BHARATIYA KISAN SANGH

Aug 10 2011, Ahmedabad:

The Bharatiya Kisan Sangh and several NGOs took out a protest on Tuesday against US genetically-modified seed producer Monsanto.

They took out their protest on the lines of the ‘Quit India Movement’ launched by Mahatma Gandhi against the British on August 9, 1942, and asked Monsanto to stop its activities in the country and quit India.

NGO representatives told mediapersons at Gujarat Vidyapeeth that if Monsanto gets total control over the country’s agriculture, it will begin interfering in the political affairs and virtually become another `East India Company’.

They said Monsanto had done immense harm to farmers in several American countries who realised very late their mistake by using Monsanto’s seeds. The yield of GM crops went down after a few years and Monsanto did nothing to solve their problems, they said.

They added they were not only against Monsanto but all multinationals.

Kapil Shah from the NGO Jatan said the company had claimed its Bt cotton seeds to be resistant to all insects and pests, but now it has become vulnerable to pest attacks and farmers have to spend a huge amount on pesticides and insecticides.

Besides, GM seeds have been found responsible for increase in occurrence of cancer in the Bhatinda-Sriganganagar belt in north India.

The representatives later submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister Narendra Modi asking him to keep Monsanto and other MNCs out of government sponsored projects and stop the sale and distribution of GM seeds.

The memorandum demanded an agriculture policy of promoting local seed producing and distribution companies as that would sustain the country’s sovereignty in food security.

7 August 2011

‘Cost of cultivation has gone up considerably’

The State unit of the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) on Saturday urged the Union Government to fix a Minimum Support Price (MSP) of Rs. 2,500 a tonne for sugarcane this financial year in view of the steep increase in the cost of cultivation.

Addressing presspersons, Mohini Mohan Mishra, National Secretary of the BKS, also asked the Government to fix Rs. 2,000 a tonne as the MSP for sugarcane for 2010-11 and direct sugar mills that had paid Rs. 1, 800 as advance, to clear the dues.

He urged the State Government to exert pressure on the Centre to hike the import duty on silk and lift the ban on its export to address the problems faced by cotton and silk farmers in the State.

Mr. Mishra also asked the Government to fix Rs. 2,000 as MSP for paddy.

Due to un-seasonal rain in West Bengal, Orissa, and Andhra Pradesh last year, paddy growers suffered heavy losses. However, he said the State and Union Governments did not come to their rescue. “This forced farmers to go for a crop holiday in nearly 1 lakh hectares in Andhra Pradesh. In Orissa, around 7 lakh ha. has been left fallow,” he said.

Mr. Sharma said recommendations of various panels, including the M.S. Swaminathan Committee, to raise the MSP for paddy to around Rs.1,600-1,800 per quintal had been put on hold. To discuss the problems faced by paddy growers in various States, the All India Paddy Growers’ Forum of the BKS held its convention here on August 5.