Evidence: Greenpeace working against India's Food Security
Greenpeace Hurting India's Food Security to benefit their Donor Agencies
All NGOs raising issues but no one is giving solution to the problem for 1.2 billion people.
Why Greenpeace is not giving
food security plan for India before opposing any development and research which
is making India food secure?
Greenpeace Hurting India's Food Security to benefit their Donor Agencies
All NGOs raising issues but no one is giving solution to the problem for 1.2 billion people. Why Greenpeace is not giving food security plan for India before opposing any development and research which is making India food secure?
Question for Every Citizen and Policy Makers:
Greenpeace and Monsanto helping each other by blocking Indian Agriculture research activities. Why we are supporting Greenpeace blindly without asking their plan to address the
problem highlighted by them.
- Will President of India direct the government to reverse the decisions hurting Indian research?
- Will Prime Minister's Office intervene and direct all research in India to go ahead, irrespective of what NGOs say?
- Will Supreme Court take sensible view on research activities without coming under the pressure of cooked up stories of NGOs?
- Are we saying these NGOs have more competency than the collective vision of national research institutes?
Please read the following article, "Are Monsanto and Greenpeace in league?" authored by a very learned journalist Harish Damodharan, published in Hindu Business Line on 4th July'2013.
Article says..
Preposterous though this might sound, I have come to increasingly believe that the agendas of agri-biz multinationals and green groups aren’t as divergent as one would assume. On the contrary, there seems to be a convergence of interests.
Only last month, the Government put on hold confined field trials of genetically modified (GM) cotton, rice, maize, castor, and wheat lines, following lobbying by a clutch of NGOs that
included Greenpeace.
The decision came even as the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) – the official body for approving commercialization and also undertaking of field trials in GM crops – had given the go-ahead.
This is second time, after Bt brinjal in February 2010, that the Government has overruled the GEAC, a statutory body constituted under the Environment Protection Act. But in Bt brinjal – where the then Environment Minister himself assumed the role of regulator by ordering a ‘moratorium’ on cultivation – the issue involved commercialisation.
The real losers: Poor farmers of India and INDIA
In the present case, the Government has withdrawn the permit for even conducting pollen flow studies or testing out performance of candidate plants (‘event selection’) in isolated one-acre plots. Effectively, it extends the moratorium to research as well!
The NGOs will say that only Monsanto or Bayer CropScience stand to lose out from all this.
The former’s GM maize and the latter’s cotton lines were headed for first-stage bio-safety research trials in the current kharif season This will not happen now. What the NGOs won’t tell you, however, is that the Government’s decision will also affect the event selection trials of Bt cotton and castor transgenics developed by the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) and the Directorate of Oilseeds Research.
Blocking field trials of CICR’s Bt cotton, in particular, represents a victory for Monsanto more than anybody else. GM hybrids today cover over 90 per cent of India’s cotton area. Within that, 95 per cent-plus is accounted for by hybrids incorporating Monsanto’s proprietary events.
In CICR’s GM cotton, Bt genes have been inserted into open pollinated varieties such as ‘Anjali’. Since the seeds from these can be saved for use in the next season, they work out cheaper than hybrids, for which farmers have to shell out around Rs 1,400 per acre each sowing season.
One reason why Bt cotton has ‘failed’ in rain-fed areas with marginal soils is because of planting of long-duration hybrids requiring more water and nutrients.
Also, their high cost induces farmers to sow well after the monsoon’s arrival — when the fields have enough water — so that the seeds don’t have to be bought again if rains are
delayed.
Late planting, in turn, impacts yields as the crop suffers moisture stress during peak boll formation stage after October, when the monsoon would have receded.
Who benefits from early-maturing Bt cotton varieties, whose seeds can be saved for re-use and are amenable for timely sowing as well as high-density planting to give better yields?
Well, obviously farmers in Vidarbha or Telangana.
Who gains from CICR’s trials getting blocked? Monsanto, of course.
So whose cause are Greenpeace and Co really serving?
Their Doners.
Implications:
It means, Greenpeace and other NGOs now forcing poor farmers to continue to depend on Monsanto seeds only. means they can't access low cost seeds and seed technology. Public sector research is stopped by these ignorant NGOs.
Are they really ignorant or they want to collapse India's agriculture research so that only few MNC seed companies can dominate world over. This is the point to consider. This is what they are do whenever they see competition to Monsanto or any any donor company, they start their campaign in the name of environment, biodiversity, etc. These are called wolves in the skin of sheep, forcing poor farmers to remain poor by depriving them better and low cost technologies.
Leveraging public sector R&D:
CICR is not an isolated case. Take the GM mustard hybrids developed by Deepak Pental’s team at Delhi University’s Department of Genetics, which have already completed first-stage multi-location bio-safety research trials. These transgenics – giving 25-30 per cent extra yields over the existing best available mustard varieties – were to undergo second-stage trials in rabi 2012, possibly setting the stage for commercial release in the ensuing season.
As it turned out, the trials didn’t take place, since the GEAC got reconstituted only this March after the previous panel’s term ended last June. And with the Government’s latest move, one can be sure there will be no trials in rabi 2013 as well. Meanwhile, Bayer CropScience has opened a new mustard breeding station in Haryana; for all we know, it may well come out with proprietary hybrids in due course.
Whose interests again are our NGOs serving by ensuring that the publicly-bred GM hybrids of Pental’s team don’t finish field trials? Multinationals ultimately have deep pockets and, unlike public sector institutions or private Indian seed companies, can afford to wait.
After all, the Government at some point – given the country’s growing food, feed and fibre requirements – will have to open the doors for transgenic crops. Doesn’t it make great
strategy, then, to stifle indigenous research in the meantime to guarantee long-term monopoly?
Let us learn from China:
Contrast this to the way China has commercialized its own publicly-funded Bt technology in cotton, focusing on transfer of genes into open pollinated ‘straight’ varieties and not just
hybrids. The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has similarly bred a GM phytase maize that allows better phosphorus absorption in pigs, leading to faster animal growth and improved meat yields.
The above approach of not relying exclusively on proprietary multinational technologies is the opposite to the preservation of monopoly, which is what the anti-GM campaigners in India
are inadvertently (?) facilitating.
Americans and Chinese must be laughing at us, when we talk that we will compete with China in world market. They know our brainless policy decisions are good enough to keep them ahead and comfortable in market. They are not worried because they know India's policy makers will ensure India companies can't grow. Our foreign policy mess and economic policies and uncontrolled current account deficit are examples of the way our policy makers think.
To read more, click here:
http://sardanavijay.blogspot.in/2013/07/how-to-save-usd-25-billion-every-year.html
Greenpeace Fostering monopolies:
This rather strange convergence of interests has, interestingly, been seen even vis-Ã -vis pesticides. Few, for instance, had problems with endosulfan until about 2001. That was when the sole European manufacturer, Bayer, decided to phase out the product from its portfolio.
Given that endosulfan is a generic insecticide priced at less than a fourth of new-generation proprietary molecules, a ban on its spraying would certainly have suited multinational crop
protection majors.
The striking thing about reports of health disorders caused by endosulfan poisoning — the focus of a concerted NGO campaign — was their originating from Kerala (where its usage was very limited) and not the states consuming the maximum quantities.
One can see a similar pattern in the recent European Union ban on imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, originally patented by Bayer and Syngenta respectively. While the former went
off-patent in 2008, the same for the latter is set to expire this year. Why? This is new politics of Trade.
It raises the question:
How were these insecticides, belonging to a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids, found to cause harm to honeybees only now? They did not seem to pose serious problems even five years back, when imidacloprid alone generated over $800 million in annual revenues for Bayer? Why don’t NGOs ever demand a ban on pesticides that enjoy active patent protection — say, DuPont’s Coragen?
It brings us back to the point made at the beginning: The interests of global agri-biz majors and the greens may not be as divergent as is made out. The sufferer here is the poor
farmer, who is seeking solutions to genuine on-the-field and not abstract problems. At the current rate, he/she will only have the multinationals to go to.
Implications :
The new politics of trade is, as soon as any agro-chemical or drugs go out of patent, create a demand to ban them under on pretext or the other so that low cost generic option can be
killed. Endosulphan is the classic case. Why our courts think that only NGOs know what is good for society when they themselves are depended on someone else money for their
existence. They have no accountability and responsibility other than ensuring donors agenda so that next installment comes on time. You may be think how I can this, because I
worked with NGOs in early days of my career and have first hand experience, that every money which comes to NGOs comes with stated agenda.
It means these NGOs like Greenpeace may claim they have noble cause but their actions speaks about their intentions. after all they have to justify and deliver for the funds the get from their doners.
Unless doners make profit how long they can contribute for charity and to NGOs. No one is saint.
The interests of agri-biz MNCs and NGOs may not be all that implacably opposed.
No one is holy cow or saint in this commercial world with vested interests...
Option:
Policy makers around the world must realize this. Research in new technologies is the way forward. Don't get carried away by NGOs. Your scientists and technocrats are not enemy of the society or environment.
NGOs keep shouting about pollution but keeping buying new cars and fancy SUVs. Why? They keep talking about power but their bosses stay in five star hotels and fly business class. Why? Whose money they use to pay for their luxury? may be their donors which they got in the name of poverty and misery of the society.
I am sure, sooner or later Government of India and Indian courts will realize their mistakes. They will give go ahead for research but by that time our research projects will become
defunct and outdated.
Meanwhile, NGOs will find another agenda to hurt India’s growth because they have to ensure their existence and funds for their own existence.
Can I ask Greenpeace and other NGOs to provide action plan, how to ensure food and nutritional security for all. If farmers are poor consumers are also poor. What is your workable suggestion? Please come forward.
I asked this to Greenpeace representatives about 7-8 years back, when they came to my office, they told me they will comeback to me with their work in a week's time, I am waiting since.
For more proof, read here:
How to save India's USD 25 billion every year and reduce current account deficit?
Click here: http://sardanavijay.blogspot.in/2013/07/how-to-save-usd-25-billion-every-year.html
India's Policy making Bodies hijacked by foreign funded NGOs
Click here: ttp://sardanavijay.blogspot.in/2013/03/indias-policy-making-bodies-hijacked-by.html
Misplaced Agenda:
Click here: http://sardanavijay.blogspot.in/2012/09/business-world-article-misplaced-agenda.html
Greenpeace Hurting India's Food Security to benefit their Donor Agencies
 |
| All NGOs raising issues but no one is giving solution to the problem for 1.2 billion people. |
Why Greenpeace is not giving
food security plan for India before opposing any development and research which
is making India food secure?
Greenpeace Hurting India's Food Security to benefit their Donor Agencies
All NGOs raising issues but no one is giving solution to the problem for 1.2 billion people. Why Greenpeace is not giving food security plan for India before opposing any development and research which is making India food secure?
Question for Every Citizen and Policy Makers:
Greenpeace and Monsanto helping each other by blocking Indian Agriculture research activities. Why we are supporting Greenpeace blindly without asking their plan to address the
problem highlighted by them.
- Will President of India direct the government to reverse the decisions hurting Indian research?
- Will Prime Minister's Office intervene and direct all research in India to go ahead, irrespective of what NGOs say?
- Will Supreme Court take sensible view on research activities without coming under the pressure of cooked up stories of NGOs?
- Are we saying these NGOs have more competency than the collective vision of national research institutes?
Please read the following article, "Are Monsanto and Greenpeace in league?" authored by a very learned journalist Harish Damodharan, published in Hindu Business Line on 4th July'2013.
Article says..
Preposterous though this might sound, I have come to increasingly believe that the agendas of agri-biz multinationals and green groups aren’t as divergent as one would assume. On the contrary, there seems to be a convergence of interests.
Only last month, the Government put on hold confined field trials of genetically modified (GM) cotton, rice, maize, castor, and wheat lines, following lobbying by a clutch of NGOs that
included Greenpeace.
The decision came even as the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) – the official body for approving commercialization and also undertaking of field trials in GM crops – had given the go-ahead.
This is second time, after Bt brinjal in February 2010, that the Government has overruled the GEAC, a statutory body constituted under the Environment Protection Act. But in Bt brinjal – where the then Environment Minister himself assumed the role of regulator by ordering a ‘moratorium’ on cultivation – the issue involved commercialisation.
The real losers: Poor farmers of India and INDIA
In the present case, the Government has withdrawn the permit for even conducting pollen flow studies or testing out performance of candidate plants (‘event selection’) in isolated one-acre plots. Effectively, it extends the moratorium to research as well!
The NGOs will say that only Monsanto or Bayer CropScience stand to lose out from all this.
The former’s GM maize and the latter’s cotton lines were headed for first-stage bio-safety research trials in the current kharif season This will not happen now. What the NGOs won’t tell you, however, is that the Government’s decision will also affect the event selection trials of Bt cotton and castor transgenics developed by the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) and the Directorate of Oilseeds Research.
Blocking field trials of CICR’s Bt cotton, in particular, represents a victory for Monsanto more than anybody else. GM hybrids today cover over 90 per cent of India’s cotton area. Within that, 95 per cent-plus is accounted for by hybrids incorporating Monsanto’s proprietary events.
In CICR’s GM cotton, Bt genes have been inserted into open pollinated varieties such as ‘Anjali’. Since the seeds from these can be saved for use in the next season, they work out cheaper than hybrids, for which farmers have to shell out around Rs 1,400 per acre each sowing season.
One reason why Bt cotton has ‘failed’ in rain-fed areas with marginal soils is because of planting of long-duration hybrids requiring more water and nutrients.
Also, their high cost induces farmers to sow well after the monsoon’s arrival — when the fields have enough water — so that the seeds don’t have to be bought again if rains are
delayed.
Late planting, in turn, impacts yields as the crop suffers moisture stress during peak boll formation stage after October, when the monsoon would have receded.
Who benefits from early-maturing Bt cotton varieties, whose seeds can be saved for re-use and are amenable for timely sowing as well as high-density planting to give better yields?
Well, obviously farmers in Vidarbha or Telangana.
Who gains from CICR’s trials getting blocked? Monsanto, of course.
So whose cause are Greenpeace and Co really serving?
Their Doners.
Implications:
It means, Greenpeace and other NGOs now forcing poor farmers to continue to depend on Monsanto seeds only. means they can't access low cost seeds and seed technology. Public sector research is stopped by these ignorant NGOs.
Are they really ignorant or they want to collapse India's agriculture research so that only few MNC seed companies can dominate world over. This is the point to consider. This is what they are do whenever they see competition to Monsanto or any any donor company, they start their campaign in the name of environment, biodiversity, etc. These are called wolves in the skin of sheep, forcing poor farmers to remain poor by depriving them better and low cost technologies.
Leveraging public sector R&D:
CICR is not an isolated case. Take the GM mustard hybrids developed by Deepak Pental’s team at Delhi University’s Department of Genetics, which have already completed first-stage multi-location bio-safety research trials. These transgenics – giving 25-30 per cent extra yields over the existing best available mustard varieties – were to undergo second-stage trials in rabi 2012, possibly setting the stage for commercial release in the ensuing season.
As it turned out, the trials didn’t take place, since the GEAC got reconstituted only this March after the previous panel’s term ended last June. And with the Government’s latest move, one can be sure there will be no trials in rabi 2013 as well. Meanwhile, Bayer CropScience has opened a new mustard breeding station in Haryana; for all we know, it may well come out with proprietary hybrids in due course.
Whose interests again are our NGOs serving by ensuring that the publicly-bred GM hybrids of Pental’s team don’t finish field trials? Multinationals ultimately have deep pockets and, unlike public sector institutions or private Indian seed companies, can afford to wait.
After all, the Government at some point – given the country’s growing food, feed and fibre requirements – will have to open the doors for transgenic crops. Doesn’t it make great
strategy, then, to stifle indigenous research in the meantime to guarantee long-term monopoly?
Let us learn from China:
Contrast this to the way China has commercialized its own publicly-funded Bt technology in cotton, focusing on transfer of genes into open pollinated ‘straight’ varieties and not just
hybrids. The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has similarly bred a GM phytase maize that allows better phosphorus absorption in pigs, leading to faster animal growth and improved meat yields.
The above approach of not relying exclusively on proprietary multinational technologies is the opposite to the preservation of monopoly, which is what the anti-GM campaigners in India
are inadvertently (?) facilitating.
Americans and Chinese must be laughing at us, when we talk that we will compete with China in world market. They know our brainless policy decisions are good enough to keep them ahead and comfortable in market. They are not worried because they know India's policy makers will ensure India companies can't grow. Our foreign policy mess and economic policies and uncontrolled current account deficit are examples of the way our policy makers think.
To read more, click here:
http://sardanavijay.blogspot.in/2013/07/how-to-save-usd-25-billion-every-year.html
Greenpeace Fostering monopolies:
This rather strange convergence of interests has, interestingly, been seen even vis-Ã -vis pesticides. Few, for instance, had problems with endosulfan until about 2001. That was when the sole European manufacturer, Bayer, decided to phase out the product from its portfolio.
Given that endosulfan is a generic insecticide priced at less than a fourth of new-generation proprietary molecules, a ban on its spraying would certainly have suited multinational crop
protection majors.
The striking thing about reports of health disorders caused by endosulfan poisoning — the focus of a concerted NGO campaign — was their originating from Kerala (where its usage was very limited) and not the states consuming the maximum quantities.
One can see a similar pattern in the recent European Union ban on imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, originally patented by Bayer and Syngenta respectively. While the former went
off-patent in 2008, the same for the latter is set to expire this year. Why? This is new politics of Trade.
It raises the question:
How were these insecticides, belonging to a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids, found to cause harm to honeybees only now? They did not seem to pose serious problems even five years back, when imidacloprid alone generated over $800 million in annual revenues for Bayer? Why don’t NGOs ever demand a ban on pesticides that enjoy active patent protection — say, DuPont’s Coragen?
It brings us back to the point made at the beginning: The interests of global agri-biz majors and the greens may not be as divergent as is made out. The sufferer here is the poor
farmer, who is seeking solutions to genuine on-the-field and not abstract problems. At the current rate, he/she will only have the multinationals to go to.
Implications :
The new politics of trade is, as soon as any agro-chemical or drugs go out of patent, create a demand to ban them under on pretext or the other so that low cost generic option can be
killed. Endosulphan is the classic case. Why our courts think that only NGOs know what is good for society when they themselves are depended on someone else money for their
existence. They have no accountability and responsibility other than ensuring donors agenda so that next installment comes on time. You may be think how I can this, because I
worked with NGOs in early days of my career and have first hand experience, that every money which comes to NGOs comes with stated agenda.
It means these NGOs like Greenpeace may claim they have noble cause but their actions speaks about their intentions. after all they have to justify and deliver for the funds the get from their doners.
Unless doners make profit how long they can contribute for charity and to NGOs. No one is saint.
The interests of agri-biz MNCs and NGOs may not be all that implacably opposed.
No one is holy cow or saint in this commercial world with vested interests...
Option:
Policy makers around the world must realize this. Research in new technologies is the way forward. Don't get carried away by NGOs. Your scientists and technocrats are not enemy of the society or environment.
NGOs keep shouting about pollution but keeping buying new cars and fancy SUVs. Why? They keep talking about power but their bosses stay in five star hotels and fly business class. Why? Whose money they use to pay for their luxury? may be their donors which they got in the name of poverty and misery of the society.
I am sure, sooner or later Government of India and Indian courts will realize their mistakes. They will give go ahead for research but by that time our research projects will become
defunct and outdated.
Meanwhile, NGOs will find another agenda to hurt India’s growth because they have to ensure their existence and funds for their own existence.
Can I ask Greenpeace and other NGOs to provide action plan, how to ensure food and nutritional security for all. If farmers are poor consumers are also poor. What is your workable suggestion? Please come forward.
I asked this to Greenpeace representatives about 7-8 years back, when they came to my office, they told me they will comeback to me with their work in a week's time, I am waiting since.
For more proof, read here:
How to save India's USD 25 billion every year and reduce current account deficit?
Click here: http://sardanavijay.blogspot.in/2013/07/how-to-save-usd-25-billion-every-year.html
India's Policy making Bodies hijacked by foreign funded NGOs
Click here: ttp://sardanavijay.blogspot.in/2013/03/indias-policy-making-bodies-hijacked-by.html
Misplaced Agenda:
Click here: http://sardanavijay.blogspot.in/2012/09/business-world-article-misplaced-agenda.html
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