CREDIT AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT GIVEN TO DR. MERCOLA
What many still do not know is that farming has changed dramatically over the past few decades. Seeds have traditionally been saved and shared between farmers from one harvest season to the next. You rarely ever had to buy new seed. Nature, when left alone, provides you with the means to propagate the next harvest in a never-ending cycle.
In the 1970’s, hybrid seeds were introduced into India, promising better yields using chemical fertilizers and insecticides. But it didn’t take long before yields began to drop as the agricultural chemicals took their toll on the soils. Farm debts began driving Indian farmers to suicide in 1997, and it hasn’t stopped since. In fact, matters have quickly gotten worse in the decade since Monsanto introduced its “revolutionary” Bt cotton, which cannot be saved or shared from season to season, but must be continually repurchased.
Genetically engineered seeds also require expensive agricultural chemicals, and more water – a commodity few farmers have access to unless it rains. Buried in debt and struggling against the rising cost of GM seeds and the chemicals required, combined with failing yields and GE-created super weeds and resistant pests, one Indian farmer now commits suicide every 30 minutes.
Over the past 16 years, it’s estimated that more than a quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide after being convinced to plant Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) seeds (especially Bt cotton), then having their crops fail, leaving them in financial ruin.
It seems India is poised to join the ranks of those countries who do not want to use their population and land as guinea pigs to test out GM crops… others who have said “no” to GMOs (genetically modified organisms) include:2
New Zealand: No GM foods are grown there Switzerland: No GM crops, animals and plants until 2013 Germany: No GM corn Madeira: This small Portuguese island has a ban on GM crops Ireland: GM crops were banned for cultivation in 2009, and foods containing GM foods can be voluntarily labeled as such Japan: No GM seeds are planted in the country (but wild contamination from imported GM canola have been found growing near ports) France: Asked the European Commission to suspend Monsanto’s authorization to plant GM MON 810 corn, but the EU stepped in and blocked the ban Austria, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria and Luxembourg: All have bans on both cultivation and sale of GMOs
On November 6, 2012, California voters will vote on Prop 37 and we will see if truth will win out over corporate greed, and hopefully people will finally be given the right to know what is in their food.
