Various farmers’ unions, environmentalists, social groups, scientific and health organisations as well as individual intellectuals came together on Friday to oppose the decision of the Punjab Government which recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the multi-national company Monsanto to what was projected as promoting crop diversification.

In a joint statement these organisations claimed that the company had no expertise in diversification. On the contrary, it was averse to any diversification and had a history of monopolistic as well as exploitative practices that favoured monocultures.