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By Sujata Madhok The fallout of Bt cotton cultivation in Gujarat has been a rapid increase in acreage under cotton, a spurt in cotton exports and consequently, a huge demand for child labourers from neighbouring states
Ignoring the doomsday warnings of environmentalists, Indian cotton farmers have switched to Bt cotton and are reaping bumper harvests. Genetically modified Bt cotton is attractive to farmers as it has been bred to resist pests like the pernicious bollworm. The fallout of this controversial new technology is a rapid increase in acreage under cotton, a spurt in cotton exports -- and the import of migrant child labour! Thousands of children are being trucked across states to work on Bt cottonseed farms during the crucial pollination season. It is the child’s job to pluck the male flowers, granulate them, and then manually cross-fertilise the female flowers that have been emasculated the previous day by slitting the female bud with the fingernails. This is painstaking, labour-intensive work and farmers are finding it cheapest to hire children to do it. The surge in demand for Bt seed has pushed the cottonseed farmers of Gujarat to recruit workers from south Rajasthan’s impoverished tribal districts. These districts have traditionally provided agricultural workers to Gujarat. However, the demand for child labour, rather than family labour, is new. An estimated 60,000-100,000 boys and girls migrate seasonally to work on cottonseed farms, says the Dakshini Rajasthan Mazdoor Union. The tribals make little distinction between adult and child labour. Parents are willing to send their children off to work against a small advance of anywhere between Rs 2,000 and Rs 20,000, and the promise of decent wages. Agents hire groups of girls and boys who travel unescorted by adult relatives, making the long journey at night in small private jeeps. On the farms they live in makeshift huts, with boys and girls sharing rooms at night. They work for nine to 12 hours in the fields during the two-three-month-long season that begins in July. The pollination season coincides with the new school year, and many children are pulled out of school to go to work. They rarely return to school.
Ironically, these exploited tribal children are producing seed using the most advanced technology developed and owned by transnational corporations that make huge profits. The cottonseed farms may be owned by local farmers, but the seed is owned by the corporations. They have sole right to it. Farmers sign an agreement with the corporation which then provides the initial seed, keeps track of the plants’ growth, advises on treatment for plant diseases and monitors the size of the crop. Bt cotton, the first genetically modified (GM) crop in India, was brought in following intense lobbying by the transnational company Monsanto. In 2002, the Government of India licensed MMB Limited, a joint venture of Monsanto and the Indian seed company Mahyco, to grow Bt in the country. Monsanto later sub-licensed 21 Indian companies to grow the seed and sell it. It gets huge royalties from them. The Bt seed is a terminator seed, which means farmers cannot use some of their produce as seed for the next season. They have to depend on the company to supply them fresh stocks of seed each season. Predictably, the companies are exploiting this dependence to extract huge profits from the farmers. They buy the seed cheap, but sell it dear. Last year, some companies bought seed at a maximum rate of Rs 250 per kg but sold it at Rs 2,222 per kg -- nearly nine times the price they paid the farmer! Researchers like D Venkateswarlu have highlighted the direct link between the exploitative pricing policies of seed companies and the increase in child labour, in several studies in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Gujarat. There are indications that campaigns against the use of child labour in Andhra Pradesh pushed companies to shift more production to Gujarat which is currently the major seed producer. The Dakshini Rajasthan Mazdoor Union’s study ‘Child Labour in Cottonseed Production’ in the Banaskantha and Sabarkantha districts of Gujarat finds that the low rates paid to farmers and the high rates charged from them for seed forces them to employ cheap, migrant child labour. The study notes that although labour rates and input costs have been going up, the companies refuse to pay farmers more and cottonseed farming is becoming less remunerative. Farmers’ protests have even forced some state governments to take action. Andhra Pradesh took Monsanto to the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC), challenging its exorbitant price for Bt seed. In 2005, the company was charging Rs 3,785 per kilo of seed. The MRTPC ordered a rate reduction which the company challenged before the Supreme Court but was unable to get a stay order. In 2006, three state governments fixed the price of a Rs 450 gram packet at Rs 750. In April 2008, seed companies asked for an increase to Rs 800 per packet, but this was refused. Meanwhile, the Gujarat government decided to sell Bt seed through its seed corporation to keep prices in check. A new Bt strain has been developed by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and approved by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee. By 2009 the seeds may be available to farmers, possibly posing a challenge to Monsanto’s monopoly. These will not be terminator seeds, so cotton farmers will be able to grow their own seed. Still, the issue of child labour will have to be tackled. The child labour supply and demand chain that has been developed will grow stronger unless it is cut at both source and destination points. The Union’s survey of seed farms in Banaskantha and Sabarkantha areas of Gujarat, in 2007, estimated that 75% of the workforce comprised migrant children below 18 years. Those below 14 years constituted 32% of the sample. Around 42% were females, mostly girl-children and adolescent girls. Predictably, many young unescorted girls face sexual harassment during the migration period. Often, children are subject to beatings if they do not work as desired by the employer. Sometimes ill-treatment forces them to stop working on a farm, in which case they are denied all wages. There have been cases where child workers have had to walk for days to return to their villages after being cheated of their dues. The long work hours, poor living conditions, and exposure to dangers such as snakebite and pesticides are other risks that migrant children face. In 2007 the Union launched a campaign against child labour trafficking, backed by the district administrations of Dungarpur and Udaipur districts. It claims that its activists stopped 116 vehicles and sent 400 children home in a single fortnight. However, they faced the wrath of the transporters who attacked the activists and injured some of them. In August 2007, the Union signed an agreement with the cottonseed producers of Banaskantha to ensure a daily wage of Rs 52 for pollination work and a ban on the employment of children below 14. Although the farmers have shown themselves willing to negotiate to ensure a steady supply of labour, the government of Gujarat has been denying the existence of migrant child labour. Last month, Shantha Sinha, Chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, summoned the secretaries of Rajasthan and Gujarat to work out a plan to stop the trafficking of children across state boundaries. In August 2007, the Commission had sponsored a public hearing on child labour in Rajasthan’s Dungarpur district. Sinha firmly believes that the long-term answer lies in providing schooling to the neglected tribal children of Rajasthan’s four southern districts. Union activist Ashok Khandelwal points out that the government needs to ensure that better wages are paid to agricultural labour. The government of Gujarat, in particular, must revise the state’s minimum wage in agriculture, besides imposing a ban on child labour in cottonseed production. The government of Rajasthan needs to protect children from inter-state trafficking for labour and provide alternative sources of livelihood and learning. These could include more employment under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and residential schools to prevent the perpetration of the inter-generational cycle of poverty among tribal people. InfoChange News & Features, May 2008
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