Grow it where you live - Seeds in a globalised world

According to a report by the ETC Group, during the last three decades, a handful of companies has gained control of one-quarter of the world’s annual biomass such as crops, livestock and fisheries which has been integrated into the world market economy. With particular regard to seeds, from thou¬sands of seed companies and public breeding institutions, ten companies now control more than two-thirds of global proprietary seed sales – the two biggest being the US-American groups Monsanto (23%) and DuPont (15%), followed by Syngenta, Limagrain and Land O`Lakes.

While the proprietary seed market ac¬counts for over 80% of the commercial seed supply, approximately three-quarters of the world’s farmers routinely save seeds from their harvest and grow locally-bred varieties. At least 1.4 bil¬lion people depend upon farmer-saved seed. In 2007, institutional breeders held monopoly claims on over 72,000 plant variet¬ies worldwide. However, small farmers have created and are using millions of farmer-bred varieties, mostly food crops. In 2008, as the global food crisis deep¬ened, the world’s largest seed compa¬nies were awash with profits. Record-high commodity prices and depleted grain reserves translated into soaring demand for seeds and other farm inputs. On the other hand, an additional 100 million people faced possible starvation because of it, as Ron Oswald, general secretary of the International Union of Food (IUF), has shown.

Greenpeace estimates, that there are more than 1,000 patent claims worldwide on the most important food plants such as sweet corn, soya, rise and wheat. Therefore farmers, agriculturists, breeders and ecologists worldwide have set up initiatives that strive to fight the privatisation of seeds, such as ‘No Patents on Seeds’, ‘Seed Sovereignty’ or ‘Save Our Seeds’.

Since the end of the Green Revolution in the late 1950s, India has suffered the worst agrarian crisis ever. This can be seen as a result of the political decision, not to invest any longer in agriculture. Subsequently, and independently from seed regulations, the general control of the agrarian sector has become more careless. The prices of the input, especially those of seeds, rose by up to 100-300 percent, depending on the sort. One example is genetically modified cotton seeds sold by Monsanto, that now claims between 1,600 and 1,850 Rupees (27-32 Euro) for a 450 gram package of genetically modified cotton seeds.

During the 1960s, the formal seed sector in India was dominated by the public sector. In 1961 the Ministry of Agriculture founded the National Seeds Corporation (NSC). In 1967 the Indian government established a National Seeds Project (NSP) with the assistance of the World Bank. The New Policy on Seed Development of 1988 challenged a new era of privatisation of the Indian seed sector and many private companies arose.  This coincided with the fourth loan of the World Bank to the privatisation of India`s seed sector and to open it to multinational seed corporations.

In 2004, India got a new Seed Bill. Its main purposes were to make the previously voluntary registrations of varieties obligatory, to create a comprehensive National Register of Seeds, to regulate the imports and exports of seeds and to improve the market conditions for private seed companies.  This has resulted in India harmonising its seed law with that of the EU and the US.

The ten transnational seed companies now operating in India are Monsanto, Bayer Crop Science, Syngenta, Advanta India Limited (formerly ITC Zeneca Ltd.), Hicks-Muse-Tate Inc., Emergent Genetics, Dow Agro, Novartis, Bioseed Genetics International Inc. and Tokita Seed Co.

But as for GRAIN, Dr Devinder Sharma as well as many other organisations and authors pointed out, the case of the privatisation of seeds in India is two-edged. On the one hand, the Indian government, just as the worldwide seed industry, claims that the bill was necessary for controlling the quality of the seeds. On the other hand there are farmers committing suicide because they do not know how to carry on due to the rising import of expensive seeds and various other constraints and obligations.

For instance, farmers cannot sell their seeds if they do not fit the standards of registration. Furthermore, they are not allowed to use a brand name and enter the seed trade. This is clear evidence how the new Seed Bill favours the seed companies and disadvantages the farmers. Even though the latter produce around 80% of India's seed, they are now restricted to selling their own seed. Only formal breeders and big businesses can get their seeds registered. Farmers wanting their seeds registered face several difficulties: the process is bureaucratic, takes a long time and is extremely expensive. In addition, farmers' seeds often fail to pass the required standards for various reasons – such as their seeds do fit best local needs, but not globalised standards.  Also, if a farmer wishes to reuse seeds from a plant by Monsanto, he must pay to relicense them every growing season.

For this and other reasons, Greenpeace argued that Monsanto intends to control the global agriculture to an unthinkable extent. Further critiques deal with the fact, that Monsanto does not sufficiently care or intervene regarding the child labour carried out by Indian sub-suppliers.

One example for many impressive Indian persons fighting the take-over of transnational seed companies is the world-renowned scientist and environmentalist Dr Vandana Shiva who stated that: “When I found (that) global corporations wanted to patent seeds, crops or life forms, I started Navdanya to protect biodiversity, defend farmers' rights and promote organic farming.” As well as others, Navdanya co-ordinates a biodiversity conservation programme to support local farmers, rescue and conserve crops and plants that are being pushed to extinction as well as making them available through direct marketing. Her and others message is: grow it where you live. Other organisations fighting for Indian farmers include Bhartiya Kisan Sangh, the Karnataka State Farmers' Association (KRRS), Bharat Krishak Samaj, Anthra and the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture.

Every 8 hours an Indian farmer kills himself due to his (they are mainly males) financial worries – in 2009 this numbered 17,368. Although the main cause for this dispair can be found in the effects of drought, the privatisation of seeds with all its consequences must be considered responsible, with at least 1,800 suicides considered to be attributed to it.

In any case, if the development continues like this, Indian farmers must be seen as the losers of globalisation. It is not only the effects listed above – there are also indications of other damage provoked by foreign seed companies: Monsanto for instance is blamed for having imported a deathly plant bacillus to India and China that is associated with genetically modified cotton seeds. Hundreds of Indian farmers committed suicide because of it.


By Gabriele Mante & Martin Parker, RESET-Redaktion

• ETC Group
• No Patents On Seeds
• Saatgutkampagne
• United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, www.srfood.org
• Grain
• SOS Save Our Seeds
• Greenpeace Redaktion (29.04.2005), Monsantos Machtstrategien & Unternehmensaufkäufe - Ein Gentechnik-Gigant kontrolliert die Landwirtschaft, Greenpeace, www.greenpeace.de
• Navdanya
• Bharatiya Kisan Sangh
• ANTHRA
• Centre for Sustainable Agriculture
• Thomas Schmitt (12.11.2006), Tausend indische Bauern gehen in den Tod, Spiegel Online, www.spiegel.de
• Le Monde diplomatique – Der globale Blick, www.monde-diplomatique.de 
• F. William Engdahl (2007), Saat des Todes: Mit Terminator-Saatgut zur Kontrolle der Völker, ZeitenSchrift
• Vandana Shiva (18.05.2009), Why Are Indian Farmers Committing Suicide and How Can We Stop This Tragedy? AlterNet, www.alternet.org