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http://www.gmwatch.org/asia.asp

Pennapa Hongthong is currently in Indonesia to complete her research on the impact of GM crops on farmers, funded by the Nippon Foundation.

EXCERPT: "After the first harvest in 2001, Hasdi found that the Bt cotton was not so high yielding; he could harvest only less than a tonne from his single hectare of land. He could not repay Rp1.06 million of his credit. Not just Hasdi, but all of the 49 farmers in the same village whom he convinced to join the scheme found themselves in the same boat. About 100 farmers burned their Bt cotton that first year in symbolic protest against the company and the government."
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GMO CROPS: A Cautionary Tale
Pennapa Hongthong
The Nation / Jakarta, 27 Sep 2004

The Indonesian experiment with genetically modified cotton failed, but valuable lessons can be gleaned

The Thai Cabinet recently rejected a proposal by the Agriculture Ministry which carried the full support of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra asking for the ban on field testing of genetically modified (GM) crops to be lifted. Lifting the ban would be a crucial step in opening up the country to the planting of transgenic crop varieties for commercial purposes.

Instead of an angry response, Thaksin and his agriculture minister should thank the Cabinet and those civic groups who opposed the proposal for giving them a chance to learn more about the applications of plant biotechnology and its potential impact on the country’s agricultural sector.

Over the past two weeks in Indonesia's South Sulawesi province, I visited farmers who have experience in planting Bt cotton, a transgenic cotton variety that contains Bt, a gene extracted from soil bacteria, making it resistant to cotton boll-worms. Bt cotton was introduced here by PT Monagro Kimia and PT Branita Sandhini, two subsidiaries of US-based seed and agrochemical company Monsanto, and was planted during 2001 and 2002.

My firsthand information gave me cause for concern. The introduction of GM crops, dubbed the "Gene Revolution", seems to be a modern tool for cementing farmers' dependence on seeds and transnational agrochemical corporations, appearing in developing countries in different guises. The evidence from here is that GM crops are nothing more than a profit-motivated deployment of scientific power dedicated to sucking the blood of farmers.

Indonesia is the first country in Southeast Asia to devote land to commercial GM farming, and there are lessons to be learned by other developing countries yearning to jump aboard the Gene Revolution bandwagon, such as Thailand.

Amid warnings by some scientists and activists about the environmental and socio-economic impacts of GM crops, the Indonesian ministry of agriculture issued a decree allowing Bt-cotton seeds to be distributed to farmers in seven kabupaten, or districts, of the province, and permitting the farmers to sell their products. The decree required no environmental-impact assessment, but, fortunately, permission was granted only on a year-to-year basis. This gave the government a chance to review the impact of Bt cotton, to put an end to the suffering of those farmers who were growing the crop and to correct the environmental problems in time.

The cotton was introduced to farmers with promises of high yields, one hectare supposedly producing 3-4 tonnes of cotton while requiring less pesticide and fertiliser than does Kanesia, the local variety. Even though the cotton was designed to resist the boll-worm, a major cotton pest, pesticide does still need to be applied. The seed was given to farmers as part of a package deal, together with pesticide, herbicide and fertiliser, as part of a credit scheme. One hectare requires 5 kilograms of Bt-cotton seeds at 80,000 Indonesian rupiah (Bt363) per kg 16 times the price for Kanesia seed, which costs Rp5,000/kg four types of fertiliser and three types of chemicals, including Roundup a brand of herbicide produced by Monsanto. The transgenic cotton thus infringed on the farmers' freedom to choose their own pesticide and herbicide.

During the first year, 2001, the total credit for one hectare came to approximately Rp1.26 million for about 9,000 farmers. That was for 2001 alone, because in 2002 the seed price was hiked to Rp100,000/kg by the company without any prior consultation with the government. It was not only the seed price that was unstable; the price paid for cotton bought by the company from the farmers also swung, but in the opposite direction. In 2001, the company paid Rp2,500/kg for the farmers’ Bt cotton, but this dropped to Rp2,200/kg in 2002.

"It was a lopsided contract, because the company could adjust the price at its whim. There was no opportunity to argue or say no," said Hasdi Assidiq, a cotton farmer from kabupaten Bulukumba. Once the contract was signed, cotton farmers had no alternative but to shoulder the debt and sell their product to the company without any argument.

It was not just the contract that was unfair to the farmers. The technology of plant genetic engineering itself proved also to be unfair, because it came tied to intellectual property rights. These farmers who grew Bt cotton did not have the right to collect the seeds for the next harvest season. This meant that every year, they had to buy a new set of seeds, fertiliser, pesticide and herbicide at a price determined by the company.

Asked whether he was concerned about the high potential for a monopoly by transnational corporations dealing in GM crops, Muhammad Herman, a molecular biologist at the Indonesian Centre for Agricultural Biotechnology and Genetic Resources Research and Development, answered, "We can't avoid the fact." He said farmers today must buy seeds every season since most of the farmers, who have grown other crops besides cotton, have used hybrid seed for decades.

Hybrid seed was introduced to farmers throughout the world starting in the 1970s as part of the Green Revolution. The seed performs poorly without fertiliser, pesticide and herbicide. Even though farmers can preserve the next generation of hybrid seed for the next harvest season, no one wants to, because the quality of the seed deteriorates.

Hasdi decided to grow Bt cotton himself because he believed the promises that came with the seeds. The high seed price was not an obstacle, because of the credit scheme. After the first harvest in 2001, Hasdi found that the Bt cotton was not so high yielding; he could harvest only less than a tonne from his single hectare of land. He could not repay Rp1.06 million of his credit. Not just Hasdi, but all of the 49 farmers in the same village whom he convinced to join the scheme found themselves in the same boat. About 100 farmers burned their Bt cotton that first year in symbolic protest against the company and the government.

Research conducted by the Team for the Monitoring and Control of Bt-Cotton Development in Indonesia confirmed Hasdi's story. The team found that among 4,160 farmers surveyed in the first year, 3,649 harvested less than 2 tonnes per hectare of Bt cotton. Only 167 farmers could harvest more than 3 tonnes per hectare as the company had promised. A local South Sulawesi newspaper, Fajar, reported on March 3, 2002, that 76 per cent of farmers who joined the credit scheme could not repay their debt.

Nobody but the company itself knows the exact economic damage wrought by Monsanto because of its Bt cotton. We do know, however, that the company decided last year to halt operations by its PT Branita Sandhini subsidiary, which was established specifically for its cotton business. Edwin Saragih, head of Monsanto's Government and Public Affairs Department, would tell me only that the company is no longer interested in cotton. He added that the government's decision to authorise commercial Bt cotton on a year-to-year basis, a measure designed to protect farmers, proved to be a big obstacle to business investment.

Moreover, PT Monogro Kimia, responsible for supplying the Bt-cotton seed, is currently under investigation by both the US Department of Justice and the Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission on suspicions that a payment of US$50,000 (Bt2.07 million) was made to Indonesian officials in 2002.

It is fortunate for Indonesian farmers that the government, while ignoring the concerns of scientists and activists, is smart enough, for the time being, to allow Bt cotton to be the only GM crop variety grown commercially and to base it on annual evaluations. The suffering of the farmers could then possibly turn into that of the transnational corporation. In my entire five years of covering the GMO issue in Thailand, not once did I hear the government come up with any sort of plan to prevent tragedy for the farmers. All I ever heard were naive notions of trusting in the power of biotechnology. All I ever saw were attempts to open wide Thailand's door to GM crops.

But the Thai Cabinet's recent rejection of GMOs makes me feel somewhat better that at least it listens to the voices of civic groups. Better still to listen to the voices of those Indonesian farmers who have already tasted the medicine. Perhaps then the government would understand that the true currency used to pay for GM seeds is not cash, but rather the lives of the farmers and the independence of our agricultural sector.

Pennapa Hongthong is currently in Indonesia to complete her research on the impact of GM crops on farmers, funded by the Nippon Foundation.