New Farmers

1
New Farmers Movements in India

• By Uwe Hoering
• Attac European Summer University, Saarbruecken
• August 2008

2
Background Agrarian Situation

• Green Revolution (1960s)
• Modernisation supported by the state
• commercially oriented farming communities
• new peasant movements
• Liberalisation (early 1990s)
• Withdrawal of state support
• agricultural imports agribusiness
• Agrarian Crisis
• rising costs, reduced prices, increased debts
• ecological problems water soil erosion
• ? farmers suicides

3
Karnataka State Farmers Association, KRRS new
peasant movement

• Winners of the Green Revolution
• Not affiliated to established political parties
• Loose organisational structure
• Gandhian principles village republic ?
  against domination by TNCs
• Starting with conventional grievances like debt,
  prices, taxes
• Land question (tenure, landlessness) no key issue
• Peasants threatened by liberalisation and
  agrarian crisis
• Taking up new issues like genetic engineering

4
Convergence of two movements

• New peasant movements in India e.g. KRRS
  response to Green revolution, liberalisation and
  agrarian crisis
• International movement against genetic
  engineering agrobusiness/TNCs articulated by
  global activists, e.g. Vandana Shiva
• ? focal point bt cotton - Monsanto

5
Cremate Monsanto Movement

• 1998 Starting point farmers
• against technology/bt cotton
• against TNC/Monsanto
• - threat to farmers
• - threat to national sovereignty
• - threat to nature and health

6
Campaigning

• Direct action
• Prominent role of global leaders/
• movement VIPs
• Strong media attention
• Strong international links and support

7
Limitations

• Success on international level
• grassroots evidence/authenticity for movements
  in western countries
• Failure on national level
• Indian government approved bt cotton
• farmers took up bt cotton
• - as single issue no answer to the agrarian
  crisis of Indian peasants

8
From Cremate Monsanto to GM-free India Coalition

• Broadening the agenda
• - failure of bt cotton, suicides
• - other GMOs (food)
• - farmers rights to seeds, knowledge
• - development of alternatives NPM, organic
  farming
• - food sovereignty
• - democratisation of policy making in science
  and technology

9
Broadening the Alliance

• Informal network from 15 states
• Core actors farmers as masses
• NGOs, networks of civil society organisations,
  environmentalists, academics, consumers,
  retailers

10
Conclusions

• part of global anti-GMO movement share logic,
  symbols strategies
• Taking up issue of (national and local)
  alternatives to liberalisation and agrarian
  crisis
• Broad alliance but concentrating on farmers as
  producers, excluding issues of land
  (distribution, eviction, tenure security) and
  agricultural labour