BANGALORE, India—Farmer suicides are too common in India. Some say the rise of genetically modified crops is to blame.
“Seed monopolies have led to suicides,” said Dr. Vandana Shiva, the founder of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology.
Shiva spoke of Bt-cotton, a GM strain of cotton sold by biotech giant Monsanto: “95 percent of the cotton seed is now owned and controlled by Monsanto. As most cotton seed companies are locked into licensing arrangements with Monsanto, the price of seeds jumped 8,000 percent.”
Farmer suicides have been concentrated in India’s western, cotton-growing regions.
In a 2011 documentary, titled “Bitter Seeds,” American film-maker Micha Peled alleged companies like Monsanto have taken India’s seed sovereignty.
Peled says GMOs have caused a quarter million farmer suicides annually.
These suicides have been a major driving force in India’s mass GMO protests.
On August 8, more than 1,000 farmers from 20 states gathered in the capital to demand a ban on GMOs. The protest gained momentum and significance because August 8 is celebrated as the day Indian masses rose up against the British colonial power in 1942.
On August 15, farmers presented their prime minister with an Indian flag woven of organic cotton to celebrate Independence Day.
The government has taken some steps to regulate GMOs.
In August 2012, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture released a 492-page report and asked for the banning of GM food crops in the country. In October 2012, the technical expert committee (TEC) appointed by the Supreme Court recommended a ten-year moratorium on field trials for GMOs in India, to consider their impacts on health, the environment, the economy, and more.
Nonetheless, some 71 varieties of GMO crops are grown in trial fields in India, according to Reset, a German nonprofit sustainable development consultant.
GM cotton was introduced in the country in 2002. In 2009, Bt-Brinjal (a GM eggplant) got clearance—the first edible GM crop to enter India. The eggplant was placed under moratorium in 2010, however, due to protest and concerns about unknown health impacts.
Early this year, the Indian government made GMO labeling mandatory.
“We had to fight a case in the Supreme Court to demand the labeling,” Shiva said.
While GMOs stir up mass protest in India, some claim GM crops can speed the country’s development by increasing crop yields.
Do GMOs Benefit India?
The Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at Georg-August-University of Goettingen, Germany, surveyed 533 farm households in four cotton-producing Indian states from 2002–2008.
It found that Bt-cotton benefited small-scale farmers. Cotton yields increased by 24 percent, and profits increased by 50 percent on average.
On the contrary, Shiva said she has seen few of the purported benefits and many additional costs and debt. Her research foundation has monitored GMO-related activities since 1997 and has led a campaign against GMOs nationally and internationally.
“The seed fails to control pests, more pests have emerged, and more pesticides have to be sprayed,” explained Shiva.
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by Steve Watson, InfoWars:
Day one was abysmal, day two even worse, days three and four passed and Americans were still reporting that they could not sign up for Obamacare. Now a full two weeks has gone by and NOTHING has changed.
CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen filed a report documenting the fact that she has attempted to sign up via the new government run health exchanges every day since the launch of Healthcare.gov – without success.
“I put in my user name and password and didn’t recognize it,” Cohen reports, demonstrating just one example of how she was unable to use the website. “Error messages. Page not found. System down. It’s been a tough nearly two weeks for Obamacare.” Cohen adds.
“I’ve been trying since day one to get an account and login healthcare.gov,” she says. “I failed again … and again … and again.”
The study, which is published in the journal Pediatrics, found that irregular bedtimes could disrupt natural body rhythms and cause sleep deprivation, undermining brain maturation and the ability to regulate certain behaviors.
Professor Yvonne Kelly (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health), said: "Not having fixed bedtimes, accompanied by a constant sense of flux, induces a state of body and mind akin to jet lag and this matters for healthy development and daily functioning."
"We know that early child development has profound influences on health and wellbeing across the life course. It follows that disruptions to sleep, especially if they occur at key times in development, could have important lifelong impacts on health."
Analysing data from more than 10,000 children in the UK Millennium Cohort Study, the team collected bedtime data at three, five and seven years, as well as incorporating reports from the children's mothers and teachers on behavioral problems.
The study found a clear clinical and statistically significant link between bedtimes and behavior as irregular bedtimes affected children's behavior by disrupting circadian rhythms, leading to sleep deprivation that affects the developing brain.
As children progressed through early childhood without a regular bedtime, their behavioural scores - which included hyperactivity, conduct problems, problems with peers and emotional difficulties - worsened. However, children who switched to a more regular bedtime had clear improvements in their behaviour.
Professor Kelly said: "What we've shown is that these effects build up incrementally over childhood, so that children who always had irregular bedtimes were worse off than those children who did have a regular bedtime at one or two of the ages when they were surveyed.
"But our findings suggest the effects are reversible," continued Professor Kelly. "For example, children who change from not having to having regular bedtimes show improvements in their behaviour."
Irregular bedtimes were most common at the age of three, when around one in five children went to bed at varying times. However, by the age of seven, more than half the children went to bed regularly between 7.30 and 8.30 pm. Children whose bedtimes were irregular or who went to bed after 9 pm came from more socially disadvantaged backgrounds, and this was factored into the study findings.
Professor Kelly said: "As it appears the effects of inconsistent bedtimes are reversible, one way to try and prevent this would be for health care providers to check for sleep disruptions as part of routine health care visits. Given the importance of early childhood development on subsequent health, there may be knock-on effects across the life course. Therefore, there are clear opportunities for interventions aimed at supporting family routines that could have important lifelong impacts."
Contacts and sources:
George Wigmore
University College London
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