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Five Questions Monsanto Needs to Answer about its Seed Donation to Haiti
Monsanto has donated $4 million in seeds to Haiti, sending 60 tons of conventional hybrid corn and vegetable seed, followed by 70 more tons of corn seed last week with an additional 345 tons of corn seed to come during the next year. Yet the number one recommendation of a recent report by Catholic Relief Services on post-earthquake Haiti is to focus on local seed fairs and not to introduce new or "improved" varieties at this time.
Some tough questions need to be asked and answered before we'll know whether or not Monsanto's donation will help or hurt long-term efforts to rebuild food sufficiency and sovereignty in Haiti. Here are five of them:
- What do Haitians think? Do rural organizations representing Haiti's farmers actually want these seeds from Monsanto or not? We know at least one spokesperson for Haitian farmers isn't interested. Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay and the National Peasant Movement of the Papay Congress said in a recent article published by Grassroots International that "if people start sending hybrid, NGO seeds, that's the end of Haitian agriculture."
- Will Haitian farmers be able to use existing farming methods with these seeds or do they require a completely different set of techniques - for example, is it possible for these seeds to be banked year to year for use in more than one planting cycle? Hybrid seeds don't have a great track record for re-planting, which means that farmers typically must buy new seeds every year.
- Does cultivation of these seeds require expensive new inputs and/or chemicals that may negatively impact the environment and soil over the long-term? Hybrids typically require a lot of fertilizers, pesticides, etc. and according to the press release, these will be provided through the USAID's 5-year WINNER program. When the WINNER program is done, will farmers find themselves reliant on external inputs they can't afford or access? What will the inputs leave behind in terms of the soil's condition?
- Will the rest of the Monsanto seeds sent to Haiti over the next year be conventional or genetically modified (GM)? GM seeds are as controversial in Haiti as they are here at home. It is critical that Haitians themselves are in charge of the decision to plant or not plant GM; they first need to know what is being offered to them in the first place.
- Will the Monsanto seeds (whether conventional or GM) affect indigenous seed diversity by mixing with them and contaminating existing seed strains? Large influxes of non-native seeds have touched off controversy and alarmed environmental activists and peasant farmers from Mexico to Malaysia to Mali.
Agricultural development is critical for Haiti and was even before the earthquake. Lambi Fund of Haiti, a partner organization of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), has been working with rural communities to create indigenous seed banks, building expertise in farming techniques and using environmentally-friendly methods to renew depleted Haitian soil.
Advocates for common sense food aid, including AJWS, are asking Congress to spend the $150 million dollars requested by the Obama Administration for Food Aid to Haiti on resources that will help Haiti feed itself for the long-term. You can make your voice heard by signing this petition.
Monsanto's donation - just like the US government's in-kind food aid donations - should empower rather than dis-empower the rural communities working to grow food for their country over the long term. More to the point, the communities most affected by these donations should decide whether they want this aid at all and if so, what they want and when they want it. It's unclear in this case if Monsanto or anyone else has asked them.
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18 Comments so far
Show AllThey ought to tell Monsanto to shove those
seeds
WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE
I can't think of any two worse human beings on the face of
the planet for Obama to oversee the contruction of Haiti
than G. Bush and B. Clinton.
Monsanto is heavily protected and defended by both the UN and the Washington elites so they're "free" to bypass those questions, great as they are. I don't expect the Haitian farmers to have any chance of questioning let alone protesting the corporate crooks such as Monsanto should the US backed Haitian government end up outlawing questioning or protesting GMO the way the Indian government is planning on doing as maxpayne in another article on GMO pointed out. I would like to see those GMO apologists defending Monsanto against those poor Haitians which I anticipate today.
P.S.: If Washington or Monsanto really believed in sovereignty, they would allow Haitians their right to grow their own food independently instead of forcing corporate fascism down the Haitians' throats !
Monsanto is just another sign post of how bad corporations and in particular US corporations have become.
This is just another stitch in the long line of corporate colonialism in Haiti.
A poison pill! This kind of misdirected aid will be the final nail in the coffin of Haitian self sufficiency.The farmers need open pollinated traditional Heirlooms to seed save and survive.Otherwise they become dependant on seed companies and Banks!I hope there is a way this seed donation can be used somewhere where it wont be harmfull.Maybe on sugar cane ground.
This is like Mexico after NAFTA,and it will have the same results.More Haitian farmers driven from the land into slums and sweatshops.
Cuban and Dominican seed saver exchanges should be better able to help.
peace
The Haitians would probably fare better if monsanto gave them good quality scythes, picks, hoes, and plows than their franken foods. And if momsanto really wanted to help, they could ask the farmers what they actually need to produce more food and then provide such items that are truly necessary and wanted.
"if monsanto really wanted to help", it would not be the monsanto we know and love.
Joe
Oh, c'mon. You can get more hysterical than this. Put some effort into it!
He gets all his favorite foods from Sam's Club he once told me last year. He is too difficult to reason with. Unfortunately, there are more "Greg R" farmers in this country and they do one hell of a job seeing to it that they follow their corporate masters and keep this nation a cornfed spectacle ! :(
We had a missed communication. Sam's Club has a few food items that are always of superior quality, that we really enjoy. But most of our favorite foods come from our gardens.
Yes, Monsanto has sued many an innocent farmer out of existence over "volunteer" seedlings that have sprouted on the property of people who never had a contract with Monsanto, never bought their frankenseeds, never bought their chemicals.
I, too, was thinking, that Monsanto is snapping up Haiti as a bargain.
Monsanto also managed to make the use of their frankenseeds mandatory in Iraq as a condition to any development loans from the US.
I think Greg R is a Monsanto employee, a professional troll.
Monsanto "donating" seeds to Haiti is roughly analogous to a man opening his car door and offering candy to children.
Run as fast as you can Haiti!
I challenge all you GMO vampires to defend governments who outlaw speaking against GMO or questioning the practice itself. Greg R, cman2, and the rest of you apologist should go live in Haiti and don't even think of taking a single thing with you there.
Throw those devil seeds in the ocean. Maybe they will soak up some of the oil. Use your own seeds or get some normal seeds from someone else. This is like a gift of smallpox blankets.
Unfortunately the head of Haiti is a US puppet. But perhaps the Peasant association can appeal directly to farmers or governments elsewhere for a variety of normal seeds, if that is indeed what they need.
Joe
Haitians should eat the seeds, not plant them or return them or throw them in the ocean.
If one is in danger of starving, almost any food is better than no food at all. If one is enslaved by poverty, the resources saved by eating Monsanto's grain may be applied to liberating oneself from Monsanto.
The danger is that Haitians will plant the seeds and that these will hybridize with local strains, rendering them incapable of reproduction and allowing Monsanto to extort money for more defective product.
OK - I stand corrected. Eating the seeds is a better suggestion than throwing them in the ocean. But they should not become the basis for plantings.
Joe
It's all about keeping Haiti under the thumb of the corpo-fascists that are running the U.S.. They are infiltrating every country and every government. The IMF, The World Bank and The U.N. are involved, along with many other institutions and individuals and of course corporations and banks, in controlling poor people/susbsistance farmers through debt. Getting them hooked on their GM proprietary seeds will shut down all possibilities of independence and true sovereignty. This has been going on in Haiti for a very, very long time. This is just another approach. Same monster different costume. The corpo-fascists are not about to give up.
Debt, indebtedness, little to no subsistance farming, no viable export trade, corrupt government, misappropriated or low to no or stolen tax revenue, the wealthy and elite and powerful have all the benefits and have raped the country of everything, high percentage of poor, few jobs, high unemployment, affordable housing just about non-existent (as after the recent devastating earthquake that is much worse), poor to non-existent infrastructure, dependence upon imports, etc... that's Haiti ... that's Greece, that's Iceland, that's _ _ _ _ (insert country of choice) ... that's U.S.A !!!