Stop corporate seeds in Pakistan ....(Article, Issue # 50)

THE FLOODING that submerged nearly a fifth of Pakistan starting in July this year displaced about 20 million people and killed nearly 2,000. This number of people whose property and livelihoods were destroyed surpassed the number of combined victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the Haiti earthquake earlier this year. Without a doubt, it was one of Pakistan's worst floods ever.

"The destruction isn't over yet. A big threat looms in the way the government is rebuilding agriculture, in partnership with big agribusiness companies, in the flood-stricken areas of Pakistan," says Azra Sayeed of Roots for Equity, a Karachi-based grassroots NGO that works with small and landless peasants in the flooded areas. "A torrent of corporate hybrid seeds, and possibly GM seeds as some suspect, packaged with fertilizers, farm implements and production credit is streaming into the affected provinces in the name of agricultural reconstruction."

Free seeds?

In October, a consignment of 2,000 bags of wheat seeds was dispatched to flood-hit farmers by the Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman Foundation (MKRF) and the Imran Khan Flood Relief Fund (IKRF). A scheme was launched to provide wheat seeds to farmers owning 25 acres of land in every flood-hit province without discrimination. Under the scheme, certified and good quality seeds were provided to farmers covering 150,000 acres of land. Also since early November, the US government has provided about US$62 million to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to expand an agriculture recovery program to the Province of Balochistan. The program includes provision of seed and fertilizer to flood-affected farmers, to help salvage the winter planting seasons and restore livelihoods for farmers in flood-affected areas.

Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, has said last month that the government's attention is focused on the rehabilitation of more than seven million flood-affected people and efforts are being made to give Rs100,000 (US$ 1,165) as well as seeds and fertilizers to each survivor family free of cost. There are reports, however, that not all of this is free, as the seeds are being tied to micro-finance packages where fertilizers and services are only provided to small farmers through loans.

The threat of contamination

What the seeds are and where they come from are of deep concern. Currently they are being distributed in small white plastic bags with the monogram of UN World Food Program. Unfortunately, there's very little public information available. And without an independent body monitoring the inflow of seeds to Pakistan, it's hard to rule out if some of the seeds and foodstuff being distributed are not GMOs or products of GMOs. With Bayer, BASF, Monsanto, Du Pont, Dow Chemical and Cargill, among the long list of donors to Pakistan's rehabilitation, the suspicion is high that these companies can use the situation to get their GM seeds on the ground and make contamination a done deal.

Cargill is known for receiving huge subsidies from the US government to dump vast amounts of grains in poorer countries. It also processes soybean oil for Monsanto. Bayer Crop Science has a GM canola variety called Invigor, while Monsanto has the herbicide resistant Round-up Ready canola. On the other hand, BASF and Monsanto have a joint undertaking to develop GM wheat. Dow Chemical owns Mycogen which has a range of GM and hybrid seeds – maize, canola, soybeans, sorghum, and sunflower. In the Sindh province, sunflower seeds have been distributed with their source of origin unknown. Some Pakistani farmers are worried that seeds of GM canola may outcross to their local mustard varieties. Canola and mustard, both open-pollinated crops are from the same Brassica family, which also includes cabbage as distant relative. The possibility of GM contamination cannot be ruled out.

"It's not just the seeds that are of concern here. It's the entire drive to transform Pakistan's agriculture into cash crop export production, controlled by a few big seed and agrochemical companies, at the expense of its own food security," says Vlady Rivera of GRAIN, a small international non-profit organization that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. "To take advantage of the post-flood situation to push that corporate agenda is simply perverse. What people normally see as seed aid on the surface is actually big business at the core."


http://www.technologytimes.pk/mag/2010/dec10/issue04/stop_corporate_seeds_in_pakistan.php