The Director General
International Crop Research Institute for Semi arid Tropics
Patancheru
Medak District
Anhdra Pradesh, India

We the farmers of Medak District in Andhra Pradesh have seen ICRISAT from its inception and have watched it grow with pride.

We were delighted that the CGIAR had chosen our district to set up a Centre to research on the crops that we have been growing in this region since millennia.

We were excited that ICRISAT will bring experts from all over the world to look at the knowledge accumulated in our part of the world for thousands of years on these crops, our soils and our farming systems. We thought these experts will build a new agriculture on the foundations of our knowledge.

This did happen for some years. We fondly remember those scientists who came to us and did long participatory research on pigeonpea, on chickpea and tried to build watersheds on the foundation of our knowledge.

But now it seems all this is the story from a very distant past. Over the last few years we, farmers from these resource poor regions seem to be completely out of your agenda. You seem to be blinded by big business, biotechnology and the agenda they have brought in. We clearly understand that this will totally eliminate small farmers like us from your work. We understand by being in this new league you have firmly shut the ICRISAT doors on we women who have been the backbone of millet farming by saving seeds, by keeping alive biodiversity on our farms.

Incidentally, BIODIVERSITY. Dear ICRISAT, do your remember this word at all? Or has it fallen completely out of your dictionary? We do remember that several years ago, you used to have an entire division devoted to it. But we hardly read it about it in your reports and pronouncements these days. We understand that Biotechnology is the new mantra with you and you have been so totally seduced by it that you have probably started mistaking it for Biodiversity?

We also understand that you are talking the language that Life[destroying] Industry talks. You are talking about biofortification of crops.

You came to build life in all its integrity. Not to split it into small atoms, disintegrate it, and like a cheap mechanic, start techno-fixes.

What a fall, ICRISAT!

And what do we hear from you these days? An institution, where scientists toiled hard on farmers fields, worked along with them, built up constant dialogues with them, is now turning over its Board Rooms to transnational corporations like Syngenta whose mandate is to replace farmers from agriculture and turn it into a Corporate stock exchange! Is this just, ICRISAT? Is this why you were born?

And incidentally, what is your current mandate, ICRISAT?

We understand you have set up a biotech park, you are gleefully opening up your facilities to private industry for a small fee? Is this what they call Sell Out?

Who did you ask before you did it ICRISAT? You were built with public money contributed with the taxes of billions of us, farmers, from all over the world. Did we ask you to turn out into a cheap function hall, which willingly hires out its facility to anyone who gives it some money?

Having done this, are you not brokering our resources to private business?

And let us come to the new threat. You and your sister institutions in CGIAR, we believe, are also planning to peddle our bioresources to private business. Will that not be counted as a crime against humanity ICRISAT and CGIAR?

Incidentally, we see a large board in front of your palatial complex declaring: ICRISAT: SCIENCE WITH A HUMAN FACE.

Is this true? Do you have a Human Face? Why has it been kept so invisible from us, ICRISAT?

We have started being terrified of you ICRISAT. You have lost our trust.

Once upon a time, in trust, we handed over to you, a large number of germplasms. The seeds we had nourished like our own children. Seeds which were a product of generations of our own knowledge.

Now we are afraid that you will sell that out to the biggest bidder. Because you claim to be cash starved.

We will not let that happen, ICRISAT.

Please hand us back our germplasm. Close down your gene banks. They have already turned into Gene Morgues. Now they will be turned by you into seeds for predatory corporate profits. THIS IS OUR HERITAGE, GIVE IT BACK TO US.

If you are cash starved, let us fight together. We don't want you to sell the family silver, the heritage of humanity for your own survival. We don't want you to sell your soul to the industry. Let us ask all our governments to put more money in you. And build ICRISAT into an independent scientific institution working with dignity and being proud of its independence.

This so that you will start a new era of research will be farmer demanded, farmer designed and farmer led,

If you are incapable of it, please admit it openly.

If you are incapable of it, isn't it better that you close down, ICRISAT.

We will be very sad for it. You are like a grown up daughter of ours. Your fading out from our midst will be very sad for us.

But if with your closure we can prevent a far greater tragedy to farming communities all over the world, we might even accept it as inevitable.

Think if you can.

And do let us know what you think.

With best wishes for your survival with dignity, pride and Human face.

If that is possible.

Signed

Begari Sammamma
[Village Bidakanne, Jharasangam Mandal, Medak District]

Begari Laxmamma
[Village Humnapur, Nyalkal Mandal, Medak District]

Dandu Swaroopamma
[Village Edakulapalle, Jharasangam Mandal, Medak District]

Moligeri Chandramma
[Village Bidakanne, Jharasangam Mandal, Medak District]

ON BEHALF OF THOUSANDS OF WOMEN FARMERS FROM MEDAK DISTRICT, WHO HAVE SIGNED THIS LETTER ON BEHALF OF BILLIONS OF OUR SISTERS ALL OVER THE WORLD.