Does Monsanto keep data on Suicides of Farmers who may have planted GMO seeds or used their Herbicidepesticides?

Expert response from Chelsey Robinson

Former Global Preparedness Content Manager, Monsanto Company

Monday, 29/02/2016 19:34

This is a common misunderstanding of a very complex and sad topic. Farmer suicides are a tragic result of a variety of complex socio-economic reasons, and began long before the introduction of biotech cotton to India in 2002. My colleague Dan Goldstein has answered a question on this topic and states,

“This claim was studied by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, D.C., which found that, if anything, suicides among farmers have been decreasing since the introduction of GM cotton. The report states, ‘It is not only inaccurate but simply wrong to blame the use of Bt cotton as the primary cause of farmer suicides in India.’”  The report can be found here:  IFPRI discussion paper: Bt Cotton and Farmer Suicides in India - Reviewing the Evidence (Oct. 2008).

I also wanted to share a perspective that you might find more powerful. An Indian farmer, Ravichandran Vanchinathan, posted a comment to a GMOAnswers response and pointed out that it is trivializing farmer suicides by diverting the issue to biotechnology. He has stated,  

“Suicides committed by farmers who feed the world is a national shame. Cotton is grown in few Indian States like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab and Rajasthan. There are suicide incidents all over India. Farmers in states like Kerala, Bihar, West Bengal etc. where cotton is not at all grown commit suicide. Bt Cotton was approved only in the year 2002. Farmers were committing suicides even prior to 2002.Most of the crops are cultivated under rain fed condition. The success or failure of the crop depends on the monsoon condition such as arrival of South West monsoon, overall amount of rain fall, extent of rain in each spell, interval between two successive spells and so on. Therefore yield depends on monsoon. The adverse monsoon condition results in crop failure resulting in huge loss for farmers. Secondly most of our farmers are small and marginal farmers. They often fall in to the debt traps laid by the village level money lenders. Instead of approaching Commercial Banks for their working capital needs, they are lured by the local money lenders who are easily approachable. Rather than availing finance from commercial banks, who emphasize compliance various formalities, these poor farmers find it easier and convenient to get their working capital needs from the village level money lenders, who charge exorbitant interest which ranges any where between 60%-120% per annum. These money lenders get the farmer's signature/thumb impression on blank papers. Whatever the farmer and his family members get from their small farm are seldom sufficient enough to serve even the interest leave alone the principal. Whatever they produce, they can sell it only to the supplier of finance at the price fixed by them as per the agreement. In adverse years the principal and interest swell due to snow balling effect. As a last resort the farmer pledges his land to the money lender. Some of them take the extreme step of sadly ending their lives by committing suicides. This is the ground reality. Though our Govt is striving hard to provide farm finance through commercial banks, not many farmers get the loan on time and they fall into the debt trap by money lenders. Instead of addressing these grave issues, the anti GM Crop lobbyists, take undue advantage of such tragic suicide cases and correlate it with Bt Cotton to accomplish their agenda of opposing Bt Cotton. Let the sad farmers suicides be not trivialized by diverting the whole issue.”