The
maize crop has failed again in parts of Southern Nepal. Thousands of farmers are protesting and asking for compensation, but who's going to hear them?
The
seeds were imported hybrid seeds, brought from India. The Rajkumar variety of
hybrid seeds, while impressively named and hinting to royal origins, could
easily have been genetically modified seeds, sold by shadowy international
companies whose stocks keep on rising in the stock market. The X-92 and Sandhya
are equally well named—one hinting to scientific certitude, the other to some
feminine quality nested in the seeds. The branding was great but the product
was fake. Unfortunately, Nepal doesn’t have the investigative capacities to
figure out where these seeds actually originate from.
Why
are these seeds being sold publicly to farmers when it is clear, over and over,
that “hybrid” seeds sold commercially are of questionable origins, possibly of genetically modified backgrounds,
and they continue to fail spectacularly on a yearly basis?
This
doesn’t really impact those international companies who sell these seeds, who
feel they are immune from prosecution or lawsuits. As long as the business community
of low accountability countries like India and Nepal continue to sell these
seeds, often openly and with great pride, the farmers will continue to suffer
great economic damages, debts and despair.
Seed
failure cannot be written off lightly in countries where people get into heavy
debt to lease land, buy seeds and fertilizers and pesticides in order to grow
food. Which is exactly what happened in the Nepal case-the Nepali farmers had
leased the land they had sowed the maize seeds in at the rate of Rs.40,000
annually.
The
governments of both countries have turned a blind eye to the plight and
rights of farmers, till now. But the
time has come to set up a justice mechanism to investigate how exactly the
government and the legal system should respond when seeds, which are the
fundamental units of life, turn out to be bogus and fake. How should the
companies that sold these seeds compensate the farmers? Because its not just
the price of the seeds, but an entire season’s lost crops, that affect a farmer’s
community when these events keep repeating themselves.
It
is also clear that besides a national level investigation, an investigative
panel of an international stature needs to be set up to investigate what is
going on with seed failure of maize seeds, rice seeds, and other seeds fundamental
to food security for billions of people globally. Until this becomes an
international issue, there is sure to be no action against those selling these
seeds.
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