talk till morning
For the Love of Ideas
- By Liam Monsell
seeds, suicides, and statistics
i want to show you a real-world david and goliath story. judge who is winning for yourself
Over 290,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide since 1995 (India National Crime Records Bureau, 2014). Once known as the ‘Cotton Belt’, now called the ‘Suicide Belt’, the farmers of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Maharashtra are killing themselves on mass to curb the ramifications of evermore failing crops.
The question is: what is causing this crop failure and why is the common response to commit suicide?
Cotton on a Gossypium plant. Source: CSIRO
Is climate change to blame? Poor governance of the agricultural-sector? Tenacious pests? Or perhaps the spread of genetically modified crops (GMC’s) supplied by monopoly-wielding Western conglomerates? No. Not this. Do not commit the common atrocity often befalling the public’s Marxist portion and hold the latter singularly to account.
Against what it may superficially seem, my aim is not to portray Monsanto as the only cause of farmer suicide in India. This has been going on far longer than Monsanto has been in India. I only aim to show you how Monsanto's presence is contributing to worsening the situation. To do so requires a quick history lesson.
Monsanto is an American multinational conglomerate specialising in agrotechnology and agrochemical sales. It sells, and licences the sale of, genetically modified crops to biotech seed producers. 1998 saw Monsanto and Mahyco, an Indian seed manufacturer, form the Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech (MMB) company to sell Bt cotton to India (see: what exactly is Bt cotton?). They released the first three Bt cotton hybrid varieties to India in 2002 and since then in 2010-11 nearly 90% of Gossypium cultivation is comprised of Bt cotton varieties.
Let me explain the problem of Monopoly. Monsanto holds patents over each of the GM seed types it has developed. (Yes, that does mean they hold a patent over biological plant life). Monsanto, and one of its subsidiaries MMB, have filed patents for its GM seed types at the World Intellectual Property Office for countries including India. So its legal teeth extend into the nation.
The upshot being, any use of MMB’s GMC seeds without their permission is liable to the full force of the conglomerate’s multi-million funded legal guillotine. If a magical invisible criminal force, for instance the wind, caused the seed to inexplicably pass from one farm to another, a farmer is accused and usually is liable for using MMB’s live IP without licencing.
That may seem reasonable enough, how else would a business protect its IP? But, aside from the question of patenting life, seed recycling is crucial in any agriculture. Each time a Bt cotton farmer wishes to sow new crop, he must purchase seed from MMB. And as for Indian competition with MMB, its chances make David’s look promising.
A Monsanto worker pours pesticides into a farm vat
Only developed world countries wield the capital investment to fund development of transgenic crops on this scale. Monsanto's grasp is thus truly monopolised. The demands it makes are crippling.
Is the gifting of this agro-power worth it for the sake of India’s economy?
India’s recent economic surge, following its 1991 financial liberalisation and state deregulation has resulted in its GDP reaching 2,095,398 million U.S dollars in 2015. 7th in world rankings. 17.9% of that it owes to its agricultural sector (Statistics Times, 2017) with 14-16% of this figure contributed by its cotton industry (World Cotton Research Conference, 2007). A lucrative industry in its own right.
Yet this sector’s productivity per hectare has historically ranked behind the U.S and China in terms of gross cotton production, despite outranking them in total land-use. In 1947-48, gross national production of cotton stood at a lowly 2.3 million bales/ha (World Cotton Research Conference, 2007). This stems from India’s historically meagre irrigational infrastructure, poor pest control, and highly heterogenic farming conditions which cause yields to oscillate. Thus, India’s vast farmland but poor growing conditions do seem to make it ideal for bio-technological advances like Bt cotton.
The Cotton Corporation of India claims cotton yield has increased from 302kg/ha in 2002-03 to a projected total of 568kg/ha in 2016-17, thanks to Bt cotton. The more impartial World Cotton Research Conference in 2007 backs this claim, affirming India’s booming cotton production at 27 million bales/ha in 2006-07. So, it does seem Bt cotton has helped India’s goliath economy by churning out more cotton per sq/km of farmland. But at what cost to the Davids who heave the churn?
Rises in suicide rates of Indian cotton farmers seem to at least partly stem from MMB's Bt cotton. Since its introduction in 2002, an ominous cloud of debt creeps over the ‘Suicide Belt’ because, in states such as Maharashtra the only legally effective form of debt relief is suicide
An industrial cotton picker collects Gossypium seed heads
Just under half of all farmer suicides in 2014 were in Maharashtra. Accounting for many is repeated Bt cotton failure, causing productivity rates to mirror non-GM varieties. Bt cotton farmers’ loss stems from their obligation to purchase only expensive MMB seed and pesticides to combat the failure.
How can these genetically weaponised crops fail? Aside from environmental setbacks, like drought, the widespread use of Bt cotton has caused natural selection to spread her wings. Resistant moth and butterfly larvae - bollworm - that survive the Bt crop’s affects easily live on, due to little competition, to pass their genes onto the next generation. This is all until the resistant population expands and that breed of Bt cotton crop is rendered null and fails.
Consequently, India’s National Crime Records Bureau reports ‘Bankruptcy/Indebtedness’ and ‘Failure of Crop’ combine to account for 37.4% of all farmer suicides in 2014. What is more is indirect causes like ‘Family Problems’, ‘Drug Abuse/Alcoholic Addiction’, and ‘Farming Related Issues’ are not included in this causal figure but often come with such debt. Some ‘Cotton Belt’ farmers now actively condemn Bt cotton and MMB. For others, a debt-incurring dependence on MMB’s products remains.
Yet as you had probably guessed, this issue is far from that straightforward.
In 2002-03, Karnatakan, ‘Cotton Belt’ Bt cotton farmers enjoyed a net revenue of 8,306 Rs./acre compared to 3,051 Rs./acre for conventional Gossypium farmers. Bt cotton farmer suicide rates are consequently much lower here. But conventional crops in Andrah Pradesh gained a higher net revenue of 3,353 Rs./acre than Bt cotton crops’ 2,008 Rs./acre. So the effectiveness of Bt crops is not only a mixed bag, but so too is the suicide level of differing parts of the ‘Suicide Belt’.
Notwithstanding their varying effectiveness, GMC’s presence in Indian agriculture still grants Monsanto enormous revenue, most of which it exports out of the country, alongside a vice-like grip over India’s cotton farmers.
Bt cotton growing in Andhra Pradesh. Source: Bhaskaranaidu.
What does this all point to?
Well, no end is in sight. I did not even get the chance to address the massive environmental impacts of the GMC’s in India or the public’s response to their introduction.
And let me reemphasise my earlier point. Monstano's GMC's are not the sole cause of Indian cotton farmer suicide. It falls amongst the ranks of crop failure from bollworm, drought, poorly structured debt relief laws, lack of government subsidy, and low market prices.
But more Indian farmers are being tempted by this siren’s song of low pesticide cost and high yield production. Only to find that when they look a little closer, all that meets them is Indian state law decreeing debt relief in exchange for their own life.
Bt cotton crops growing in Andhra Pradesh, India. Source: Bhaskaranaidu
It is an incredible and desperate thought to suppose any commercial entity is causing men to kill themselves on mass in any part of the world. I would certainly not bother to appeal to the better nature of a transnational conglomerate like Monsanto. But I do urge you to look into this situation; and to situations similar to it in countries closer to, and further from, home. This monumental company’s gradual acquisition of more agricultural markets reflects a worsening global problem of increasing corpocratic ownership, devoid of concern for those from who it benefits.
More Davids are being held down as the Goliaths grow in strength.
Is that how the story is supposed to end?
What exactly is Bt Cotton?
The name Bt cotton refers to over 300 hybrid cotton crop varieties that are Monsanto’s intellectual property (IP). They are created in Monsanto-run labs by transfusing the DNA of one organism into the genome of another to produce recombinant DNA; or in other words a manmade genetic sequence. Bt stands for Bacillus thuringiensis, a soil bacterium.
Restriction enzymes are used to extract specific genes from an organism’s chromosomes that code to produce a desired characteristic. In this case, Bt’s production of Cry1Ac protein. Copies of these genes are made and inserted into a vector, usually a bacterial plasmid or virus, that pairs the extracted genes with the nitrogenous base sequence of the targeted Gossypium’s DNA strand. Within the Gossypium’s cells’ nuclei these transgenes undergo processes of DNA transcription and translation that trigger the production of Bt toxin Cry1Ac in plant cells’ living function. As a result, this genetic transplantation causes the GM Gossypium species to autonomously produce Cry1Ac in its growth cycle.
Prompting species of moth and butterfly larvae that ingest Bt cotton to experience a concentrated dosage of the Bt toxin Cry1Ac. The predominant cotton consumers are bollworm, a moth species that regularly decimates cotton crop. Cry1Ac attaches to receptors lining the cell membranes of the gut wall specific to bollworm - supposedly -, and triggers death by degradation of the gut wall. Voila, the cotton crop now knows karate.