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WTO and agriculture: The great trade robbery
As expected, the United States and the European Union have arrived at a new accord, just ahead of the fifth WTO Ministerial at Cancun, which in letter and spirit lays out a detailed road map for what can be called as the second phase of the great trade robbery.
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Bridging the inequality among species
New Zealand scientists are developing a genetically modified vaccine for curing tuberculosis in cows. That certainly is good news. Scientists at AgResearch's Wallaceville research center say the vaccine might later be helpful in curing millions of the human victims of the disease. Sure, that too is a welcome development.
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Bending it unlike Beckham
I was taken by surprise. The BBC Radio presenter, who was busy talking about football star Beckham, suddenly shifts to genetically modified potato, and tells his listeners that he has a food policy analyst on line from New Delhi. And before I respond to his greetings, he fires the first googly, "When will you stop treating the multinational corporations as wicked?"
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Towards Cancun WTO Ministerial: Abandoning Agriculture
At probably the last officially organized public symposium in Geneva (June 16-18) before the forthcoming WTO Ministerial at Cancun in early September, the writing is clearly on the wall: agriculture has for all practically purposes been abandoned in the ongoing multilateral negotiations.
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From Pomato to Protato: Bending it unlike Beckham
I was taken by surprise. The BBC Radio presenter, who was busy talking about football star Beckham, suddenly shifts to genetically modified potato, and tells his listeners that he has a food policy analyst on line from New Delhi. And before I respond to his greetings, he fires the first googly, "When will you stop treating the multinational corporations as wicked?"
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Protecting Agriculture:
'Zero-tolerance' on farm subsidies
At the inaugural of the World Food and Farming Congress 2002, held recently in London, I found myself sandwiched at a dinner between the two poles - a former US Ambassador for Agriculture to WTO and Zimbabwe's Permanent Representative. Since this was the closest I had ever got to the trade negotiators, I picked up the courage to ask the former US Ambassador: "Tell me, how do you arm-twist developing countries into submission?"
- The GM Potato Hoax
After the failure of the much-hyped 'golden rice', comes another magic bullet from the trashcan of biotechnology industry -- a protein-rich genetically modified potato -- to combat malnutrition in India. It looks as if agricultural scientists have suddenly woken up to the lingering crisis on the nutritional front and are desperately looking for technological remedies to fight the scourge of mankind - silent hunger.
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Genetic Pollution:
The Great Genetic Scandal
Genetic erosion coupled with genetic pollution will destroy that unique genetic base and thereby create an unforeseen crisis on the food front.
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GM Mustard will play havoc
with food chain
Seven months after it gave a nod for sale of genetically modified seed of Bt cotton and that too under dubious circumstances and without adequate tests, the GEAC is now ready to grant commercial approval to a genetically modified mustard - the first genetically engineered food crop with a few alien genes to be released in India. Delhi based food and trade analyst Devinder Sharma analyses this new danger to Indian food industry.
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Bt cotton:
OF CAT AND PIGEONS
In the years to come, it will not be because of low yields but because of heavy imports of cheap and highly subsidised cotton into the country that the cotton farmers will be faced with an unprecedented crisis of protecting their livelihoods. The introduction of Bt cotton will in addition rob the cotton farmers of whatever little they could benefit from. We will see more and more cotton farmers getting into the spiral suicide dance. Here is an exhaustive study by Delhi based Food and Trade analyst Devinder Sharma on the dangers of introduction of Bt cotton in India.
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Digital Library:
Another tool for biopiracy
In a world where profit and greed has become the new economic mantra, private companies will go to any extent to manipulate what is already known to project it as an invention or a novelty. Any tinkering of the original medicinal remedy with a little cosmetic covering can be easily presented as a novel product that was not previously known. It has happened in the past.
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Not for the farmers,
Budget helps the middlemen
Finance Minister Mr Yashwant Sinha's prescriptions for reforming agriculture aimed at ensuring freedom of the farmer -- kisan ki azadi - actually translates into economic freedom for the middlemen. Mr Sinha has not only legitimised the exploitation of gullible and hapless farmers at the hands of middlemen but has further strengthened the process.
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Terminator seeds:
Indian Farmers to fund USDA
“Unless the developing countries rise against the severely dangerous application of the 'cutting-edge' technology, as genetic manipulation is called, private seed companies will play havoc with the subsistence farmers and the sustainability of farming systems.” Food and trade policy analyst Devinder Sharma analyses the issue of terminator seeds.
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Biotechnology will bypass the hungry
Agriculture is advancing in a faster pace with new inventions in biotechnology. For the good of human kind. But none of these progresses are successful in wiping out poverty. Developing countries are still in the process of developing. Hunger still remains as a vital problem. Senior development journalist Devinder Sharma looks deeply into this irony considering UNDP’S human development report and cares for the reasons for the ‘paradox of plenty’.
