[Assam] videolink: Monopoly & farmer's suicides?: India's 2nd Green Revolution: Monsanto driven

[umesh sharma]

Hi,

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7812548160862207272&q=source%3A006404695351847306312&hl=en 

The world according to Monsanto - on google video
I am still watching the documentary --google and internet are so useful. Vandana Shiva is online on the video . It is 3:58 am here in DC and I have just finished watching about 1hour 20 minutes of the documentary. Till 10 minutes back the entire documentary revolved around Europe and North America but now it is quite relevant to India. 

One thing comes out is that Monsanto seems to be having a monopoly over food in developing nations (atleast in India , South America etc). Monopoly is disliked even in the West --see litigation against Google, Microsoft etc. Even seed selling in India seems totally under Monsanto control -as per video. Even in the US farmers are afraid of Monsanto's legal power - which seems to have destroyed/bankrupted farmer families who tried to back-talk their "gene police." The video highlights farmers suicides in India thanks to buying 4 times higher rpiced Monsanto seeds - mostly since Monsanto bought out all competition in seed selling. 

It is immaterial whether their products are good or bad - which seems to be the thrust of this video - all sorts of hi-fi science research stuff. Though, some of Monsanto's products and tech are banned in Canada and Europe (thanks to Dr Shiv Chopra etc) but used in most of the world. This research is useless - since they never really investigated what the Monsanto guys really believe in. If an Ivy League grad joins Monsanto as a scientist or executive what does he eat and drink. Does he eat and drink food produced by Monsanto technology or not? That should be the research question. If Monsanto executives and scientists allow their families to eat the food made by their tech ( Ofcourse, they do)  then one canot accuse them of scheming to poison the world (incl their own families).

However, their monopoly should not exist. Perfect competition dictates breaking up of monopolies.

any comments?

Umesh Sharma



Washington D.C. 



1-202-215-4328 [Cell]



Ed.M. - International Education Policy

Harvard Graduate School of Education,

Harvard University,

Class of 2005



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