Tag: Agriculture
GM mustard will obliterate honey bees
Over 100 apiculturists, or beekeepers, gathered at the ICAR-Mustard Research Institute in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, to protest against the Central government’s decision on giving environmental clearance for GM Mustard. Farmers from Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana raised concerns and submitted requests to the Central government November 4, 2022 demanding withdrawal of the same.
The protests happened a day after the Supreme Court granted time till November 10 to the Centre to respond to a petition challenging its decision on GM mustard.
The Centre had given the go-ahead for GM mustard after the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee under the environment ministry approved the environmental release of Dhara Mustard Hybrid (DMH-11) seeds for trials and demonstrations October 18.
The beekepers expressed concern about the government decision, stating that honey production had already been impacted by earlier genetically modified products.
— source downtoearth.org.in | Himanshu Nitnaware | 04 Nov 2022
Open letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
from the SAFCEI
and faith community representatives from the African continent.
We, a collective of faith leaders from Africa, are experiencing first-hand how the
Covid-19 pandemic is making visible failing food systems and fuelling hunger and
poverty in Africa. Alongside our responsibility to be custodians of the Earth, faith
networks are entrusted to ensure the just distribution and sharing of resources for all in
need.
While we are grateful to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (the Gates Foundation)
for its commitment to overcoming food insecurity, and acknowledging the humanitarian
and infrastructural aid provided to the governments of our continent, we write out of
grave concern that the Gates Foundation’s support for the expansion of intensive
industrial scale agriculture is deepening the humanitarian crisis.
● The Gates Foundation promotes a model of industrial monoculture farming
and food processing that is not sustaining our people. It reduces our resilience
— source safcei.org | Sep 10, 2020
Doctors demand ban on crops, uprooting of trial plantations
Doctors across India have come together to express their concern against the plantation of genetically modified (GM) mustard crops, which recently received the Centre’s go-ahead for its environmental clearance.
A letter has been submitted by 111 doctors across various fields to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, demanding immediate uprooting of the trial plantations of the genetically modified Dhara Mustard Hybrid (DMH) -11. The doctors warned of the possible health concerns introduced in the food system by the crop.
GM mustard was approved for its environmental release October 18, 2022, by the central biotech regulator, Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC). The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Directorate of Rapeseed Mustard Research (DRMR) procured two kilos of GM mustard from its inventor and geneticist, Deepak Pental.
When Down To Earth visited the director of ICAR-DRMR, P K Rai, November 4, he had denied the trial plantation of GM mustard. However, November 14, 2022, he admitted the seeds
— source downtoearth.org.in | Himanshu Nitnaware | 06 Dec 2022
The Kachchh caravan stumbles on
Kammabhai’s hopeful tone is understandable given the extraordinary events of January 2022 when 58 camels were detained by the local police in Amravati, Maharashtra. Although released a month later in February, all the camels showed signs of poor health.
Their herders say that during their detention, the animals did not get to eat their regular diet. The gaurakshan kendra where they were held, is a cattle shelter equipped with feed for cows.
In a cruel twist, the hapless herders even had to pay – Rs. 350 for each camel’s daily feed – for the unsuitable food determined by the kendra . The bill came to Rs. 4 lakh, as calculated by the Gaurakshan Sanstha . The cattle-shelter calls itself a voluntary organisation but it levied a fee on the Rabaris towards the care and upkeep of camels.
A year ago, a self-styled animal rights activist from Hyderabad had lodged a complaint in Talegaon Dashasar police station against the five herders. They were accused of transporting camels to slaughterhouses in Hyderabad. The Rabaris were camping in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region. Police arrested the five herders at a village called Nimgavhan, which comes under the Amravati district police’s jurisdiction. The owners were charged under section 11 (1)(d) of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 , and the camels were sent to a gaurakshan kendra in Amravati in detention.
Although the local court immediately granted the owners bail, the battle for their animals dragged on and went up to the district court. On January 25, 2022, a magistrate in Amravati summarily rejected the applications of three animal rights organisations, including the Gaurakshan Sanstha , for custodial rights of the camels. It allowed the application of the five Rabari herders upon their fulfilment of a few conditions.
— source ruralindiaonline.org | Jaideep Hardikar, Priti David, Rajeeve Chelanat | Jan. 27, 2023
Doctors demand ban on GM Mustard, uprooting of trial plantations
Doctors across India have come together to express their concern against the plantation of genetically modified (GM) mustard crops, which recently received the Centre’s go-ahead for its environmental clearance.
A letter has been submitted by 111 doctors across various fields to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, demanding immediate uprooting of the trial plantations of the genetically modified Dhara Mustard Hybrid (DMH) -11. The doctors warned of the possible health concerns introduced in the food system by the crop.
GM mustard was approved for its environmental release October 18, 2022, by the central biotech regulator, Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC). The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Directorate of Rapeseed Mustard Research (DRMR) procured two kilos of GM mustard from its inventor and geneticist, Deepak Pental.
When Down To Earth visited the director of ICAR-DRMR, P K Rai, November 4, he had denied the trial plantation of GM mustard. However, November 14, 2022, he admitted the seeds
— source downtoearth.org.in | Himanshu Nitnaware | 06 Dec 2022
Stop Open Field Tests of GM Mustard
Following the go-ahead for production and field testing of hybrid seeds of genetically modified (GM) mustard, All-India Peoples Science Network (AIPSN) has demanded that the open field tests, if any, be conducted with “utmost precautions and in carefully selected locations to ensure strict isolation from neighbouring fields of mustard”. The statement from the AIPSN comes after the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) permitted on October 18 field testing of the DMH II variety of GM mustard. It has called the approval “the most significant step in India regarding GM foods” since the moratorium announced on the release of Bt Brinjal in 2010.
— source newsclick.in | 08 Dec 2022
[Ban GMO]
Now, Haryana Farmers Left in Lurch as 29,000 PMFBY Applications Rejected
In another case of faltering responsibilities, the application forms for crop insurance of nearly 29,000 farmers from Hisar district in Haryana, under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), have been returned by Reliance General Insurance on one pretext or the other, leaving the applicants high and dry. According to a report by The Tribune, nearly 41,000 farmers had applied for the insurance of their Kharif crops like cotton, bajra and guar by depositing their share of the premium. Over the last five years, as a result of procedural hurdles in the settlement of claims, the coverage of the scheme has declined. For example, over the 5-year time span, the number of farmers covered has come down by 29% during Kharif and 33% during Rabi.
— source newsclick.in | 30 Sep 2022
Vineyard owner Governor Threatens to Veto Farmworker Union Bill
Hundreds of farmworkers concluded a 24-day march to Sacramento spanning 335 miles to demand California Governor Gavin Newsom support legislation that would make it easier for farmworkers to cast their ballots in union elections by mail. Newsom has threatened to veto the bill, which would keep farmworkers safe from employer retaliation, explains Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers, the labor union that helped organize the march. We also speak with Irene de Barraicua, operations director of Líderes Campesinas, who describes the ongoing threats women agricultural workers and others face on the ground, including sexual harrassment, wage theft and exposure to toxic chemicals.
And definitely, after the past two years of this pandemic — right? — where farmworkers were deemed essential, many of the issues that farmworkers have faced for many years have been brought to light at a global level. And so, many of the farmworkers also understand that their voice means so much, they need to lift their voices.
And so, this march, what it represents is sort of this ongoing fight to obtain the rights that they’ve never had. I mean, they are some of the most at-risk workers. They risk injury more than any other labor sector. They are exposed to pesticides, to sexual assault, to wage theft, all sorts of abuses that one cannot imagine. And so, what this march
— source democracynow.org | Aug 29, 2022
A ‘food park’ that could heighten hunger
The villagers here – mostly small farmers, fisherfolk and labourers – are protesting the setting up of the Godavari Mega Aqua Food Park Pvt. Ltd (GMAFP). They see this project as polluting both air and water in the region and wrecking their livelihoods. The food park aims to process products such as fish, prawn and crab for export to markets in the European Union and USA. The ‘Committee for agitation against the GMAFP’ that has sprung up here asserts that the process “involves using at least 1.5 lakh litres of water daily.” They say it will “also discharge – every day – around 50,000 litres of water filled with pollutants.” The discharge will be released into the Gonteru drain which empties out into the sea from this district.
Besides potentially devastating agriculture, says Barre Nagaraju, a leader of the fish workers community in this region, the polluted water going into the Gonteru drain will devastate 18 fishing dependent villages nearby. “This factory will impact around 40,000 of us,” he says.
— source ruralindiaonline.org | Sept. 21, 2022