India was forced by the World Bank to become globalized in the seed economy in the 1990s. This led the agricultural industry to plummet. The saveable heirloom seeds were replaced with the patented, genetically modified (GM) varieties. These GM seeds are not saveable and require the use of expensive pesticides to grow. Thousands of Indian farmers have lost their farms and their land in the past 20 years. One of the main causes is the failed investments of the farmer that were banking on the success of GM crops. Monsanto and other biotechnology companies promised that the GM crops would increase yields at lower costs, thereby rescuing the farmers from poverty. However, many of the crops failed and left the farmers with nothing. The failure of many of these farms can also be partly attributed to years of drought and poor agricultural policy. Vandana Shiva is one of the most outspoken critics of GM technology and she has been quoted saying “Every suicide can be linked to Monsanto.” In order to invest in GM crops, the farmers must borrow huge sums of money and it is incredibly difficult for them to back out once they’ve initially invested in the technology. The introduction of the GM agricultural system also shifted the agricultural economy from biodiversity to that of monoculture. This shift to a monoculture system made the total agricultural crop more susceptible to the droughts that occurred. The poverty rates for Indian farmers increased since the World Bank forced Indian farmers to use GM seeds. For over 200,000 Indian farmers it was too much to handle and they committed suicide often with the very products which were supposed to turn their lives around for the better.
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http://www.naturalnews.com/030913_Monsanto_suicides.html
