In August 1998, mustard oil adulteration in India led to a series of deaths due to ‘dropsy’. An immediate ban was announced on mustard oil sales in India and on all edible oils sold unpackaged.
India’s food diversity is in a large measure based on oilseed diversity. Different regions consume mustard, coconut, groundnut, sesame, linseed, safflower etc. 80% of the edible oil is processed in the small-scale sector on ‘ghanis’ which operate on tiny amounts of capital but provide pure and nutritious oil to consumers locally.
The ban on mustard and on unpackaged oil is equivalent to a death sentence to India’s oilseed diversity, food cultures and small-scale industry. While the indigenous oil industry is being pushed to extinction, a food and crop monoculture is being created through free imports of soyabean, and a shift from diverse edible oils grown and processed locally to a few crops grown globally and processed in large-scale industrial systems.
The shift from diversity to monocultures is also a shift from economic democracy to monopolies - from ownership of seed to control over trade and processing. The shift from diverse and decentralised food systems is justified on grounds of food safety. But food safety is not guaranteed, since industrial oils in general, and soyabean in particular, bring their own health hazards. New hazards are also being introduced through genetically engineered soyabean.
Because of the power of the soyabean and the biotechnology industry, consumers are being denied information on these food hazards. They are also being denied the right to know that they eat and the right to choose what they eat, by resistance to labelling. Recent studies have concluded that excessive concentrations of soya interfere with the absorption of vitamins and minerals in the digestive tract, particularly with the breakdown of protein. Because they contain a high level of oestrogen, they have serious impacts on reproductive health, on the development of the foetus, and can cause sterility. Soya products have also been linked with cancer of the pancreas. In addition to these hazards, soya that has been genetically engineered increases allergies and resistance to antibiotics. There is a high probability that the soya that is imported from the US is genetically engineered. Further, the new varieties of soya that are being pushed by the MNCs in the seed industry are also genetically engineered. In view of these finds, the replacement of the domestically popular oils like mustard and groundnut with soya on a large-scale can be hazardous to the health of the Indian people.
In a very real way, the mustard oil crisis in India reveals how the consumers across the world are being denied the right to food democracy, and are being coerced to participate in a food totalitarianism and food monoculture. Keeping mustard oil alive is thus becoming central to an agenda for genuine economic freedom for small producers and poor consumers. It is to contribute towards building links between biodiversity, cultural diversity and economic democracy that Navdanya has published this short report.
The Navdanya research team consisted of Ms Maya Jani, Afsar H. Jafri, Dr. Jyotsna and Gitanjali Bedi. Navdanya (nine seeds) is a national programme for the conservation of agricultural biodiversity and the promotion of sustainable agriculture initiated by the Research Foundation for Science, technology and Ecology.

Navdanya is accessible on Ph. 6968077, 6853772,
Fax: 011-6856795. E-mail: vshiva@giasdel01.vsnl.net.in
Internet: http://www.ipsil.com.vshiva/

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