When Hunger is Manufactured: Understanding Hunger IV (Guest Post by Sharda Suresh)

Bt Cotton field in Vidarbha area (also known as suicide belt of debt-ridden farmers) in Maharashtra

[It was mid-2011 when I ran into Sharda Suresh and was struck by her knowledge about the food rights movement and specially the GM seed and food issue in India. Today I have the pleasure of having her write on this issue for the Understanding Hunger series. You can read the previous posts in this series here.

This post gets to the heart of how hunger is manufactured by the corporate and industrial machinery. 

You can follow Sharda on https://www.facebook.com/sharda.suresh]

The Washington Apples in my local grocery store remind me of the thousands of activists who took to the street to oppose the WTO almost a decade ago. These progressive thinkers belonging to the Green peace and other such organizations warned us that Globalization of food would bring extreme poverty to the farmers worldwide. We have more than 5000 farmer suicides reported every year in India alone and EU is also concerned that their farmers are moving to other industries.

The food industry today is controlled by five big companies, these companies are also some of world's largest chemical manufacturers and a few of them actually control the pharmaceutical industry. The close nexus between food, chemicals and pharmacy is not a mere coincidence but a carefully planned strategy by companies such as Monsanto. Their objective - No plant on earth should grow without their explicit permission and no farmer should be able to re-sow a seed. In other words no life on earth should exist without the permission of companies like Monsanto.

The word for seed in Sanskrit is 'Beeja', meaning source of life (ja means life). It is Karmic - Seeds give rise to plants and plants have seeds. These seeds also the very source of life for bees, worms, insects etc. On the other hand GM seeds have to be manufactured in an artificial environment. They are designed, to not reproduce and hence cannot be pollinated. So GM seeds are actually the opposite of Beeja (almost like the anti-Christ).

Let me explain this concept a little more. If you are from South India and must have a daily fix of 'Thair sadam' (curd rice), then all you need to do is make your own curds. To do this, add a spoon of curds (culture) to some warm milk and let it stay in room temperature. What if someone told you that you can only use store bought curds and this 'store bought curd' is not designed to be a culture. If you run out of curds you have to go to the local grocery store and buy some more. Does this concept sound weird and farfetched? Well this is reality for Indian farmers who are being forced to buy GM seeds year after year, pushing them into extreme debt.

GM seed manufacturing companies argue that they can eliminate world hunger, their pest resistant crops have longer shelf life and also yield more when compared to organic seeds. If this is true, then why are we paying Rs100 for a kilo of Tuar daal and Rs 60 for a kilo of green beans (the same cost Rs 20 and Rs 2 a kilo ten years ago)? Why are these high yielding and pest resistant seeds forcing our farmers to commit suicide?

Most of us are neither farmers nor do we hold stock in Monsanto, then how does GM adversely affect us? Those of us living in third world counties are forced to consume soya oil made from GM soya. These seeds are banned by the FDA (as they have proven to cause deadly diseases). However, there is no ban in India and the US can actually sell these banned products to India. We do not have any regulation that mandates Indian manufactures to print a label saying their products are made from GM fortified seeds. It is the same story with Sunflower oil, Wheat flour, Corn etc. Do you really want to consume food that has been banned in the US and EU? Have we really become the Guinea Pigs of the first world?

Organic cauliflower field in Chattisgarh

Remember spinach leaves with holes (moth eaten) are better because they have not been sprayed by pesticides. Cut cauliflower and put it warm salted water before cooking. If you see small worms floating on top that cauliflower is good it has not been Genetically Engineered. Most importantly, some bacteria are good that is why curds are recommended to people with weak stomachs but not milk.

It is not the looks but the heart that one needs to look out for—even in food! Say no GM seeds and food!

Resources:
Websites to follow: http://www.gmwatch.org and http://www.navdanya.org/campaigns 
Book to read: Stolen Harvest
Documentary to watch: The Future of Food
Twitter handle to follow:Devinder_Sharma