Monsanto's GMO might soon be banned in India

In the last few years, Monsanto’s BT cotton has had devastating results in both livelihood and agricultural practices of Indian farmers. Just in the last decade by itself, Monsanto’s Bt cotton has led to suicide of more than 250,000 Indian farmers.

Lately, Monsanto has been going through a few even tougher months after its GMO got banned in more than 27 countries across the globe. Soon, they will also face a possible 10 years ban in India.

Recently an expert committee appointed by Indian Supreme Court has been calling on Indian government to put a 10 years ban on all Monsanto’s GMO crops. The expert committee has announced that all Monsanto’s GMO trial should be stopped immediately since Monsanto’s GMO crops are becoming more resistant to herbicides and as a result the farmers have to deal with superweeds, super insects and stronger chemicals.

As a matter of fact, Monsanto’s GMO crops have been creating herbicide resistant bugs called “rootworms” that have been ruining GMO crops and mutating to Bacillus thuringiensis (BT) and contaminating the soil and other non-GMO crops.

However in US, the Environmental Protection Agency is very well-aware of the fact that the insecticide resistant “rootworm”, has been found in the states of Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.

Scientists Warn EPA Over Monsanto’s GMO Crop Failures, Dangers

If the new law by Indian expert committee passes and Monsanto’s GMO crops are banned in India, all biotech companies including Monsanto are not allowed to test their genetically engineered crops and contaminate the environment and soil of India anymore.

That means that Monsanto cannot continue to plant and test its new GMO seeds in India. Whereas before Monsanto could perform experiments that ended up contaminating the water supply, soil and even organic seeds before the USDA approval. For example one of the first Monsanto’s PBC plant (that is now banned in USA), was in the state of Illinois that has one of the highest rate of birth defects and fatal death.

At the same time, Monsanto’s GMO seeds have been hurting the US agriculture since many countries aboard have been questioning the integrity of the American non-GMO products. In some scenarios if possible these companies abroad prefer not to purchase from US farmers because there have been cases that non-GMO foods have had the trace of GMO contaminates. 

However, it is unclear at this point whether or not the Indian government will accept the Indian expert committee decision, but if that’s the case and Indian government decides to ban Monsanto’s GMO, Monsanto will lose one of its allies and major play ground for testing its GMO crops.