SUNS  4249 Thursday 9 July 1998

Geneva, 8 July (TWN) -- The founder of the micro-credit movement, Prof. Mohammad Yunus of Bangladesh has been assailed by a leading environmentalist, Dr. Vandana Shiva, for "betraying" the interests of women and biodiversity in entering into a joint venture with the chemical and seed transnational, Monsanto, to establish a Grameen Monsanto Centre in Bangladesh.

Dr. Shiva is the Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology and founder of 'Diverse Women for Diversity', an international NGO group.

In an open letter, posted on electronic bulletin boards, Dr. Shiva has told Prof Yunus that a few decades ago when he gave a few hundred Takas out of his pocket to rural women in Bangladesh, then in the grip of a famine, it marked the start of "the grameen bank" movement which used
microcredit to enable women to use their skills, their knowledge, their resources to build local markets for their products, rejuvenate their livelihoods and hence improve their food entitlements.

But the Joint Venture with Monsanto, announced on June 25 in New York at the Microcredit Summit, has reversed that movement and taken a step that "betray the interests of the women you have served so far."

The microcredit scheme linked to the Grameen Monsanto centre will create markets for Monsanto's products not the products based on the creativity of Bangladesh peasants, Shiva charged.

The Centre "will not build on the skills and knowledge and resources which women of Bangladesh have, (but) will wipe out their knowledge and resources and destroy their livelihoods and food security."

Monsanto's skills in agriculture are in the field of genetically
engineered crops, which are designed to use more agrochemicals like
Round-up which is a broad spectrum herbicide that kills anything green.

The Grameen Bank's microcredit venture with Monsanto "will directly
finance the destruction of the green vegetables that women collect from
the fields."  Round-up also has negative impacts on fish which provide
80 per cent of the animal protein in Bangladesh.

Initiatives on Sustainable Agriculture which are promoting agriculture
without agrochemicals show an increase of 11% in yields and 52% in farm
incomes when agrochemical use is stopped as a result of which fish can
thrive in the fields and in the small ponds which scatter the rural
landscape of Bangladesh, Shiva said.

These are the initiatives that should be supported for promoting an
environmental friendly agriculture which provides livelihoods and food
security to the poor.

Contrary to the announcement in New York by Yunus, Monsanto's technologies "are not environment friendly, or sustainable."

They pose a threat to ecosystems and agriculture. Monsanto's technologies will push Bangladeshi peasants into debt as they have to spend more money on herbicides, seeds, royalties and technology fees.

This rising indebtedness of farmers is intrinsic to industrial agriculture and is the reason why only 2% farmers survive in the US and thousands of farmers have committed suicide in India.

"Grameen Monsanto Centre," Shiva told Yunus in the letter, "will become a partner in the destruction of biodiversity and farmers livelihoods supported by free access to biodiversity. You will have contributed to the establishment of monopolies on seeds through patents with Monsanto collecting rents every year from farmers for saving seed or through technologies like the 'Terminator' which are designed to prevent the germination of future generations of seed so that farmers are forced to buy seed every year.

"Your microcredit support to the spread of Terminator seeds or patented seeds will not liberate the poor, it will enslave them irreversibly. Monsanto controls the Terminator technology through its recent purchase of Delta and Pine Land. Monsanto has also bought up Cargill seeds, MAHYCO, Holden, DeKalb, Agracetus, Calgene, Asgrow and is emerging as a global monopoly which threatens food security world wide.

"People around the world are concerned and are questioning this monopoly and fighting it.

Having made a name for himself in the annals of history through your innovation and commitment to the poor in setting up the Grameen Bank to serve rural women in Bangladesh, Yunus should not allow his efforts "to be hijacked as a marketing strategy by Monsanto."

The US$ 150,000 that Monsanto is giving to start the Grameen Monsanto Centre is a miserable 0.6% of US$ 1.6 billion that the TNC is spending in an advertisement campaign against the consumers in Europe who have rejected Monsanto's genetically engineered foods.

The founder of the Grameen Bank should not go down in history "as the man who took the side of a corporation against citizens worldwide and who introduced destructive technologies and corporate monopolies in Bangladesh and robbed rural women of their resources, their knowledge, and their right to life," Shiva said.

Rather, Prof Yunus should withdraw from this partnership with Monsanto and join the growing world wide movement of people against Monsanto and against genetic engineering and patents on life, Shiva added.