SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION

Ever since the introduction of ‘Green Revolution’ in India and the rest of the third world by the World Bank there has been some controversy about the indiscriminate use of modern high-yielding variety (HYV) seeds for increasing food grain yields. In India in many places traditional food grain varieties have been discontinued in preference to the new HYV. In this context it becomes relevant to look at developments in the West, since it is these that determine the current course of development of agriculture in India and other third world countries. A recent article ‘Plant Patenting - sowing the seeds of Destruction’ published in the American Magazine ‘Science for the People’ (Vol.12, No.5, Sept. - Oct. 1930) discusses the ‘logical’ course set for modern agriculture by western S and T. We shall here summarise some of the issues raised in this article. 

It is perhaps a matter of faith among people who are not connected directly with science - that developments in modern science are usually followed by applications of this science for human welfare. An area where the applications of high technology and science have been accepted without any question as being beneficial and in the interest of mankind is that of agriculture particularly in the third world it is by now taken for granted that any application of modern ‘advanced’ S and T in agriculture has to liberate agriculture from the age old, ‘primitive’ techniques are a cause of stagnation in these societies in general.  It is said that this is the only way by means of which these societies can feed their large populations and establish a basis for industrial development as well. Let us for a moment look at the logical culmination of the efforts at modernizing agriculture-food grain cultivation and how this trend promises the opposite of what it set out to do - i.e.; not liberation but threats of a disaster. 

Traditionally there have been thousands of varieties wheat, rice and other food groups. Human efforts and natural selection processes resulted in this large variety. The defenses that plants evolved to attacks by pests and diseases were represented in genetically diverse varieties of each crop. In diversity there was strength. Modern agriculture is now changing this traditional pattern of sound agriculture. 

With the breeding and marketing of new ‘improved’ varieties of food grains traditional varieties are being replaced. Big multinational corporations which have entered the business of developing new varieties of seeds are putting pressure on (western) governments to allow companies to patent these new plant varieties. In Europe, some (common market) countries have outlawed the growing of many uppatented plants. It is estimated that by 1991, three fourths of all the vegetable varieties now grown in Europe will be extinct due to the attempt to enforce patenting laws. Already, in places, where thousands of wheat once grew, now only a few varieties are to be seen. When traditional plant varieties are lost, their unique genetic material is also lost forever. If because of genetic limitations which result from in breeding new varieties are no longer resistent to certain insects or, then real catastrophe could strike. Without the seeds which carry specific genes conferring resistance, it may not be possible to breed resistance bank into these food grain crops. The situation seems to have reached a stage where western agricultural scientists are even talking of 'collapse of civilization’ that would accompany a major genetic-related crop disaster. 

Any developments in agriculture must take into account both the local specificities of culture, climate as well as the nature of historical developments in agriculture in any country. The need to do this is not so much to preserve or 'revive' old techniques and patterns of life as to understand how developments in agriculture can be compatible with and serve the interests of the people. 

Madras Group