Navdanya: From Seeds of Suicide to Seeds of Hope, Gardens of Hope
This first installment from the Navdanya team, part of a three-part article, shares the history of cotton production in India. Navadanya’s Seeds of Hope, Gardens of Hope project joined the 2021-2023 cohort of the Regenerosity Regenerative Capacity Development Program.
—Regenerosity
Scorching heat and dry weather with scanty rainfall characterize the Vidarbha region. As if these weren't enough, there are lifeless cracked soils, drained of all of their moisture, despair of poverty, debt, lost heritage, hunger, and quivering health. Sounds like a nightmare, right? This is an actual picture of lakhs of farmers on the ground in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra over the last 7 decades.
BT cotton entered India with the corporate firms building an empire in the seed sector from 1998. Monsanto entered into an agreement with Mahyco (Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company). Their joint venture introduced the genetically modified Bt cotton in India after forming the MMBT- Monsanto-Mahyco Biotech (India) Pvt. Ltd. MMBT started the first illegal open field trials of the genetically modified crop in India and introduced Bt cotton in 40 locations across the country. Information gathered through interviews with farmers revealed that the date of sowing of Bt cotton trials in 40 locations across 9 states in India was done before permission was granted. These trials were illegal and compromised environmental biosafety rules and scientific ethics. Gradually, Monsanto, Syngenta, Aventis, and DuPont controlled all the GM crops. Genetically modified crops have been introduced without understanding their ill effects on the ecosystem before commercialization.
During the Green Revolution in the nineteen-sixties, monocultures of hybrids were forced upon Indian farmers. It eroded the diversity of nutritious, climate-resilient crops, increased their dependence on agrochemicals, and increased the risks of crops' vulnerability to pest attacks and diseases. The cost of cultivation has escalated beyond the affordability of a farmer, threatening the process of agriculture. To make, matters worse GM crops were showcased as a solution to the farmer's nightmare, the cotton bollworm. However, GM technology was not a solution but a social, economic, and ecological heist of the farmer. It deteriorated the condition of the farmer, farm, and the environment. The use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers impacted the entire insect & bird community, living soil ecosystem, human health, farmer's indigenous cotton, and food cropping system. Bt cotton spread monocultures, secondary pest infestations, and created dead nutrient eroded dead soils. The farmers took loans to buy the costly agrochemicals to control pest infestations and fertilize the dead soil using synthetic fertilizers. Initially, the cotton bolls were not attacked by bollworms. As time passed, the production of cotton plants dropped. The area under Bt cotton increased, along with an increase in bollworm attacks and secondary pest infestations. The GM technology is for the corporates to reap profits without benefiting the farmers.
Seed is the basis of Farmers' livelihoods, the foundation of agriculture, and the basis of life. In 2 decades, Monsanto plundered the diverse indigenous cotton varieties of Indian farmers and introduced Bt cotton suicide packages consisting of the BT Cotton Seeds, Chemical pesticides, and fertilizers, extracting extravagant royalties from the farmers. The indigenous cotton varieties were lost along with the diversity of food crops that included millets, oilseeds, and pulses that grew very well in the dry regions. Monsanto entered Indian farmlands illegally in 1998; by the early 2000s, Monsanto depleted all the indigenous cotton varieties and forced farmers to grow monocultures of Bt cotton. The price of cotton seeds rose from ₹5 - ₹9/KG to ₹ 1600/kg. The Bt cotton came with a package of pesticides (herbicides and insecticides) and fertilizers, which trapped farmers in a vicious cycle of debt and crop failures and ultimately forced them to commit suicides.
Bt cotton was introduced to earn profits from farmers under the garb of controlling cotton Bollworms infestation by introducing Bt toxin-producing gene from Bacillus thuringiensis into the cotton. Bt cotton has poorly failed. The bollworms became resistant and secondary infestation also occurred. The improved BT cotton using American technology was boastfully claimed to be resistant to Bollworms, Red bollworms, and Mealybugs. However, BT cotton crops got heavily infested by Pink bollworms in the subsequent years. This only increased the additional costly external inputs of pesticides and fertilizers increase. It rendered the living soil destroyed and left the farmers in heavy debts that pushed them to suicide.
Seeds of Hope, Gardens of Hope
Navdanya has worked with farmers for over two decades to build regenerative alternatives to the suicidal economy of patented, genetically engineered, hybrid seeds controlled by corporations.
Responding to the deepening crisis in Vidarbha and across the country and reclaiming our seed and food sovereignty, Navdanya launched Bija Yatras in 2000 as well as seed tribunals to address the root causes of this tragedy. Since 2004, Navdanya has been working to provide immediate support directly to indebted farmers and the widows of farmers who committed suicide to give them an economically and ecologically viable and sustainable alternative. Moreover, addresses the root cause of the crisis. Navdanya will continue and strengthen the work, distribute indigenous varieties of seeds of diverse crops, including indigenous organic cotton, to the farmers through Seeds of Hope. Navdanya encourages them to shift to organic and sustainable agriculture.
Navdanya has also supported Vidarbha farmers through capacity building in regenerative biodiversity-based agriculture.
To address issues of food security and to improve the nutrition of women and their families through diversity in food, Navdanya started Gardens of Hope with the widows of the suicide victims of Vidarbha. Navdanya creates kitchen gardens, where intercropped vegetables, fruit trees, herbs, and medicinal plants are intercropped. These gardens are a live example of biodiversity. The Gardens of Hope activity is an effort to bring back the nutrition into the plates of women farmers and their households. The kitchen garden ensures food and nutrition. It has the added advantage of creating a cool microclimate in the scorching heat of Vidarbha.
With Regenerative Organic, Biodiversity-based ecological mixed farming and rejuvenation of Indigenous cotton varieties, Navdanya aims to shift the despair of farmer families and their communities into a hopeful future of economic empowerment. Navdanya, with the Seeds of Hope, the Gardens of Hope program strives to rejuvenate hope throughout the Vidarbha region in the future.
