Home > SEEDS OF DEATH VS. SEEDS OF LIFE Vandana Shiva

SEEDS OF DEATH VS. SEEDS OF LIFE Vandana Shiva

by Open-Publishing - Friday 7 April 2006
3 comments

GMO International Agriculture - Fishery - Animals USA

, MARCH 2006 (IPS) - In this analysis, Shiva writes that these seeds kill biodiversity, farmers, and people’s freedom — for example, Monsanto’s Bt cotton, which has already pushed thousands of Indian farmers into debt, despair, and death. Bt cotton is based on what has been dubbed ’’Terminator Technology’’, which makes genetically engineered plants produce sterile seeds.

High costs of cultivation and low returns from genetically modified seeds have trapped Indian peasants in considerable debt from which they are escaping by taking their lives. More than 40,000 farmers have committed suicide over the past decade in India — although the more accurate term would be homicide, or genocide. More than 90 percent of farmers who committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh and Vidharbha in the 2005 cotton season had planted Bt cotton.

The Feb. 7 WTO ruling against the European Union’s moratorium on genetically modified organisms sends the message that citizens’ freedom to choose the crops they grow and the foods they eat has no place in a world where rules are created for the freedom of corporations to trade and profit.

Forum posts

  • Thank God I live in Switzerland, where we voted last year for a moratorium of five years, while the effects of GE crops are studied. Not only are there of signs low yields and the effects of the Terminator Technology, but there are definite signs that the GE crops are genetically unstable, and that transgenic shifts (genes moving from species to species, or even from the plant kingdom to the animal kingdom) are taking place with alarming regularity. The big companies are putting their profits waaaay ahead of the quality of life of their customers. "This is how the World will end: not with a bang [nuclear war] but with a whimper [of genetically damaged people starving to death because they cannot grow from sterile seeds]". I suggest reading "The Godwhale" by J.T. Bass for an interesting view on the subject (which was written in 1975!).

  • BT cotton is not based on terminator technology... this is just incorrect! Bt is an insecticidal protein from a bacterium. Terminator technology, where seeds are genetically modified to be sterile, is something entirely different. BT seeds are being saved by farmers in India! This shows that they both want them and that they are not based on terminator technology. How can anybody argue against something that they have such a poor understanding of?

    • Monsanto does not allow any seeds, whatsoever to be saved. The farmer even has a contract with Monsanto saying that he promises Not to save seeds. Monsanto does want to be able to sell the farmer new seeds each year, and in fact is encouraging the farmer NOT to plow under any crops. The reason for this is: the plant is so very contaminated with pesticides and viruses , that stay in the plant, that plowing under the crop will put all that into the soil and really contaminate the water supply.

      The GM seeds are in fact sterile Terminator seeds, BUT maybe could be planted the second time, BUT: they are so unstable genetically that when planted the second time, it is not for sure that the plant will be anything like the"parent plant". You don’t dnow what you will get in the second planting. Plus there is a good probability that, in planting the second time, the pesticide or herbicide could have mutated into something even more deadly!

      Please look at the movie: FOOD INC., made in the USA, it does go into this plus there are many sites like: UCSUSA.org (Union of Concerned Scientists), who have studied this problem (independently). Go to this in the site: food_and_agriculture/Science_andImpacts. Very good on this site: a book called: Failure to Yield by Doug Gurian-Sherman that shows that GM crops DO NOT increase yield to "Save the world from hunger".

      Please, we just must work together on this: "The future depends on what we do in the present" Ghandi...We must stand up for our rights to have food that nourishes us - and our future.
      Stay Healthy!