Monsanto is widely distributing seeds for genetically modified crops in India, with the cooperation of the government. Farmers are told that although these seeds cost twice as much as conventional seeds, the plants will not require pesticides. The sad reality is that they cost nearly four times as much as conventional seeds, they require pesticides AND they require four times as much water as conventional crops (a fact which is usually withheld from the farmers). And after all that, the farmer cannot save seeds him or herself for the next year, and must buy fresh seeds again.

Farmers who live at the very edge of existance in India are being sold this bill of goods by unscrupulous seed dealers who don’t give them complete information, and by Monsanto, who is pushing GM crops hard with the cooperation of the Indian government. Neither traditional nor GM seeds provide insurance for the farmer in the event of a bad season, but failure of a GM crop leaves a farmer far worse off than failure of a traditional crop, mostly because of the debt loads required to obtain GM seeds. Thousands of these destitute farmers are committing suicide across broad regions of India, leaving their families completely destitute. This “GM genocide” is an epic tragedy. Although the suicides are tragic enough, the situation is worsened by the fact that the debt does not die with the farmer, instead it is passed on to his (for these farmers are usually male) wife and children, who become homeless, resourceless outcasts.

This tragedy is akin to the marketing of baby formula to mothers in poor countries. Both represent efforts of Western companies to profit from the lowest economic classes in poor countries, without any consideration of the effects the products they are pushing might have on such economically marginal people. Baby milk mixed with contaminated water becomes poison; GM crops that fail become an economic death sentence.

Human beings really suck sometimes.