Rellen in India tegen gentech Bt Katoen
New Delhi, 11 Mei: Bezorgd over de misoogsten en nadelige gevolgen van Bt katoen verbouwing in het land, hebben boeren een grote hoeveelheid van de reeds geoogste productie verbrand in Amravati region in Maharashtra - English
ASHOK B SHARMA
Economy Bureau
Posted online: Friday, May 12, 2006 at 0000 hours IST
New Delhi, May 11: Concerned over the adverse impact of Bt cotton cultivation in the country, farmers burnt huge stacks of the harvested produce in Amravati region in Maharashtra.
According to a press release by Bharat Krishak Samaj (BKS), the farmers from the country’s cotton belt assembled in Panchavati Chowk, in Amravati, on Wednesday burnt huge stacks of Bt cotton before the statue of the country’s first agriculture minister Panjab Rao Deshmukh, who incidentally was also the founder president of the BKS, which is country’s largest farmers’ organisation.
BKS executive chairman Dr Krishan Bir Chaudhary said : "We had to take this step to bring to the knowledge of the government and biotech companies that farmers will no longer bear the injustice caused due to failure of Bt cotton."
The rally also had members from the Bija Yatra-Asha Yatra led Dr Vandana Shiva of the Delhi-based Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE). Dr Shiva also released an RFSTE study listing 40,000 cases of farmers' suicides, which occurred in the cotton belt of the
country. She termed these as "deliberate genocide" caused by policies dictated by the multinationals, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the WTO.
