Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
U.S. Agribusiness in Indian Agriculture
U.S. Agribusiness in Indian Agriculture: KIA, BRAI, and the “Second Green Revolution”
Analytical Monthly Review Editorial, April 2010.
There are points when long-term trends emerge openly in the present, and a process normally visible only from a distance becomes an unmistakable part of daily life. The displacement (or better dispossession) of rural petty cultivators and producers became noticeable with the adoption of “Green Revolution” expensive technical farming in the 1960s and 1970s, and gathered speed from the time of the neoliberal “reform” regime adopted by the ruling class in 1991. Claims were often made that expanded production for export would create industrial jobs for the masses expelled from the countryside. Such claims were false. Instead vast slum belts surround the cities, and brazen claims of employment gains are falsified by the word “informal” and the misery it denotes. The anguish of this immiserated population echoes with every price rise of foodstuffs, while yet more cultivators are dispossessed.
Yet seventy percent of the population is even now rural, and under ever greater strains. Lakhs of farmer suicides have occurred in the last decade, and the causes are clear to every honest observer. Neoliberal “reforms” subjected farmers’ incomes to the wild swings of world speculative markets, and restricted state subsidised credit to a small minority of cultivators. Usury, suddenly celebrated for its “market” magic, finished the murderous job. Even the small minority worthy of credit from the organised banking sector face a full-scale crisis. Large parts of Punjab and Haryana, epicentre of “Green Revolution” farming with chemicals, high-yield seeds and irrigation, now face desertification in the next decades. A recent report by the Punjab State Council for Science and Technology asserts that the state’s agriculture “has become unsustainable and nonprofitable.” G.S. Kalkat, chairman of the Punjab State Farmers Commission, claims that if farmers in Punjab don’t change the way they grow food, a “Dust Bowl” will result.Social manifestation of this crisis is best described by a report from Punjab. “Locals call Train No. 339 by a chilling name — “the cancer train.” It routinely carries at least 60 cancer patients who make the overnight journey with their families to the town of Bikaner for treatment at the government’s regional cancer center. Research by one of the most respected medical institutes in India recently found that farming villages using large amounts of pesticides have significantly higher rates of cancer than villages that use less of the chemicals.” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103569390
The oncoming disaster is not now in dispute on any level. In the recent budget, an amount of Rs.900 crore has been allocated (i) to extend the green revolution (!) to the eastern region of the country comprising Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Eastern UP, West Bengal and Orissa; (ii) to organise 60,000 “pulses and oil seed villages” in rain-fed areas during 2010-11 and provide an integrated intervention for water harvesting, watershed management and soil health, to enhance the productivity of the dry land farming areas and (iii) for launching climate resilient agriculture initiative in the green revolution areas to be sustained through conservation farming, which involves concurrent attention to soil health, water conservation and preservation of biodiversity. It is also mentioned that to spur the growth in this sector, the Government intends to follow a four-pronged strategy covering (a) agricultural production; (b) reduction in wastage of produce; (c) credit support to farmers; and (d) a thrust to the food processing sector.
On the face of it, this section of the budget appears deeply inconsistent; implicitly acknowledging the disasters that have ensued from the “green revolution” while pledging to extend it. The cause is that the underlying program of this government could not be mentioned; the massive introduction of patented seed owned by the giants of U.S. agribusiness. Only gradually has this central element—a total subjugation of Indian agriculture to the dominant U.S. agri-monopoly corporations—slowly emerged into the light of day. The positive side of this contradiction is that educated opinion is today so sensitised to the issues that the regime must resort to subterfuge. The negative side is that the extension of the power of U.S. imperialism into our most crucial domestic affairs, agriculture and food security—abetted in every way by the Manmohan Singh government—continues apace.
The process has been going for a long time. It received a boost during the visit of Manmohan Singh to the USA and the Joint Statement with U.S. President George Bush of July 18, 2005 where it was announced that the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) agreed to work together for an otherwise undescribed new “India–U.S. Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture Education, Research, Services and Commercial Linkages”. An agreement signed at New Delhi on November 12th, 2005 spelled out the heart of the matter while leaving all crucial details undisclosed—“A key feature of this Initiative will be a public-private partnership where the private sector can help identify research areas that have the potential for rapid commercialization, with a view to develop new and commercially viable technologies for agricultural advancement in both countries”. The nuclear agreement occupied the media when U.S. President George Bush visited India in March, 2006, while the formal signing of the shadowy deal with which we are concerned—the “Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture” (KIA)—went largely unnoticed. The KIA then came into existence, with a Board dominated by representatives of U.S. agribusiness giants Monsanto, Walmart and Archer Daniels Midland. Astoundingly, the full details of the KIA deal were still not made public. A Delhi-based nongovernmental organization (NGO), Gene Campaign, finally managed to obtain some details under the Right to Information Act. The details were shocking; the Indian side is required to prostitute its publicly funded agricultural research to the masters of U.S. agribusiness. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is required to provide free access to its entire network of 47 agricultural laboratories and universities for U.S. companies and research institutes to carry out joint research with ICAR in biotech areas “that have the potential for rapid commercialization”. (Nature Biotechnology 24, 481, 2006)
A study by Kavitha Kuruganti, based on her reading of the minutes of the KIA Board’s meetings, reveals:
“While some amount of joint research work seems to be underway, an analysis of the board meeting minutes so far reveals that a major thrust of the KIA is to change some important regulatory regimes pertaining to agriculture in India.
The KIA is expected to lend a focused impetus to changes sought by private agri-business corporations, including many large American multinational corporations (MNCs) like Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland Co. Given that they are on the KIA board, it is impossible that they will not drive as many changes as possible that would suit their business interests. In more than two board meetings, there were express points made on how the private sector could provide more inputs for the regulatory process – this is ironical given that most regulation in any case is meant to regulate such a private sector and to protect the interests of consumers and producers. There is an inherent conflict of interest in these private players determining the shape and systems of regulation!
Harmonisation of legislation is mentioned in different contexts including in the US-India CEO Forum plans. Going through the developments on the KIA front, it appears that the following regulatory regimes related to Indian farming/food are being sought to be changed through the KIA: (1) regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs); (2) contract farming; (3) seeds regulation; and (4) intellectual property rights (IPRs) in agriculture.” - (Economic & Political Weekly, November 29, 2008)
The true agenda of the KIA—the destruction of the regulatory regime in the interests of U.S. agribusiness and its Indian coconspirators—has emerged step by step. In April 2006, the Indian Ministry of Commerce issued a notification requiring all food import consignments to be certified for their genetically modified (“GM”) status. The United States objected to this in the Technical Barriers to Trade committee in the WTO in May 2006 as discrimination and asked for its suspension. The Manmohan Singh government, hearing its master’s voice, immediately complied in July 2006, and changed its regulation for soyabean-related imports. Soon after, Bush administration undersecretary of state for political affairs Nicholas Burns boasted of the success of the Bush “drive” on India “culminating in impressive agreements regarding civilian nuclear power, trade, science and agriculture with India’s reformist prime minister, Manmohan Singh.” Burns, in his relatively unguarded comments, salivates at the prospects now open for U.S. capital: “While the civilian nuclear initiative has garnered the most attention, the U.S. and Indian governments have [also] launched joint ventures in agriculture…”; “Our first priority is to continue giving governmental support to the huge growth in business between the Indian and American private sectors”; “…the potential benefits to American interests [are] so substantial…”; “These are heady times for India and the United States.”
The key sector was identified from the first—the global market for seeds. U.S. agribusiness has developed seeds with “terminator genes” so that only one crop can be grown. And even failing such certain means to enslave the world’s farmers, seeds are patented and U.S. global military power stands behind its demand that all nations respect its “intellectual property”. United States multinational corporations already dominate India’s organised seed market, with more than half of all sales. But eighty percent of India’s farmers obtain their seeds by traditional means, and not by purchase. And the Indian regulatory regime, as with every major country in Europe and Asia, placed strict controls on the introduction of GM seeds in view of the immense possible health risks and the no less serious threat of the loss of food sovereignty. On this front the attack would be made.
As with all basic elements of U.S. global imperial policy, the shift from Bush to Obama left unchanged the well-planned assault on regulatory resistance to the spread of patented genetically modified seeds:
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made it a point to visit the Indian Agricultural Research … and reiterate her country’s commitment to bringing about policy changes in the Indian farm sector that US agri-business would like to see. Clinton said she favoured a strong intellectual property or patent regime (IPR) to safeguard the ownership of agricultural research, as that would be in ‘everyone’s interest’. A contention rejected by Indian agri-policy analysts who say it would primarily benefit owners of biotechnology research — the MNCs who produce ‘Bt’ seeds, as genetically modified or GM crops have come to be popularly known (patents would ensure that no one else would be allowed to produce or sell these seeds). Her technology advisor, Nina Federoff, is a strong votary of genetically modified crops, to the extent of being regarded as a spokesperson for US seed multinationals like Monsanto, Dow and DuPont. In fact, Federoff triumphantly pointed out to a group of US agri-scientists last year that although Europe and Japan were cautious about GM foods, Africa and India were clamouring for them!
The chosen agent for the assault was genetically modified brinjal seed (“Bt-brinjal”). The careful preparation of the KIA now was brought into play. As noted above, from the first the KIA, its Board dominated by Monsanto, Walmart, and Archer Daniels Midland, was focused on placing the regulatory regime under the control of agribusiness. And it scored an immediate success over the regulatory regime with the approval of Bt-brinjal by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC). But a storm of concerned protest erupted, and at last the entire conspiracy came under public scrutiny.
Under immense pressure from organisations of farmers, the scientific community and every species of national-minded public opinion, Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh declared a moratorium on the introduction of Bt-brinjal early in February, 2010. But it quickly developed that he was relatively isolated in the government, as the immensely wealthy Union Agriculture Minister Shawar Pawar organised a campaign to reverse the decision. At the same time a Bt-brinjal propaganda campaign was unleashed in the mass media, more or less openly financed by the agribusiness interests. As a sign that what is here at issue is far more serious than any single such decision, it now appears that the Manmohan Singh regime has prepared legislation to use the police power to crush opposition to agribusiness and to wipe out the existing regulatory regime.
According to a report by K. P. Prabhakaran Nair, an agricultural scientist:
“Now, recently two things are happening quietly— First is the drafting of the draconian Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill (BRAI) which will be tabled in Parliament soon. The second was the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Washington and New Delhi which will make the American presence in the Indian farm sector very strong. The MoU has been quietly approved by the Cabinet, against established protocol, without taking Parliament into confidence. It is titled ‘Agriculture Cooperation and Food Security’ between India and the US. The MoU is primarily intended to enable private American investments in the country. It also seeks to privatise the huge Indian network of agricultural extension. The nutrition security component of the MoU calls for access of Indians to ‘diverse diet and diversified and fortified foods’ — a euphemism for genetically modified (GM) foods. India is a big market and with the draconian Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill in the offing, the US government with the Cabinet’s approval of the MoU will have no problems in dumping GM foods in the Indian market. The food and nutrition security component will give access to India’s great genetic diversity of crop plants for commercialisation to the advantage of the US because of its superior technological skills. The opening up of food security policy dialogue is also a matter of great concern, as it will impose on India the US model of agribusiness and vertical integration of food chain, greatly impacting and consolidating monopolies, because of the extensive and efficient US infrastructure. Indian food sovereignty will simply be lost.” <>
The proposed Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill (BRAI) 2009 criminalises opposition to the agribusiness agenda. Section 63, Chapter 13 of the Bill which deals with various “offences and penalties”, reads “Whoever, without any evidence or scientific record misleads the public about the safety of the organisms and products specified in Part I or Part II or Part III of the Schedule I, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than six months but which may extend to one year and with fine which may extend to two lakh rupees or with both.” GM products covered under the Schedule I include genetically engineered plants and organisms, DNA vaccines, cellular products, gene therapy products, stem cell products and other such genetically engineered or transgenic products. “Evidence”, “scientific record” and “misleading” are undefined in the bill. As for public knowledge of the activities of the new all-powerful Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India, Section 27 (1) reads “Disclosure of confidential commercial information, such information shall, notwithstanding anything contained in the Right to Information Act, 2005, be retained as confidential by the authority and not be disclosed to any other party.” Thus the details of BRAI’s decisions on the properties and effects of all patented genetically modified materials can neither be obtained by the public, nor legally challenged.
We now see the totalitarian extent of the “strategic alliance” with the United States. Presented as a “second green revolution” under the benevolent guidance of U.S. agri-monopoly corporations—Archer Daniel Midland, Cargill, Monsanto, and Wal-Mart—what we see instead is a further extension of police control over intellectual and political dissidents. The further introduction of expensive agricultural technology (and patented seeds cannot be other than expensive) can only serve to accelerate the dispossession of poor cultivators. The vagaries of weather and world markets will generate price rise, hunger, anger and resistance. Which in turn will be met with new high-technology means of repression courtesy of the same titans of U.S. private enterprise, ever able to profit from each new disaster.
The reality is that Washington and the U.S. agribusiness giants seek by patenting life forms to gain worldwide control of food supply. As Henry Kissinger said in 1970, “control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people”. What is at issue is imperialism. The Manmohan Singh path of subjugation to U.S. capital offers no hope of a way out of the impending agricultural crisis; rather the reverse. Rational agriculture, in which humans are able to sustain themselves and to heal the metabolic rift, is not possible without overthrowing the current system that prizes production for profit above all else. As Karl Marx said (Capital, vol. III, chapter 6, section 2), “The moral of the tale is that the capitalist system runs counter to a rational agriculture, or that a rational agriculture is incompatible with the capitalist system (even if the latter promotes technical developments in agriculture) and needs either small farmers working for themselves or the control of the associated producers”.
Analytical Monthly Review Editorial, April 2010.
There are points when long-term trends emerge openly in the present, and a process normally visible only from a distance becomes an unmistakable part of daily life. The displacement (or better dispossession) of rural petty cultivators and producers became noticeable with the adoption of “Green Revolution” expensive technical farming in the 1960s and 1970s, and gathered speed from the time of the neoliberal “reform” regime adopted by the ruling class in 1991. Claims were often made that expanded production for export would create industrial jobs for the masses expelled from the countryside. Such claims were false. Instead vast slum belts surround the cities, and brazen claims of employment gains are falsified by the word “informal” and the misery it denotes. The anguish of this immiserated population echoes with every price rise of foodstuffs, while yet more cultivators are dispossessed.
Yet seventy percent of the population is even now rural, and under ever greater strains. Lakhs of farmer suicides have occurred in the last decade, and the causes are clear to every honest observer. Neoliberal “reforms” subjected farmers’ incomes to the wild swings of world speculative markets, and restricted state subsidised credit to a small minority of cultivators. Usury, suddenly celebrated for its “market” magic, finished the murderous job. Even the small minority worthy of credit from the organised banking sector face a full-scale crisis. Large parts of Punjab and Haryana, epicentre of “Green Revolution” farming with chemicals, high-yield seeds and irrigation, now face desertification in the next decades. A recent report by the Punjab State Council for Science and Technology asserts that the state’s agriculture “has become unsustainable and nonprofitable.” G.S. Kalkat, chairman of the Punjab State Farmers Commission, claims that if farmers in Punjab don’t change the way they grow food, a “Dust Bowl” will result.
The oncoming disaster is not now in dispute on any level. In the recent budget, an amount of Rs.900 crore has been allocated (i) to extend the green revolution (!) to the eastern region of the country comprising Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Eastern UP, West Bengal and Orissa; (ii) to organise 60,000 “pulses and oil seed villages” in rain-fed areas during 2010-11 and provide an integrated intervention for water harvesting, watershed management and soil health, to enhance the productivity of the dry land farming areas and (iii) for launching climate resilient agriculture initiative in the green revolution areas to be sustained through conservation farming, which involves concurrent attention to soil health, water conservation and preservation of biodiversity. It is also mentioned that to spur the growth in this sector, the Government intends to follow a four-pronged strategy covering (a) agricultural production; (b) reduction in wastage of produce; (c) credit support to farmers; and (d) a thrust to the food processing sector.
On the face of it, this section of the budget appears deeply inconsistent; implicitly acknowledging the disasters that have ensued from the “green revolution” while pledging to extend it. The cause is that the underlying program of this government could not be mentioned; the massive introduction of patented seed owned by the giants of U.S. agribusiness. Only gradually has this central element—a total subjugation of Indian agriculture to the dominant U.S. agri-monopoly corporations—slowly emerged into the light of day. The positive side of this contradiction is that educated opinion is today so sensitised to the issues that the regime must resort to subterfuge. The negative side is that the extension of the power of U.S. imperialism into our most crucial domestic affairs, agriculture and food security—abetted in every way by the Manmohan Singh government—continues apace.
The process has been going for a long time. It received a boost during the visit of Manmohan Singh to the USA and the Joint Statement with U.S. President George Bush of July 18, 2005 where it was announced that the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) agreed to work together for an otherwise undescribed new “India–U.S. Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture Education, Research, Services and Commercial Linkages”. An agreement signed at New Delhi on November 12th, 2005 spelled out the heart of the matter while leaving all crucial details undisclosed—“A key feature of this Initiative will be a public-private partnership where the private sector can help identify research areas that have the potential for rapid commercialization, with a view to develop new and commercially viable technologies for agricultural advancement in both countries”. The nuclear agreement occupied the media when U.S. President George Bush visited India in March, 2006, while the formal signing of the shadowy deal with which we are concerned—the “Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture” (KIA)—went largely unnoticed. The KIA then came into existence, with a Board dominated by representatives of U.S. agribusiness giants Monsanto, Walmart and Archer Daniels Midland. Astoundingly, the full details of the KIA deal were still not made public. A Delhi-based nongovernmental organization (NGO), Gene Campaign, finally managed to obtain some details under the Right to Information Act. The details were shocking; the Indian side is required to prostitute its publicly funded agricultural research to the masters of U.S. agribusiness. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is required to provide free access to its entire network of 47 agricultural laboratories and universities for U.S. companies and research institutes to carry out joint research with ICAR in biotech areas “that have the potential for rapid commercialization”. (Nature Biotechnology 24, 481, 2006)
A study by Kavitha Kuruganti, based on her reading of the minutes of the KIA Board’s meetings, reveals:
“While some amount of joint research work seems to be underway, an analysis of the board meeting minutes so far reveals that a major thrust of the KIA is to change some important regulatory regimes pertaining to agriculture in India.
The KIA is expected to lend a focused impetus to changes sought by private agri-business corporations, including many large American multinational corporations (MNCs) like Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland Co. Given that they are on the KIA board, it is impossible that they will not drive as many changes as possible that would suit their business interests. In more than two board meetings, there were express points made on how the private sector could provide more inputs for the regulatory process – this is ironical given that most regulation in any case is meant to regulate such a private sector and to protect the interests of consumers and producers. There is an inherent conflict of interest in these private players determining the shape and systems of regulation!
Harmonisation of legislation is mentioned in different contexts including in the US-India CEO Forum plans. Going through the developments on the KIA front, it appears that the following regulatory regimes related to Indian farming/food are being sought to be changed through the KIA: (1) regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs); (2) contract farming; (3) seeds regulation; and (4) intellectual property rights (IPRs) in agriculture.” - (Economic & Political Weekly, November 29, 2008)
The true agenda of the KIA—the destruction of the regulatory regime in the interests of U.S. agribusiness and its Indian coconspirators—has emerged step by step. In April 2006, the Indian Ministry of Commerce issued a notification requiring all food import consignments to be certified for their genetically modified (“GM”) status. The United States objected to this in the Technical Barriers to Trade committee in the WTO in May 2006 as discrimination and asked for its suspension. The Manmohan Singh government, hearing its master’s voice, immediately complied in July 2006, and changed its regulation for soyabean-related imports. Soon after, Bush administration undersecretary of state for political affairs Nicholas Burns boasted of the success of the Bush “drive” on India “culminating in impressive agreements regarding civilian nuclear power, trade, science and agriculture with India’s reformist prime minister, Manmohan Singh.” Burns, in his relatively unguarded comments, salivates at the prospects now open for U.S. capital: “While the civilian nuclear initiative has garnered the most attention, the U.S. and Indian governments have [also] launched joint ventures in agriculture…”; “Our first priority is to continue giving governmental support to the huge growth in business between the Indian and American private sectors”; “…the potential benefits to American interests [are] so substantial…”; “These are heady times for India and the United States.”
The key sector was identified from the first—the global market for seeds. U.S. agribusiness has developed seeds with “terminator genes” so that only one crop can be grown. And even failing such certain means to enslave the world’s farmers, seeds are patented and U.S. global military power stands behind its demand that all nations respect its “intellectual property”. United States multinational corporations already dominate India’s organised seed market, with more than half of all sales. But eighty percent of India’s farmers obtain their seeds by traditional means, and not by purchase. And the Indian regulatory regime, as with every major country in Europe and Asia, placed strict controls on the introduction of GM seeds in view of the immense possible health risks and the no less serious threat of the loss of food sovereignty. On this front the attack would be made.
As with all basic elements of U.S. global imperial policy, the shift from Bush to Obama left unchanged the well-planned assault on regulatory resistance to the spread of patented genetically modified seeds:
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made it a point to visit the Indian Agricultural Research … and reiterate her country’s commitment to bringing about policy changes in the Indian farm sector that US agri-business would like to see. Clinton said she favoured a strong intellectual property or patent regime (IPR) to safeguard the ownership of agricultural research, as that would be in ‘everyone’s interest’. A contention rejected by Indian agri-policy analysts who say it would primarily benefit owners of biotechnology research — the MNCs who produce ‘Bt’ seeds, as genetically modified or GM crops have come to be popularly known (patents would ensure that no one else would be allowed to produce or sell these seeds). Her technology advisor, Nina Federoff, is a strong votary of genetically modified crops, to the extent of being regarded as a spokesperson for US seed multinationals like Monsanto, Dow and DuPont. In fact, Federoff triumphantly pointed out to a group of US agri-scientists last year that although Europe and Japan were cautious about GM foods, Africa and India were clamouring for them!
The chosen agent for the assault was genetically modified brinjal seed (“Bt-brinjal”). The careful preparation of the KIA now was brought into play. As noted above, from the first the KIA, its Board dominated by Monsanto, Walmart, and Archer Daniels Midland, was focused on placing the regulatory regime under the control of agribusiness. And it scored an immediate success over the regulatory regime with the approval of Bt-brinjal by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC). But a storm of concerned protest erupted, and at last the entire conspiracy came under public scrutiny.
Under immense pressure from organisations of farmers, the scientific community and every species of national-minded public opinion, Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh declared a moratorium on the introduction of Bt-brinjal early in February, 2010. But it quickly developed that he was relatively isolated in the government, as the immensely wealthy Union Agriculture Minister Shawar Pawar organised a campaign to reverse the decision. At the same time a Bt-brinjal propaganda campaign was unleashed in the mass media, more or less openly financed by the agribusiness interests. As a sign that what is here at issue is far more serious than any single such decision, it now appears that the Manmohan Singh regime has prepared legislation to use the police power to crush opposition to agribusiness and to wipe out the existing regulatory regime.
According to a report by K. P. Prabhakaran Nair, an agricultural scientist:
“Now, recently two things are happening quietly— First is the drafting of the draconian Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill (BRAI) which will be tabled in Parliament soon. The second was the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Washington and New Delhi which will make the American presence in the Indian farm sector very strong. The MoU has been quietly approved by the Cabinet, against established protocol, without taking Parliament into confidence. It is titled ‘Agriculture Cooperation and Food Security’ between India and the US. The MoU is primarily intended to enable private American investments in the country. It also seeks to privatise the huge Indian network of agricultural extension. The nutrition security component of the MoU calls for access of Indians to ‘diverse diet and diversified and fortified foods’ — a euphemism for genetically modified (GM) foods. India is a big market and with the draconian Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill in the offing, the US government with the Cabinet’s approval of the MoU will have no problems in dumping GM foods in the Indian market. The food and nutrition security component will give access to India’s great genetic diversity of crop plants for commercialisation to the advantage of the US because of its superior technological skills. The opening up of food security policy dialogue is also a matter of great concern, as it will impose on India the US model of agribusiness and vertical integration of food chain, greatly impacting and consolidating monopolies, because of the extensive and efficient US infrastructure. Indian food sovereignty will simply be lost.” <>
The proposed Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill (BRAI) 2009 criminalises opposition to the agribusiness agenda. Section 63, Chapter 13 of the Bill which deals with various “offences and penalties”, reads “Whoever, without any evidence or scientific record misleads the public about the safety of the organisms and products specified in Part I or Part II or Part III of the Schedule I, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than six months but which may extend to one year and with fine which may extend to two lakh rupees or with both.” GM products covered under the Schedule I include genetically engineered plants and organisms, DNA vaccines, cellular products, gene therapy products, stem cell products and other such genetically engineered or transgenic products. “Evidence”, “scientific record” and “misleading” are undefined in the bill. As for public knowledge of the activities of the new all-powerful Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India, Section 27 (1) reads “Disclosure of confidential commercial information, such information shall, notwithstanding anything contained in the Right to Information Act, 2005, be retained as confidential by the authority and not be disclosed to any other party.” Thus the details of BRAI’s decisions on the properties and effects of all patented genetically modified materials can neither be obtained by the public, nor legally challenged.
We now see the totalitarian extent of the “strategic alliance” with the United States. Presented as a “second green revolution” under the benevolent guidance of U.S. agri-monopoly corporations—Archer Daniel Midland, Cargill, Monsanto, and Wal-Mart—what we see instead is a further extension of police control over intellectual and political dissidents. The further introduction of expensive agricultural technology (and patented seeds cannot be other than expensive) can only serve to accelerate the dispossession of poor cultivators. The vagaries of weather and world markets will generate price rise, hunger, anger and resistance. Which in turn will be met with new high-technology means of repression courtesy of the same titans of U.S. private enterprise, ever able to profit from each new disaster.
The reality is that Washington and the U.S. agribusiness giants seek by patenting life forms to gain worldwide control of food supply. As Henry Kissinger said in 1970, “control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people”. What is at issue is imperialism. The Manmohan Singh path of subjugation to U.S. capital offers no hope of a way out of the impending agricultural crisis; rather the reverse. Rational agriculture, in which humans are able to sustain themselves and to heal the metabolic rift, is not possible without overthrowing the current system that prizes production for profit above all else. As Karl Marx said (Capital, vol. III, chapter 6, section 2), “The moral of the tale is that the capitalist system runs counter to a rational agriculture, or that a rational agriculture is incompatible with the capitalist system (even if the latter promotes technical developments in agriculture) and needs either small farmers working for themselves or the control of the associated producers”.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
LATE VICTORIAN HOLOCAUSTS BY MIKE DAVIS
BOOK REVIEW
Critics of globalization point out with some justice that poor people around the world suffer far more than the citizens of industrialized nations during downturns in the global economy. Peasants in developing countries can find their lives hanging in the balance during a rise in food prices or a decline in the global market value of the goods they produce. Never was this more true than during the hey-day of the European imperialism in the last three decades of the nineteenth century. Aggressive trade practices and the ruthless use of military force effectively subdued nations in Asia, Africa, and South America and brought these countries into a global trade system. By the 1870s, and certainly by the turn of the century, many European countries, above all Great Britain, had created the world's first global market economy. Financial markets in London, Paris, Amsterdam, and elsewhere were linked by telegraph to places where raw materials were produced for European consumption, while established trade routes were patrolled by European navies (particularly the Royal Navy). The economic power of the extensive British Empire was unparalleled and the inner workings of the global system dominated by London determined the fate of innumerable people around the world.
It is with the workings of the British economic system and their impact on indigenous populations in India, China, and elsewhere that Mike Davis' book Late Victorian Holocausts is concerned. Davis' point of departure is a simple question. Why is it that widespread hunger in Western Europe disappeared in the nineteenth century while famine and disease raged throughout multiple places in what we would call today the "Third World"? Davis provides a simple answer: European imperialism (especially British imperialism) created a global economic system through which the food and wealth of conquered nations (i.e. colonies) was siphoned off for the benefit of wealthy and powerful Europeans, while those in the colonies were left to starve and die. The result was mass death (what Davis calls "holocausts") on an unprecedented scale in India, China, Brazil and other places, that was most intense during the El Niño drought years of 1876-77 and 1888-1902.
This imperial global economic system was certainly not a "free" market in any sense of the word. It was in fact bolstered by a long series of tariffs and unfavorable trade relationships that were forced by Europeans upon the peoples they conquered. Colonies were in turn subjected to economic pressure dictated by and manipulated from financial centers in Western Europe. It was these economic forces, as well as brutal gunboat diplomacy, that Davis argues created the Third World as we know it today.
THE "FREE MARKET" AS A MECHANISM OF MASS MURDER
Davis' primary focus in fleshing out his story is the crown jewel of Britain's colonial empire: India. Drought was the precipitating cause of the hardship faced by the Indian people. However, Davis demonstrates with statistics and anecdotes that it was the unregulated "free market" system imposed on India by Britain that led to the deaths of tens of millions in the mid-1870s and late 1880s.
How did death and human suffering on such a massive scale happen? Following the English conquest of India in the early nineteenth century, economic relationships in the sub-continent underwent revolutionary changes. Thousands of miles of railroad track were laid. Telegraph wire was strung between outlying areas and the capitol city of Bombay (Mumbai today). Central grain collection depots were created and Indian grain was exported in massive quantities to the British Isles. Also, Indian subsistence farmers were gradually forced out in favor of large land enclosures. Within these new enclosures cash crops like cotton were planted, which supplied the textile mills of Lancashire, but which could not feed the Indian peasants who farmed the land. Finally, the tax burden upon the Indian peasantry was increased exorbitantly to pay for these "improvements". British authorities needed the revenue to finance war in neighboring Afghanistan.
The innovations imposed by the British on India re-directed the trajectory of Indian commerce and especially food production toward Great Britain and away from the local village markets where the food was needed. Rail lines and the adjacent grain depots enabled British authorities to stockpile grain and keep it under guard away from the people who needed it most, while telegraph lines dictated the price of grain on world commodities markets to local producers. When grain prices rose across the board in global trading, peasants could not afford to buy food.
In the face of these crippling economic forces, British colonial authorities did nothing, primarily because they would not "tamper" with the operation of the liberal "free" market that Britain had created. The Viceroy of India during the famine years of the 1870s was Lord Lytton, a mentally unbalanced English noble. Davis recounts that in the midst of widespread famine and the deaths of millions all around him, Lytton maintained a strict laissez-faire attitude toward famine relief. As Lytton wrote at the time, "there is to be no interference of any kind on the part of the Government with the object of reducing the price of food," a policy proposal Lytton termed "humanitarian hysterics" and "cheap sentiment". (p. 31)
Lytton and his fellow administrators preferred instead to blame the "laziness" of famine victims themselves for causing their own dire fate. Citing Lord Temple, "Nor will; many be inclined to grieve much for the fate which they brought upon themselves, and which terminated lives of idleness and too often of crime". (p. 41) The task of saving life, therefore, was "beyond our power to undertake," claimed Temple and Lytton, and it was "a mistake to spend so much money to save a lot of black fellows". (p. 37)
British officials were thus completely unwilling to intervene in the operation of the "free" market despite seeing death on a massive scale all around them. Overall at least 7.1 million people, and perhaps as many as 10.3 million people, died during the famine years of 1876-1878. (p. 111) Furthermore, despite death on this scale and falling production caused by drought, British officials in India still managed to export 6.4 million cwt. of wheat to Great Britain. (p. 31)
LIFE AND DEATH FOLLOWS THE MARKET CYCLE
The years following 1879 were a time when the world market continued to expand. Monsoonal rains settled back into a normal pattern and grain production around the world rose considerably. These were also years when Britain and other colonial powers expanded their reach into the interior of the subjugated countries they held. In India, even more land is brought under cultivation. These lands are then connected to the market by expanded telegraph and rail lines. Then in 1888-89 and 1891-92, the bottom again fell out of the system as El Niño drought gripped the temperate regions of Asia once more.
The resulting death from famine and disease, caused by the very same factors operating in India and elsewhere in the 1870s, was unfathomably huge. By 1902 in India alone between 12.2 and 29.3 million people perished. In China, where the British, Americans, and other European powers controlled practically all trade using military force, between 19.5 and 30 million people died. In Brazil another 2 million perished over the same time span. (p. 7).
THE "FREE" MARKET AND THE MAKING OF THE THIRD WORLD
Mike Davis demonstrates beyond a doubt that the economic structure of exploitative globalization is not a new phenomenon in the world. The lives of millions of people who formerly had survived in localized economies based on subsistence farming were wiped out "in the process of being forcibly incorporated" into the modern world system. (p. 9) Davis reminds us that markets are never free and they never operate according to "iron laws" of economics. Rather, markets are created and often the power underpinning their operation is fiscal manipulation and simple brute force.
Great Britain's global imperial economy was a case in point. It was never a "free" market. England imposed unfavorable trade terms and high tariff walls on India, China and on all of the other countries in its empire. Local economies forced open by the British were sucked dry of their vital raw materials and in return peasants were forced to buy expensive British manufactured goods. This practice was put into place throughout the colonial world by France, Portugal, Spain, Germany and other colonial powers. If anything, the economies of European colonies were more captive markets than free markets.
The latter point is perhaps the most important conclusion of Late Victorian Holocausts; specifically, that what we call the Third World today was a product of European and, to a lesser extent, American economic exploitation. The incorporation of formerly powerful countries like China and India into the global economy by Great Britain and others effectively destroyed indigenous production. Contrary to conventional wisdom, until around 1850, India and China had actually held their own against Europeans when it came to industrial production. The localized production of wealth and industry, however, was halted and then reversed by the imposition of the global economic system. It is for this reason, Davis concludes, that India's per capita income did not increase between 1757 and 1947; and in fact declined by more than 50% between 1850 and 1900. (p. 311).
Critics of globalization point out with some justice that poor people around the world suffer far more than the citizens of industrialized nations during downturns in the global economy. Peasants in developing countries can find their lives hanging in the balance during a rise in food prices or a decline in the global market value of the goods they produce. Never was this more true than during the hey-day of the European imperialism in the last three decades of the nineteenth century. Aggressive trade practices and the ruthless use of military force effectively subdued nations in Asia, Africa, and South America and brought these countries into a global trade system. By the 1870s, and certainly by the turn of the century, many European countries, above all Great Britain, had created the world's first global market economy. Financial markets in London, Paris, Amsterdam, and elsewhere were linked by telegraph to places where raw materials were produced for European consumption, while established trade routes were patrolled by European navies (particularly the Royal Navy). The economic power of the extensive British Empire was unparalleled and the inner workings of the global system dominated by London determined the fate of innumerable people around the world.
It is with the workings of the British economic system and their impact on indigenous populations in India, China, and elsewhere that Mike Davis' book Late Victorian Holocausts is concerned. Davis' point of departure is a simple question. Why is it that widespread hunger in Western Europe disappeared in the nineteenth century while famine and disease raged throughout multiple places in what we would call today the "Third World"? Davis provides a simple answer: European imperialism (especially British imperialism) created a global economic system through which the food and wealth of conquered nations (i.e. colonies) was siphoned off for the benefit of wealthy and powerful Europeans, while those in the colonies were left to starve and die. The result was mass death (what Davis calls "holocausts") on an unprecedented scale in India, China, Brazil and other places, that was most intense during the El Niño drought years of 1876-77 and 1888-1902.
This imperial global economic system was certainly not a "free" market in any sense of the word. It was in fact bolstered by a long series of tariffs and unfavorable trade relationships that were forced by Europeans upon the peoples they conquered. Colonies were in turn subjected to economic pressure dictated by and manipulated from financial centers in Western Europe. It was these economic forces, as well as brutal gunboat diplomacy, that Davis argues created the Third World as we know it today.
THE "FREE MARKET" AS A MECHANISM OF MASS MURDER
Davis' primary focus in fleshing out his story is the crown jewel of Britain's colonial empire: India. Drought was the precipitating cause of the hardship faced by the Indian people. However, Davis demonstrates with statistics and anecdotes that it was the unregulated "free market" system imposed on India by Britain that led to the deaths of tens of millions in the mid-1870s and late 1880s.
How did death and human suffering on such a massive scale happen? Following the English conquest of India in the early nineteenth century, economic relationships in the sub-continent underwent revolutionary changes. Thousands of miles of railroad track were laid. Telegraph wire was strung between outlying areas and the capitol city of Bombay (Mumbai today). Central grain collection depots were created and Indian grain was exported in massive quantities to the British Isles. Also, Indian subsistence farmers were gradually forced out in favor of large land enclosures. Within these new enclosures cash crops like cotton were planted, which supplied the textile mills of Lancashire, but which could not feed the Indian peasants who farmed the land. Finally, the tax burden upon the Indian peasantry was increased exorbitantly to pay for these "improvements". British authorities needed the revenue to finance war in neighboring Afghanistan.
The innovations imposed by the British on India re-directed the trajectory of Indian commerce and especially food production toward Great Britain and away from the local village markets where the food was needed. Rail lines and the adjacent grain depots enabled British authorities to stockpile grain and keep it under guard away from the people who needed it most, while telegraph lines dictated the price of grain on world commodities markets to local producers. When grain prices rose across the board in global trading, peasants could not afford to buy food.
In the face of these crippling economic forces, British colonial authorities did nothing, primarily because they would not "tamper" with the operation of the liberal "free" market that Britain had created. The Viceroy of India during the famine years of the 1870s was Lord Lytton, a mentally unbalanced English noble. Davis recounts that in the midst of widespread famine and the deaths of millions all around him, Lytton maintained a strict laissez-faire attitude toward famine relief. As Lytton wrote at the time, "there is to be no interference of any kind on the part of the Government with the object of reducing the price of food," a policy proposal Lytton termed "humanitarian hysterics" and "cheap sentiment". (p. 31)
Lytton and his fellow administrators preferred instead to blame the "laziness" of famine victims themselves for causing their own dire fate. Citing Lord Temple, "Nor will; many be inclined to grieve much for the fate which they brought upon themselves, and which terminated lives of idleness and too often of crime". (p. 41) The task of saving life, therefore, was "beyond our power to undertake," claimed Temple and Lytton, and it was "a mistake to spend so much money to save a lot of black fellows". (p. 37)
British officials were thus completely unwilling to intervene in the operation of the "free" market despite seeing death on a massive scale all around them. Overall at least 7.1 million people, and perhaps as many as 10.3 million people, died during the famine years of 1876-1878. (p. 111) Furthermore, despite death on this scale and falling production caused by drought, British officials in India still managed to export 6.4 million cwt. of wheat to Great Britain. (p. 31)
LIFE AND DEATH FOLLOWS THE MARKET CYCLE
The years following 1879 were a time when the world market continued to expand. Monsoonal rains settled back into a normal pattern and grain production around the world rose considerably. These were also years when Britain and other colonial powers expanded their reach into the interior of the subjugated countries they held. In India, even more land is brought under cultivation. These lands are then connected to the market by expanded telegraph and rail lines. Then in 1888-89 and 1891-92, the bottom again fell out of the system as El Niño drought gripped the temperate regions of Asia once more.
The resulting death from famine and disease, caused by the very same factors operating in India and elsewhere in the 1870s, was unfathomably huge. By 1902 in India alone between 12.2 and 29.3 million people perished. In China, where the British, Americans, and other European powers controlled practically all trade using military force, between 19.5 and 30 million people died. In Brazil another 2 million perished over the same time span. (p. 7).
THE "FREE" MARKET AND THE MAKING OF THE THIRD WORLD
Mike Davis demonstrates beyond a doubt that the economic structure of exploitative globalization is not a new phenomenon in the world. The lives of millions of people who formerly had survived in localized economies based on subsistence farming were wiped out "in the process of being forcibly incorporated" into the modern world system. (p. 9) Davis reminds us that markets are never free and they never operate according to "iron laws" of economics. Rather, markets are created and often the power underpinning their operation is fiscal manipulation and simple brute force.
Great Britain's global imperial economy was a case in point. It was never a "free" market. England imposed unfavorable trade terms and high tariff walls on India, China and on all of the other countries in its empire. Local economies forced open by the British were sucked dry of their vital raw materials and in return peasants were forced to buy expensive British manufactured goods. This practice was put into place throughout the colonial world by France, Portugal, Spain, Germany and other colonial powers. If anything, the economies of European colonies were more captive markets than free markets.
The latter point is perhaps the most important conclusion of Late Victorian Holocausts; specifically, that what we call the Third World today was a product of European and, to a lesser extent, American economic exploitation. The incorporation of formerly powerful countries like China and India into the global economy by Great Britain and others effectively destroyed indigenous production. Contrary to conventional wisdom, until around 1850, India and China had actually held their own against Europeans when it came to industrial production. The localized production of wealth and industry, however, was halted and then reversed by the imposition of the global economic system. It is for this reason, Davis concludes, that India's per capita income did not increase between 1757 and 1947; and in fact declined by more than 50% between 1850 and 1900. (p. 311).
Friday, April 16, 2010
Icelandic Economy - historic effects and final wishes
The eruption of an Icelandic volcano disrupted air traffic all over Europe. In 1783, a similar catastrophe killed thousands of people across the continent.
By Dirk Vandenberghe
For article press here:
http://www.nrc.nl/international/article2526154.ece/Historic_eruption_on_Iceland_killed_thousands
Latest News :
The late Icelandic economy's dying wish was to have its ashes scattered over Europe!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Marxism against Market Socialism published by Democracy and Class Struggle
Marxism against Market Socialism addresses the contributions of Marx,Engels,Lenin, Stalin and Mao in combating market socialism and the relevance of their struggle for the 21st Century.
The book critically examines late 20th century developments in China with essays from Wu Bing, Han Deqiang, Apo Leong,Gong Xiantian
The book will contribute to the clarification of the political economy of Socialism which revisionism confused with the political economy of Capitalism in the 20th Century
MARXISM AGAINST MARKET SOCIALISM
Contents:
Introduction
Part-1 Hodgkins and Thompson
Part-2 John Gray
Part-3 Proudhon
Part-4 Duhring
Part-5 Lenin
Part-6 Lange
Part-7 Voznesenky
Part-8 Stalin
Part-9 Kantrovitch
Part-10 Debate Between Yang Chien-pai and Tsai Chien-hua
Part-11 Mao on the Law of Value
Part-12 Origin of Deng's Reform
Part-13 The Contortion of Marxism
Part-14 Han Deqiang
Part-15 Gong Xiantian
Part-16 The Chinese State & Economy
70 Pages - Price 7 pounds
Where to buy this book
Available at Housemans - London telephone orders contact the shop by phone (020 7837 4473), or e-mail orders@housmans.com.
Bulk Orders of more than 5 copies available from nickglais@yahoo.co.uk
Available at Bookmarks Socialist Bookshop in London 020 7637 1848
enquiries@bookmarks.uk.com
Buy online at :
http://www.alternativebookshop.com/BookDetails.php?bookid=1590
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Ireland - This is Criticial Because This is Class War
The proponents of capitalism never tired of telling us how it is not the state’s role to interfere in the ‘free market’ – that economic competition between private producers and investors is key to economic growth.
They never tired of telling us that incentives, in the form of profits, were essential to convincing ‘bold entrepreneurs’ to take investment ‘risks’. They never tired of telling us that this was the only way to successfully generate rising levels of economic growth and wealth that would, ultimately, it was argued, trickle down and benefit all of society. Nor did they ever tire of telling us that, if these investors happened to make bad investment decisions, then they alone would face the consequences; it was only fair that, in the same way as they were handsomely rewarded for the successful risks they were taking, so too should they suffer the losses when their investments failed. That is some of the logic of capitalism. So the theory went anyway.
On Tuesday [March 30], the Twenty Six County minister of finance Brian Lenihan exploded that particular set of myths with the announcement in Leinster House, that, far from the people being sovereign, they would, in effect, be paying the debts of private banks for decades to come. By his actions, Brian Lenihan has confirmed the contempt in which the political establishment holds the very people who elect them.
The detail of the further bail-out of the banking system is truly staggering in its scale: a total of €21 billion [£18.7 billion] to rescue a failed and corrupt system.
Of this total, €8.3 billion [£7.4 billion] will be pumped into Anglo-Irish Bank, for so long the play-thing of the Twenty-Six County state’s biggest property developers. It doesn’t end there either, as Lenihan announced that a further €10 billion [£8.9 billion] will be required for AIB alone. Prior to Tuesday’s announcement, AIB had already received €4 billion [£3.6 billion] of taxpayers’ money. To put this €21 billion in context, the combined health budget and education budget in the year that the bank guarantee scheme was agreed was €23 billion [£20.4 billion].
The consequences of this decision will be felt for a long, long time; the mass of people face unemployment, reduced public services and chronic levels of debt for generations to come.
The right of the people to quality healthcare, housing and education is being made subordinate to the interest of banks, speculators and developers. Workers pension rights are being sold off so that the fat-cats that bankrolled Fianna Fáil for decades can be saved.
On Tuesday, many of these property developers, almost all of whom regularly attended the Fianna Fáil fundraising tent at the Galway races during the so called boom years, had their loans transferred into NAMA. Among them were Liam Carroll, Bernard McNamara, Seán Mulryan and Johnny Ronan, the playboys of the Celtic Tiger, lauded by the corporate media as the men who were taking the big risks to build a thriving economy. These parasites, facilitated by their political wing in Fianna Fáíl, simply inflated the property bubble, forcing thousands of households to take out 100 per cent mortgages on homes that were incredibly over-valued. These householders are now expected to pick up the tab for this gambling greed.
The consequences of the bank guarantee scheme of September 2008; a scheme that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Green Party and Sinn Féin all supported, is now painfully evident. Secret meetings between senior bankers and Dublin government ministers thrashed out a deal that was foisted upon an unsuspecting public. The loans and deposits of all banks were guaranteed on that September night in 2008 with little detail provided as to the exact state of the banks’ loan books. Any semblance of democracy has been truly torn to shreds and all that is offered is the tired Thatcherite mantra, ‘There is no alternative’.
No alternative, it seems, to bailing out the rich and powerful in Irish society with billions of euro of taxpayers’ money, while workers who actually created the wealth are consigned to the dole queues. With high rates of unemployment, bosses are using the recession to try and force down the pay and working conditions of those still in work. The deal agreed between ICTU negotiators and the Dublin government this week represents yet another shameful sell-out of public sector workers. It is utterly astonishing that union bosses are agreeing to a four year pay freeze and cuts in overtime for public sector workers while tens of billions is being spent bailing out the banks. The privatisation of sections of the public sector will follow unless workers demand that enough is enough.
This system has never been so clearly exposed as the fetter on human development it is as it was after Lenihan’s announcement. War has been declared on workers who are being treated once again as mere cogs in a profit-producing machine. That these egregious amounts of bailout funds can be made available now to rescue the capitalist banking system gives the lie to the notion that there is not enough money in society to take care of the totality of the social needs of people.
It is a lie that this type of society serves the needs of anyone but a small minority. We, the working people, need to take as our starting point in our understanding of this the fact that it is the working class alone who are the creators of wealth and that it is only through exploitation that wealth passes out of their control into that of the capitalist. Most importantly, we need to understand that this bank bailout presents stark and condemning proof, if ever more proof were needed, of the fact that, in this type of society, there is an irresolvable conflict between the interests of the capitalist class and those of the working class.
The task for socialists and republicans now is to find ways of highlighting this reality to the working and unemployed people that are the victims of capitalism. For it is only through effectively agitating and organising among our people that we will have a fighting chance of ever building the forces required for this economic system to be pulled off its hinges and a new, socialist one, built in its stead.
This is a critical task because this is class war
First published on
http://www.eirigi.org/
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Dumenil - Crisis of Neo Liberalism
Duménil: Neoliberal trends setting up a terrible future of inequality and exploitation for the workers
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