Bitter Harvest in India

The World Bank’s recent report only addresses horticulture for exports. This will not improve farmers’ incomes; it will rob them of land and livelihoods. Export crops are at the root of the land conflicts in Barnala, Punjab. An Action Aid report shows how giant corporations drive down prices of agricultural produce. Hooking India’s agriculture to Wal-Mart and TESCO will dispossess and deprive Indian farmers.

With 150,000 farmer suicides in the past 10 years, trade liberalization has created another set of killing fields in Asia and, as Vandana Shiva notes, the World Bank hasn’t stopped yet.

Farmers of India are facing a deep crisis — 150,000 have committed suicide in the last decade of trade liberalisation. Farmers’ incomes are falling. India’s anti-farmer policies are heavily influenced by the World Bank — a pity that the Bank’s economists do not acknowledge this (‘Produce And Perish’, April 26).

The crisis of farmers’ falling incomes has evolved in two phases. First came the Green Revolution (1965-1990). The second phase is the structural adjustment and trade liberalisation phase. First, the Bank pushed India on a monoculture path of chemical addiction. It provided credit to introduce a capital intensive agricultural model.

The Bank and USAID exerted pressure for favourable conditions for foreign investment in India’s fertiliser industry, import liberalisation and elimination of domestic controls to import fertilisers, seeds and pesticides. The World Bank provided the credit.

The World Bank finances were an important element in the spread of a vast network needed for distribution of Green Revolution varieties. In 1963, the National Seed Corporation was established. In 1969, the Terai Seed Corporation was started with a World Bank loan of $13 million. This was followed by two National Seeds Project (NSP) loans.

Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.

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