GM crops making farmers commit suicide. Da Trews true news!

While there is an epidemic of suicides with farmers in India, it's a very complex issue, with many facets involved in why. To simply blame it on Monsanto is disingenuous and ignorant.

That said, their business practices are pretty fucking ruthless like most transnational corporations, they care about profits over all other considerations. One of their most controversial practices has been to sue farmers when they can find samples of their crops on their land.

I.e. Farmer Jones bought Monsanto seed last year. He grew a whole crop of it. Next year, Farmer John, who owns the plot right next to Jones plants his crops, but some of Jones Monsanto crop DNA get transplanted naturally, i.e. bugs, birds, pollination, etc.

Monsanto sends an expert out and they find that some of John's crop has Monsanto DNA. So they take him to court for copyright infringement if he doesn't pay a fee.

This had started to being such a problem that the farmers and the department of agriculture here in Kansas have turned to instead suing Monsanto first when they spot their crops on their land. Sort of a "trespassing" thing.

It's all really fucking silly and all together disturbing that all this is going on, but it genuinely is a thing for some people. That said I don't think that's the main issue in India. There the main issue they have with Monsanto is saving seeds.

I.e. Farmer buys Monsanto seeds. Plants crops. Saves that crops seeds. Replants without rebuying seeds next year. Monsanto sues because they didn't buy new seeds.

This isn't that common here in the US, since most of our agriculture is done in a large scale industrial type manner. It's cheaper to just rebuy seeds than to sort them, save them, though some do it.

But the long and short of it is that if anyone is committing suicide, it's not because the crops of genetically modified. It's because of the business practices involved in the people who modified it.

Source: I live in a Kansas farm town.

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