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	Harvest of Suicides by Vandana Shiva Project Syndicate / ActionAid India India   May 2009   An epidemic of farmers suicides has spread across four Indian states - Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Punjab - over the last decade. According to official data, more than 160,000 farmers have committed suicide in India since 1997.   These suicides are most frequent where farmers grow cotton, and appear directly linked to the presence of seed monopolies. For the supply of cotton seeds in India has increasingly slipped out of the hands of farmers and into the hands of global seed producers like Monsanto. These giant corporations have begun to control local seed companies through buyouts, joint ventures, and licensing arrangements, leading to seed monopolies.   When this happens, seed is transformed from being a common good into being the "intellectual property" of companies such as Monsanto, for which the corporation can claim limitless profits through royalty payments. For farmers, this means deeper debt.   Seed is also transformed in this way from being a renewable regenerative resource into a non-renewable resource and commodity. Seed scarcity is directly caused by seed monopolies, which have as their ultimate weapon a "terminator" seed that is engineered for sterility. This means that farmers can"t renew their own supply but must return to the monopolist for new seed each planting season. For farmers, this means higher costs; for seed corporations, higher profits.   The creation of seed monopolies is based on the deregulation of seed corporations, including giving them oversight over bio-safety. With the coming of globalization, seed companies were allowed to sell seeds for which the companies had certified their safety. In the case of genetically engineered seed, these companies are again seeking self-regulation for bio-safety.   State regulation does continue to exist where seeds are concerned, but nowadays it is aimed at farmers, who are being pushed into dependency on patented, corporate seed. Such compulsory licensing is a big cause of the global destruction of biodiversity. The creation of seed monopolies, and with them crushing debts to a new species of moneylender - the agents of the seed and chemical companies - has taken a high human toll as well.   The farm suicides first started in the district of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh. Peasants in Warangal used to grow millets, pulses, and oilseeds. Overnight, Warangal was converted to a cotton-growing district based on non-renewable hybrids that require irrigation and are prone to pest attacks. Small peasants without capital were trapped in a vicious cycle of debt.   Rising production costs and falling prices for their products is a recipe for indebtedness, and debt is the main cause of farmers suicides. This is why the suicides are most prevalent in the cotton belt on which the seed industries claim is rapidly becoming a stranglehold.   * Vandana Shiva is an Indian feminist and environmental activist. She is the founder/director of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology. Read more stories about Food Rights from ActionAid India via the link below. Visit the related web page
	Wealthy nations should speed aid to poor countries by Associated Press & agencies   May 2009   The World Bank has urged donor nations to speed up delivery of the money they"ve already pledged — and open their wallets wider — to help poor countries reeling from recessions rooted in rich nations.   The economic nosedive is turning into a human and development "calamity," which already has driven more than 90 million people into extreme poverty this year, the World Bank said in a communique.   "There is widespread recognition that the world faces an unprecedented economic crisis, poor people will suffer the most and that we must continue to act in real time to prevent a human catastrophe," Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, managing director of the World Bank said.   Poor countries have watched as the recession has dried up investment capital, sharply reduced exports and commodity prices and slowed the flow of cash sent home by their citizens working abroad. She said impoverished nations need a hand up that doesn"t burden them with new debt or add to the ranks of those earning just a few dollars a day.   The economic crisis is "advancing like a silent tsunami, with those who contributed least to the crisis suffering most from its impact," said German development minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul. She said it would take more money to help stabilize poor nations "without plunging them into a spiral of debt."   Outside the World Bank and IMF headquarters, demonstrators said the IMF had given bad policy advice during past economic crises and the poorest countries were feeling the pain of a global financial meltdown they didn"t create.   Anti-poverty advocates also have raised concerns that some World Bank initiatives to help poor countries come with too many strings attached. Oliver Buston, European director of ONE, which fights poverty and disease, especially in Africa said "urgent action is now needed from the World Bank to protect the billion poorest people on the planet who had no part in creating the economic crisis but who will be hit the hardest."   May 2009   British Embassies on alert amid fear of rising social unrest.   The UK Foreign Secretary, has activated an early warning system to monitor economies at risk of suffering political and social unrest triggered by the global credit crisis.   Teams of economists working within Britain’s embassies worldwide have been told to assess the risk of social unrest within their borders as a result of the global recession.   The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is worried that the next chapter of the downturn will involve unrest in fragile economies as asset values, employment, export markets and international supply chains are hit by the fall in demand.   With the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September last year, stock markets and financial regulators realised the extent to which the world’s banking industry was intricately interwoven, with the demise of one lender capable of dragging down another.   March 2009   A wave of social and political unrest could sweep through the world"s poorest countries if G20 leaders fail to come to their aid, the World Bank warns today, as new research says the credit crunch will cost developing countries $750bn in lost output and drive tens of millions more into poverty.   Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the managing director of the World Bank, is urging G20 leaders to look at the impact of the financial crisis on low income countries. Otherwise, social unrest and political crisis could be the result. It"s in the self-interest of everyone to prevent that," she said.   Her warning came as a new report from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) said the collapse of the global economy would lead to 90 million more people into poverty, lead to an increase to one billion in the number of people going hungry and cost developing countries $750bn in lost growth.   The ODI is calling for an extra $50bn in aid for Africa, and urging G20 countries to set aside a "significant proportion" of the cash they are spending on fiscal packages, to help build up the infrastructure in poor countries, and lift people above the breadline.   Okonjo-Iweala said hundreds of thousands of workers were losing their jobs across the developing world, where social safety nets are almost non-existent, and called for more resources for the World Bank"s "vulnerability fund," which helps cash-strapped governments to make direct welfare payments. "There is a credit crunch in many of these countries: foreign direct investment has dried up," she said.   Mar 2009   Unequal Globalization.(Global Issues)   The world is becoming more globalized, there is no doubt about that. While that sounds promising, the current form of globalization, neoliberalism, free trade and open markets are coming under much criticism. The interests of powerful nations and corporations are shaping the terms of world trade.   In democratic countries, they are shaping and affecting the ability of elected leaders to make decisions in the interests of their people. Elsewhere they are promoting narrow political discourse and even supporting dictatorships and the “stability” that it brings for their interests. This is to the detriment of most people in the world, while increasingly fewer people in proportion are prospering.   The western mainstream media, hardly provides much debate, gladly allowing this economic liberalism (a largely, but not only, politically conservative stance) to be confused with the term political liberalism (to do with progressive and liberal social political issues). Margaret Thatcher"s slogan of “there is no alternative” rings sharply.   But what about a more equitable and sustainable development for all?   Following a period of economic growth during the 21st century, a financial bubble—global in scope—has now burst. The extent of this problem has been so severe that some of the world’s largest financial institutions have collapsed. Others have been bought out by their competition at low prices and in other cases, the governments of the wealthiest nations in the world have been forced to resort to extensive bail-outs and rescue packages for the remaining large banks and financial institutions.   Some of the bail-outs have also led to charges of hypocrisy due to the apparent socializing of the costs while privatizing the profits. Furthermore, the institutions being rescued are typically the ones got the world into this trouble in the first place. For smaller businesses and poorer people, such options for bail out and rescue are rarely available when they find themselves in crisis.   There is the argument that when the larger banks show signs of crisis, it is not just the wealthy that will suffer, but potentially everyone because of the ripple effect that problems at the top could have throughout the entire economy.   However, ordinary taxpayers will be bailing out their banks and financial institutions with large amounts of public monies for years.   While internationalism and equitable global trading allowing fair development is probably what most people would like to see, the current model of corporate-led free trade and its version of globalization that has resulted, has come under heavy criticism by many, many NGOs, developing nation governments and ordinary citizens. Visit the related web page
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