www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

The arrival of genetically modified crops has added another level of
complexity to farming in the developing world. Glenn D. Stone, Ph.D.,
professor of anthropology and of environmental studies, both in Arts &
Sciences, has completed the first detailed anthropological fieldwork on
these crops and the way they impact ? and are impacted by ? local culture,
February 2007 by Neil Schoenherr.

The study, published in the February issue of Current Anthropology,
focuses on cotton production in the Warangal District of Andhra Pradesh,
India, one of the nation's key cotton-growing areas. There, Stone found
several factors affecting farmers' ability to adjust to new developments by
practical methods. Among them are the speed of change, the overwhelming
number of choices in the seed market and the desire for novelty ? all of
which lead to lack of proper seed testing by farmers.

"There is a rapidity of change that the farmers just can't keep up with,"
Stone said. "They aren't able to digest new technologies as they come along.
In Warangal, the pattern of change is dizzying. From 2003 to 2005, more than
125 different brands of cottonseed had been sold. But the seeds come and go.
In 2005, there were 78 kinds being sold, but only 24 of those were around in
2003."

Bt cottonseed, genetically modified to produce its own insecticide, was
introduced in India in 2002. Between 2003 and 2005, the market share of Bt
seed ? created through collaboration between Monsanto Co. and several Indian
companies ? rose to 62 percent from 12 percent.

Stone's research reveals that the increase resulted not from traditional
farming methods of testing seed for efficacy, but from a pattern of "social
learning" ? farmers relying on word of mouth to choose seeds.

"Very few farmers were doing experimental testing, they were just using it
because their neighbors were," Stone said. "There has been a breakdown in
the process of farmers evaluating new seed technologies."

While Bt seed exacerbates the problem by creating yet another option, the
farming troubles predate its introduction. In the late 1990s, there was an
epidemic of farmer suicide in the Warangal District. Many farmers are deeply
in debt and have been for generations.

Stone's study shows that a problem of recognition contributes to those woes.
The farmers' desire for novelty leads to rapid turnover in the seed market.
Seed firms frequently take seeds that have become less popular, rename them
and sell them with new marketing campaigns, Stone said.

"Many different brands are actually the same seed," he said. "Farmers can't
recognize what they are getting. As a result, the farmers can't properly
evaluate seeds. Instead, they ask their neighbors. Copying your neighbor
isn't necessarily a bad thing; but in this case, everyone is copying
everyone else, which results in fads, not testing."

Stone argues that the previously undocumented pattern of fads, in which each
village moves from seed to seed, reflects a breakdown in "environmental
learning," leaving farmers to rely on "social learning." Stone refers to
this situation as "de-skilling."

"The bottom line is that the spread of Bt cotton doesn't so much reflect
that it works for the farmers or that the farmers have tested it and found
it to be a good technology," Stone said. "The spread more reflects the
complete breakdown in the cotton cultivation system."

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