Government’s agriculture extension services are poor, therefore farmers depend
on input dealers for advice. There is a lack of formal credit institutions, as
a result of which, farmers take help from informal money-lenders (Mishra,
2006).
The
Bt cotton seed is patented by Mahyco, licensed by Monsanto, a multinational
corporation that is known to employ coercive ways to destroy the traditional
varieties of crops and collect royalties from farmers whose crops are found to
have the gene developed by Monsanto, even though it is a result of
cross-pollination from a neighboring farm due to wind. This new mode of
agriculture is capital driven and coercive that is premised on the principle of
destruction (as reflected by the terminator technology, and destruction of
indigenous varieties of crops). Not only is the farmer’s conventional ways of
living erased in adapting to this ‘progressive’, ‘technology-based’ agriculture,
he is also robbed of his means of production – the seeds - that he has owned
for generations. He gets implicated in the processes of globalization.
Capitalism in this way becomes a newer, indirect version of colonialism. The
right of the poorest people in developing countries are bought off with the
power of the capital, their means of earning are taken from them with no just
and fair compensation; and those very means, now owned by big corporations are
used to dictate and govern their lives. The principle of ‘progress’ and
‘development’ aided by the glorious narrative of Green Revolution in India
overrides the knowledge systems of the poor farmers, discards them as backward,
not good enough for the progress of the nation. As over the years, more and more
of these indigenous knowledges are erased, the prevalence of uniform, West-centered
knowledge system emerges as the only way of practicing agriculture. And thus
the project of the new form of colonialism would be complete. And this is
accomplished with the help of Intellectual Property Rights. The very central
point of this blog is to suggest that technology mediates power relations
through Intellectual Property Rights.
The
task for a development communication scholar is cut out here. How could these
universalizing processes be opposed in favour of diversity? How can this
process be reversed? Can all the various movements touched by Intellectual
Property Rights – e.g. Free Software Movement, piracy, etc. be brought into the
discussion together with Biotechnology and medicine, for finding any possible
theoretical solution?
References:
Qaim,
M., & Zilberman, D. (2003). Yield effects of genetically modified crops in
developing countries. Science, 299(5608), 900-902.
Qaim,
M. (2003). Bt cotton in India: Field trial results and economic projections. World
Development, 31(12), 2115-2127.
Bennett,
R. M., Ismael, Y., Kambhampati, U., & Morse, S. (2005). Economic impact of
genetically modified cotton in India. The
Journal of Agrobiotechnology & Economics, 7(3)
Herring,
R. J. (2005). Miracle seeds, suicide seeds, and the poor. Social movements
in India: Poverty, power, and politics, 203-232.
Mishra,
S. (2006). Farmers' suicides in Maharashtra. Economic and Political Weekly,
1538-1545.