Genetically Modified Seeds, Global Agribusiness and the Destruction of Farming: Is India about to Make a Catastrophic Mistake with GM Mustard?

‘Global oilseed, agribusiness and biotech corporations are engaged in a long-term attack on India’s local cooking oil producers. In just 20 years, they have reduced India from self-sufficiency in cooking oil to importing half its needs. Now the government’s attempts to impose GM mustard seed threaten to wipe out a crop at the root of Indian food and farming traditions.
In 2013, India’s former Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar accused US companies of derailing the nation’s oilseeds production programme. Similar claims had been made in 1998 concerning the so-called mustard oil tragedy when Rajasthan Oil Industries Association claimed that a “conspiracy” was being hatched and that the “invisible hands of the multinationals” were involved.’
Read more: Genetically Modified Seeds, Global Agribusiness and the Destruction of Farming: Is India about to Make a Catastrophic Mistake with GM Mustard?