edible oil imports that domestic farmers could not complete with . This effectively devastated home-grown edible oils sector and served the interests of palm oil growers and US grain and agriculture commodity company Cargill . Now with the argument that GM mustard would increase productivity and this would help reduce imports of edible oils , the GM mustard commercial cultivation is approved , to facilitated gaining control on our is sector by the imperialist agribiotech and agribusiness gaint corporations .
The three farm laws enacted by the government provided huge investment opportunities for financial ( international ) capital in India . These laws represented a capitulation to the needs of imperialist foreign agribusiness and asset managers who require access to India ’ s farm land . These laws invited large-scale speculative hoarding of food . This sparked the rise of agribusiness corporations , threatening India ’ s traditional variety of trading networks , food markets and small farmers .
Large corporate houses diverted their activities into procuring , transporting , storing , processing and distributing food . Major Indian industrial conglomerates , since mid 2000s have entered the fresh food supply chain : Reliance Fresh , Adani Agri Fresh , Bharati ’ s Field Fresh etc .
Adani Agri Logistics built and operated grain silos for the central government ’ s FCI . Nearly 900 Adani – controlled silos are set up all over India to facilitate grain storage and interstate as well as international food trade .
Imperialist giant business corporations like Amazon and Walmart have entered into food trade in India , alluring the consumers in umpteen ways .
PepsiCo has already established its control on Potato crop in India and its processing into a variety of food items .
Now the high-tech agri-business corporations are aiming to digitize all agricultural activities to create a business in big-data .
June - 2023
With digitalization automation can be facilitated through the introduction of drones , sensors and robots which would displace human labour . The food sovereignty of small and family members in India could be wiped out by such larger and high-tech firms . The agri-food chains are consolidating their monopoly power . There is a growing evidence that domestic agribusiness such as Adani and Ambani are collaborating with international imperialist agri-business entities like Cargill .
The enormous power of such large corporations increases income vulnerability for small farmers and food insecurity for rural and urban consumers .
With the tragic experience of BT cotton farmers in Maharashtra and AP it has been amply proved that due to use of BT cotton seeds , farmers are burdened with more pests , more pesticides , higher cost of seeds and pesticides and in longer-term , it brought collapse of several small farmers who cannot bear the higherrisks and losses , become indebted and may even lose their land , while some of the richest persons are able to benefit as agents of seeds and pesticides , as money lenders and land-grabbers .
The same fate will occur with the so-called new ‘ amazing technology ’, and globalised food system that is being touted as a panacea for global food security and feeding the world . Farmers will be forced out of farming or trapped on proprietary product tread-mills working for corporate supply chains and the public fed GMOs , more ultra-processed products and lab-engineered food .
As stated in an earlier para , this is the glimpse of how imperialist financial institutions , investment organisations , global agribusiness and agri-tech corporations operate in practice to gobble up the entire global agricultural sector and food sector and to grab the entire global farm lands .
Much has to be studied into the thousand and one aspects of the methods and machinations of these imperialist organisations and corporations to plunder the globe in the name of “ food security ” and “ feeding the inhabitants of the world ”!
Such knowledge would enrich the communist revolutionary and antiimperialist forces in detailing their programmes and conduct activities with much more clarity to overthrow the imperialism – a bane to the very existence of the entire humanity .
( Based on the articles by Colin Todhunter , Soma Marla , Bharat Dogra , Preetam Singh and the open letter to Bill Gates by 50 organisations of Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa )
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For Critical Observation
It has been one of our basic understandings that the event of 15 th August 1947 was one of Transfer of Power to the Indian Comprador big bourgeoisie and landlord classes and that the Indian Independence was formal and continues to be so .
“ August 15 , 1947 was the beginning of Political independence of our country . But the successive Congress governments have subordinated themselves to the imperialist that it has become nominal Janata regime was an exception in the sense that it attempted to assert marginal independence . Therefore the struggle for independence against the two super powers in general and Soviet Union in particular is going on in our country ”. ( Proletarian Line No . 8 , Aug . 80 Page-1 )
“ With no revolutionary democratic elements ( proletariat ) and no revolutionary programme , the national movement becomes relatively revolutionary when it is composed of and led by reactionary elements like feudal or bourgeoisie opposed to socialism . It is revolutionary to the extent it is anti-imperialist ”.
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