In the last five decades, our rice heritage has been severely eroded and is under grave danger of being lost completely.

Trade Liberalization
With globalization and the implementation of the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), control over rice production and agriculture in general has moved more and more from farming communities and peasants to agrochemical transnational corporations (TNCs) and developed imperialist countries such as the US, and those in Europe. Arrogant trade liberalization policies coupled with corporate agriculture have impoverished and wiped out peasant rice farmers all over Asia as well as small rural entrepreneurs who depend on rice for their livelihoods.

Corporate Control of Rice
Corporate agriculture model of rice cultivation comprises monocropping, corporate developed and owned seeds, chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. Through what was called the “Green Revolution”, “high yielding varieties (HYV)” or “high input varieties” were introduced. HYV seeds were and are still part of a corporate package of synthetic fertilizers and harmful chemical pesticides which have pushed up input costs and further impoverished small rice farmers, driving them into debt. HYV seeds can only be multiplied by farmers for their use only for a very limited time.

The new varieties are not stable. After few generations, they start to deteriorate. Therefore, the farmer has to buy regularly new seeds. Traditional varieties do not create this dependence, though farmers can and do improve them through constant selection. Traditional local varieties are also better adjusted to local environments. Yields of HYVs in fact stagnated and dropped. Later, hybrid rice varieties were developed – these are also dependent on external inputs. Hybrid rice seeds perform very poorly if saved and grown so farmers have to buy new seeds every cropping season.

Corporate agriculture has poisoned people and rice fields with pesticides and synthetic fertilizers; degraded rice lands; destroyed rice ecosystems, ecological rice practices and rice culture; eliminated traditional native rice varieties; and severely undermined the safety of the cereal as food. Through intellectual property rights, rice seed varieties are moving from the hands of farmers, particularly women, and indigenous communities to those of seed companies and privatized agencies. The control of seeds and agriculture rightfully belongs to the farmers of the land.

Development Projects
Land for rice has been converted to land for cut-flowers, agrofuel, shrimp cultivation, cassava, animal feed, industrial use, amusement parks, real estate development and special economic zones. These so-called development projects displace farmers from the land they till.

Genetically Engineered Rice
Agri-business has paved the way for hybrid rice and now, genetically-engineered (GE) rice such as Golden Rice, Bt Rice and Liberty Link Rice, and has brought about not only the loss of strong and unique local and traditional rice varieties, but their contamination as well. Agri-business corporations are bent on promoting GE crops as the solution to world hunger, but these crops will make farmers highly dependent on commercial seeds and chemical farm inputs. GE will only make the problem of world hunger worse. Most GE rice research is on herbicide tolerance, which is hardly surprising since the dominant seed corporations are also among the top global pesticide firms.

There is sufficient evidence to show that biodiversity-based ecological rice agriculture using native rice varieties is sustainable. Conversely, there is increasing evidence to show GE Rice is potentially unsafe for humans, animals and the environment. Trials with rats and mice on GE potato have shown results such as abnormal organ development and potentially precancerous cell growth in the digestive tract while rats fed with GE tomato demonstrated bleeding in the gut. In humans, soy allergies in the UK jumped from 10% to 15% of a sample group soon after GE soya was introduced in the country and a GE food supplement was linked to incidence of death and illness in the US. Cotton workers handling GE cotton in India have also reported allergic reactions to handling it.