In sum, the GR technology destroys the very basis for future agricultural production by degrading the soil, depleting water supply, polluting both soil and water, and generating the problems of pests and infestation for the farmers.

Hybrid and GE Rice: HYV successors in the era of corporate globalization

Amidst the growing protest of Asian farmers yet reeling from the impact of the GR technology. IRRI scientists in the 1990s claimed another emergent revolutionary technology in the IRRI rice research portfolio – hybrid rice. We are now seeing the rapid expansion of its cultivation in Asian farmlands, despite the real debate over the limited efficiency or potential to increase rice production (Dr. Durga B. Cahuadhary, Plantek Inc.). Hybrid rice was grown in over 800,000 hectares in 2002 (FAO), with the largest in Vietnam, India and the Philippines.

The entry of genetically engineered rice today is being foisted to Asian farmers, through the means of inequitable trade. GE technology is of the same face with HYV and hybrid technologies. These are TNC-driven technologies supported by multilateral and national government frameworks, with the avowed aim to raise crop productivity in exchange for profit that is bled from Asian farmers and from the control of seed resources. The methods of HYV and hybrid rice entries were rather similar – through government programs with partners: IRRI for the training support, TNCs to sell the produce, and local financing mechanisms (e.g. NGO micro-financing in Bangladesh). The potential impact of hybrid and GE technologies show all the signs to be more profound in terms of the loss or displacement of all remaining endogenous rice development potential of Asian nations and their farming sectors.

The interest of TNCs in driving hybrid and GE rice technologies go beyond mere sales profit from seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. TNCs also profit from royalties and license permits from patented seeds, i.e., from expanded corporate stranglehold backed or legitimized by global patenting and IPR instruments (the TRIPS in WTO being the foremost). GRAIN reports that more than 900 rice genes have already been patented. The important traditional rice varieties of certain countries have already been patented (Basmati in India and Pakistan, Jazmine in Thailand), where each government found difficult to challenge because of the TRIPS in WTO (Dr. Shazid Zia, Asian Peoples’ Tribunal, 2006). In a GRAIN compilation of rice varieties in 2000, 56 percent of these were owned by TNC agri-business companies such as DuPOnt and Mitsui of Japan. The gene mapping project by Syngenta, who claims to have invented more than 30,000 gene sequences of rice, and its application for 15 groups of gene sequences covering thousands of genes and GE processes – present the scale of research and patenting efforts by just one TNC in agribusiness.

TNC control over Asian rice agriculture, in the current era of corporate globalization had then been tightened with the expansion of economic interest to cover seed control. The remaining control of Asian farmers over their traditional seeds (the basis of traditional agriculture) is fast being constricted and taken away.

Conclusion

IRRI had played a central role in undermining the future development of the rice crop in Asian nations and communities. It had been instrumental in mounting the Green Revolution or the transformation of agriculture to suit the US agenda and corporate motives. It had brought intensification of problems to farmers, proportionate to the degree of structural problems in their rural societies. The gains of GR were selective and biased for the bigger farmers and landlords. The consequences for the poorer farmers had been dire and profound, in terms of increased indebtedness and poverty. In many instances, Green Revolution had led to the weakening if not obliteration of community traditions and culture, cooperativism that were so closely tied to agriculture. Local agricultural knowledge had been replaced by a dependence on external inputs, losing thereby the indigenous capacities of small farmers to plan his farm work and cope with natural stresses. The impact of GR across Asia had also led to consequent displacement of farmers and farm workers from their land and life-giving resources, such as rural to urban migration.

The current processes of globalization and liberalization through the WTO Agreement on Agriculture had further intensified the control by and had multiplied the gains of TNCs over Asian agriculture. Asian markets have been opened to highly subsidized imports from the north, threatening the remaining agricultural potentials of poorer countries, causing massive bankruptcies and displacement of farmers and agricultural workers.

The Green Revolution was a stage prepared by IRRI, for another ‘revolution’ now involving modern biotechnology. The Gene Revolution is again, a tool to advance the whole scale motives of the WTO to capture global market and trade. This time, the focus is on the seed, whose appropriation from the hands of farmers is being craftily machinated by the new patenting regimes through TRIPS Agreement and plant varietal protection laws. Green Revolution now serves as a staging ground for the wanton incursions by genetic engineering in Asian agriculture. IRRI implements corporate funded research on genetic engineering, paving the way for national acceptance through its lobby. The crux is, this time, there is wide and global objection and criticism of genetic engineering at all fronts – a kind of resistance that is much unlike the post-war scenario of Green Revolution incursion into Asian agriculture.

IRRI thus is an instrument that facilitated and helped to perpetrate the dire and adverse impact on poor farmers of Asia, is guilty and should bear the weight of its offense. IRRI could not hide behind its ‘public research institution’ cloak, and should be made to answer to the indictment of continually serving the interests of hegemonic powers and of the corporate interests that created it.

Conditions are favorable to intensify the peasant struggle in unity with other progressive sections of society globally. The mere closure of IRRI will not solve the dismal situation of the Asian farmers but it will be another major step toward genuine land reform globally. From this, we encourage and challenge the Asian peasants to unite and consolidate their ranks and advance the struggle for genuine land reform and promote ecological agriculture against GE form of agriculture. Posted by Bulatlat

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