Farmers' union unhappy over multinational in farm sector

New Delhi, May 29 (UNI) All India Agricultural Workers Union has expressed its disappointment over the government allowing multinational companies in the country, especially in the farm sector.

''AIAWU is disturbed at the manner in which the UPA government is throwing the Indian masses into the jaws of the multinationals to be stripped to the bone through a step-by-step process of dispossession and destruction that will reduce the Indian agricultural labour and peasants to the condition of penury and bonded labour in their own land,'' AIAWU Joint Secretary Suneet Chopra said to a statement here.

They have done this by virtually squandering the reserves of the public distribution system and allowing multinationals to buy grain cheaply in the Indian market and to sell it at no less than Rs 950 a quintal to the government, which refused to buy grain in the home market at prevailing prices but was prepared to pay more for imports from multinationals, he said.

Now, a new and dangerous measure was being proposed to facilitate the import of genetically engineered soyabean oil by amending the Rules for Manufacture, Use, Import, Export and Storage of Hazardous Micro-organism or Cells 1989 that required the approval of the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee for importing such products.

The government now proposed to waive this for GM soyabean oil imports, he added.

This would not only ruin our soyabean farmers, already hard-pressed by the removal of quantitative restrictions on soyabean since 1999 as a result of pressure from the US but it would also allow genetically engineered material for human consumption to be imported without adequate knowledge of its after-effects and without a necessary warning on the packing of such products, Mr Chopra said.

Not only were GM crops, especially those meant for human consumption, not adequately safe as yet but their effects on neighbouring farmers' fields through cross-pollination were hardly known. So, the GEAC restrictions were the minimum requirements that had to be observed and not be waived in the interests of public safety, he added.

Finally, the scandalous manner in which BT cotton seeds were sold at six times the price it sells in the US and confirmation of 'kickbacks' having been deposited in a Cayman Island Bank account for the last Australian wheat imports in 1998, lead us to believe that all leagl protections of the Indian peasants and consumers were essential and should not be tampered with, the AIAWU Joint Secretary said.

No GM material,, whether for consumption or reproduction, be purveyed without proper testing. And even then, its packing must clearly state that genetic modification had been resorted to so that people could choose what they want. This was the minimum that was required for our food safety, he added.

UNI IP PA ND1420