Thursday, July 15, 2010

Will GM food help to reduce hunger in India?

It has been proved that “Genetically Engineered food products are not equal to the non-genetically engineered food products. Still few people have a delusion that it will help in high yield and reduce hunger within the poor communities of India.”

If hunger could be addressed by technology, then green revolution would have done it approximately 45 years ago. It is nothing but under enormous pressure from the biotechnology industry over government to allow GM crops. These companies have the financial resources to mobilize scientific opinion as well as political support. If in the real sense GM food helps the poor Indian farmer to improve sustainability in agriculture then India would have been able to create a unique model of agriculture where farmers are not forced to commit suicide.
Two years back, India had a record of food grain surplus of 65 million tonnes. But it was not being fed to the 320 million people, who failed to arrange one square of meal. On the other hand our government is discussing on the issue of GM approval to reduce hunger. With this knowledge, government giving permits to the corporate to take control over our agriculture & food system. As all we know, MNCs are not promoting these GM seed aiming to wipe poverty & hunger; they only keep their eyes on the local food system to extend control over it. As mentioned earlier, if India has surplus food grains then what is the use to promote GM food or seed? We do not need GM food; we only need an accurate strategy to manage our resources & traditional pattern of agriculture. In the name of poverty & hunger MNCs like Monsanto plan to shake our economy. On the other side the government is preparing to introduce China GM rice in five states. May be the government has learnt no lesson from the past experiences.
Wake up!!!
Say No to GM food……
Mansoon Mohanty
Living Farms, Bhubaneswar

1 comment:

William said...

i could not agree more to what you are saying in your posts!
it is a shame so few people comments though.. Keep it up, attetion has to come your way!