Agribusiness, GMOs, and their Role in Development: Crash Course Geography #41

Summary

This Crash Course Geography episode delves into the complexities of agricultural development, focusing on India's historic 2020 farmer protests and the agrarian crisis. It explores how economic policies and the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) like Bt cotton have impacted farmers, leading to debt and a wave of suicides. The episode also examines the broader implications of GMOs on biodiversity, seed ownership, and the global agricultural landscape, emphasizing the uneven effects of development policies on different socioeconomic groups.

Takeaways

• 🚨 The script begins with a warning about discussing sensitive topics, including suicide, and advises viewers to watch at their own discretion.
• 🌏 The 21st century has been marked by numerous political uprisings and protests worldwide, with 2019 seeing protests on every continent.
• 📅 On November 26, 2020, India experienced the largest civil protest in history with over 250 million participants in a strike known as Bharat Bandh.
• 🌾 The massive protests in India were prompted by issues related to farming and the pressures faced by farmers in low-income countries to change their agricultural practices.
• 🌱 The script explores the concept of development and its complexities, including the reevaluation of what a developed country should look like and strive for.
• 📊 Economic policies play a significant role in shaping a country's future, and the script discusses how changes in India's agricultural laws have affected farmers and food security.
• 💡 The script highlights the importance of geography in understanding agriculture, as it is influenced by factors such as climate, soils, and topography.
• 💔 Between 1995 and 2010, a quarter of a million Indian farmers committed suicide due to insurmountable debt, marking the largest recorded wave of suicides in history.
• 🌐 The agrarian crisis in India is tied to the global economic system, with international trade playing a crucial role in the country's agricultural policies.
• 🌱 The introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) like Bt cotton in India has had significant impacts on farming practices and contributed to the farmer crisis.
• 🌳 The script discusses the biorevolution in agriculture, the role of agribusiness, and the implications of GMOs on global agricultural productivity and biodiversity.

Q & A

What is the sensitive topic discussed at the beginning of the episode?

The sensitive topic discussed at the beginning of the episode is suicide.

What was the largest civil protest in history according to the script?

The largest civil protest in history, as mentioned in the script, took place on November 26, 2020, in India, where over 250 million people participated in a strike or Bharat Bandh.

What is the main cause of the massive protests in India as per the script?

The main cause of the massive protests in India, as per the script, is farming and the changes in agricultural laws that farmers believe will ruin them and the country's food security.

What is the term for the genetically modified cotton used in India?

The term for the genetically modified cotton used in India is Bt cotton.

How did the shift to cash crops like cotton affect Indian farmers?

The shift to cash crops like cotton led to a glut in the global market, a decrease in cotton prices for farmers, and increased competition from other countries, which deepened existing inequalities and forced many small farmers into massive debt.

What role did international financial institutions play in India's economic policies and agriculture?

International financial institutions played a significant role by providing loans to India during a financial crisis in the 1990s. The conditions for these loans led to a restructuring process that changed many economic policies, including those related to agriculture, which in turn affected Indian farming practices.

What is the significance of the genetically modified organism (GMO) in the context of the script?

In the context of the script, GMOs, specifically Bt cotton, represent a technological advancement in agriculture that has had both positive and negative impacts on Indian farmers, including higher yields but also increased costs and debt.

What is the relationship between the agribusiness and the crisis faced by Indian cotton farmers?

Agribusiness corporations played a role in promoting genetically modified seeds like Bt cotton and had greater control over the cost and availability of inputs. Their aggressive marketing and the lack of effective communication about the requirements of these seeds contributed to the crisis faced by Indian cotton farmers.

How did the introduction of genetically modified seeds affect traditional seed banking and farming practices?

The introduction of genetically modified seeds, such as Bt cotton, led to a shift where traditional seed banking and farming practices became illegal in many parts of the world. This change was driven by agribusiness and intellectual property rights, which restricted how farmers could access, use, and exchange seeds.

What are the potential global implications of the biorevolution in agriculture mentioned in the script?

The biorevolution in agriculture, particularly the use of GMOs, has the potential to increase global agricultural productivity, meet demand, and reduce environmental destruction from chemical fertilizers and soil depletion. However, it also poses threats to independent peasant agriculture and biodiversity due to reduced genetic diversity.

What is the impact of development policies on the uneven distribution of benefits within a country as illustrated by the script?

The impact of development policies, as illustrated by the script, is that they often hit unevenly within a country. While some farmers with access to capital may fare better and take advantage of foreign markets, poor farmers may end up in massive debt, lose their land, and become wage laborers or migrate to cities.

Outlines

00:00

🌾 The Impact of Development on Indian Farmers

This paragraph introduces the topic of the video, which is the relationship between development, agriculture, and the environment, with a focus on the recent history of protests and the largest civil protest in India. It highlights the November 2020 strike involving over 250 million people, prompted by changes in farming laws that farmers fear will ruin them and the country's food security. The paragraph also touches on the broader issues of development pressures on farmers in low-income countries and the role of economics in shaping policies and guiding the future of nations, with a particular interest from geographers in understanding the spatial and environmental impacts of these changes.

05:02

🌱 The Agricultural Crisis and GMOs in India

This paragraph delves into the complexities of the agrarian crisis in India, which has led to a wave of farmer suicides due to insurmountable debt. It discusses the economic policies of the 1990s that led to a restructuring of the Indian economy, including the shift from food crops to cash crops like cotton for export. The paragraph explains how this shift, along with the liberalization of the Indian agriculture market, resulted in uneven development and deepened existing inequalities. It also addresses the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) like Bt cotton, which, despite promising higher yields, led to increased costs and debt for farmers due to the seeds' high price and water requirements. The paragraph concludes by examining the broader implications of GMOs on agriculture worldwide and the potential threats they pose to independent peasant agriculture and biodiversity.

10:04

🌎 Agricultural Transformations and Their Global Impact

The final paragraph of the script discusses the mixed consequences of opening up the Indian economy to foreign markets. It contrasts the experiences of wealthy farmers who could capitalize on these opportunities with the plight of poor farmers who fell into debt and lost their land, leading to migration to overcrowded cities or becoming wage laborers. The paragraph also acknowledges the biorevolution in agriculture and its profound effects on our relationship with the environment and food production. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the uneven impact of development policies and the significance of the traditional and ongoing relationship of Indigenous peoples with the land. The video concludes with a call to learn about local Indigenous histories and an invitation to support Crash Course through Patreon.

Keywords

💡Protest

A protest is a public expression of objection or disapproval towards a policy, decision, or action, often organized by groups or individuals. In the context of the video, it is central to the discussion of the largest civil protest in history, where over 250 million people in India participated in a strike against new agricultural laws, illustrating the depth of public discontent and the significant role of protest in driving social and political change.

💡Agricultural Crisis

An agricultural crisis refers to a situation where the agricultural sector faces severe challenges, often leading to economic hardship for farmers. The script mentions India's agrarian crisis, characterized by a wave of farmer suicides due to insurmountable debt, as a result of complex problems tied to economic policies and global trade influences, underscoring the human cost of such crises.

💡Development

Development in the context of the video refers to the process of economic growth and social progress, often associated with industrialization and modernization. However, it also highlights the complexities and uneven nature of development, as seen in the shift of Indian agriculture towards cash crops and the subsequent impacts on farmers and the environment.

💡Economic Policies

Economic policies are the strategies and actions implemented by governments to influence economic outcomes. The script discusses how India's economic policies changed due to loans from international financial institutions, leading to a restructuring that affected Indian agriculture, such as the push towards cash crops and the liberalization of the market.

💡Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll around the seeds of the cotton plant. In the video, cotton is highlighted as a cash crop that Indian farmers were encouraged to grow for export, leading to a global glut and降价, which contributed to the financial struggles faced by farmers.

💡Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs, are organisms whose genetic material has been altered in ways that do not occur naturally by mating or natural recombination. The video discusses Bt cotton, a GMO engineered to produce an insecticide, as an example of how biotechnology can be both a solution and a problem in agriculture, with implications for farmer livelihoods and biodiversity.

💡Agribusiness

Agribusiness refers to the large-scale commercial activity of farming and the processing of agricultural products. The script describes the role of agribusinesses in promoting GMOs like Bt cotton in India, their influence on seed markets, and the power they wield in shaping agricultural practices and policies.

💡Debt Cycle

A debt cycle is a situation where an individual or entity is continuously taking on new debt to repay existing obligations, leading to a cycle of increasing financial strain. The video explains how small farmers in India fell into a debt cycle due to the high costs of GMO seeds and the failure of monsoon rains, which had tragic consequences.

💡Biodiversity

Biodiversity refers to the variety of life in all its forms and interactions within a given ecosystem. The script touches on the potential threat that GMOs pose to biodiversity, as they may reduce genetic diversity in the environment and disrupt traditional farming practices that have preserved a wide range of crop varieties.

💡Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual property rights are legal rights granted to creators for their inventions, designs, and artistic works. In the context of the video, these rights are discussed in relation to plant varieties, where agribusinesses patent new GMO varieties, affecting the traditional seed-saving practices of farmers and the distribution of seeds.

💡Global Economic System

The global economic system encompasses the worldwide network of economic interactions and dependencies among countries. The video highlights how the global economic system, including international trade and the policies of the World Trade Organization, influences agricultural practices, development policies, and the livelihoods of farmers around the world.

Highlights

The episode discusses sensitive topics like suicide and acknowledges the potential impact on viewers.

The 21st century has been marked by an unprecedented number of political uprisings and protests worldwide.

On November 26, 2020, India witnessed the largest civil protest in history with over 250 million participants.

The protest was prompted by changes in farming practices and policies, affecting farmers in low-income countries.

Agricultural practices are influenced by physical geography, land use, technology, and social systems.

Agriculture is fundamentally about the relationship between humans and the environment.

Indian farmers are protesting against new agricultural laws that they believe will ruin them and the country's food security.

Between 1995 and 2010, a quarter of a million Indian farmers committed suicide due to insurmountable debt.

India's agrarian crisis is tied to the global economic system and international trade.

Economic policies in the 1990s led to a restructuring process in India, impacting agriculture.

The shift to cash crops like cotton and liberalization opened Indian agriculture to global competition.

Genetically modified seeds like Bt cotton were aggressively marketed but came with high costs and requirements.

The introduction of GMOs has changed seed ownership, production, and distribution, often controlled by multinational seed companies.

The World Trade Organization requires member countries to recognize intellectual property rights for plant varieties.

GMOs are part of a biorevolution in agriculture with potential benefits and drawbacks for global productivity and biodiversity.

The impact of development policies in India has been uneven, affecting farmers differently based on their access to capital.

The episode concludes by acknowledging the traditional and ongoing relationship of Indigenous peoples with the land.

Transcripts

I want to note up front that in this episode we will be discussing sensitive topics including suicide.

We at Crash Course recognize that this topic may be upsetting for some viewers so please

watch at your own discretion.

As we’re filming this, we’re just about 21 years into the 21st century, but we can

already look at our recent history as a period defined by protest.

In the past few years, the world has seen more political uprisings than ever before

-- in fact in 2019 there were protests on every continent.

But it wasn’t until November 2020 that we’d experience the largest civil protest in history.

On November 26, 2020, trade unions in India reported that over 250 million people took

part in a strike or Bharat bandh.

Tens of thousands of people would march on and blockade New Delhi, which would swell

to hundreds of thousands by early December.

So what could prompt such massive protest? Farming.

Currently farmers in many low income countries are under more and more developmental pressure

to change the way they work the land.

Though what a developed country actually looks like and what the complicated word development

means is being reevaluated as we think more broadly about the ideals a country should

strive for.

But economics still play a huge role in the policies countries create or are forced to

use to guide their future.

And any time we talk about changes that affect space, place, and environment, geographers

are interested to learn where and why!

I’m Alizé Carrère, and this is Crash Course Geography.

INTRO

Farming and agriculture are some of the most geographic activities we can find.

How different agriculture systems are distributed globally depends on so much physical geography

like climate, soils, and topography.

And along with land use, available technology, and social systems, agriculture creates unique

cultural landscapes.

But more fundamentally agriculture is about the relationship between humans and the environment,

and each of us are connected to it by the food choices we make daily.

In late 2021, farmers in India are still protesting.

They’re in a standoff with the government which revamped the country’s agricultural

laws in ways that farmers say will ruin them as well as the food security of the country’s poor.

It’s hard to convey the magnitude of what’s happening.

But it’s also important to recognize this isn’t the first large-scale crisis for Indian

farmers whose experiences encountering development have cost them their lives in the last few decades.

From 1995 to 2010 a quarter of a million farmers in India committed suicide, which is the largest

wave of recorded suicides in world history.

And numerous studies and reports have said the number one cause of the wave is the insurmountable

debt the farmers couldn’t escape from.

This human tragedy was part of India’s chronic agrarian crisis, which is a set of increasingly

difficult interlocking problems that many farmers cannot escape.

For the last few decades the agrarian crisis has been tied to the complex web of the wider

global economic system which international trade plays a crucial role in.

In the 1990s, in order to head off financial crisis, India took loans from international

financial institutions.

This sent India’s economy through a restructuring process which changed many economic policies

as part of the conditions for getting the loans.

And as economic practices altered, so did Indian agriculture.

This is an example of the complexities of development, which we’ve discussed the last

few episodes.

These new economic policies were meant to be attractive to foreign investment and bring

rapid economic development -- which in all fairness, they did.

The Gross Domestic Product per capita increased by more than a factor of 5 from 1990 to 2019.

And in 2020 India ranked 3rd in the number of billionaires.

But this isn’t the whole story.

Because of these new economic priorities, many farmers were urged by the government

to shift from growing food crops for their own use to cash crops, which are grown to

be sold for a profit.

Specifically, they switched to growing cotton that they could export, which led to a glut

in the global arena for cotton exports and a decrease in cotton prices for farmers.

Part of becoming more attractive to foreign investment also meant the Indian government

removed a lot of barriers like subsidies and tariffs that protect a country from foreign competition.

But now Indian cotton farmers faced stiff competition from other countries who ironically

were able to offer even lower prices because of subsidies from their own governments.

The shift to cotton and foreign investment -- which econ people would call liberalizing

or “the opening of Indian agriculture to the global market” -- caused development,

but uneven development.

Existing inequalities were deepened and small farmers were forced into massive debt.

It also meant multinational agribusiness giants were able to swoop in and dominate the Indian

cotton industry.

Agribusiness is a word that will pop up a lot as we talk about agriculture.

It can mean large corporations like Del Monte or Chiquita that produce, store and move crops.

But it can also refer to agriculture patterns more generally and be a system of economic

and political relationships that organizes and concentrates food production from developing

seeds, to selling the crop once it’s grown, to how it’s consumed in its final form.

They have a hand in every part of the process, so agribusiness and multinational corporations

can wield tons of power.

For the Indian cotton industry, new agribusiness corporations were able to promote genetically

modified seeds -- like Bt cotton -- and had greater control over the cost, quality and

availability of expensive inputs like pesticides, changing how farmers in India operated.

Bt cotton is a genetically modified organism or GMO, which is an organism whose DNA has

been modified in a laboratory.

Unlike breeding or other techniques humans have used to modify foods for 1000s of years,

GMOs might have genes removed with CRISPR or added from an unrelated organism to create

a certain trait using techniques like gene splicing.

So we can have GMOs that do things the unmodified organism never could -- like a potato that

releases its own pesticide or a soybean that’s been engineered to resist fungus.

Bt cotton has been modified to produce Bacillus thuringiensis toxin, an insecticide which

is supposed to kill a common cotton pest in India called the American bollworm.

So farmers rapidly adopted the genetically modified cotton in the hope of higher yields,

lower chances of crop failure, and greater financial security.

But genetically modified seeds are expensive and they need a lot more water than regular

seeds to grow and produce cotton.

And then small-time farmers took out loans at high interest rates to buy the seeds, and

the seasonal monsoon rains didn’t deliver.

Farmers were unable to recover the cost or pay the exorbitant interest rates.

And more loans to buy more seeds meant greater debt resulting in a vicious, overwhelming

debt cycle which ended tragically for many.

There are lots of problems in India’s agricultural sector, but the arrival of agribusinesses

who aggressively marketed Bt cotton, but did not effectively communicate its requirements

for irrigation, has created problems unprecedented in scale and complexity.

And farmers who traditionally selected seed types based on personal experience and observation

couldn’t revert to growing non-Bt cotton seeds.

By some accounts they’d even been banned from government seed banks.

The causes and effects of the farmer suicide crisis in India are complex, but there’s

little doubt genetically modified seeds are central to the crisis cotton farmers faced.

Suicide rates were highest in the cotton belt where farmers were trying to grow the most cotton.

For better or worse, genetically modified seeds are part of a biorevolution taking place

in agriculture worldwide.

GMO supporters argue that GMOs can increase global agricultural productivity to meet demand

and keep up with population growth.

And using biotechnology could be more sustainable because more productive agriculture will reduce

the risk forests are turned into farmland.

Not to mention reducing how much of the environment is destroyed from chemical fertilizers, soil

depletion, and other related problems.

In the 2020s, GMOs are probably the most technological way nature and society come together in the

global agricultural system.

And agricultural transformations have ripple effects across societies and cultures as food

production becomes even more tightly integrated into the global economic system.

All this impacts us as individuals too.

What we buy in the supermarket or shopping center connects us to other places and people

in ways that are hard to imagine.

And these new agricultural geographies also highlight the changing nature of our human

environment interactions.

This shift is even more profound in many parts of the world that use more traditional agriculture practices.

Like in the Central Andean highlands where the potato was domesticated about 7,000 to

9,000 years ago.

After the potato was domesticated, farmers continued to breed seeds, creating and adapting

varieties to suit particular ecological niches, growing conditions, nutritional needs, and

culinary tastes.

This work over the centuries was collective, and the 2000 to 4000 varieties of potatoes

that are found today are due to the ingenuity of farmers.

But part of what’s different about the history of the potato compared to Bt cotton in India

and other modern crop stories, is that no one owned the potato plant.

But with Bt cotton, the agribusiness Monsanto originally developed and owned the patent.

And farmers were free to save their native seeds to replant the following year and exchange,

gift or sell them within and between their communities.

But because of agribusiness, this traditional system is now illegal in many parts of the world.

Plants have been patentable for nearly a century, but it was with the introduction of genetically

modified seeds that we saw a large shift in who can own, produce, manage, and distribute seeds.

What was once controlled by small business or government run research stations is now

controlled by multinational seed companies, which breed and claim new plant varieties

and monopolize who can buy and sell seeds.

The World Trade Organization also requires that all member countries recognize intellectual

property rights for plant varieties.

Currently there are 164 members of the WTO but its policies remain complex with many

exceptions and conditions.

Many countries are skeptical about GMO foods, but the WTO holds that not allowing GMO products

into a country creates an unnecessary obstacle to international trade.

Some argue that corporations continue to be granted more privileges while restrictions,

sanctions, and harsher forms of punishment are imposed on farmers.

So despite being able to produce more, heartier crops, genetically modified crops could be

a serious threat to independent peasant agriculture and ultimately to biodiversity as they reduce

genetic diversity of plants and animals in the environment.

GMO opponents say it’s important to remember that not a single existing crop is the result

of modern science, and the original seed from which corporations have patented new plant

varieties is stolen, extracted and modified from native seeds.

They argue that international seed laws are just tools that advance corporate rights to

privatize seeds and crop varieties and restrict how farmers and farming communities access,

use and exchange seeds.

As geographers trying to understand how the process of development unfolds and the patterns

it creates, we can recognize that whether you’re for or against GMOs, the impact of

development policies often hits unevenly within a country.

Even though India is projected to be the world’s second fastest growing economy in 2022, opening

the economy up has had mixed and unpredictable consequences.

Farmers with access to large amounts of capital fared better and were able to take advantage

of lucrative foreign markets.

But poor farmers have entered massive debt, lost their land, and either became wage laborers

or migrated to already overcrowded cities.

So the protests of the last few decades could be a sign we’re in the middle of significant change.

The biorevolution taking place in agriculture is changing our most basic relationship with

the environment -- how we obtain food.

And it’s changing the map of agriculture and reshaping the physical, economic and cultural

landscape around us, which we’ll talk more about next time when we discuss how agricultural

innovations diffuse around the world.

Many maps and borders represent modern geopolitical divisions that have often been decided without

the consultation, permission, or recognition of the land's original inhabitants.

Many geographical place names also don't reflect the Indigenous or Aboriginal peoples languages.

So we at Crash Course want to acknowledge these peoples’ traditional and ongoing relationship

with that land and all the physical and human geographical elements of it.

We encourage you to learn about the history of the place you call home through resources

like native-land.ca and by engaging with your local Indigenous and Aboriginal nations through

the websites and resources they provide.

Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Geography which is filmed at the Team

Sandoval Pierce Studio and was made with the help of all these nice people.

If you want to help keep all Crash Course free for everyone, forever, you can join our

community on Patreon.