Forum Haiti : Des Idées et des Débats sur l'Avenir d'Haiti


Rejoignez le forum, c’est rapide et facile

Forum Haiti : Des Idées et des Débats sur l'Avenir d'Haiti
Forum Haiti : Des Idées et des Débats sur l'Avenir d'Haiti
Vous souhaitez réagir à ce message ? Créez un compte en quelques clics ou connectez-vous pour continuer.
Le Deal du moment :
Fnac : 2 Funko Pop achetées : le 3ème ...
Voir le deal

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi

3 participants

Aller en bas

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Empty Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi

Message  Sasaye Ven 14 Mai 2010 - 11:46


CREVE COEUR, Mo. (KMOX) -- A St. Louis area corporation hopes it's planting the seeds of recovery for quake-stricken Haiti.

Monsanto is donating $4 million worth of corn and vegetable seeds to Haitian farmers.

Director of Global Development Initiatives, Elizabeth Vancil, travelled there last week.

She tells KMOX in Haiti's devastated economy many farmers might not have found enough seed to support their families and communities, "they have significant challenges ahead of them. Most of the farm sizes are very small. The typical farmer farms on about a sixth of an acre."

Along with corn, Vancil says Haiti's tropical climate allows farmers to grow cabbage, carrots, eggplants, melons, onions, tomatoes and spinach. She says the donation will hopefully help communities become more self-sufficient and speed up the country's recovery.

"When I met with the Ministry of Agriculture and realized that they are still meeting under mango trees outside of their building rather than in the building itself because the building isn't safe, I realized how lucky we are here and how much this donation will truly make an enormous difference for the Haitian farmer."

Monsanto expects to supply 10-thousand farmers in Haiti this growing season.

Copyright KMOX Radio
Sasaye
Sasaye
Super Star
Super Star

Masculin
Nombre de messages : 8252
Localisation : Canada
Opinion politique : Indépendance totale
Loisirs : Arts et Musique, Pale Ayisien
Date d'inscription : 02/03/2007

Feuille de personnage
Jeu de rôle: Maestro

Revenir en haut Aller en bas

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Empty Re: Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi

Message  Sasaye Ven 14 Mai 2010 - 11:50

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Poar03_monsanto0805



Vanity Fair has a great article on their site featuring one of our favorite corporate villains, Monsanto. It is truly astounding the amount of evil doing that this one company can engage in.

From a business standpoint Monsanto certainly has the right to patent their genetically modified seeds, and profit and protect their profits with litigation from their business developments. But they do not have the right to give us products that suck. Their products suck. They spread all over the countryside. They don’t stay contained. In short, they act like plants. (Amazing, I know)
Monsanto as a company lies, incredibly, about what they are doing. They bribe officials around the world and they seem to treat the world as their toilet. That’s not right for the rest of us.

When their seeds are let loose Monsanto does have the right to ensure that farmers are buying their seeds through proper channels. But they do not have the right to coerce, threaten or harass farmers. We have a legal system for a reason. They certainly do not have the right to chase after farmers who are just victims in their (Monsanto’s) inability to control the seeds. (like this poor farmer)

If they can’t keep their seeds under control then they should not be allowed to produce them. So far our government has failed to protect us in this endeavor.
The easiest way to force them to stop this nonsense is to stop being involved with them. Buy only organic food. Don’t eat CAFO meat, which is stuffed with GM corn and soybeans.

Don’t use ethanol, which is made from GM corn. (Same with biodiesel) Stop buying vegetable oils from GM seeds. Use organic cotton. Monsanto is trying to make inroads on GM sugar beets, and if they do start buying organic sugar. Even better, let the candy companies know that you don’t want GM sugar. They have the power to stop it.

You have the power to change this too. Just change your consumption patterns.
Picture courtesy of the Vanity Fair article.
Sasaye
Sasaye
Super Star
Super Star

Masculin
Nombre de messages : 8252
Localisation : Canada
Opinion politique : Indépendance totale
Loisirs : Arts et Musique, Pale Ayisien
Date d'inscription : 02/03/2007

Feuille de personnage
Jeu de rôle: Maestro

Revenir en haut Aller en bas

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Empty Re: Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi

Message  ainsi ne soit-il Ven 14 Mai 2010 - 12:49

Se yon kado anpwazone menm ki pi rèd ankor ke anpil lot kado. Sepandan, pa blye ke gen biznis an Ayiti ki te deja ap vann fètilizan chaje ak pestisid depi lontan. Tout vye dire Meriken ap dump lan peyi a, yo plen OGM. Nou te on ti jan a labri paske majorite moun ki ap travay tè yo kontinye ap debrouye ak mwayen ridimantè e ke nou te self-sufficient yon lè. Jodi a, Dominikani anvayi marché nou, yon kontrole vantr nou. Nou janm konn ki sa y'ap vand nou.

Bor isit lè w al lan supermarket, lan depatman legim ak frui, gen yon seksyon "organic". Gen yon ti market lan mitan gwo market la tou ki resève pou sa ki ka peye pi chè. Tout produi sa yo se organic. Lè w byen gade, kouman pou kapitalist yo ta ka bay tout popilasyon yo manje si pat gen yon rakousi.

Se yun lan rezon mwen pat enterese a Dumarsais paske misye se lan business processed food ke li rich. Gen yon mouvman Kómès Ekitabl ki ap goumen kontr multinationales sa yo e pi ki ap ede ti prodiktè lan peyi ki pa rich.

Depi lontan, mwen pa janm enterese achte mango ki sot lan yon seri de lót peyi paske mwen kwè ke se sèl Ayiti kote mango yo pouse natirèl.

Yon kado anpwazone... Kansè wi.

Mwen bay moun ki denonse bagay plis ke rezon. Depi ane pase an wo te gen yon deba kout ki te fèt sou Monsanto men nèg pat enterese pase sa. Si nou aksepte kado sa a. Pito mwen te tande ke gen moun an Ayiti k'ap proteste pou nou pa aksepte kado Monsanto sa a olyeke yo ap anmède kor yo pou yo ka jwenn kout baton.
ainsi ne soit-il
ainsi ne soit-il
Super Star
Super Star

Masculin
Nombre de messages : 2404
Localisation : terre-neuve
Loisirs : chiquer du tabac, molester les molosses
Date d'inscription : 03/05/2010

Feuille de personnage
Jeu de rôle: l'hallucinogène

Revenir en haut Aller en bas

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Empty Monsanto: An evil company?

Message  Sasaye Sam 15 Mai 2010 - 10:26

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Monsanto3Monsanto: An evil company?
By Inspired Protagonist - April 7, 2008

I have often wondered whether a company can truly be evil. Not a company run by evil people, but a place where decades of evil have seeped right into the corporate fabric.

Almost ten years ago, at a Business for Social Responsibility conference in Los Angeles, I attended a presentation by Monsanto. The company made the case that genetically modified foods would cure world hunger. GMOs, Monsanto asserted, would spark the next green revolution. I walked out of the session depressed and upset, wondering why Monsanto had been given a platform at the BSR event. I didn't renew my membership.

Monsanto got its start making saccharin. In 1948, the company started making a powerful herbicide; a by-product of the process was the creation of a chemical that would later be known as dioxin.

On March 8, 1949, a massive explosion rocked a Monsanto herbicide plant. Court records indicate that 226 plant workers fell ill. In the 1960s, the factory manufactured Agent Orange, which later became the focus of lawsuits by Vietnam veterans contending that they had been harmed by exposure.
Monsanto has manufactured plastics, resins, rubber goods, fuel additives, artificial caffeine, industrial fluids, vinyl siding, anti-freeze, fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides before deciding to leave the world of chemicals and instead become a life-sciences company.

But Monsanto's history still haunts us: left in its past is the potential responsibility for more than 50 Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites and dozens of toxic chemicals that most likely are still circulating in our bloodstreams.

Today, Monsanto, according to a report in Vanity Fair (Monsanto's Harvest of Fear), has moved on to harassing farmers who (they believe) refuse to abide by an agreement not to collect any of the seeds generated by plants that Monsanto considers its intellectual property:

"Ever since commercial introduction of its G.M. seeds, in 1996, Monsanto has launched thousands of investigations and filed lawsuits against hundreds of farmers and seed dealers. In a 2007 report, the Center for Food Safety, in Washington, D.C., documented 112 such lawsuits, in 27 states. Even more significant, in the Center's opinion, are the numbers of farmers who settle because they don't have the money or the time to fight Monsanto.

"The number of cases filed is only the tip of the iceberg," says Bill Freese, the Center's science-policy analyst. Freese says he has been told of many cases in which Monsanto investigators showed up at a farmer's house or confronted him in his fields, claiming he had violated the technology agreement and demanding to see his records."

As if it's not already difficult enough to survive as a farmer. The dairy industry, according to the article, gets similar treatment:
"Jeff Kleinpeter takes very good care of his dairy cows. In the winter he turns on heaters to warm their barns. In the summer, fans blow gentle breezes to cool them, and on especially hot days, a fine mist floats down to take the edge off Louisiana's heat. The dairy has gone "to the ultimate end of the earth for cow comfort," says Kleinpeter, a fourth-generation dairy farmer in Baton Rouge."

But Monsanto doesn't like the label on Kleinpeter Dairy's milk cartons: "From Cows Not Treated with rBGH." Giving consumers that information has stirred the ire of Monsanto. The company contends that advertising by Kleinpeter and other dairies touting their "no rBGH" milk reflects adversely on Monsanto's product.

In light of the article, Monsanto's pledge, "Growth for a Better World," makes for curious reading:
"We want to make the world a better place for future generations. As an agricultural company, Monsanto can do this best by providing value through the products and systems we offer to farmers.

With the growth of modern agricultural practices and crops that generate ever-increasing yields, we are helping farmers around the world to create a better future for human beings, the environment, and local economies."

I doubt that many farmers would agree. Is Monsanto evil? I'm not sure that there is enough evidence to convict, but it's certainly a candidate for my list of the world's 10 worst companies
Sasaye
Sasaye
Super Star
Super Star

Masculin
Nombre de messages : 8252
Localisation : Canada
Opinion politique : Indépendance totale
Loisirs : Arts et Musique, Pale Ayisien
Date d'inscription : 02/03/2007

Feuille de personnage
Jeu de rôle: Maestro

Revenir en haut Aller en bas

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Empty Re: Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi

Message  revelation Sam 15 Mai 2010 - 18:57

Haiti-Monsanto : Le Père Urfier rectifie sa dénonciation
vendredi 14 mai 2010

P-au-P., 13 mai 2010 [AlterPresse] --- Le Père spiritain Jean-Yves Urfié, rectifie la dénonciation qu’il a faite de l’introduction de semences transgéniques en Haïti suite à une offre de la multinationale Monsanto.

« Je dois honnêtement rectifier ma dénonciation, car d’après un agronome digne de foi, il y aurait eu une offre réelle de 400 tonnes de semences OGM (Organismes génétiquement modifiés), mais le Ministre (de l’agriculture, Joanas) Gué, personnellement, a rejeté cette offre », reconnait-il dans une lettre en date du 13 mai dont copie est parvenue à AlterPresse

Auparavant, dans une conférence de presse le 12 mai, le ministre de l’agriculture a démenti l’introduction d’intrants OGM en Haïti et a déclaré que l’offre faite au gouvernement par la Monsanto ne contient pas d’éléments transgéniques.

Le gouvernement a pris « toutes les précautions avant d’accepter l’offre de la multinationale Monsanto de faire un don de 475 947 kg de semences de maïs hybride, ainsi que de 2067 kg de semences de légumes », a affirmé le ministre.

Le Père Urfié, ancien professeur de chimie au Collège Saint Martial à Port-au-Prince, avait considéré l’offre de Monsanto comme « un cadeau empoisonné ».

« L’honnêteté m’oblige à rectifier », écrit-il dans sa lettre du 13 mai. [gp apr 13/05/2010 20 :00]
http://www.monsanto.com/video/default.asp
http://www.monsanto.com/responsibility/default.asp

« L’honnêteté m’oblige à rectifier », écrit-il dans sa lettre du 13 mai.
Honetete pa sel koz ki fe Père spiritain Jean-Yves Urfié vale denonsyation sa ke li fe sou Monsanto.

Pe Urfie te gen anpil pression legal sou li ki fe'l fe bak.

Fok nou di ke Si Haiti pavle kado Monsanto aa, yap bali'l yon lot fason.

Monsanto konnen ke Terrain agrikol Haiti pa siffi pou bay 8 million moun manje, donk Ayiti ap oblije e fosse achte manje lot bo dlo kanmemm e se laaa ke pep ayisyen yo pral rankontre ak Monsanto.

Nou konnen ke Monsanto te implike nan prodwi chimik "Orange Rain" pandan guerre Vietnam nan ki te yon zamm chimik ke te touye anpil solda Vietnamyen e memm solda ameriken soufri de zam chimik saa

Relasyon nou avek Monsanto kap gate zanmitay nou avek Vietnam ki ap fe bizniss avek nou konnyen la an Ayiti.

Fok nou di ke gen anpil manje ki gen prodwi chimik, steroid,hormone etc.. ki anvayi maket lakay nou ki soti swa an Dominikani, USA, e Canada, men grangou fe ke nou pa we yo!!
revelation
revelation
Super Star
Super Star

Masculin
Nombre de messages : 3086
Localisation : Washington, DC
Opinion politique : Senior Financial Analyst
Loisirs : walking, jogging, basket, tennis
Date d'inscription : 21/08/2006

Feuille de personnage
Jeu de rôle: L'analyste

Revenir en haut Aller en bas

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Empty Re: Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi

Message  Sasaye Dim 16 Mai 2010 - 18:11

Dapre sa dokimantasyon jwenn, Monsanto gen rezo espyon yo ki swiv tout aktivite ki pa an akò avèk politik yo.

Yo gen anpil mwayen pou mete moun oubyen oganizasyon opa.
Nou deja we kijan l trete fèmye yo.

Li gen 2 opsyon: li kapab achte w ak gwo lajan, e si l pakapab paske moun nan pa koryptib, li kapab anplwaye lòt mwayen tankou aksidan, maladi sibit, etc.....

Li ta bon pou konnen kijan Pè a chanje lide l vit konsa.
Sasaye
Sasaye
Super Star
Super Star

Masculin
Nombre de messages : 8252
Localisation : Canada
Opinion politique : Indépendance totale
Loisirs : Arts et Musique, Pale Ayisien
Date d'inscription : 02/03/2007

Feuille de personnage
Jeu de rôle: Maestro

Revenir en haut Aller en bas

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Empty Re: Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi

Message  revelation Dim 16 Mai 2010 - 18:53

Sasaye di: Dapre sa dokimantasyon jwenn, Monsanto gen rezo espyon yo ki swiv tout aktivite ki pa an akò avèk politik yo.
Yo gen anpil mwayen pou mete moun oubyen oganizasyon opa.
Nou deja we kijan l trete fèmye yo.
Li gen 2 opsyon: li kapab achte w ak gwo lajan, e si l pakapab paske moun nan pa koryptib, li kapab anplwaye lòt mwayen tankou aksidan, maladi sibit, etc.....

Li ta bon pou konnen kijan Pè a chanje lide l vit konsa.
Sasaye w repond kestyon saa!!

Yon gwo konpani multibillyon dolla kankou Monsanto avek anpil invester pap kite yon ti Père spiritain Jean-Yves Urfié vin fe yon deklarasyon e deraye konpayi sa.

Gen yon aksidan medikal sirop kite touye anpil ti moun nan peyi Dayiti. Yo rele devan jistis Dr. Boulos ak tout lot konpany etranje yo ki te inplike nan assasina saa. Mesye sa yo achte a kontan tout avoka malerez yo. Bagay sa pa jamb gen suit.

Te gen yon gwo aksidan chimik ki te rive nan peyi Nepal ki te touye anpil malere ki tap travay nan faktori sa. Yo rele konpayi sa an jistis. Anyen serye pa rive pou malere sa yo.
Monsanto te lague Orange Rain sou solda vietnamyen yo, memm solda ameriken mouri, Monsanto pa jamb dedomaje peson.
Sasaye, yo touye JF Kennedy, Martin Luther King, yo tire sou Ronald Reagan, yo tire sou le Pape ..etc tout assasin sa yo anyen serye pa rive yo.
Si yon malere al volo nan yon "liquor store" yap fout li prizon a vie paske sosiete a konsidere'l kom "indezirab"
revelation
revelation
Super Star
Super Star

Masculin
Nombre de messages : 3086
Localisation : Washington, DC
Opinion politique : Senior Financial Analyst
Loisirs : walking, jogging, basket, tennis
Date d'inscription : 21/08/2006

Feuille de personnage
Jeu de rôle: L'analyste

Revenir en haut Aller en bas

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Empty Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using GM crops

Message  Sasaye Lun 24 Mai 2010 - 23:53

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Logo_mol



The GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using genetically modified crops



By Andrew Malone
Last updated at 12:48 AM on 3rd November 2008



When Prince Charles claimed thousands of Indian farmers were killing themselves after using GM crops, he was branded a scaremonger. In fact, as this chilling dispatch reveals, it's even WORSE than he feared.

The children were inconsolable. Mute with shock and fighting back tears, they huddled beside their mother as friends and neighbours prepared their father's body for cremation on a blazing bonfire built on the cracked, barren fields near their home.

As flames consumed the corpse, Ganjanan, 12, and Kalpana, 14, faced a grim future. While Shankara Mandaukar had hoped his son and daughter would have a better life under India's economic boom, they now face working as slave labour for a few pence a day. Landless and homeless, they will be the lowest of the low.

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Article-0-02562D28000005DC-671_468x300

Human tragedy: A farmer and child in India's 'suicide belt'


Shankara, respected farmer, loving husband and father, had taken his own life. Less than 24 hours earlier, facing the loss of his land due to debt, he drank a cupful of chemical insecticide.

Unable to pay back the equivalent of two years' earnings, he was in despair. He could see no way out.


There were still marks in the dust where he had writhed in agony. Other villagers looked on - they knew from experience that any intervention was pointless - as he lay doubled up on the ground, crying out in pain and vomiting.

Moaning, he crawled on to a bench outside his simple home 100 miles from Nagpur in central India. An hour later, he stopped making any noise. Then he stopped breathing. At 5pm on Sunday, the life of Shankara Mandaukar came to an end.


As neighbours gathered to pray outside the family home, Nirmala Mandaukar, 50, told how she rushed back from the fields to find her husband dead.

'He was a loving and caring man,' she said, weeping quietly.
'But he couldn't take any more. The mental anguish was too much. We have lost everything.'

Shankara's crop had failed - twice. Of course, famine and pestilence are part of India's ancient story.

But the death of this respected farmer has been blamed on something far more modern and sinister: genetically modified crops.


Shankara, like millions of other Indian farmers, had been promised previously unheard of harvests and income if he switched from farming with traditional seeds to planting GM seeds instead.Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Article-0-0212CBBE00000578-965_233x423

Distressed: Prince Charles has set up charity Bhumi Vardaan Foundation to address the plight of suicide farmers



Beguiled by the promise of future riches, he borrowed money in order to buy the GM seeds. But when the harvests failed, he was left with spiralling debts - and no income.
So Shankara became one of an estimated 125,000 farmers to take their own life as a result of the ruthless drive to use India as a testing ground for genetically modified crops.

The crisis, branded the 'GM Genocide' by campaigners, was highlighted recently when Prince Charles claimed that the issue of GM had become a 'global moral question' - and the time had come to end its unstoppable march.


Speaking by video link to a conference in the Indian capital, Delhi, he infuriated bio-tech leaders and some politicians by condemning 'the truly appalling and tragic rate of small farmer suicides in India, stemming... from the failure of many GM crop varieties'.


Ranged against the Prince are powerful GM lobbyists and prominent politicians, who claim that genetically modified crops have transformed Indian agriculture, providing greater yields than ever before.

The rest of the world, they insist, should embrace 'the future' and follow suit.

So who is telling the truth? To find out, I travelled to the 'suicide belt' in Maharashtra state.

What I found was deeply disturbing - and has profound implications for countries, including Britain, debating whether to allow the planting of seeds manipulated by scientists to circumvent the laws of nature.

For official figures from the Indian Ministry of Agriculture do indeed confirm that in a huge humanitarian crisis, more than 1,000 farmers kill themselves here each month.

Simple, rural people, they are dying slow, agonising deaths. Most swallow insecticide - a pricey substance they were promised they would not need when they were coerced into growing expensive GM crops.


It seems that many are massively in debt to local money-lenders, having over-borrowed to purchase GM seed.
Pro-GM experts claim that it is rural poverty, alcoholism, drought and 'agrarian distress' that is the real reason for the horrific toll.

But, as I discovered during a four-day journey through the epicentre of the disaster, that is not the full story.
Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Article-1082559-0038893200000258-392_468x433

Death seeds: A Greenpeace protester sprays milk-based paint on a Monsanto research soybean field near Atlantic, Iowa


In one small village I visited, 18 farmers had committed suicide after being sucked into GM debts. In some cases, women have taken over farms from their dead husbands - only to kill themselves as well.


Latta Ramesh, 38, drank insecticide after her crops failed - two years after her husband disappeared when the GM debts became too much.
She left her ten-year-old son, Rashan, in the care of relatives. 'He cries when he thinks of his mother,' said the dead woman's aunt, sitting listlessly in shade near the fields.

Village after village, families told how they had fallen into debt after being persuaded to buy GM seeds instead of traditional cotton seeds.
The price difference is staggering: £10 for 100 grams of GM seed, compared with less than £10 for 1,000 times more traditional seeds.

But GM salesmen and government officials had promised farmers that these were 'magic seeds' - with better crops that would be free from parasites and insects.


Indeed, in a bid to promote the uptake of GM seeds, traditional varieties were banned from many government seed banks.

The authorities had a vested interest in promoting this new biotechnology. Desperate to escape the grinding poverty of the post-independence years, the Indian government had agreed to allow new bio-tech giants, such as the U.S. market-leader Monsanto, to sell their new seed creations.


In return for allowing western companies access to the second most populated country in the world, with more than one billion people, India was granted International Monetary Fund loans in the Eighties and Nineties, helping to launch an economic revolution.

But while cities such as Mumbai and Delhi have boomed, the farmers' lives have slid back into the dark ages.


Though areas of India planted with GM seeds have doubled in two years - up to 17 million acres - many famers have found there is a terrible price to be paid.

Far from being 'magic seeds', GM pest-proof 'breeds' of cotton have been devastated by bollworms, a voracious parasite.

Nor were the farmers told that these seeds require double the amount of water. This has proved a matter of life and death.

With rains failing for the past two years, many GM crops have simply withered and died, leaving the farmers with crippling debts and no means of paying them off.


Having taken loans from traditional money lenders at extortionate rates, hundreds of thousands of small farmers have faced losing their land as the expensive seeds fail, while those who could struggle on faced a fresh crisis.

When crops failed in the past, farmers could still save seeds and replant them the following year.

But with GM seeds they cannot do this. That's because GM seeds contain so- called 'terminator technology', meaning that they have been genetically modified so that the resulting crops do not produce viable seeds of their own.


As a result, farmers have to buy new seeds each year at the same punitive prices. For some, that means the difference between life and death.

Take the case of Suresh Bhalasa, another farmer who was cremated this week, leaving a wife and two children.


As night fell after the ceremony, and neighbours squatted outside while sacred cows were brought in from the fields, his family had no doubt that their troubles stemmed from the moment they were encouraged to buy BT Cotton, a geneticallymodified plant created by Monsanto.

'We are ruined now,' said the dead man's 38-year-old wife. 'We bought 100 grams of BT Cotton. Our crop failed twice. My husband had become depressed. He went out to his field, lay down in the cotton and swallowed insecticide.'

Villagers bundled him into a rickshaw and headed to hospital along rutted farm roads. 'He cried out that he had taken the insecticide and he was sorry,' she said, as her family and neighbours crowded into her home to pay their respects. 'He was dead by the time they got to hospital.'


Asked if the dead man was a 'drunkard' or suffered from other 'social problems', as alleged by pro-GM officials, the quiet, dignified gathering erupted in anger. 'No! No!' one of the dead man's brothers exclaimed. 'Suresh was a good man. He sent his children to school and paid his taxes.


'He was strangled by these magic seeds. They sell us the seeds, saying they will not need expensive pesticides but they do. We have to buy the same seeds from the same company every year. It is killing us. Please tell the world what is happening here.'


Monsanto has admitted that soaring debt was a 'factor in this tragedy'. But pointing out that cotton production had doubled in the past seven years, a spokesman added that there are other reasons for the recent crisis, such as 'untimely rain' or drought, and pointed out that suicides have always been part of rural Indian life.


Officials also point to surveys saying the majority of Indian farmers want GM seeds - no doubt encouraged to do so by aggressive marketing tactics.

During the course of my inquiries in Maharastra, I encountered three 'independent' surveyors scouring villages for information about suicides. They insisted that GM seeds were only 50 per cent more expensive - and then later admitted the difference was 1,000 per cent.
(A Monsanto spokesman later insisted their seed is 'only double' the price of 'official' non-GM seed - but admitted that the difference can be vast if cheaper traditional seeds are sold by 'unscrupulous' merchants, who often also sell 'fake' GM seeds which are prone to disease.)


With rumours of imminent government compensation to stem the wave of deaths, many farmers said they were desperate for any form of assistance. 'We just want to escape from our problems,' one said. 'We just want help to stop any more of us dying.'
Prince Charles is so distressed by the plight of the suicide farmers that he is setting up a charity, the Bhumi Vardaan Foundation, to help those affected and promote organic Indian crops instead of GM.

India's farmers are also starting to fight back. As well as taking GM seed distributors hostage and staging mass protests, one state government is taking legal action against Monsanto for the exorbitant costs of GM seeds.

This came too late for Shankara Mandauker, who was 80,000 rupees (about £1,000) in debt when he took his own life. 'I told him that we can survive,' his widow said, her children still by her side as darkness fell. 'I told him we could find a way out. He just said it was better to die.'


But the debt does not die with her husband: unless she can find a way of paying it off, she will not be able to afford the children's schooling. They will lose their land, joining the hordes seen begging in their thousands by the roadside throughout this vast, chaotic country.

Cruelly, it's the young who are suffering most from the 'GM Genocide' - the very generation supposed to be lifted out of a life of hardship and misery by these 'magic seeds'.

Here in the suicide belt of India, the cost of the genetically modified future is murderously high.




©️ Associated Newspapers Ltd
Contact us Terms Privacy policy Advertise with us








adverts.addToArray('superBanner','468x60,728x90');
Sasaye
Sasaye
Super Star
Super Star

Masculin
Nombre de messages : 8252
Localisation : Canada
Opinion politique : Indépendance totale
Loisirs : Arts et Musique, Pale Ayisien
Date d'inscription : 02/03/2007

Feuille de personnage
Jeu de rôle: Maestro

Revenir en haut Aller en bas

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Empty Haitian Farmers Commit to Burning Monsanto Hybrid Seeds

Message  Sasaye Mar 25 Mai 2010 - 0:01

Haitian Farmers Commit to Burning Monsanto Hybrid Seeds

"A new earthquake" is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds, some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides.

The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto's seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation's presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.

In an open letter sent of May 14, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, the Executive Director of MPP and the spokesperson for the National Peasant Movement of the Congress of Papay (MPNKP), called the entry of Monsanto seeds into Haiti "a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds..., and on what is left our environment in Haiti.

"[1] Haitian social movements have been vocal in their opposition to agribusiness imports of seeds and food, which undermines local production with local seed stocks. They have expressed special concern about the import of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

For now, without a law regulating the use of GMOs in Haiti, the Ministry of Agriculture rejected Monsanto's offer of Roundup Ready GMO seeds.

In an email exchange, a Monsanto representative assured the Ministry of Agriculture that the seeds being donated are not GMO.

Elizabeth Vancil, Monsanto's Director of Development Initiatives, called the news that the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture approved the donation "a fabulous Easter gift" in an April email.[2] Monsanto is known for aggressively pushing seeds, especially GMO seeds, in both the global North and South, including through highly restrictive technology agreements with farmers who are not always made fully aware of what they are signing.

According to interviews by this writer with representatives of Mexican small farmer organizations, they then find themselves forced to buy Monsanto seeds each year, under conditions they find onerous and at costs they sometimes cannot afford.

The hybrid corn seeds Monsanto has donated to Haiti are treated with the fungicide Maxim XO, and the calypso tomato seeds are treated with thiram.

[3] Thiram belongs to a highly toxic class of chemicals called ethylene bisdithiocarbamates (EBDCs). Results of tests of EBDCs on mice and rats caused concern to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which then ordered a special review. The EPA determined that EBDC-treated plants are so dangerous to agricultural workers that they must wear special protective clothing when handling them.

Pesticides containing thiram must contain a special warning label, the EPA ruled. The EPA also barred marketing of the chemicals for many home garden products, because it assumes that most gardeners do not have adequately protective clothing.

[4] Monsanto's passing mention of thiram to Ministry of Agriculture officials in an email contained no explanation of the dangers, nor any offer of special clothing or training for those who will be farming with the toxic seeds.

Haitian social movements' concern is not just about the dangers of the chemicals and the possibility of future GMO imports. They claim that the future of Haiti depends on local production with local food for local consumption, in what is called food sovereignty. Monsanto's arrival in Haiti, they say, is a further threat to this.

"People in the U.S. need to help us produce, not give us food and seeds. They're ruining our chance to support ourselves," said farmer Jonas Deronzil of a peasant cooperative in the rural region of Verrettes.[5]

Monsanto's history has long drawn ire from environmentalists, health advocates, and small farmers, going back to its production of Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. Exposure to Agent Orange has caused cancer in an untold number of U.S. Veterans, and the Vietnamese government claims that 400,000 Vietnamese people were killed or disabled by Agent Orange, and 500,000 children were born with birth defects as a result of their exposure.[6]

Monsanto's former motto, "Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible," has been replaced by "Imagine." Its web site home page claims it "help[s] farmers around the world produce more while conserving more. We help farmers grow yield sustainably so they can be successful, produce healthier foods... while also reducing agriculture's impact on our environment."[7] The corporations' record does not support the claims.

Together with Syngenta, Dupont and Bayer, Monsanto controls more than half of the world's seeds.

[8] The company holds almost 650 seed patents, most of them for cotton, corn and soy, and almost 30% of the share of all biotech research and development.

Monsanto came to own such a vast supply by buying major seed companies to stifle competition, patenting genetic modifications to plant varieties, and suing small farmers. Monsanto is also one of the leading manufacturers of GMOs.

As of 2007, Monsanto had filed 112 lawsuits against U.S. farmers for alleged technology contract violations or GMO patents, involving 372 farmers and 49 small agricultural businesses in 27 different states. From these, Monsanto has won more than $21.5 million in judgments. The multinational appears to investigate 500 farmers a year, in estimates based on Monsanto's own documents and media reports.[9]

"Farmers have been sued after their field was contaminated by pollen or seed from someone else's genetically engineered crop [or] when genetically engineered seed from a previous year's crop has sprouted, or 'volunteered,' in fields planted with non-genetically engineered varieties the following year," said Andrew Kimbrell and Joseph Mendelson of the Center for Food Safety.[10]

In Colombia, Monsanto has received upwards of $25 million from the U.S. government for providing Roundup Ultra in the anti-drug fumigation efforts of Plan Colombia. Roundup Ultra is a highly concentrated version of Monsanto's glyphosate herbicide, with additional ingredients to increase its lethality. Colombian communities and human rights organizations have charged that the herbicide has destroyed food crops, water sources and protected areas, and has led to increased incidents of birth defects and cancers.

Vía Campesina, the world's largest confederation of farmers with member organizations in more than sixty countries, has called Monsanto one of the "principal enemies of peasant sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty for all peoples."[11] They claim that as Monsanto and other multinationals control an ever larger share of land and agriculture, they force small farmers out of their land and jobs. They also claim that the agribusiness giants contribute to climate change and other environmental disasters, an outgrowth of industrial agriculture.[12]

The Vía Campesina coalition launched a global campaign against Monsanto last October 16, on International World Food Day, with protests, land occupations, and hunger strikes in more than twenty countries. They carried out a second global day of action against Monsanto on April 17 of this year, in honor of Earth Day.

Non-governmental organizations in the U.S. are challenging Monsanto's practices, too. The Organic Consumers Association has spearheaded the campaign "Millions Against Monsanto," calling on the company to stop intimidating small family farmers, stop marketing untested and unlabeled genetically engineered foods to consumers, and stop using billions of dollars of U.S. taypayers' money to subsidize GMO crops.[13]

The Center for Food Safety has led a four-year legal challenge to Monsanto that has just made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. After successful litigation against Monsanto and the U.S. Department of Agriculture for illegal promotion of Roundup Ready Alfalfa, the court heard the Center for Food Safety's case on April 27. A decision on this first-ever Supreme Court case about GMOs is now pending.[14]

"Fighting hybrid and GMO seeds is critical to save our diversity and our agriculture," Jean-Baptiste said in an interview in February. "We have the potential to make our lands produce enough to feed the whole population and even to export certain products. The policy we need for this to happen is food sovereignty, where the county has a right to define it own agricultural policies, to grow first for the family and then for local market, to grow healthy food in a way which respects the environment and Mother Earth."


Many thanks to Moira Birss for her assistance with research and writing.
Beverly Bell has worked with Haitian social movements for over 30 years. She is also author of the book Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance. She coordinates Other Worlds, www.otherworldsarepossible.org, which promotes social and economic alternatives. She is also associate fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.
Sasaye
Sasaye
Super Star
Super Star

Masculin
Nombre de messages : 8252
Localisation : Canada
Opinion politique : Indépendance totale
Loisirs : Arts et Musique, Pale Ayisien
Date d'inscription : 02/03/2007

Feuille de personnage
Jeu de rôle: Maestro

Revenir en haut Aller en bas

Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi Empty Re: Saa kapab yon kado anpwazonnen wi

Message  Contenu sponsorisé


Contenu sponsorisé


Revenir en haut Aller en bas

Revenir en haut


 
Permission de ce forum:
Vous ne pouvez pas répondre aux sujets dans ce forum