Smart Farmers Burn Monsanto's GE Cotton.

• Author: Verzola, Roberto
• Position: Genetically engineered cotton, India - Brief Article

"Indian farmers are smart chaps," said Dr. Sivramiah Shantharam when he talked before the DOST [the Philippines' Department of Science and Technology] on November 25, 1998 concerning the controversial topic of genetic engineering. Shantharam related that in his younger days, he worked in India for a firm selling agricultural chemicals, and that he learned from experience to appreciate the wisdom of Indian farmers. "Indian farmers know exactly what they need. You may fool them once, but if you do it again, they will chase you out of the village," said Shantharam, who is today a branch chief of the US Department of Agriculture.

On the same week as Shantharam's DOST talk, the farmers of Karnataka, India were showing exactly how smart they were.

Minister was unaware

November 16: local newspapers informed The Indian public that Monsanto "has been conducting 40 field trials with genetically manipulated cotton across five Indian states for the last three months." Monsanto was testing a genetically engineered (GE) corn that automatically produced its own insect-killing poison (the Bt toxin). Monsanto had earlier bought into a local company to carry out the GE field trials. Karnataka Agriculture Minister C. Byre Gowda admitted that he had been informed of the on-going trials but was unaware of where they were being undertaken.

November 20: Indian newspapers reported that the Karnataka State Farmers Association (KRRS) had issued a deadline to the State Government and Monsanto to disclose the places where the trials were being conducted and the exact description of the GE cotton seeds that were being tested. "Monsanto should reveal immediately where the trials are being conducted" failing which "direct action would follow on the company's office in Malleswaram," their president, Prof. Nanjundaswamy, said. "Monsanto will have to leave the country within a week. Otherwise we will be forced to throw them out," Prof. Nanjundaswamy angrily said.

November 24: The Minister of Agriculture of Karnataka held a press conference, where he was forced by journalists to reveal the three sites where field trials with Monsanto's GE cotton were being conducted.

Civil disobedience

On November 26, Prof. Nanjundaswamy circulated the following letter:

Monsanto's field trials in Karnataka will be reduced to ashes, starting on Saturday...KRRS activists have already contacted the owners of these fields, to explain to them, which action will be taken, and for what reasons, and...