What affect do international seed companies and corporate agriculture have on farmers in Africa?

Corporate GMO Rock my Cotton Socks 

By Adam Funck, Natalie Ball, Dave Bell, and Loren Weber

Ouagadougou, Burkino Faso - If you’re a farmer in Burkino Faso, Monsanto’s Bt cotton strain is definitely for you! Why would you not want to use the seeds that a multinational corporation owns the rights too? I don’t want to have to save seed every year, that’s just annoying. Besides, heirloom crops are so last season. GM crops are our mediocre future. As one of only three countries in Africa, including South Africa and Sudan, Burkino Faso would be ridiculous to stop using GM crops. After all, cotton production will rise by 25% this year, following Burkino Faso’s discontinuation of Monsanto’s cotton strain (Agroecology). Why on Earth would you stop using GM seeds that increased your crop yields by 20% back in 2015 just because you can increase yields even more without the GM seeds? Nobody really needs the money from selling all that cotton. Burkino Faso is already in debt by 11 billion U.S dollars anyways (Countrymeters.info). Actually, you can sell less crops and they’ll be of lower quality because the GM seeds result in a shorter fiber length for the cotton, reducing their market value. I think we can all agree with random person Dave Bell when he says “My cotton shirt was made in Honduras anyways. Who cares what their cotton is like. It won’t ever get to Honduras, so I’ll never touch that stuff.” Besides, wouldn’t it be great to grow a crop that you wouldn’t even be able to sell to Europe just because the crops grown were genetically modified and kind of crappy (Krinninger)? Also, without these corporations to tell us what to grow, who’s going to take our land from us and pay us below minimum wage? We are clearly not able to make decisions about what our best agriculture ventures are anyway. 

 Agroecology: The Bold Future of Farming in Africa." PAEPARD. GMWatch, 23 Feb. 2017. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.
 Krinninger, Theresa. "Burkina Faso Abandons GM Cotton."DW.COM. Deutsche Welle, 28 June 2016. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.
 Countrymeters.info. “Burkina Faso Economy.” Countrymeters, countrymeters.info/en/Burkina_Faso/economy. Accessed 13 Apr. 2017.