The Mustard Oil Conspiracy

Ecologist, The, June, 2001 by Vandana Shiva

The popular, and disturbing, view was that responsibility lay with the multinational corporations who were desperately seeking to export their soyabeans to India. What made this thesis more credible was the fact that although the United States government had imposed trade sanctions on India in May 1998 to penalise the country for undertaking nuclear tests in defiance of US demands, an exception was suddenly made for the export of agricultural commodities. This is unlikely to have been a purely spontaneous gesture -- it is much more likely that it was a response to heavy lobbying on the part of the multinationals.

At that time, US-based multinationals were faced with a serious problem. They could no longer dispose of their genetically engineered soya in Europe, where it was increasingly being rejected by consumers who had forced their respective governments to insist that GM foods be properly labelled. In addition, the US public was beginning to view such foods with suspicion. A wide ranging coalition of scientists, health professionals, consumers, farmers, and religious leaders, had filed a law suit demanding mandatory labelling, which would have made such foods very difficult to export.

The problem was particularly serious given that by 1998 some 18 million acres in the US had been planted with genetically engineered `Round-up Ready' soyabeans, which were specifically designed to create a growing demand for Round-up -- the world's best-selling herbicide, produced by Monsanto Corporation. How to get rid of all this increasingly unsaleable produce? The answer could be to dump it on the Third World, in countries such as India, where the public had not yet been alerted to the possible dangers of GM crops.

By encouraging the Indian government to ban the sale of mustard oil throughout the country, the food multinationals were provided with a perfect market opening for their products -- which would enable them to dominate, and on a permanent basis, the market in that country for vegetable oil. And, if traders cannot sell mustard oil, they will not buy mustard from farmers and farmers will stop growing it. This will lead to the extinction of a crop that is central to India's farming system and food culture. Once mustard oil has gone out of cultivation, even were the ban on mustard oil to be lifted, we would still remain dependent on soyabean for our edible oil. If the government were to allow us one day to reintroduce mustard oil it could only be a patented genetically engineered variety - as Monsanto has already patented all the brassica grown in India.

Clearly, a death knell has been sounded for the entire domestic edible oil industry, not for just mustard oil. Farmers will stop growing sesame, linseed, mustard and groundnut in all their diversity since the markets for these crops will also be destroyed. India's agricultural biodiversity will be seriously eroded, hundreds of varieties will be driven to extinction, and, what is more, the livelihoods of millions of small farmers will be destroyed. Crucially, India's food production system will be more vulnerable to world financial volatility.