1.Farmers cautioned on Bt rice tests
2.A hundred farm suicides a month in Vidarbha
EXTRACTS: there is an urgent need to take all possible measures to ensure that state's existing local varieties of rice do not get contaminated due to Bt rice. (item 1)
The farm activist also refuted the government claim that the low yield is due to spurious Bt. Cotton seed... 'The low yield is because of the genuine Bt. Cotton, which is highly uneconomic and known to fail in rain-fed farming', he said. (item 2)
see also 'New Bt cotton disaster in Maharashtra'
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7323
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1.Farmers cautioned on Bt rice tests
Statesman News Service, November 29 2006
The Organic Farming Association of India's Orissa chapter has appealed to the farmers and their organisations to be on constant vigil against the attempts by any companies and research institutions to conduct open air trials of Bt Rice in the state.
Expressing shock over reports that a firm had conducted a field trial on Bt rice without taking due permission in a neighbouring state, the OFAI said Jeypore tract in Koraput district is known as the centre of origin of rice.
It is said that the district is home to more than 300 indigenous varieties of paddy. There has been depletion of indigenous varieties of rice. According to reports, the number of local land races of rice is now only about 150.
Extensive induction of high yielding and hybrid varieties of rice with organised support is one of the major reasons for the depletion of genetic resources in the area. So, there is an urgent need to take all possible measures to ensure that state's existing local varieties of rice do not get contaminated due to Bt rice, the organisation said in a statement issued here.
It cautioned the farmers that since there is absolutely no regulatory mechanisms for GE trials in Orissa the situation is quite alarming. OFAI's Orissa chapter demanded that all field trials in India be cancelled with immediate effect unless it was ensured that such trials could be done with bio-safety and scientifically fully incorporated.
Mr Debjeet Sarangi, the convener of the state chapter, felt that the departments of Biotechnology and Agriculture should convene a meeting involving farmers, scientists and representatives from civil society organisations to form monitoring bodies on GM trials at state, district, block and pancahyat level.
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2.A hundred farm suicides a month in Vidarbha
Nov 29 2006 http://www.rxpgnews.com/india/A-hundred-farm-suicides-a-month-in-Vidarbha_6504.shtml
The farm activist also refuted the government claim that the low yield is due to spurious Bt. Cotton seed saying that there was no spurious cotton seed in the market since Monsanto had lowered their prices from Rs.1780 per bag to Rs.750.
By Shyam Pandharipande, RxPG News Service, Pandharkawada -, Nov 29 - Five months after the announcement of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Rs.3750 crore - relief package for the distressed farmers in Vidarbha, the suicide spiral has continued disturbingly with reports of five more farmers ending life in the last two days.
Of the five farmers committing suicide, two each were from Yavatmal and Akola districts in western Vidarbha and one hailed from Gondia district of the eastern part of the region.
The sordid suicide saga in Vidarbha continues with the toll since June last year having spiralled to 1125 till November 26 with the month's figure itself touching 95.
According to the roster maintained by farm activist Kishor Tiwari's Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti -, the toll since June 2005 has reached a staggering 1140 with the last five months accounting for 533.
Curiously enough, the government website giving a daily update on farmers' suicide under the pain of a court order shows a higher figure than the one given out by VJAS, albeit with a rider that nearly 40 percent of the suicides are non-genuine, that is, not related to farm distress.
Meanwhile, a young cotton farmer is battling for life here after consuming a large quantity of deadly Indo-Sulphan around noon Tuesday in a desperate attempt to commit suicide over low price for the crop.
Rameshwar Kuchankar -, who had apparently come prepared to commit suicide carrying the insecticide bottle and a suicide note in his pocket, went behind the market yard and guzzled the poison instead of approaching the cotton traders buying cartloads of cotton crop.
Hailing from village Somnala in Maregaon tehsil of the suicide-prone Yavatmal district, Rameshwar came to Pandharkawda to sell cotton since the government controlled cotton federation failed to open any procurement centre in his tehsil.
But since the procurement centre in this biggest tehsil headquarters in the district too was closed, the only option for him was to sell his crop to the private traders, which he was probably reluctant to do.
The suicide note found in the pocket of the convulsing Rameshwar mentions that the price of Rs.1900 per quintal for cotton is too non-remunerative to accept as it cannot ensure even the barest survival of the farmer and his household.
Warning state Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh in his suicide note that he - won't let him sleep and exhorting Deputy Chief Minister R. R. Patil to raise the procurement price to Rs.3000 per quintal, the young farmer beseeched his wife to pardon him for his act.
Squarely blaming the state's agriculture policies, particularly those pertaining to cotton for the continuing distress, Tiwari has accused the government of deliberately giving out false predictions of bumper cotton crop in order to ensure low prices for the private traders and favour the US-based Bt Cotton seed selling giant Monsanto.
Talking to IANS, Tiwari said while state marketing minister Harshvardhan Patil predicted cotton crop to the tune of 35 million quintal, the actual yield is not even half that.
The farm activist also refuted the government claim that the low yield is due to spurious Bt. Cotton seed saying that there was no spurious cotton seed in the market since Monsanto had lowered their prices from Rs.1780 per bag to Rs.750.
'The low yield is because of the genuine Bt. Cotton, which is highly uneconomic and known to fail in rain-fed farming', he said.
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see also 'New Bt cotton disaster in Maharashtra'
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7323