Beautiful new seeds (threatened farmers of genetically modified crops)

Author: R.A.B. Pierre
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-08-01
Features: This book delves into the new issues in global agricultural development, specifically the threats posed by genetically modified crops to farmers. The content covers agricultural crop breeding, the threat of sterile seeds, the preservation of crop diversity, sustainable agriculture, intensive production, and apomixis genes, among other topics. Four thousand years of history are gradually being erased and forgotten in the blink of an eye. Starting from the origin of Indian agriculture, more precisely from the cultivation of the first cereal crops on the Indian subcontinent, four thousand years have passed. Over these four thousand years, countless farmers have toiled tirelessly on a grand project—the diversity of plant varieties. Each generation has contributed its share: hybridizing one variety with another, selecting the best improved traits, and continuously improving techniques for sustainable agriculture out of reverence for the land and life. However, thirty years ago, the once-stable and forward-moving progress model was forcibly halted. Under the guise of progress and high yields, the "Green Revolution" promoted a new model of agricultural development, elevating high-yield varieties, fertilizers, and pesticides to the highest position. Many Indian farmers gradually abandoned the principles of sustainable farming and turned to intensive cultivation, throwing the precious experience accumulated over four thousand years by humanity into the depths of oblivion. But these changes did not fulfill their initial promises. The land under cultivation increased; however, although productivity rose in the early stages of the transformation, it later declined steadily. The consumption of fertilizers and pesticides greatly increased, while the number of cultivable plant varieties sharply decreased. In short, the situation is quite dire. However, with the overwhelming invasion of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the practice of monoculture farming has only worsened. Genetically modified organisms refer to organisms whose genes have been modified to grant them new traits, such as herbicide resistance, pest resistance, or cold resistance. In this transformation (known as the so-called "Second Green Revolution"), the genetic traits of plants are threatened, and the rich plant genetic traits accumulated by Indian farmers to this day are forcibly removed, replaced by a single standard of genetically modified plants.