The structural barriers to fighting hunger are actually woven into faulty neoliberal economic policies. Until self-sufficiency takes precedence over agricultural exports, vulnerability to food crises in developing countries will continue, says Devinder Sharma in an interview with Eduardo Almeida.
First published on STWR: http://www.stwr.org/food-security-agriculture/the-green-chomsky.html
Devinder Sharma is an analyst on trade and food policy, as well as an award-winning journalist, writer, thinker and researcher. Well known for his forthright views on the implications of the free trade paradigm for agriculture in developing countries, Sharma has been dubbed the ‘Green Chomsky’ by India’s leading English magazine, The Week. Living in New Delhi, he chairs the independent Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security. He also regularly updates the influential blog, Ground Reality – Understanding the politics of food, agriculture and hunger.
This interview was conducted via the internet by Eduardo Almeida, a freelance journalist based in Brazil who specialises in development and agrarian issues.
Eduardo Almeida - Mozambique witnessed food riots in the first week of September. Seven people were killed when protestors voiced angry over bread prices increasing by 30 per cent. Do you think it is likely to trigger a repeat of the global food crisis of 2007-08?
Devinder Sharma - Food riots in Mozambique, and the rising anger in Pakistan, Egypt and Siberia over spiralling food prices shows how vulnerable is the world to food crisis. Although the UN FAO has expressed concern, but does not fear a repeat of the global food crisis of 2007-08, there is no effort to remove the imbalances in the food management system that is responsible for the crisis. Agribusiness giants have in the past made a killing over growing hunger. When the world was witnessing food riots in 37 countries, the stocks of multinational grain trading and agribusiness companies had skyrocketed.
There is no lesson drawn [by most governments] from the food debacle of 2007-08. In fact, the G-20 is encouraging more of the same. It is directing member countries to remove all impediments to allowing foreign direct investments in food retail, and at the same time is aggressively pushing developing countries to remove all trade barriers under the Free Trade Agreements and other regional treaties. Developing countries are therefore increasingly becoming food importing countries. The more the dependence on food imports, the more the vulnerability to food crises. After all, Mozambique witnessed food riots when Russia imposed a ban on wheat exports for another year following the severe drought and wildfires.
What happened to Mozambique in September is a story that can be repeated anywhere in the coming years. Unless the world encourages developing and least developed countries to become self-sufficient in food grains, the threat of impending food riots will remain hanging over nations like the sword of Damocles. But since it hurts the commercial interests of the agribusiness giants, the G-20 is looking the other way.
EA – In other tropical countries (especially in Africa, but also across Latin America), Brazil is increasingly promoting technologies for large scale “green revolution” type grain and meat production in packages that frequently include genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) and chemical inputs that take a heavy toll on the environment. Do you think the so-called “success story of modern Brazilian agribusiness” is a good example for developing tropical countries?
Devinder Sharma - This is a cause for grave concern. Brazil’s deliberate shift from sustainable agriculture, utilizing the vast storehouse of biodiversity and genetic wealth it has, to industrial agriculture, which is ecologically destructive and leads to global warming, is not only leading to the marginalization of the farming communities but is leaving behind a large ecological footprint the cost of which will be borne by the future generations. The ecological debt that Brazil has created in the process outweighs the short-term economic gain that it is looking for. Since there is no way to measure the ecological footprint in economic terms, Brazil seems completely unconcerned.
I am dismayed at the way agribusiness companies, including multinational giants, control the Brazilian economy. Agribusiness thrives on destruction of the pristine forests, poisoning the soils, mining groundwater and contaminating the food chain. Recent studies show that small farmers are the worst hit, and are swarming into the cities. Regardless, the Ministry of Agriculture as well as the Ministry of Commerce appear to be simply facilitating the corporate takeover of agriculture, and are therefore pursuing farm and trade policies that do not protect the farming and livelihood interests, not only of Brazil but also of the other developing countries.
EA – What role do you think democratic countries like India and Brazil could play in the building of a new world order that is free from hunger and promotes sustainable agriculture, respect for biodiversity, social justice and fair commerce? Considering that India is the world’s largest democracy, are you critical of the Indian governments’ unwillingness to prevent recurrent social oppression? If democracy is failing to assure real power to people in so many countries, should democracy be redesigned?
Devinder Sharma - There was a time when Abraham Lincoln had remarked that “democracy is of the people, by the people, for the people.” Today, the so-called democracies across the globe, including India, Brazil and the United States, have turned into “of the industry, by the industry, for the industry.” Big democratic giants among the developing world – Brazil, India, South Africa – are therefore busy creating a new world order where corporate interest reigns supreme. The governments in all these countries have lost touch with the masses, and are following an economic model that does not look beyond business, trade and industry.
In India, which claims to be the world’s largest democracy, there is no plausible justification as to why a third of the 1.2 billion people should be living in hunger. With nearly 47 per cent of the children below the age of six years malnourished, and with 55 per cent of the population classified as poverty-stricken by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), India is projecting itself to be the emerging superpower. In the past few years, ever since India ushered in economic liberalization, the economic disparities have only widened. The rich have become richer and the poor are being driven against the wall. The gradual take-over of the natural resources by industry has created a sense of despair among the tribal communities. Such is the deepening mistrust against the government’s policies in the poorest of the poor regions of India that almost a third of the country, predominantly the mineral-rich belt, is facing rebellion by Maoists.
I wonder how India can be a proud democracy if the successive governments have failed to fulfil the aspirations of the majority population. How can hunger and poverty exist at such an alarming rate in a democracy? The projection of economic growth, which proclaims India to be the second fastest growing economy, therefore has little semblance with the realities. The governments have lost touch with the masses, and the real power is in the hands of the ‘Corporate’. So much so, that a majority of the people’s representatives who are elected to parliament now are millionaires. You cannot win elections if you are not rich. The true essence of democracy has therefore been lost. Democracy has turned into Corporatocracy. I strongly believe that the time has come to have a re-look at what democracy means. Business as usual cannot be allowed to go on for much longer.
EA – You have expressed that stock markets are the main protagonists in causing the depletion of the world’s natural resources, escalating levels of hunger and widening inequalities. Do you believe in alternative ways of development that benefit the excluded majorities and minorities in socially and environmentally sustainable ways?
Devinder Sharma - There is no other innovation (if you don't like to use the word invention) in recent times that has not only influenced but hastened the process of unbridled consumption than the emergence of the Wall Street. In fact, the economists may refuse to accept it now, and for obvious reasons, but the stock market will lead the world towards the extinction of the human race that an Australian scientist Frank Fenner has warned us about.
I am amazed at the way the stock markets work. These markets have commodified everything. Much of the world's environmental ills are a direct fallout of the stock market. Stock markets will squeeze every drop of water (or other natural resources) out of the planet. There is a price for everything, including the air you breathe.
The ‘growth economics’ that emergent economies follow is in reality nothing but violent economics. It unleashes violence against natural resources, against the climate, against nature, and also against fellow human beings. It shifts natural, physical as well as financial resources from the hands of the poor into the pockets of the rich and the elite. We have been often told that 20 per cent of the world's population of haves controls and uses the resources of the 80 per cent of the have not. Globalisation further strengthens that monopoly control and widens the already existing disparity. It takes away resources from the hands of the poor, to add on to the wealth of the rich.
EA – Many socially concerned thinkers and economists have been arguing that it is inevitable to first push up GDP by all means and only then implement income distribution policies. Do you think this is an effective strategy?
Devinder Sharma - The economists are a clever breed. They designed GDP as an indicator of growth. They crafted it so deftly that we accepted an indicator of personal wealth to be a pointer to national development. What an illusion of growth they created. They made everything, including global climate, look like a commodity to be sold and exploited. The more you exploit, the more GDP goes up. You can destroy a country in war, and then when you rebuild it, the GDP soars. This is what happened to Iraq.
GDP in layman’s term means the amount of money that exchanges hands. If you buy a car, the GDP goes up. If you cut a tree, the GDP goes up. But if you preserve the tree, the GDP does not grow. Now you have to decide whether you need the tree or the GDP.
If you look at it globally, the increase in GDP has not led to all round development. Even in the United States, the richest country in the world, hunger has broken the 14-year record. Today, every person in 10 in the US is hungry. Unless we reverse this faulty prescription of economic growth, we will never have income being distributed fairly in any population. Let us remember, GDP is not the touchstone to development. It is a smokescreen for the rich to exploit the poor.
EA – In the context of the present economic crisis and its impact on agriculture and food security, what guidelines and approaches, in your opinion, should be adopted by developing countries in order to prevent disasters and resume sustainable social development?
Devinder Sharma - The economic meltdown has brought in globally US $20 trillion as bailout packages. This package has actually gone to those banks and investment firms who in reality should have been penalized for bringing the world economy to the brink. Instead, they have been applauded and honoured for the economic crime they indulged in with all impunity.
The question that needs to be asked is why did the world pump in so much money into banks/investment firms? The answer is to keep the financial flow, which will allow governments to keep the pace of economic growth. I have often asked as to what is the underlying objective of this generosity. The answer I get is to ameliorate hunger and poverty by providing livelihoods, and income opportunities. Unless there is growth, there will not be opportunities for livelihood creation. This is certainly amusing, and smacks of intellectual arrogance bordering stupidity.
What is being conveniently ducked is that the world needs just US $1 trillion to wipe out hunger, disease and poverty from the face of the planet. We don’t have money for that. But we have US $20 trillion for bailing out the corrupt and the crooks in business and industry.
EA – To overcome the political, economic and ideological structural barriers to sustainable development, including zero hunger, is certainly not an easy task. In this struggle, how can we cope with the extra challenges represented by the so-called world emergencies like global warming, climate changes, biodiversity loss and energy crisis?
Devinder Sharma - The structural barriers to social and sustainable development, including fighting hunger, are actually woven in the faulty neoliberal economic policies. The extra challenges of climate change, global warming, loss of biodiversity and the ever-growing energy crisis is also the result of the growth paradigm.
Let me ask you a question. If the economic prescriptions for the global economy that the world has been following were so good, please tell me why has the world come to a tipping point? Why has the planet’s natural resources been polluted and plundered? Why are the rivers flowing dirty, and why are the freshwater sources all drying up? Why has the biodiversity disappeared at an alarming rate, bringing the world closer to extinction? How come the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sponsored by the UN] has to warn that if we do not make any radical change in the way the world is progressing, there is not much time left before the human population collapses? This is a clear indictment of the economic policies that the world has been made to follow. The emergencies that you talk about are the outcome of grossly flawed economic thinking.
The answer lies in what Mahatma Gandhi had told us. He had said that the earth has enough for everyone’s need, but not greed. He had also said that what is needed is a production system by the masses and not for the masses. This in essence is the foundation of the concept of food sovereignty that the civil society talks about. Instead of pushing free trade, using the WTO as the policeman, to basically provide a market for the highly subsidized farm produce of the OECD countries, the world must revert back to attaining food self-sufficiency. Making countries dependent upon food imports is a recipe for disaster, but it certainly adds to GDP – yet we are not told that [increasing trade will also increase] to global warming. Nevertheless, you will be surprised to know that in the past 30 years or so, ever since the World Bank/IMF began the structural adjustment program, 105 of the 149-odd Third World countries have already become food importers. If the Doha Development Round, the way it is being designed, comes to a conclusion soon, mark my words the remaining of the Third World countries would also become food importers in no time. And don’t forget, importing food is like importing unemployment. Food will then become the strongest political weapon.
EA – How do you evaluate the role being played by the UN and its system (UNDP, FAO and others) in the effort to cope with humanity`s major problems? The UN established the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) to be accomplished by 2015. Will that work?
Devinder Sharma – The MDGs are not going to work. I remember when the World Food Summit in 1996 first declared that it is criminal to see that 24,000 people succumb to hunger every day, and the international leadership expressed [an] urgency to address hunger, promising to remove 50 per cent of the estimated 842 million people living then in hunger by the year 2015, I had expressed shock and disgust. I had said that this is a classic case of political dishonesty.
By the time the world promises to remove half the number of hungry, considering that 24,000 people die every day somewhere from hunger, 128 million people would have perished from hunger alone. How can this be called urgency? Isn’t this a crime against humanity?
The MDG’s have merely reiterated the WFS promise. And as we know now, the number of hungry has actually increased – from 842 million in 1996 to 1.1 billion in 2010. The UN can surely bask in the sun, be satisfied with the ‘great’ humanitarian task it is working towards. But the reality is that the UN is no better than the World Bank. The line between the UN and the World Bank has blurred over the years.
EA – What are your views on South-South co-operation? Countries like India and Brazil share similar conditions in many respects but still have relatively weak commercial relations and technical-scientific exchange. Old North-South links, with the inheritances of colonialism, seem to collide with the perspective of Third World countries aligning themselves to cope with common challenges. What do you think India and Brazil could do together to strengthen their struggle against hunger and for sustainable development in respective and other Third World countries?
Devinder Sharma - It looks nice to hear of South-South cooperation. Academicians have used this as the answer to the TINA (There is no alternative) factor. I have always felt amused when I hear of South-South cooperation. I don’t know of any country in the South, which does not aim at emulating the North. Whatever the political leaders might say, they feel honoured when invited to queue up for a photo session at G-20 summits. Academicians do the same; economists of course excel in this. If you look at their CVs, they proudly mention the universities in the North they have visited or worked with.
Even when President Lula and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh talk of bilateral collaboration, it is more often than not to promote the same system they have borrowed from the western countries. In reality, the South-South cooperation if any is built on the same principles of exploitation. The big brother does exactly the same to the smaller cousin what the US does to India and Brazil.
It does not however mean that South-South cooperation is not possible. All it needs as the starting point is trust and respect. This is possible only if the leader of the big developing country exhibits political statesmanship and refrains from being the big fish that eats the smaller one. Let us hope someday someone shows political sagacity, and a new world order would be born.
Africa is launching an ambitious programme, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to increase agricultural production. Kofi Annan [ex-UN Secretary General] is heading this initiative. Unfortunately, this programme is based on industrial farming and encourages corporate takeover of agriculture. AGRA is not what Africa needs. It is here that Africa could have gone in South-South cooperation with countries of the developing world to look for sustainable farming systems that do not kill farmers. Africa needs to learn lessons from the debacle of the green revolution in India. Over 200,000 farmers have committed suicide in the past 15 years in India, essentially because the green revolution equation has gone wrong. I am sure African leaders don’t want their farmers to die. Therefore, Africa does not need AGRA, it needs SAGRA – Sustainable Agriculture for Africa.
Lokayat demonstrates local ingenuity that can bring about a social change
At a Lokayat meeting
People's participation is a catch phrase that every donor, NGO and civil society group uses. In fact, we have become so used to the usual NGO way of 'people's participation' that I think the word has lost its true meaning. I wasn't therefore expecting anything different when I went last week to address a conference on education at Pune, organised jointly by Lokayat and the Pune University Teachers Association (PUTA).
Arriving a day earlier, I spent some time speaking at a management school, and then went to talk to the Lokayat members. It is here that I met a group of youngsters, all volunteers, who changed my perception of what constitutes people's participation. I had forgotten if people's participation could ever be without donor's financial support, and outside the reach of a project. I am not talking of people's movements like the continuing struggle against displacements in the Narmada valley and the likes, but when enterprising young people come together to create awareness about the inequalities that are being perpetuated.
They meet every Sunday at 4 pm. They sit through the evening discussing various crucial local, national and international issues, often till 7 or 8 pm. They thrash out the issues, plan strategies, take responsibilities, and plan activities to reach the people in the street. Someone makes posters, someone writes the pamphlets, others get involved with printing. They all walk to a busy street corner one planned day, and stand with the posters. People walk by, some stand and take a look. They get involved in talking, and more often than not, a new member joins in.
This has been happening for the past five years, week after week, year after year. It could be simple street campaigns, poster exhibitions and street plays, and sometimes protests and dharnas.
It could be 'boycott Coke-Pepsi' one week, 'no more Bhopals' the next. "We organise public awareness campaigns on various issues of deep concern to people. We have organised campaigns on issues like rise in petrol and diesel prices, destructive effects of nuclear energy, privatisation of health-education and electricity, decaying public transport system, and harmful impacts of Bt Brinjal," says Neeraj Jain. His wife Alka Joshi, in addition focuses on women issues. Between both of them I think they have the energy to move mountains.
Lokayat team is drawn from all walks of life. I met young lawyers, engineers, software engineers, school teachers, college lecturers, technicians, government employees, film makers and you name it. Believe it or not, each member contributes 10 per cent of their monthly salary, and some even contribute 20 per cent. "Lokayat does not draw any funding from donors. It is entirely built on the members contribution," says Abhijeet. His wife, also a member, tells me that they have been contributing ever since they joined some three years back.
I haven't seen any other similar initiative which is being run only on members own contribution. This is simply amazing, and provides hope in a society which is increasingly becoming self-centred and of course selfish.
They wanted me to explain how the nation-wide movement against Bt brinjal evolved, and asked me several questions. Such was their interest, that the question-answer session seemed never-ending. But when I asked them as to what draws them to the Lokayat tradition, it was so inspiring to listen to most of them who raised their hands. In essence, what I learnt was that they had consciously adopted a lifestyle that takes them away from greed, which in other words means consumerism. They were committed to fight the global issues from a local perspective. "We can't change the world, but we can change ourselves, and ask people to make the difference at their own individual and family level to begin with."
It is after long that I see a ray of hope. I have often felt that when people become sensitive and aware, society begins to change. The change can be local, but gradually it begins to spread far and wide. I am aware that it is a long process, but it always the first step that sets the pace for a long march. Lokayat has taken that first step, and shown that it is possible to involve people to participate on their own for building a just and equitable world. It has to start with a local struggle, and another local struggle, than another, and a revolution is born.
Before we concluded, Lokayat members were keen to end with a song. "Apne liye jiye to kya jiye (What is the use of living for yourself).." they sang in chorus. The Hindi song still reverberates in my mind, but more than that the energy they exhibited still flows in me. I have come back recharged.
Contact: Neeraj Jain at neerajj61@gmail.com
Gutter Science: Inter-Academy Report on GM Crops
I still can't overcome my disbelief. Such 'distinguished' scientific bodies, and such a shoddy report. I have always said there is good science, there is bad science but this report transgresses all earlier known brackets, and I have no hesitation in saying that the Inter-Academy Report on GM crops (see the pdf copy of the report here: http://bit.ly/cQbyCI) does not even qualify to be put in the category of bad science.
It is Gutter Science.
The Inter-Academy Report on GM Crops -- prepared by the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Academy of Engineering, Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Academy of Medical Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences -- and submitted in September 2010 to the Ministry of Environment & Forests, is no better than the introductory write-ups any graduate student of biotechnology would come out with. In fact, I have a collection of a large number of papers/analysis written by graduate and post-graduate students who seek my comments/views that I would rate much higher than the Inter-Academy report.
The Inter-Academy Report on GM Crops is in fact a disgrace to Indian science. That Indian science was on a downhill path was never in question, but that it had already slipped into a cesspool is a revelation. I wish the presidents of the six Indian Academies had at least read the 19-page report prepared by the Minister for Environment & Forests Jairam Ramesh (and which is available on the website of the ministry) at the time of announcing the moratorium on Bt Brinjal early this year, and they would have known what academic excellence means.
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh had imposed a moratorium on Bt brinjal’s release until there is widespread scientific consensus on its environmental and biosafety aspects. The Inter-Academy report failes to answer any of the concerns/questions that Jairam Ramesh had raised in his paper.
The Inter-Academy report therefore is not a scientific inquiry, but a cheap public relation exercise on behalf of the GM industry. This is a scientific form of corruption, and has to be condemned in as strong words as possible.
You have probably read in newspapers how the key parts of the report -- which supports genetically modified (GM) Bt brinjal’s commercial release -- have been plagiarized from a government newsletter. According to a news report entitled 'Experts Admit GM brinjal Report Faulty' in The Telegraph (Sept 27, 2010): "Six Indian science academies had earlier this week approved the limited release of GM brinjal for cultivation in a joint report that contained 60 lines of plagiarised text, a near verbatim reproduction of an article in a biotechnology advocacy newsletter which itself had lines extracted from an industry-supported publication.
"This is unfortunate — we are devastated. This should not have happened,” said M. Vijayan, the president of the Indian National Science Academy, and a senior faculty member at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. [See the news report at http://bit.ly/9K6D2l]
The cheat slur reminds me of an almost similar incident that disgraced Indian judiciary a few months back. According to a news report: "In a major embarrassment for the Andhra Pradesh judiciary, five judges were caught cheating while writing the LLM ( Master of Law) examination for which they were promptly suspended by the High Court. One of the judges was found copying from a law book hidden under his answer sheet. Written slips and pages torn from textbooks were seized from other judges."
The Andhra Pradesh High Court was at least quick in suspending the judges who were caught cheating. Every time there is a major train accident or an aircrash, we have often seen the minister concerned resigning taking moral responsibility. When politicians can be held responsible for lapses, scientists too should be held accountable when caught with their pants down. Shouldn't the Ministry of Science & Technology therefore sack the six presidents:
-- Dr M Vijayan, Indian National Science Academy.
-- Dr A K Sood, Indian Academy of Sciences.
-- Dr P S Goel, Indian National Academy of Engineering.
-- Dr Mangala Rai, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
-- Dr K K Talwar, National Academy of Medical Sciences.
-- Dr Asis Datta, National Academy of Sciences.
The report ends with two quotations, and this sums up the inherent but brazen bias the Science Acadmies had. The first quote is from a joint statement of six major Academies of the world: “GM technology, coupled with important developments in other areas, should be used to increase the production of main food staples, improve the efficiency of production, reduce the environmental impact of agriculture, and provide access to food for small-scale farmers.” –the Royal Society of London, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy, the Mexican Academy of Sciences, and the Third World Academy of Sciences, In Transgenic Plants and World Agriculture (2000), Document made available by the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi.
If the Indian science academies have to merely endorse what the foreign academies have done than what is the need to have this exercise in the first place. In any case, if you read what the six major academies across the world have said, it becomes crystal clear that science has simply gone into the lap of the industry.
I don't know why the Inter-Academy report fails to even take into consideration another international report, which has been officially endorsed by India. I am talking of the report of the three-year international collaborative effort (2005-07) that culminated in the form of a report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), which clearly states that 'business as usual' is not the way forward. The answer is simple. The people and environment-friendly IAASTD report does not promote the commercial interest of the agribusiness companies.
The second quotation is from Norman Borlaug. "The affluent nations can afford to adopt elitist positions and pay more for food produced by the so-called natural methods; the 1 billion chronically poor and hungry people of this world cannot. New technology will be their salvation, freeing them from obsolete, low-yielding, and more costly production technology.” Dr. Norman E. Borlaug (Nobel Prize Laureate for Peace 1970), Plant Physiology (2000). 124, 487-490.
The report therefore is on the expected lines. This only reinforces what we knew all along. Indian scientists are only capable of copy and paste.
In any case, when these academies were entrusted to come out with a report on GM crops, especially in the context of the public groundswell against genetic contamination of food crops, it should have been known that all these academies are merely letter-head organisations.
These are in reality 'retiring-room' for the retired scientists, most of whom happen to be the former head of organisations which are primarily responsible for doing the damage in the first instance. Take the case of the National Acedemy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS). It is headed by a former Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the umbrella organisation that is primarily responsible for the terrible agrarian distress and cannot wash its hands off the spate of farmer suicides that dot the countryside.
The other national academies are no different. In fact, all these scientific bodies are promoting public-private partnership (PPP) and therefore cannot be expected to stand up against the commercial interests of the biotechnology companies. It will be interesting to know the names of the scientists who contributed to the report, and the research projects they have undertaken in the past along with the funding support.
Meanwhile, Dr M Vijayan, INSA president has been quoted in The Telegraph as saying: "The academies will now examine the report again, introduce references for all text extracted from earlier publications, and release the names of all the scientists who contributed to the report. 'But, he said, the main recommendations are unlikely to change.' This should not be allowed since the report is simply a compilation of what suits the vested interests of these bodies.
I suggest the following:
-- Like the judges caught cheating, the presidents of the six academies should be first removed.
-- There is an urgent need to revamp the science academies. All retired scientists should be removed, and these science academies should include eminent citizens from different walks of life.
-- There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Jairam Ramesh's paper that resulted in the moratorium on Bt brinjal needs to be examined, and all public fears and concerns need to be addressed point-by-point.
Only gutter science will like to bypass social and environmental concerns.
It is Gutter Science.
The Inter-Academy Report on GM Crops -- prepared by the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Academy of Engineering, Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Academy of Medical Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences -- and submitted in September 2010 to the Ministry of Environment & Forests, is no better than the introductory write-ups any graduate student of biotechnology would come out with. In fact, I have a collection of a large number of papers/analysis written by graduate and post-graduate students who seek my comments/views that I would rate much higher than the Inter-Academy report.
The Inter-Academy Report on GM Crops is in fact a disgrace to Indian science. That Indian science was on a downhill path was never in question, but that it had already slipped into a cesspool is a revelation. I wish the presidents of the six Indian Academies had at least read the 19-page report prepared by the Minister for Environment & Forests Jairam Ramesh (and which is available on the website of the ministry) at the time of announcing the moratorium on Bt Brinjal early this year, and they would have known what academic excellence means.
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh had imposed a moratorium on Bt brinjal’s release until there is widespread scientific consensus on its environmental and biosafety aspects. The Inter-Academy report failes to answer any of the concerns/questions that Jairam Ramesh had raised in his paper.
The Inter-Academy report therefore is not a scientific inquiry, but a cheap public relation exercise on behalf of the GM industry. This is a scientific form of corruption, and has to be condemned in as strong words as possible.
You have probably read in newspapers how the key parts of the report -- which supports genetically modified (GM) Bt brinjal’s commercial release -- have been plagiarized from a government newsletter. According to a news report entitled 'Experts Admit GM brinjal Report Faulty' in The Telegraph (Sept 27, 2010): "Six Indian science academies had earlier this week approved the limited release of GM brinjal for cultivation in a joint report that contained 60 lines of plagiarised text, a near verbatim reproduction of an article in a biotechnology advocacy newsletter which itself had lines extracted from an industry-supported publication.
"This is unfortunate — we are devastated. This should not have happened,” said M. Vijayan, the president of the Indian National Science Academy, and a senior faculty member at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. [See the news report at http://bit.ly/9K6D2l]
The cheat slur reminds me of an almost similar incident that disgraced Indian judiciary a few months back. According to a news report: "In a major embarrassment for the Andhra Pradesh judiciary, five judges were caught cheating while writing the LLM ( Master of Law) examination for which they were promptly suspended by the High Court. One of the judges was found copying from a law book hidden under his answer sheet. Written slips and pages torn from textbooks were seized from other judges."
The Andhra Pradesh High Court was at least quick in suspending the judges who were caught cheating. Every time there is a major train accident or an aircrash, we have often seen the minister concerned resigning taking moral responsibility. When politicians can be held responsible for lapses, scientists too should be held accountable when caught with their pants down. Shouldn't the Ministry of Science & Technology therefore sack the six presidents:
-- Dr M Vijayan, Indian National Science Academy.
-- Dr A K Sood, Indian Academy of Sciences.
-- Dr P S Goel, Indian National Academy of Engineering.
-- Dr Mangala Rai, National Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
-- Dr K K Talwar, National Academy of Medical Sciences.
-- Dr Asis Datta, National Academy of Sciences.
The report ends with two quotations, and this sums up the inherent but brazen bias the Science Acadmies had. The first quote is from a joint statement of six major Academies of the world: “GM technology, coupled with important developments in other areas, should be used to increase the production of main food staples, improve the efficiency of production, reduce the environmental impact of agriculture, and provide access to food for small-scale farmers.” –the Royal Society of London, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy, the Mexican Academy of Sciences, and the Third World Academy of Sciences, In Transgenic Plants and World Agriculture (2000), Document made available by the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi.
If the Indian science academies have to merely endorse what the foreign academies have done than what is the need to have this exercise in the first place. In any case, if you read what the six major academies across the world have said, it becomes crystal clear that science has simply gone into the lap of the industry.
I don't know why the Inter-Academy report fails to even take into consideration another international report, which has been officially endorsed by India. I am talking of the report of the three-year international collaborative effort (2005-07) that culminated in the form of a report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), which clearly states that 'business as usual' is not the way forward. The answer is simple. The people and environment-friendly IAASTD report does not promote the commercial interest of the agribusiness companies.
The second quotation is from Norman Borlaug. "The affluent nations can afford to adopt elitist positions and pay more for food produced by the so-called natural methods; the 1 billion chronically poor and hungry people of this world cannot. New technology will be their salvation, freeing them from obsolete, low-yielding, and more costly production technology.” Dr. Norman E. Borlaug (Nobel Prize Laureate for Peace 1970), Plant Physiology (2000). 124, 487-490.
The report therefore is on the expected lines. This only reinforces what we knew all along. Indian scientists are only capable of copy and paste.
In any case, when these academies were entrusted to come out with a report on GM crops, especially in the context of the public groundswell against genetic contamination of food crops, it should have been known that all these academies are merely letter-head organisations.
These are in reality 'retiring-room' for the retired scientists, most of whom happen to be the former head of organisations which are primarily responsible for doing the damage in the first instance. Take the case of the National Acedemy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS). It is headed by a former Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the umbrella organisation that is primarily responsible for the terrible agrarian distress and cannot wash its hands off the spate of farmer suicides that dot the countryside.
The other national academies are no different. In fact, all these scientific bodies are promoting public-private partnership (PPP) and therefore cannot be expected to stand up against the commercial interests of the biotechnology companies. It will be interesting to know the names of the scientists who contributed to the report, and the research projects they have undertaken in the past along with the funding support.
Meanwhile, Dr M Vijayan, INSA president has been quoted in The Telegraph as saying: "The academies will now examine the report again, introduce references for all text extracted from earlier publications, and release the names of all the scientists who contributed to the report. 'But, he said, the main recommendations are unlikely to change.' This should not be allowed since the report is simply a compilation of what suits the vested interests of these bodies.
I suggest the following:
-- Like the judges caught cheating, the presidents of the six academies should be first removed.
-- There is an urgent need to revamp the science academies. All retired scientists should be removed, and these science academies should include eminent citizens from different walks of life.
-- There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Jairam Ramesh's paper that resulted in the moratorium on Bt brinjal needs to be examined, and all public fears and concerns need to be addressed point-by-point.
Only gutter science will like to bypass social and environmental concerns.
Food as a political weapon. Providing some missing links.
The politics of food is intriguing. When Ireland faced Potato Famine some 200 years ago, the first food shipment came from India. Veteran journalist Sunanda K Datta-Ray tells us that China had helped during the Great Bengal Famine. In a spirit of bonhomie, India is now considering to ship food aid to Pakistan to address the human suffering left behind by unprecedented floods.
Food aid however does not come always without strings. Some years back I had written: "In the last 60 years or so, following the great human tragedy of the Bengal famine, food aid was conveniently used as a political weapon. But what is arguably one of the most blatantly anti-humanitarian acts, seen as morally repugnant, is the decision of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to offer US $50 million in food aid to famine-stricken Zimbabwe provided that it is used to purchase genetically modified maize. Food aid therefore is no longer an instrument of foreign policy. It has now become a major commercial activity, even if it means exploiting the famine victims and starving millions."
Before that, in 1974, the United States had used refused to provide food to Bangladesh. "At the height of the 1974 famine in the newly born Bangladesh, the US had withheld 2.2 million tonnes of food aid to 'ensure that it abandoned plans to try Pakistani war criminals'. And a year later, when Bangladesh was faced with severe monsoons and imminent floods, the then US Ambassador to Bangladesh made it abundantly clear that the US probably could not commit food aid because of Bangladesh's policy of exporting jute to Cuba. And by the time Bangladesh succumbed to the American pressure, and stopped jute exports to Cuba, the food aid in transit was 'too late for famine victims'. "
You can read my article Famine as Commerce:
http://www.indiatogether.org/agriculture/opinions/dsharma/faminecommerce.htm
Sunanda K Datta-Ray provides more insight into the politics of food. In an article 'Involved in Mankind' which is pasted below, he says: "Though Harry Truman eventually sanctioned a $190-million loan to buy American wheat, the negotiations dragged on through months of carping criticism. The loan was so hedged in with demands and conditions that little grace was left in the giving. Nehru’s letters to chief ministers confirm his bitterness and sense of humiliation."
Datta-Ray is talking of the times when India was living virtually in a 'ship-to-mouth' existence. No wonder, I can now understand, the kind of humiliation that Jawaharlal Nehru must have undergone at the time of food imports. It is probably for what he was faced with that he made that famous statement from the ramparts of the Red Fort on Aug 15, 1955: "It is very humiliating for any country to import food. So everything else can wait, but not agriculture."
The present political leadership in India is immune to political humiliation. When I look at the way Manmohan Singh pushed for the passage of the Nuclear Liability bill in Parliament, I wonder where are those leaders who had a straight spine. Perhaps it is the industrially produced-processed food that we eat that has numbed us into silence. After all, we are what we eat. And we eat more of processed food nowadays.
Datta-Ray goes on to say: "The PL 480 programme made history with the world’s largest cheque. Though a figure of $59 billion is mentioned as the current value of economic assistance since 1951, the benefits of the partnership that made a hesitant start when Indira Gandhi went to Cancun far outweigh any monetary computation. It is now the bedrock of India’s nuclear development and strategic planning."
"As Inder Kumar Gujral later remarked when India lost the security council election after voting against the comprehensive test ban treaty, “If you defy, do not ask for garlands, bouquets or seats. Every nation has to pay the price for maintaining its self-respect.” Earlier, Europe had accepted the American doctrine when it went for the Marshall Plan.
Anyway, I think the enclosed article provides a great insight into our understanding of the politics of food. Everyone who dribbles into food and agriculture must know of the dirty games being played in the name of hunger and food aid. Unless you see through the ramification of food aid and the politics behind it, I don't think you can ever understand how and why certain food policies are framed.
INVOLVED IN MANKIND
Sympathy for Pakistan’s floods is a reminder of suffering at home
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
Several moving reports of Indians trying to help Pakistanis in their trial by water recall a meeting in Washington 60 years ago to consider India’s dire need for food. Among those present was Pakistan’s first ambassador to the United States of America, M.A.H. Ispahani, a name that was once not without resonance in this city.
India feared a famine of potentially catastrophic dimensions. Its rich wheat fields had been lost in the west, luxuriant paddy growing areas similarly in the east. Flood in the north and drought in the south compounded the peril. Loy Henderson, the vitriolic American ambassador, may have derived perverse satisfaction from reporting that more than two million people would die of starvation without help. His embassy estimated that between eight and 10 million others would perish from diseases connected with malnutrition.
India cut cereal rations by 25 per cent. Jawaharlal Nehru spoke of scouring the world, even China which had helped during the Great Bengal Famine, for food. Burma and Thailand were ready to sell rice but had no shipping. The US had both, a glut of grain and so much idle shipping that some of it had to be put in mothballs. Nehru’s biographer says the Americans were widely expected to give India a million tons of wheat, but there was no sign of such largesse in the White House, state department or Congress.
Nehru referred in passing to India’s crisis during his visit in 1949 but, as is well known, there was no rapport between him and his host. Despite — perhaps because of — Nehru’s famously disdainful remark about not going with a begging bowl, many Americans visualized him with a begging bowl in one hand and a moral microphone in the other. Underlying Dean Acheson’s unsympathetic reference to the tragedy of hunger were deeper differences over China, Korea, the Cold War, Kashmir and Pakistan. When Vijayalakshmi Pandit, India’s ambassador in Washington, formally asked for “two million tons of grain on a long-term basis”, the chairman of the Senate foreign affairs committee made no bones about making food hostage to the “whole question of US relations with India”.
Another feature of American strategy was to include Ispahani in discussions, apparently in order “to forestall Pakistani objections”. There was a precedent from the chaos that followed Partition when Nehru appealed for the loan of 10 US army transport aircraft to rescue 50,000 Hindus stranded in Peshawar. Some 500 who had tried to make it on their own had been ambushed, and 400 cut down: New Delhi feared a retaliatory bloodbath if the news got out or the 50,000 were also massacred. It promised to complete the operation in a week.
The state department insisted on an American commanding officer and Indian responsibility for fuel, oil, maintenance, the crew’s food, quarters and protection. When Nehru, who had already promised to bear all costs, agreed to every stipulation, the US said Pakistan would have to agree. Liaquat Ali Khan did so in principle, but it was not enough. The US “could act only if request made jointly [sic]” by the two governments. The matter petered out.
Against this background, Ispahani attacked India with devotional fervour. Islam succoured the starving, he said piously, but Indians, alas! had brought suffering on themselves through greed which had driven them to abandon cultivating foodgrains for cash crops like jute and cotton. Even now, instead of buying wheat and rice that generous Pakistanis were willing to sell, India was waging economic warfare against Pakistan. The ambassador’s final objection was that American assistance would enable India to conserve her own resources to make additional machine tools and military equipment.
Though Harry Truman eventually sanctioned a $190-million loan to buy American wheat, the negotiations dragged on through months of carping criticism. The loan was so hedged in with demands and conditions that little grace was left in the giving. Nehru’s letters to chief ministers confirm his bitterness and sense of humiliation.
My concern is not the US which had no obligation to feed hungry Indians who couldn’t, as was repeated in those days, make even a pin and had to import everything. Besides, with Pax Americana set to replace Pax Britannica, the US had assumed an awesome global mandate. All its efforts were concentrated on defending values and territories that it feared might succumb to Soviet communism. The Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan, the prime instruments of this strategy until the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was born, were for countries that supported American global aims. India emphatically did not. As Inder Kumar Gujral later remarked when India lost the security council election after voting against the comprehensive test ban treaty, “If you defy, do not ask for garlands, bouquets or seats. Every nation has to pay the price for maintaining its self-respect.”
Besides, the Americans made up handsomely for Truman’s niggardliness. Started four years later, the PL 480 programme made history with the world’s largest cheque. Though a figure of $59 billion is mentioned as the current value of economic assistance since 1951, the benefits of the partnership that made a hesitant start when Indira Gandhi went to Cancun far outweigh any monetary computation. It is now the bedrock of India’s nuclear development and strategic planning.
Pakistan’s reaction doesn’t occasion surprise either. It is unnecessary to revisit the modern factors that compound historical Hindu-Muslim tension, especially since this age of ostentatious iftar parties makes the latter an unfashionable theme. But displays of bonhomie like the Indian and Pakistani ambassadors to the UN turning up together at last Friday’s US Open men’s doubles recall Golda Meir’s acerbic comment that a couple of Oscars would have been more appropriate than the Nobel Peace Prize for Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. This particular “Indo-Pak Express”, as a newspaper called the tennis duo, is not going anywhere beyond the courts.
But the overflow of Indian sympathy for Pakistani flood victims intrigues me. Of course, suffering anywhere touches a chord. An estimated 2,000 dead and a million homeless is tragedy indeed. In John Donne’s often quoted (and misquoted) lines, “No man is an island, entire of itself.” But if “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind”, there are enough deaths nearer home to lament. There are bereaved families nearer home to console. There are destitutes nearer home to provide for. If I turn to more distant distress, it means that having done all I can for the suffering around me, I still have an excess of compassion, energy and resources for the rest of the world. Or else, I see no dividend in helping out with domestic catastrophe.
One wonders whether Rajmohan Gandhi, who teaches at Illinois University, launched a joint appeal for relief funds with Pakistan’s permanent UN representative because he was moved by the magnitude of the disaster or whether he reasoned that the gesture would help to forge Indo-Pakistani friendship. If the former, I would have thought that victims of the cloudburst in Leh or of Orissa’s cholera epidemic have first call on an Indian’s emotions. If the latter, the Pakistani high commission’s brusque rebuff to large numbers of Indians telephoning to offer help confirms how vain are hopes of a thaw. My query about Gandhi applies to all these other volunteers as well. But the Confederation of Indian Industry’s plan to send 25 truckloads of relief material is understandable investment while Suresh and Mala Vazirani in Bombay are eager to fly out 900,000 tents and more because it would help “fellow Sindhis”. I can understand their emotional attachment. Sindh remains home.
There is much wisdom in the proverb, charity begins at home. And talking of home, before they upped anchor for Pakistan, Ispahani and his brother Mahmood lived at 5 and 5/1 Harrington Street, the office and residence today of the American consul-general.#
Source: The Telegraph, Kolkata, Sept 17, 2010
Food aid however does not come always without strings. Some years back I had written: "In the last 60 years or so, following the great human tragedy of the Bengal famine, food aid was conveniently used as a political weapon. But what is arguably one of the most blatantly anti-humanitarian acts, seen as morally repugnant, is the decision of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to offer US $50 million in food aid to famine-stricken Zimbabwe provided that it is used to purchase genetically modified maize. Food aid therefore is no longer an instrument of foreign policy. It has now become a major commercial activity, even if it means exploiting the famine victims and starving millions."
Before that, in 1974, the United States had used refused to provide food to Bangladesh. "At the height of the 1974 famine in the newly born Bangladesh, the US had withheld 2.2 million tonnes of food aid to 'ensure that it abandoned plans to try Pakistani war criminals'. And a year later, when Bangladesh was faced with severe monsoons and imminent floods, the then US Ambassador to Bangladesh made it abundantly clear that the US probably could not commit food aid because of Bangladesh's policy of exporting jute to Cuba. And by the time Bangladesh succumbed to the American pressure, and stopped jute exports to Cuba, the food aid in transit was 'too late for famine victims'. "
You can read my article Famine as Commerce:
http://www.indiatogether.org/agriculture/opinions/dsharma/faminecommerce.htm
Sunanda K Datta-Ray provides more insight into the politics of food. In an article 'Involved in Mankind' which is pasted below, he says: "Though Harry Truman eventually sanctioned a $190-million loan to buy American wheat, the negotiations dragged on through months of carping criticism. The loan was so hedged in with demands and conditions that little grace was left in the giving. Nehru’s letters to chief ministers confirm his bitterness and sense of humiliation."
Datta-Ray is talking of the times when India was living virtually in a 'ship-to-mouth' existence. No wonder, I can now understand, the kind of humiliation that Jawaharlal Nehru must have undergone at the time of food imports. It is probably for what he was faced with that he made that famous statement from the ramparts of the Red Fort on Aug 15, 1955: "It is very humiliating for any country to import food. So everything else can wait, but not agriculture."
The present political leadership in India is immune to political humiliation. When I look at the way Manmohan Singh pushed for the passage of the Nuclear Liability bill in Parliament, I wonder where are those leaders who had a straight spine. Perhaps it is the industrially produced-processed food that we eat that has numbed us into silence. After all, we are what we eat. And we eat more of processed food nowadays.
Datta-Ray goes on to say: "The PL 480 programme made history with the world’s largest cheque. Though a figure of $59 billion is mentioned as the current value of economic assistance since 1951, the benefits of the partnership that made a hesitant start when Indira Gandhi went to Cancun far outweigh any monetary computation. It is now the bedrock of India’s nuclear development and strategic planning."
"As Inder Kumar Gujral later remarked when India lost the security council election after voting against the comprehensive test ban treaty, “If you defy, do not ask for garlands, bouquets or seats. Every nation has to pay the price for maintaining its self-respect.” Earlier, Europe had accepted the American doctrine when it went for the Marshall Plan.
Anyway, I think the enclosed article provides a great insight into our understanding of the politics of food. Everyone who dribbles into food and agriculture must know of the dirty games being played in the name of hunger and food aid. Unless you see through the ramification of food aid and the politics behind it, I don't think you can ever understand how and why certain food policies are framed.
INVOLVED IN MANKIND
Sympathy for Pakistan’s floods is a reminder of suffering at home
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
Several moving reports of Indians trying to help Pakistanis in their trial by water recall a meeting in Washington 60 years ago to consider India’s dire need for food. Among those present was Pakistan’s first ambassador to the United States of America, M.A.H. Ispahani, a name that was once not without resonance in this city.
India feared a famine of potentially catastrophic dimensions. Its rich wheat fields had been lost in the west, luxuriant paddy growing areas similarly in the east. Flood in the north and drought in the south compounded the peril. Loy Henderson, the vitriolic American ambassador, may have derived perverse satisfaction from reporting that more than two million people would die of starvation without help. His embassy estimated that between eight and 10 million others would perish from diseases connected with malnutrition.
India cut cereal rations by 25 per cent. Jawaharlal Nehru spoke of scouring the world, even China which had helped during the Great Bengal Famine, for food. Burma and Thailand were ready to sell rice but had no shipping. The US had both, a glut of grain and so much idle shipping that some of it had to be put in mothballs. Nehru’s biographer says the Americans were widely expected to give India a million tons of wheat, but there was no sign of such largesse in the White House, state department or Congress.
Nehru referred in passing to India’s crisis during his visit in 1949 but, as is well known, there was no rapport between him and his host. Despite — perhaps because of — Nehru’s famously disdainful remark about not going with a begging bowl, many Americans visualized him with a begging bowl in one hand and a moral microphone in the other. Underlying Dean Acheson’s unsympathetic reference to the tragedy of hunger were deeper differences over China, Korea, the Cold War, Kashmir and Pakistan. When Vijayalakshmi Pandit, India’s ambassador in Washington, formally asked for “two million tons of grain on a long-term basis”, the chairman of the Senate foreign affairs committee made no bones about making food hostage to the “whole question of US relations with India”.
Another feature of American strategy was to include Ispahani in discussions, apparently in order “to forestall Pakistani objections”. There was a precedent from the chaos that followed Partition when Nehru appealed for the loan of 10 US army transport aircraft to rescue 50,000 Hindus stranded in Peshawar. Some 500 who had tried to make it on their own had been ambushed, and 400 cut down: New Delhi feared a retaliatory bloodbath if the news got out or the 50,000 were also massacred. It promised to complete the operation in a week.
The state department insisted on an American commanding officer and Indian responsibility for fuel, oil, maintenance, the crew’s food, quarters and protection. When Nehru, who had already promised to bear all costs, agreed to every stipulation, the US said Pakistan would have to agree. Liaquat Ali Khan did so in principle, but it was not enough. The US “could act only if request made jointly [sic]” by the two governments. The matter petered out.
Against this background, Ispahani attacked India with devotional fervour. Islam succoured the starving, he said piously, but Indians, alas! had brought suffering on themselves through greed which had driven them to abandon cultivating foodgrains for cash crops like jute and cotton. Even now, instead of buying wheat and rice that generous Pakistanis were willing to sell, India was waging economic warfare against Pakistan. The ambassador’s final objection was that American assistance would enable India to conserve her own resources to make additional machine tools and military equipment.
Though Harry Truman eventually sanctioned a $190-million loan to buy American wheat, the negotiations dragged on through months of carping criticism. The loan was so hedged in with demands and conditions that little grace was left in the giving. Nehru’s letters to chief ministers confirm his bitterness and sense of humiliation.
My concern is not the US which had no obligation to feed hungry Indians who couldn’t, as was repeated in those days, make even a pin and had to import everything. Besides, with Pax Americana set to replace Pax Britannica, the US had assumed an awesome global mandate. All its efforts were concentrated on defending values and territories that it feared might succumb to Soviet communism. The Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan, the prime instruments of this strategy until the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was born, were for countries that supported American global aims. India emphatically did not. As Inder Kumar Gujral later remarked when India lost the security council election after voting against the comprehensive test ban treaty, “If you defy, do not ask for garlands, bouquets or seats. Every nation has to pay the price for maintaining its self-respect.”
Besides, the Americans made up handsomely for Truman’s niggardliness. Started four years later, the PL 480 programme made history with the world’s largest cheque. Though a figure of $59 billion is mentioned as the current value of economic assistance since 1951, the benefits of the partnership that made a hesitant start when Indira Gandhi went to Cancun far outweigh any monetary computation. It is now the bedrock of India’s nuclear development and strategic planning.
Pakistan’s reaction doesn’t occasion surprise either. It is unnecessary to revisit the modern factors that compound historical Hindu-Muslim tension, especially since this age of ostentatious iftar parties makes the latter an unfashionable theme. But displays of bonhomie like the Indian and Pakistani ambassadors to the UN turning up together at last Friday’s US Open men’s doubles recall Golda Meir’s acerbic comment that a couple of Oscars would have been more appropriate than the Nobel Peace Prize for Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. This particular “Indo-Pak Express”, as a newspaper called the tennis duo, is not going anywhere beyond the courts.
But the overflow of Indian sympathy for Pakistani flood victims intrigues me. Of course, suffering anywhere touches a chord. An estimated 2,000 dead and a million homeless is tragedy indeed. In John Donne’s often quoted (and misquoted) lines, “No man is an island, entire of itself.” But if “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind”, there are enough deaths nearer home to lament. There are bereaved families nearer home to console. There are destitutes nearer home to provide for. If I turn to more distant distress, it means that having done all I can for the suffering around me, I still have an excess of compassion, energy and resources for the rest of the world. Or else, I see no dividend in helping out with domestic catastrophe.
One wonders whether Rajmohan Gandhi, who teaches at Illinois University, launched a joint appeal for relief funds with Pakistan’s permanent UN representative because he was moved by the magnitude of the disaster or whether he reasoned that the gesture would help to forge Indo-Pakistani friendship. If the former, I would have thought that victims of the cloudburst in Leh or of Orissa’s cholera epidemic have first call on an Indian’s emotions. If the latter, the Pakistani high commission’s brusque rebuff to large numbers of Indians telephoning to offer help confirms how vain are hopes of a thaw. My query about Gandhi applies to all these other volunteers as well. But the Confederation of Indian Industry’s plan to send 25 truckloads of relief material is understandable investment while Suresh and Mala Vazirani in Bombay are eager to fly out 900,000 tents and more because it would help “fellow Sindhis”. I can understand their emotional attachment. Sindh remains home.
There is much wisdom in the proverb, charity begins at home. And talking of home, before they upped anchor for Pakistan, Ispahani and his brother Mahmood lived at 5 and 5/1 Harrington Street, the office and residence today of the American consul-general.#
Source: The Telegraph, Kolkata, Sept 17, 2010
Absolute power comes from absolute control over food
Ever since I was a child I have been drinking milk bought directly from a small dairy in my neighbourhood. When I moved to New Delhi, for some months I managed to get my direct supply of milk from a neighbourhood supplier. But soon, the buffalo-keeper moved out his animals under pressure from builders. This was almost two decades back, and since then I am left with little option but to buy processed milk.
However, there are millions in India who can afford to avoid intake of processed milk and I think they are the lucky ones. I wish I could still buy my daily requirement of milk from the small neighbourhood dairies that dot the outskirts of New Delhi, and elsewhere.
I was therefore shocked when I viewed the accompanying video on YouTube.
Police raiding an organic grocery shop in California.
http://bit.ly/bmCNfu
This is certainly outrageous. But this is a grim pointer to where the next battles would be fought. It is not water, as many people believe, but food that will be putting nations at war. You can clearly see, if you want to, where it is coming from. Multinational food giants have been slowly but steadily gaining control over food. They know that absolute control over food is the road to absolute power.
The process of takeover of food simultaneously began on several fronts. It began with Green Revolution in the late 1960s, which was essentially to provide controlled technology to increase farm production in developing countries. This was followed with Structural Adjustment Programme that the World Bank/IMF pushed seeking policy changes through the 150-odd conditionality's that came with every loan. To provide more teeth to the process, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) have been brought in.
Technology is now controlled through the instruments of Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), and unhindered grain trade is made possible by the unjust obligations that developing countries have been made to accept under the so-called free trade paradigm. To complete the control over the entire food chain, the third actor in the game -- food retail -- is now being moved across the national borders. G-20 is pushing for compliance, asking member countries to streamline the norms that facilitate the entry of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Multi-Brand Retail.
Internationally, the food trio -- Monsanto/Syngenta as symbol of the technology providers; Cargill/ADM among the major food trading companies; and Wal-Mart and Tesco representing food retail -- have formed an unholy alliance They operate in unison, making the governments fall in line. Food laws are being changed everywhere across the globe to make it easy for the trio to operate. WTO is helping to push farmers out of agriculture thereby making it easier for these multinationals to march on. IPR laws are bringing the necessary changes in national laws in conformity with internationally designed parameters bringing private control over technology.
The process of takeover of food is now complete.
But there are still irritating impediment on the way to absolute control over food. Alert and conscious consumers are not giving up so easily, and they are gaining in strength. Even in the United States and Europe, more and more people are realising the dangers of processed foods, and silently moving away to organic foods. The annual market for organic foods is growing at a phenomenal 20 per cent. This has to be stopped. So the regulators are now working overtime to outlaw organic foods. The underlying objective is to limit your food choice. You will be left with no option but to buy what the food giants want you to buy. Hobson's choice, isn't it?
In the name of food safety, which is a misnomer, food laws are being changed. S 510 is one such law that the US is considering to bring in. One of the world's most corrupt body -- US FDA -- is at work. It is working overtime to outlaw organic food. The prescription is simple: GM food is what you should be eating, organic food is bad for your health. That's the best it can do. The police raid in an organic store in California therefore is just the beginning. You wait and watch. The day is not far when the police will enter your kitchen. In the name of Mendel in the Kitchen, Nina Fedoroff, presently science advisor to the Secretary of State, is working hard to police your kitchen.
There are some who realise the threat ahead. This is what someone wrote in the comments section of the YouTube: I go to my apt garbage bin and search out empty general mills cereal boxes and various gmo containers, wash them out and sterilize them and place my organic foodstuff inside because I don't want to be dragged down to jail. I can't afford a criminal record, to maintain my job.
I don't know what is happening to the United States. Whenever I see the Statue of Liberty I can't miss the tears in her eyes. Only the Americans refuse to see it. As my film-maker friend Ajay Kanchan often says: America is the country where civil liberties have been mortgaged to the multinationals. People live in virtual tyranny. I am in complete agreement. I can only feel sorry for fellow Americans. But I can assure you the world outside is waiting to help you, to pull you out of the police rule. Come, let us join hands. Let us try to regain our control over what we eat.
And if you still believe, the police is acting right. Read this letter (from someone with the user name 12dogpal): 'They did not ban the H1N1 virus infection at the factory pig farm in Mexico where the virus was released. The pork was still sold in the USA. They didn't close the Wright County Egg farm for poisoning the food supply, they didn't close Wal-Mart for passing out e.coli beef. They didn't stop the drug co's from putting out dangerous drugs, lets face it folks, your government is your worst enemy.'
How true?
As Jawaharlal Nehru had said during the days of the British Raj: Freedom is in peril, defend it with all your might. Start by saying no to S 510. Remember, regaining control over our food is the ultimate freedom.
However, there are millions in India who can afford to avoid intake of processed milk and I think they are the lucky ones. I wish I could still buy my daily requirement of milk from the small neighbourhood dairies that dot the outskirts of New Delhi, and elsewhere.
I was therefore shocked when I viewed the accompanying video on YouTube.
Police raiding an organic grocery shop in California.
http://bit.ly/bmCNfu
This is certainly outrageous. But this is a grim pointer to where the next battles would be fought. It is not water, as many people believe, but food that will be putting nations at war. You can clearly see, if you want to, where it is coming from. Multinational food giants have been slowly but steadily gaining control over food. They know that absolute control over food is the road to absolute power.
The process of takeover of food simultaneously began on several fronts. It began with Green Revolution in the late 1960s, which was essentially to provide controlled technology to increase farm production in developing countries. This was followed with Structural Adjustment Programme that the World Bank/IMF pushed seeking policy changes through the 150-odd conditionality's that came with every loan. To provide more teeth to the process, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) have been brought in.
Technology is now controlled through the instruments of Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), and unhindered grain trade is made possible by the unjust obligations that developing countries have been made to accept under the so-called free trade paradigm. To complete the control over the entire food chain, the third actor in the game -- food retail -- is now being moved across the national borders. G-20 is pushing for compliance, asking member countries to streamline the norms that facilitate the entry of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Multi-Brand Retail.
Internationally, the food trio -- Monsanto/Syngenta as symbol of the technology providers; Cargill/ADM among the major food trading companies; and Wal-Mart and Tesco representing food retail -- have formed an unholy alliance They operate in unison, making the governments fall in line. Food laws are being changed everywhere across the globe to make it easy for the trio to operate. WTO is helping to push farmers out of agriculture thereby making it easier for these multinationals to march on. IPR laws are bringing the necessary changes in national laws in conformity with internationally designed parameters bringing private control over technology.
The process of takeover of food is now complete.
But there are still irritating impediment on the way to absolute control over food. Alert and conscious consumers are not giving up so easily, and they are gaining in strength. Even in the United States and Europe, more and more people are realising the dangers of processed foods, and silently moving away to organic foods. The annual market for organic foods is growing at a phenomenal 20 per cent. This has to be stopped. So the regulators are now working overtime to outlaw organic foods. The underlying objective is to limit your food choice. You will be left with no option but to buy what the food giants want you to buy. Hobson's choice, isn't it?
In the name of food safety, which is a misnomer, food laws are being changed. S 510 is one such law that the US is considering to bring in. One of the world's most corrupt body -- US FDA -- is at work. It is working overtime to outlaw organic food. The prescription is simple: GM food is what you should be eating, organic food is bad for your health. That's the best it can do. The police raid in an organic store in California therefore is just the beginning. You wait and watch. The day is not far when the police will enter your kitchen. In the name of Mendel in the Kitchen, Nina Fedoroff, presently science advisor to the Secretary of State, is working hard to police your kitchen.
There are some who realise the threat ahead. This is what someone wrote in the comments section of the YouTube: I go to my apt garbage bin and search out empty general mills cereal boxes and various gmo containers, wash them out and sterilize them and place my organic foodstuff inside because I don't want to be dragged down to jail. I can't afford a criminal record, to maintain my job.
I don't know what is happening to the United States. Whenever I see the Statue of Liberty I can't miss the tears in her eyes. Only the Americans refuse to see it. As my film-maker friend Ajay Kanchan often says: America is the country where civil liberties have been mortgaged to the multinationals. People live in virtual tyranny. I am in complete agreement. I can only feel sorry for fellow Americans. But I can assure you the world outside is waiting to help you, to pull you out of the police rule. Come, let us join hands. Let us try to regain our control over what we eat.
And if you still believe, the police is acting right. Read this letter (from someone with the user name 12dogpal): 'They did not ban the H1N1 virus infection at the factory pig farm in Mexico where the virus was released. The pork was still sold in the USA. They didn't close the Wright County Egg farm for poisoning the food supply, they didn't close Wal-Mart for passing out e.coli beef. They didn't stop the drug co's from putting out dangerous drugs, lets face it folks, your government is your worst enemy.'
How true?
As Jawaharlal Nehru had said during the days of the British Raj: Freedom is in peril, defend it with all your might. Start by saying no to S 510. Remember, regaining control over our food is the ultimate freedom.
Earthworm can revive global agriculture. Is Bill Gates listening?
Chhatrapati Shahi Munda in his vermicompost unit
He went to the Central Institute for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP) at Lucknow way back in 2002 for a training in medicinal plants, but was attracted to the lowly earthworms. "I thought what is the use of cultivating medicinal plants by poisoning my soil with chemical fertilisers," he said, and added: "I therefore thought of turning my soil itself into a medicine by getting it rid of all the poisons."
"If my soil is good and healthy, my plants too would be healthy and nutritious," Chhatrapati tells me, and I can see the gleam in his eyes.
For the 65-year-old Chhatrapati Shahi Munda, a resident of village Nawagraha, some 40 kms outside Ranchi in Jharkhand, this was the beginning of a journey into the discovery of truth. The truth is that we have forgotten to tend our soils, to rejuvenate the soil micro-organisms, to provide a breathing space to the gasping soils, and in other words to infuse life in the dying soils. "A healthy soil becomes the ultimate medicine. The path to sustainability in farming therefore begins by keeping the soil healthy."
In 2002, Chhatrapati bought 2 kg of earthworms -- the exotic Eisinia fotida species --from the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR). He started using the worms for composting, and gradually started selling earthworms as well as vermicompost to neighbouring farmers. Six years later, in 2008, he had a turnover of Rs 75-lakh (Rs 7.5 million) from vermicompost, producing about 2.5 tonnes of compost every year.
"I want to encourage farmers to take to their own vermicomposting. Instead of buying from me, I feel the best way forward is to educate them to take care of their own needs. So I give them earthworms with the condition that when they multiply the worms, they will return what I gave them." This has caught up with farmers in the neighbouring villages. He sells earthworm for 25 paise/worm. Farmers in at least 10 surrounding villages have adopted vermicomposting.
Not only in Jharkhand, the message is spreading far and wide. His company -- Sarvashree Swarnarekha Enterprises -- is marketing it to Orissa, West Bengal and Assam. "I am keen to ensure that more and more farmers get out of the chemical input trap and stop poisoning their soils." Farmers are realising the mistake they committed all these years, and are slowly but steadily switching over to the sustainable option. The crop yields have gone up by almost double, Chhatrapati claims, and adds that the soils have become rich and porous, the food becoming nutritious. "Take a bite into this," he hands me a maize cob from a nearby field, "you will taste the difference."
How much vermicompost is needed per acre, I asked. "Ideally, 3 quintals (300 kgs) is required to be used in the first year in soils where no chemical fertiliser has been applied. And then every year, your requirement comes down by 20 per cent or so. After a stage, all that you require is 25 kg of vermicompost." For a farm where chemical fertiliser has been used, Chattrapati's advise is to apply 20 quintals (2000 kgs) in the first year.
A bag of 50 kg of vermicompost is priced at Rs 300.
Going around his manufacturing unit, I found Chattrapati trying various innovations. For instance, he has put a layer of bamboo-sticks at the base of the compost pit to protect it from the acidic water that accumulates at the bottom. He also mixes water Hyacinth leaves with cowdung so as to enhance the availability of nitrogen for the worms. Each compost heap laid out in 30x4 ft carries over 100,000 worms, and is ready for composting in 60-90 days.
Why in 60 days, I asked him. He explained: "In 30 days, each worm gives about 10 eggs. It takes about 22 days for the eggs to hatch. So the egg which is delivered on the 30th day needs another 22 days to hatch, which means 52 days. Taking a safe buffer period, I ensure that the compost should be ready for packaging on the 60th day."
For the next two days, I was to travel to Daltonganj (now called Midinanagar) in Palamu district for a talk and also visiting some farmer groups/NGOs. Chattrapati accompanied me, and that gave me the advantage of knowing more about vermicomposting. Interestingly, such was the growing demand for the vermicompost he produces that he got an order for 20 tonnes while we were in travel. "The demand is growing. I am unable to meet the growing demand, and that is why I am keen that more farmers should start cultivating earthworms on their own farms."
We were travelling to meet some of the students of the Chakriya Vikas Pranali (Cyclic Model of Development) that the late Parshu Ram Mishra had initiated a decade back. As someone who had the privilege to know and work with Parshu Ram Mishra from the days of famed Sukho-majri environmental success story of Haryana, I was returning to Palamu to revive my memories, remember the great social scientist and at the same time rekindle the spirit of cooperation that he had imbibed, but which had slowed down over the years.
The response was overwhelming. In my three hours of interaction with people coming in from various villages, I realised that people were willing to take development into their own hands. With a couple of hours, after intense discussions, six people volunteered to initiate a people's programme in their own villages to conserve water and stop the run-off at the village level. This is important considering that Palamu is passing through a severe drought for the third year in a row. A team was formed, two coordinators were nominated, and the next day the entire group met again to lay out an action plan.
Along with water conservation, the other major problem the region faces is hunger. I asked them why people cannot take control over house-hold food security in a village. Why do we have to depend upon government doles when the region itself had a traditional sharing-and-caring food security concept of gola. Again, I was floored when volunteers got up to restart the gola concept. Jugnu, a tribal coming from a village near Ranchi, along with Devender Thakur, a disciple of Parshu Ram Mishra, have promised to start a food distribution centre in their own village based on the principles of gola. They have themselves prescribed a timeline of a month.
Additional Conservator of Forests Ajay Mishra is so bitten by the advantages vermicomposting carries that he has in addition promised to start a farmers cooperative. "Jatka village in Palamu district has come forward to start producing 100 tonnes of vermicompost on a cooperative basis. Two other villages will soon follow," he told me. Ajay Mishra is the son of late Parsu Ram Mishra. All participants agreed that a combination of water conservation methods, sustainable farming by encouraging vermicomposting and cattle rearing, along with house-hold food security is the way forward to emerge out of the perpetual crisis the region faces.
What is clearly apparent is that people do know of the local solutions to local problems. Given a motivation, they are willing to dwell deeper and build up on the traditional and time-tested technologies. I am sure we could probably have had more stimulating discussions and come up with more viable and sustainable options if we had spent more time. In the days to come, the Chakriya Vikas team will look into it more diligently.
I only wish Bill Gates was listening. At the national level, and even at the international level, the development model that is being pushed is based on the sophisticated technologies that the private companies are looking forward to sell. Whether it is Africa or Asia, Bill Gates is now on the forefront and he has even been successful in bringing some of the other billionaires into the development activities. This is certainly welcome, but the litmus test lies in what technologies and approaches are followed. This is where I think Bill Gates has to widen his understanding, and look at the vast array of location-specific and time-tested technologies that can be woven into a social fabric that engulfs the rural areas with happiness.
I am sure the lowly earthworm can help chart the pathway to a truly sustainable agriculture system that does not add to global warming, does not poison the soils, and does not finish groundwater supplies.
We need the earthworm to revive agriculture.
You can reach Chhatrapati at: 09431578590
Hunger proliferates in a democracy; India tops the chart
This is a chart that should put every Indian into shame. Not only an Indian, but also those who swear in the name of democracy. How can people's representatives remain immune to the growing scourge of hunger? Shouldn't this provoke you to ask the basic: why should hunger exist in a democracy?
The illustration above [released ahead of the Sept 20-22 Summit of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)] reflects the monumental failure of the global leadership to address the worst tragedy that a democracy can inflict. Amartya Sen had said that famine does not happen in a democracy, but let me add: hunger perpetuates in a democracy.
The hunger map above is also a reflection of the dishonesty shown by the international leadership to fight hunger. Hunger is the biggest scandal, a crime against humanity that goes unpunished. At the 1996 World Food Summit, political leaders had pledged to pull out half the world's hungry (at that time the figure was somewhere around 840 million) by the years 2015. This commitment was applauded by one and all, including the academicians, policy makers, development agencies and charities, and you name it.
This commitment alone demonstrated the political indifference to mankind's worst crime. Considering FAO's own projections of the number of people succumbing to hunger and malnutrition at around 24,000 a day, I had then said that by the year 2015, the 20 years time limit they had decided to work on, 172 million people would die of hunger. And when the world meets for the MDG Summit in a few days from now, almost 15 years since the WFS 1996, close to 128 million people have already died from hunger.
And you call this an urgency?
No one across the world stood up to call the bluff.
Hunger has instead grown. By 2010, the world should have removed at least 300 million people from the hunger list. It has however added another 85 million to raise the tally to 925 million. In my understanding, this too is a gross understatement. The horrendous face of hunger is being kept deliberately hidden by lowering the figures. In India, for instance, the map shows 238 million people living in hunger. This is certainly incorrect. A new government estimate points to 37.2 per cent of the population living in poverty, which means the hunger tally in India is officially at 450 million. Even this is an understatement. The poverty line is kept so stringent in India (at Rs 17 per person per day) that in the same amount you cannot even think of feeding a pet dog. I wonder how can the poor manage two-square meals a day under this classification.
Hunger is also growing in major democracies. In the US, it has broken a 14-year record, and one in every ten Americans lives in hunger. In Europe, 40 million people are hungry, almost equivalent to the population of Spain. Interestingly, most of the countries in the hunger chart are following democratic forms of governance. And yet, the only country which has made a sizable difference to global hunger is China, which as we all know is not a democracy.
Is it so difficult to remove hunger? The answer is No.
While there is no political will to fight hunger, the business of hunger is growing at a phenomenal rate. The economic growth paradigm that the world is increasingly following in principle aims at minimising hunger, poverty and inequality. But in reality acerbates hunger and inequality. Economists have programmed the mindset of generations in such a manner that everyone genuinely believes that the roadmap to remove hunger passes through GDP. The more the GDP the more will be the opportunities for the poor to move out of the poverty trap. Nothing could be further away from this faulty economic thinking. This is the biggest economic folly that a flawed education system has inflicted.
And it is primarily for this reason that after the 2008 economic meltdown, the international leadership pumped in more than $ 20 trillion to bail out the rich and crooked. On the other hand, removing hunger and poverty from the face of the Earth would cost the world only $ 1 trillion at the most, for which the resources are unavailable. But there is all the money in the world to fill the pockets of the rich, hoping that it would one day trickle down to the poor. Privatising the profits, and socialising the costs. Isn't this political and economic dishonesty?
Hungry stomach offers tremendous business opportunities. Rich economies are buttressed by speculation and free trade in food and agriculture. Opening up of the developing economies provides them opportunities to sell unwanted technologies/goods in the name of development. Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector sees the poor as a business opportunity to bail out the companies from sluggish growth. Micro-finance steps in to empty the pockets of the poor, again in the name of development. So much so that even Climate Change provides tremendous scope to milk the poor.
All this is happening in a democratic world.
Who will feed Uttar Pradesh? In other words, who will feed India in the days to come?
It is the most populous State in the country, and is also the biggest producer of foodgrains. Land acquisitions will take away a third of the cultivable lands for non-farm use. Such huge diversion of farm lands will result in drastic cut in food production, and has threatening socio-political implications.
India is witnessing a thousand mutinies. Pitched battles are being fought across the country by poor farmers, who fear further marginalisation when their land is literally grabbed by the government and the industry. From Mangalore in Karnataka to Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, from Singur in West Bengal to Mansa in Punjab, the rural countryside is literally on a boil. Large chunks of prime agricultural land are being diverted for non-agricultural purposes.
While the continuing struggle against land acquisition for instance by farmers in Aligarh, which took a violent turn, and became a political ploy is being projected as a battle by farmers for big money, the reality is that a majority of the farmers do not want to dispense with their ancestral land. They are being forced to do so. This has serious implications for food security.
Let us take the case of Uttar Pradesh. It is the most populous State in the country, and is also the biggest producer of foodgrains. Western parts of Uttar Pradesh, comprising the fertile Indo-Gangetic plains, have been considered part of the green revolution belt. According to the 2008 Statistical Abstracts of Uttar Pradesh, in addition to 41 million tonnes of foodgrains, the State produces 130 million tonnes of sugarcane and 10.5 million tonnes of potato.
Uttar Pradesh produces more foodgrains than Punjab but because of its huge population, it is hardly left with any surplus. What is however satisfying is that Uttar Pradesh has all these years been at least feeding its own population.
This is expected to change. And that is what I am worried about. The proposed eight Expressways and the townships planned along the route, along with land being gobbled by other industrial, real estate and investment projects are likely to eat away more than 23,000 villages, one fourth of the total number of villages. Although Mayawati government has dropped the townships along the Yamuna expressway, but the company that is investing in real estate claims that as per their pact with the State government, they have to be given land at an alternative location.
Former Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh has in a statement said that one-third of total cultivable land of Uttar Pradesh will be eventually acquired. The State government neither denies nor confirms this, but acknowledges that land diversion is ‘large’.
This means that out of the total area of 19.8 million hectares under foodgrain crops in Uttar Pradesh, one-third or roughly 6.6 million hectares will be shifted from agriculture to non-agriculture activity. Much of the fertile and productive lands of Western Uttar Pradesh will therefore disappear, to be replaced by concrete jungles. In addition to wheat and rice, sugarcane and potato would be the other two major crops whose production will be negatively impacted.
As per rough estimates, 6.6 million hectares that would be taken out of farming would mean a production loss of 14 million tonnes of foodgrains. In other words, Uttar Pradesh will be faced with a terrible food crisis in the years to come, the seeds for which are being sown now. Add to this the anticipated shortfall in potato and sugarcane production, since the area under these two crops will also go down drastically, the road ahead for Uttar Pradesh is not only dark but laced with social unrest.
Already a part of the BIMARU States, Uttar Pradesh will surely see surge in hunger, malnutrition and under-nourishment. I shudder to imagine the socio-economic and political fallout of the misadventure that the government is attempting with such a massive land takeover. If the State government’s can provide an incentive of Rs 20,000 per acre to those farmers whose lands are being taken away, I fail to understand why the same incentive cannot be provided to every farm family to protect agricultural land?
What is not being realised is that Uttar Pradesh alone will send all the estimates of the proposed National Food Security Act go topsy-turvy. At present, as per the buffer norms, the government keeps around 20 to 24 million tonnes as buffer stocks for distribution across the country through the Public Distribution System (PDS). In the last few years however the average foodgrain stocks with the government have been in the range of 45 to 50 million tonnes.
Even with such huge grain reserves, Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has expressed his inability to provide 35 kg of grain per month to every eligible family. Imagine, what will happen when Uttar Pradesh alone will put an additional demand of 14 million tonnes. Who will then feed Uttar Pradesh?
Policy makers say that with rapid industrialisation the average incomes will go up as a result of which people will have the money to buy food from the open market and also make for nutritious choices. But the bigger question is where will the addition quantity of food come from? Already, Punjab and Haryana, comprising the food bowl, are on fast track mode to acquire farm lands. Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab are building up ‘land banks’ for the industry and Rajasthan has allowed the industry to buy land directly from farmers setting aside the ceiling limit.
Internationally, the food situation is worsening ever since the 2008 food crisis when 37 countries were faced with food riots. Even now, food prices globally are on an upswing. As Russia extends the wheat export ban till the next year's wheat harvest sending global prices on a hike, deadly food riots were witnessed last week in Mozambique killing at last seven people. According to news reports, anger is building up in Pakistan, Egypt and Serbia over rising prices.
Knowing that the world can witness a repeat of 2008 food crisis that resulted in food riots in 37 countries, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has called for a special meeting to discuss the implications.
Extended drought and resulting wildfires has caused a 20 per cent drop in wheat harvest in Russia sending the global wheat prices on a spiral. Wheat futures obviously would take advantage, and according to Financial Times wheat prices have gone up by 70 per cent since January. India may therefore find it difficult to purchase food from the global market if it thinks it can bank upon the international markets to bail it out. This is primarily the reason why several countries, mainly China and the countries of the oil rich Middle East are buying lands in Africa, Lain America and Asia to grow food to be shipped back home for domestic consumers.
Gone are the days when a worried Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, while addressing the nation on Aug 15, 1955 from the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi said: "It is very humiliating for any country to import food. So everything else can wait, but not agriculture." That was in 1955. Fifty-five years later, in 2010, UPA-II thinks that food security needs of the nation can be addressed by importing food. Land must be acquired for the industry, because the industrial sector alone will be the vehicle for higher growth. There can be nothing more dangerous than this flawed approach. Is India slipping back into the days of ‘ship-to-mouth’ existence?
India is witnessing a thousand mutinies. Pitched battles are being fought across the country by poor farmers, who fear further marginalisation when their land is literally grabbed by the government and the industry. From Mangalore in Karnataka to Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, from Singur in West Bengal to Mansa in Punjab, the rural countryside is literally on a boil. Large chunks of prime agricultural land are being diverted for non-agricultural purposes.
While the continuing struggle against land acquisition for instance by farmers in Aligarh, which took a violent turn, and became a political ploy is being projected as a battle by farmers for big money, the reality is that a majority of the farmers do not want to dispense with their ancestral land. They are being forced to do so. This has serious implications for food security.
Let us take the case of Uttar Pradesh. It is the most populous State in the country, and is also the biggest producer of foodgrains. Western parts of Uttar Pradesh, comprising the fertile Indo-Gangetic plains, have been considered part of the green revolution belt. According to the 2008 Statistical Abstracts of Uttar Pradesh, in addition to 41 million tonnes of foodgrains, the State produces 130 million tonnes of sugarcane and 10.5 million tonnes of potato.
Uttar Pradesh produces more foodgrains than Punjab but because of its huge population, it is hardly left with any surplus. What is however satisfying is that Uttar Pradesh has all these years been at least feeding its own population.
This is expected to change. And that is what I am worried about. The proposed eight Expressways and the townships planned along the route, along with land being gobbled by other industrial, real estate and investment projects are likely to eat away more than 23,000 villages, one fourth of the total number of villages. Although Mayawati government has dropped the townships along the Yamuna expressway, but the company that is investing in real estate claims that as per their pact with the State government, they have to be given land at an alternative location.
Former Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh has in a statement said that one-third of total cultivable land of Uttar Pradesh will be eventually acquired. The State government neither denies nor confirms this, but acknowledges that land diversion is ‘large’.
This means that out of the total area of 19.8 million hectares under foodgrain crops in Uttar Pradesh, one-third or roughly 6.6 million hectares will be shifted from agriculture to non-agriculture activity. Much of the fertile and productive lands of Western Uttar Pradesh will therefore disappear, to be replaced by concrete jungles. In addition to wheat and rice, sugarcane and potato would be the other two major crops whose production will be negatively impacted.
As per rough estimates, 6.6 million hectares that would be taken out of farming would mean a production loss of 14 million tonnes of foodgrains. In other words, Uttar Pradesh will be faced with a terrible food crisis in the years to come, the seeds for which are being sown now. Add to this the anticipated shortfall in potato and sugarcane production, since the area under these two crops will also go down drastically, the road ahead for Uttar Pradesh is not only dark but laced with social unrest.
Already a part of the BIMARU States, Uttar Pradesh will surely see surge in hunger, malnutrition and under-nourishment. I shudder to imagine the socio-economic and political fallout of the misadventure that the government is attempting with such a massive land takeover. If the State government’s can provide an incentive of Rs 20,000 per acre to those farmers whose lands are being taken away, I fail to understand why the same incentive cannot be provided to every farm family to protect agricultural land?
What is not being realised is that Uttar Pradesh alone will send all the estimates of the proposed National Food Security Act go topsy-turvy. At present, as per the buffer norms, the government keeps around 20 to 24 million tonnes as buffer stocks for distribution across the country through the Public Distribution System (PDS). In the last few years however the average foodgrain stocks with the government have been in the range of 45 to 50 million tonnes.
Even with such huge grain reserves, Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has expressed his inability to provide 35 kg of grain per month to every eligible family. Imagine, what will happen when Uttar Pradesh alone will put an additional demand of 14 million tonnes. Who will then feed Uttar Pradesh?
Policy makers say that with rapid industrialisation the average incomes will go up as a result of which people will have the money to buy food from the open market and also make for nutritious choices. But the bigger question is where will the addition quantity of food come from? Already, Punjab and Haryana, comprising the food bowl, are on fast track mode to acquire farm lands. Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab are building up ‘land banks’ for the industry and Rajasthan has allowed the industry to buy land directly from farmers setting aside the ceiling limit.
Internationally, the food situation is worsening ever since the 2008 food crisis when 37 countries were faced with food riots. Even now, food prices globally are on an upswing. As Russia extends the wheat export ban till the next year's wheat harvest sending global prices on a hike, deadly food riots were witnessed last week in Mozambique killing at last seven people. According to news reports, anger is building up in Pakistan, Egypt and Serbia over rising prices.
Knowing that the world can witness a repeat of 2008 food crisis that resulted in food riots in 37 countries, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has called for a special meeting to discuss the implications.
Extended drought and resulting wildfires has caused a 20 per cent drop in wheat harvest in Russia sending the global wheat prices on a spiral. Wheat futures obviously would take advantage, and according to Financial Times wheat prices have gone up by 70 per cent since January. India may therefore find it difficult to purchase food from the global market if it thinks it can bank upon the international markets to bail it out. This is primarily the reason why several countries, mainly China and the countries of the oil rich Middle East are buying lands in Africa, Lain America and Asia to grow food to be shipped back home for domestic consumers.
Gone are the days when a worried Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, while addressing the nation on Aug 15, 1955 from the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi said: "It is very humiliating for any country to import food. So everything else can wait, but not agriculture." That was in 1955. Fifty-five years later, in 2010, UPA-II thinks that food security needs of the nation can be addressed by importing food. Land must be acquired for the industry, because the industrial sector alone will be the vehicle for higher growth. There can be nothing more dangerous than this flawed approach. Is India slipping back into the days of ‘ship-to-mouth’ existence?
Kofi Annan can help chart a viable and sustainable future for Africa. Not AGRA, Africa needs SAGRA
Kofi Annan is a respected personality.So when he decided to chair the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), it was expected to draw the attention of the African leadership to bring back the focus on agriculture and food security. Sitting far away in India, the original seat of Green Revolution, I watched with interest the pathway AGRA was taking to ensure food security for all.
Green Revolution has become synonymous with food production. The moment you say there is a need to increase production, the chances are that two of the three people you meet would point to Green Revolution as the way forward. Nothing wrong, you would say. In a way I agree. In my understanding, Green Revolution is only indicative of the importance that needs to be accorded to agriculture, but it should not entail going the same route that India had followed.
Indian agriculture is in terrible crisis, a direct fallout of the Green Revolution technology and the accompanying policies. Over 200,000 farmers have taken their own lives, often drinking the pesticides they had brought for killing insects. Another 40 per cent of the Indian farmers (of the 600 million farming population) want to quit agriculture if given a choice. Productivity is on the decline, environment has been contaminated by chemicals, insect equilibrium has been distorted, water table has gone down drastically, organic matter in soils has disappeared, and farm incomes have dropped. In short, the natural resource base has been destroyed beyond recognition. The only gainers are the companies supplying chemical inputs and machines. Their profits continue to soar.
I don't think African leaders would like to bring in an unforeseen disaster in the name of food security. But I guess they are so indebted to the international financial institutions that even if they feel that all is not well, they have little choice but to accept the approach being suggested.
Take a look at the recommendations of the 'concrete outcomes' emerging from the latest meeting of the African Green Revolution Forum that ended at Accra/Ghana in the first week of September. While it may appear to be all pious intention, but to a discerning eye it become obvious that the real motive is to push unwanted technology and finance/capital to Africa. This will sustain the economies of US/Europe already reeling under recession. In a way, AGRA is basically intended to bailout the multinational companies dealing with seed/technology and agribusiness.
In a press release (Sept 7, 2010), the organisers said: the moderators of breakout panel sessions published a series of concrete outcomes, including:
· Empowerment of women throughout the agricultural value chain by accelerating access to improved technology, finance and markets
· Support for an Impact Investment Fund for African Agriculture to scale up access to finance by farmers and agribusinesses
· Increased investment for science, technology and research for food nutrition security
· Accelerated access to improved seed by promoting the entire value chain, including support for plant breeding, seed companies and seed distribution systems
· Improved fertilizer supply systems and more efficient fertilizer value chains
· More inclusive business models linking agri-business, commercial farms and smallholder farmers
· The need for better management of Africa’s water and natural resources
· Acknowledgement that mixed crop livestock systems are the backbone for Africa’s agriculture
While all this may appear fine, I think even in India there was no need for a Green Revolution. My argument is that when India imported the dwarf high-yielding wheat varieties from CIMMYT/Mexico, it knew that varieties alone would not be able to deliver. What came as a package were two important planks of a policy initiative that I call it as 'famine-avoidance' strategies. To ensure that farmers get an incentive to continue farming the same crop, the government set up a mechanism to provide assured prices which became better known as procurement prices. At the same time, it set up a Food Corporation of India (FCI) to mop up the surplus grain that flows into the markets.
Without these two planks, there would have been no Green Revolution.
Just think. If these two strategies were in place prior to the introduction of Green Revolution technology, farmers would have got the necessary support to increase crop production. Crop production did not pick up prior to Green revolution period because there was no assured prices and no assured market.
What is not being realised that the production of wheat and rice (the two most important staples) went up not only because of the high-yielding varieties but because the policy makers had put together the two-planks of the 'famine-avoidance' strategy. Assured prices through the instrument of Minimum Support Price (MSP) became an attraction for the farmer who would normally be squeezed out by the trade at the time of the harvest. At the same time, the government set up a procurement system which ensured that whatever flows into the mandis (and is not purchased by the private trade) would be bought by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and other government agencies.
This means that farmers got an assured price and an assured market. They knew that their efforts would not go abegging. And no wonder, production of mainly four crops -- wheat, rice, sugarcane and cotton -- has gone up. These are the only four crops where the market is assured, whether through the FCI purchase or by the sugar companies etc., and production of these crops has been on the rise.
Africa actually needs to put these two food security planks into place. It has to be backed by a sustainable farming system (among some of the wonderful initiatives are: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47528), which have been demonstrated in several parts of Africa, and provide an assured price and an assured market. Farmers would do the rest. Otherwise, Africa is likely to be destroyed beyond recognition with the kind of 2nd Green Revolution that is being pushed aggressively, and you know by whom.
Kofi Annan is a wise man. I am sure he will have the courage to stand up, and demonstrate that Africa has a viable and sustainable future. Africa needs SAGRA -- Sustainable Agriculture for Africa, and not AGRA.
Green Revolution has become synonymous with food production. The moment you say there is a need to increase production, the chances are that two of the three people you meet would point to Green Revolution as the way forward. Nothing wrong, you would say. In a way I agree. In my understanding, Green Revolution is only indicative of the importance that needs to be accorded to agriculture, but it should not entail going the same route that India had followed.
Indian agriculture is in terrible crisis, a direct fallout of the Green Revolution technology and the accompanying policies. Over 200,000 farmers have taken their own lives, often drinking the pesticides they had brought for killing insects. Another 40 per cent of the Indian farmers (of the 600 million farming population) want to quit agriculture if given a choice. Productivity is on the decline, environment has been contaminated by chemicals, insect equilibrium has been distorted, water table has gone down drastically, organic matter in soils has disappeared, and farm incomes have dropped. In short, the natural resource base has been destroyed beyond recognition. The only gainers are the companies supplying chemical inputs and machines. Their profits continue to soar.
I don't think African leaders would like to bring in an unforeseen disaster in the name of food security. But I guess they are so indebted to the international financial institutions that even if they feel that all is not well, they have little choice but to accept the approach being suggested.
Take a look at the recommendations of the 'concrete outcomes' emerging from the latest meeting of the African Green Revolution Forum that ended at Accra/Ghana in the first week of September. While it may appear to be all pious intention, but to a discerning eye it become obvious that the real motive is to push unwanted technology and finance/capital to Africa. This will sustain the economies of US/Europe already reeling under recession. In a way, AGRA is basically intended to bailout the multinational companies dealing with seed/technology and agribusiness.
In a press release (Sept 7, 2010), the organisers said: the moderators of breakout panel sessions published a series of concrete outcomes, including:
· Empowerment of women throughout the agricultural value chain by accelerating access to improved technology, finance and markets
· Support for an Impact Investment Fund for African Agriculture to scale up access to finance by farmers and agribusinesses
· Increased investment for science, technology and research for food nutrition security
· Accelerated access to improved seed by promoting the entire value chain, including support for plant breeding, seed companies and seed distribution systems
· Improved fertilizer supply systems and more efficient fertilizer value chains
· More inclusive business models linking agri-business, commercial farms and smallholder farmers
· The need for better management of Africa’s water and natural resources
· Acknowledgement that mixed crop livestock systems are the backbone for Africa’s agriculture
While all this may appear fine, I think even in India there was no need for a Green Revolution. My argument is that when India imported the dwarf high-yielding wheat varieties from CIMMYT/Mexico, it knew that varieties alone would not be able to deliver. What came as a package were two important planks of a policy initiative that I call it as 'famine-avoidance' strategies. To ensure that farmers get an incentive to continue farming the same crop, the government set up a mechanism to provide assured prices which became better known as procurement prices. At the same time, it set up a Food Corporation of India (FCI) to mop up the surplus grain that flows into the markets.
Without these two planks, there would have been no Green Revolution.
Just think. If these two strategies were in place prior to the introduction of Green Revolution technology, farmers would have got the necessary support to increase crop production. Crop production did not pick up prior to Green revolution period because there was no assured prices and no assured market.
What is not being realised that the production of wheat and rice (the two most important staples) went up not only because of the high-yielding varieties but because the policy makers had put together the two-planks of the 'famine-avoidance' strategy. Assured prices through the instrument of Minimum Support Price (MSP) became an attraction for the farmer who would normally be squeezed out by the trade at the time of the harvest. At the same time, the government set up a procurement system which ensured that whatever flows into the mandis (and is not purchased by the private trade) would be bought by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and other government agencies.
This means that farmers got an assured price and an assured market. They knew that their efforts would not go abegging. And no wonder, production of mainly four crops -- wheat, rice, sugarcane and cotton -- has gone up. These are the only four crops where the market is assured, whether through the FCI purchase or by the sugar companies etc., and production of these crops has been on the rise.
Africa actually needs to put these two food security planks into place. It has to be backed by a sustainable farming system (among some of the wonderful initiatives are: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47528), which have been demonstrated in several parts of Africa, and provide an assured price and an assured market. Farmers would do the rest. Otherwise, Africa is likely to be destroyed beyond recognition with the kind of 2nd Green Revolution that is being pushed aggressively, and you know by whom.
Kofi Annan is a wise man. I am sure he will have the courage to stand up, and demonstrate that Africa has a viable and sustainable future. Africa needs SAGRA -- Sustainable Agriculture for Africa, and not AGRA.
In the footsteps of Marie Antoinette: so what if you don't have food, at least walk as you talk using the free mobile phone
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government is literally chasing the legacy left behind by the French Queen Marie Antoinette. She had said: "let them eat cake, if they can't get bread." The UPA-II government is providing free mobile phones to the hungry and poor.
There can be nothing more despicable.
Like Marie Antoinette, the Union IT Minister Sachin Pilot, in whose political constituency the public-sector BSNL distributed the free mobile handsets, is not remorseful. "It is a good start made by the BSNL to make people below the poverty line feel like they too can be part of the telecom revolution. My best wishes are with them," he said in media interviews.
Free mobile handsets for the ultra-poor comes at a time when India is faced with an uproar over rotting foodgrains on the one hand, and more than 320 million living in hunger on the other. While the Prime Minister has turned down a Supreme Court's directive to distribute the rotting foodgrains to the needy, he has no problems giving them mobile phones instead.
You can read the news report and also view the news video here: http://bit.ly/aYrozU
The more they use the phone, if at all, the more will be their monthly expenditure on phone calls, and this will add on to the country's GDP. The nation needs to thank the Prime Minister and his government for finding an 'innovative' way to increase GDP. Who said you can't have economic growth from hungry stomachs. Manmohan Singh is an economist, and he certainly knows it better.
It also tells us that while food is not a right, having a cell phone is.
In America, from where India borrows its economic policies, the government subsidises cell phones for the poor. About 73 per cent of adults in poverty own a mobile handsets. In a saturated market, the profits may not be large, but still the service providers are happy. According to PC World (July 9, 2010): Service providers can receive up to $10 per month in subsidies, sufficient to cover what amounts to about $3 in service.
You qualify to receive a cell phone if you are already participating in other State or Federal assistance program such as Federal Public Housing Assistance, Food Stamps and Medicaid. You also qualify if your total household income is at or below 135% of the poverty guidelines set by your State and/or the Federal Government.
And look at how unabashedly TracFone spokesman Jose Fuentes defends the scheme: Having a telephone service, just in general, is not a privilege, it should be a right of each one. Everyone should be in contact, everybody should have the opportunity to get a phone call, especially if it's an employer."
Anyway, there may be justification for the free cell phone scheme for the American poor who in any case receive food stamps and social security to remain afloat, the same cannot be imposed in India. In fact, this is not the first time (see the article below) when phones have taken priority over food for the hungry. I am more worried at the way The Knowledge Commission has joined hands with the IT industry to sell computers in the poverty-stricken regions of the country. Not only phones, the hungry will also have access to computers.
At a time the US is kicking them out, you will see the Indian IT industry now focus aggressively on pushing computers for the rural areas. The more the sales to the poor (even if it is subsidised or provided free by the government, IT industry will get its money) the more is the probability of maintaining a lifestyle that the IT employees have got used to.
Some years back, I wrote: While researching for my book “In the Famine Trap” (published by UK Food Group, London) I was travelling in the infamous Kalahandi region of western Orissa. It was during that time some hunger-related deaths were reported from Bolangir district. I drove to the village to meet the families of those who had succumbed to hunger. As I was approaching the dusty village what appalled me was the sight of two huge satellite towers installed right in the heart of the village. Believe it or not, each house in the village had a satellite telephone. The inhabitants of the village didn’t have food to eat but were provided with telephones.
Satellite towers in a village where people had nothing to eat ! That surely is an ingenious way to bridge the technology divide so as to help the poverty-stricken join the mainline stream of upwardly mobile !!
You can read the complete article The Business of Hunger at: http://www.stwr.org/food-security-agriculture/the-business-of-hunger.html
There can be nothing more despicable.
Like Marie Antoinette, the Union IT Minister Sachin Pilot, in whose political constituency the public-sector BSNL distributed the free mobile handsets, is not remorseful. "It is a good start made by the BSNL to make people below the poverty line feel like they too can be part of the telecom revolution. My best wishes are with them," he said in media interviews.
Free mobile handsets for the ultra-poor comes at a time when India is faced with an uproar over rotting foodgrains on the one hand, and more than 320 million living in hunger on the other. While the Prime Minister has turned down a Supreme Court's directive to distribute the rotting foodgrains to the needy, he has no problems giving them mobile phones instead.
You can read the news report and also view the news video here: http://bit.ly/aYrozU
The more they use the phone, if at all, the more will be their monthly expenditure on phone calls, and this will add on to the country's GDP. The nation needs to thank the Prime Minister and his government for finding an 'innovative' way to increase GDP. Who said you can't have economic growth from hungry stomachs. Manmohan Singh is an economist, and he certainly knows it better.
It also tells us that while food is not a right, having a cell phone is.
In America, from where India borrows its economic policies, the government subsidises cell phones for the poor. About 73 per cent of adults in poverty own a mobile handsets. In a saturated market, the profits may not be large, but still the service providers are happy. According to PC World (July 9, 2010): Service providers can receive up to $10 per month in subsidies, sufficient to cover what amounts to about $3 in service.
You qualify to receive a cell phone if you are already participating in other State or Federal assistance program such as Federal Public Housing Assistance, Food Stamps and Medicaid. You also qualify if your total household income is at or below 135% of the poverty guidelines set by your State and/or the Federal Government.
And look at how unabashedly TracFone spokesman Jose Fuentes defends the scheme: Having a telephone service, just in general, is not a privilege, it should be a right of each one. Everyone should be in contact, everybody should have the opportunity to get a phone call, especially if it's an employer."
Anyway, there may be justification for the free cell phone scheme for the American poor who in any case receive food stamps and social security to remain afloat, the same cannot be imposed in India. In fact, this is not the first time (see the article below) when phones have taken priority over food for the hungry. I am more worried at the way The Knowledge Commission has joined hands with the IT industry to sell computers in the poverty-stricken regions of the country. Not only phones, the hungry will also have access to computers.
At a time the US is kicking them out, you will see the Indian IT industry now focus aggressively on pushing computers for the rural areas. The more the sales to the poor (even if it is subsidised or provided free by the government, IT industry will get its money) the more is the probability of maintaining a lifestyle that the IT employees have got used to.
Some years back, I wrote: While researching for my book “In the Famine Trap” (published by UK Food Group, London) I was travelling in the infamous Kalahandi region of western Orissa. It was during that time some hunger-related deaths were reported from Bolangir district. I drove to the village to meet the families of those who had succumbed to hunger. As I was approaching the dusty village what appalled me was the sight of two huge satellite towers installed right in the heart of the village. Believe it or not, each house in the village had a satellite telephone. The inhabitants of the village didn’t have food to eat but were provided with telephones.
Satellite towers in a village where people had nothing to eat ! That surely is an ingenious way to bridge the technology divide so as to help the poverty-stricken join the mainline stream of upwardly mobile !!
You can read the complete article The Business of Hunger at: http://www.stwr.org/food-security-agriculture/the-business-of-hunger.html
After offshoring, Obama needs to crack down on farmland grab
US President Obama continues cracking down the whip on offshoring firms. "For years, our tax code has given billions of dollars in tax breaks that encourage companies to create jobs and profits in other countries, I want to change that," Obama said in a speech at Ohio. And then goes on to add: "I'm proposing a more generous, permanent extension of the tax credit that goes to companies for all the research and innovation they do right here in Ohio, right here in the United States of America."
Obama has certainly exhibited exemplary political courage to take the bull by the horn. Sooner or later, the G-8 country leadership will understand the importance and long-term impact of President Obama's initiative. I am sure they will have to follow suite, once they realise the folly of financial jugglery that goes on in the name of economic growth.
At the same time, global leadership has to come to grips with the grave and disastrous consequences that awaits ahead from another dastardly offshore outsourcing that is going on with impunity. Yes, you guess it right. I am talking of the farmland grab that goes on unchecked. President Obama needs to focus his attention on the 're-colonisation' that is taking place. I know you will think why should President Obama meddle in the affairs of other countries. I agree, but at least he can stop the American agribiz and finance companies from indulging in offshore farmland grab.
A delegation of Punjab farmers led by India's Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is currently (from Sept 3-13) on a visit to Brazil and Argentina looking for buying or leasing large tracts of land. According to news reports, Sukhbir Singh Badal deputy chief minister of Punjab is also part of the delegation. A farmer, who is cultivating over 30,000 hectares in Argentina, has already given a presentation to the members of the delegation.
Ironically, a recent report by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has brought out how small farmers in Brazil, for instance, are abandoning farming and swarming in to the urban centres. So on the one hand Brazil is driving away its own farmers, on the other it is inviting Indian farmers to come and cultivate the land left behind. What a flawed model of development? Your own farmers go landless while you handover farming to imported farmers.
Africa too is aggressively promoting farm land grab. With the support of the African governments, Indian farmers are likely to grab extensive tracts of land. Africa therefore has become an easy target. I draw your attention to one of my earlier blog posting on land grab in Africa (http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com/2009/06/food-pirates-are-extending-their-reach.html).
In another news report 'Indian firms gung ho on LatAm agri biz', the Economic Times (Sept 8, 2010) says: "Indian company Shree Renuka Sugars recently made it to the club of top five sugar producers in Brazil, South America’s largest country and the world’s biggest sugarcane producer." This is happening in a country which has recently decided to turn back foreign investors in agriculture. I am sure when President Lula's nominee wins the October elections, this rule will be all but forgotten. That's what a lot of people fear.
When I mentioned this to an economic journalist in New Delhi, I was told that Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has stakes in Renuka Sugar, and that makes the jigsaw puzzle simple knowing the interest the minister has been taking to protect the sugar industry. I have no way of verifying Sharad Pawar's involvement with Renuka Sugar, but I think the journalist is better informed than me. Many believe his travel to Brazil is actually to draw tie-ups with Brazilian sugar companies in the light of his proposed de-control of sugar sector in India.
Meanwhile, here is the IANS news report from the Economic Times:
Indian firms gung ho on LatAm agri biz
IANS, New Delhi
INDIAN companies are increasingly getting a foothold into South America, acquiring assets and land not just to get entry into its lucrative agricultural market but also to export commodities such as sugar, pulses and edible oils back to India.
According to Latin American diplomats serving here, Indian company Shree Renuka Sugars recently made it to the club of top five sugar producers in Brazil, South America’s largest country and the world’s biggest sugarcane producer.
India’s largest sugar refiner, Shree Renuka Sugars, had first bought a sugar and ethanol producer, Vale Do Ivai S.A. Acucar E Alcool, in November 2009 for $240 million, including its 18,000 hectares of land and cane crushing capacity of 3.1 million tonnes annually. A few months later, in February, it invested another $329 million for a 51% stake in Equipav SA Acucar e Alcool, that owns two sugar mills with 10.5 million tonnes annual capacity, as well as, 115,000 hectares of cane growing land in southeastern Brazil. The diplomats said other Indian companies are also vying to get into the lucrative sugar industry. These include a consortium led by state-run Bharat Petroleum Corp, as well as private sugar companies like Rajashree and Godavari.
Mumbai-based Bajaj Hindusthan already has a subsidiary in Brazil, Bajaj Internacional Participators Ltd, to scout for investment opportunities in the country. But, it’s not just sugar and Brazil, which are attracting Indian corporate groups.
“It is a natural synergy for Indian companies to look at South America for agriculture. Cultivable land is at a premium in India and growing food overseas to import it back to the country is winwin for both sides,” said a senior diplomat, requesting anonymity. “Frankly, there is also not much sensitivity about the issue of land in South America due to the low population, unlike, say, in Africa where it is often a political hot potato,” the diplomat added.
Interests in sugar and ethanol aside, Sterling Group has a 2,000 hectare olive farm in Argentina, while Solvent Extractors Associations of India — made up of 16 member companies — plans to invest $50 million to grow oilseeds in Uruguay.
Similarly, Olam, a company owned by a non-resident Indian with headquarters in Brazil, cultivates 30,000 hectares of peanut production in Argentina. Indian companies are also increasingly looking for farm assets in Latin America for import of pulses, edible oils and sugar. In 2009, India imported over $1 billion worth of edible oils from Brazil.
Obama has certainly exhibited exemplary political courage to take the bull by the horn. Sooner or later, the G-8 country leadership will understand the importance and long-term impact of President Obama's initiative. I am sure they will have to follow suite, once they realise the folly of financial jugglery that goes on in the name of economic growth.
At the same time, global leadership has to come to grips with the grave and disastrous consequences that awaits ahead from another dastardly offshore outsourcing that is going on with impunity. Yes, you guess it right. I am talking of the farmland grab that goes on unchecked. President Obama needs to focus his attention on the 're-colonisation' that is taking place. I know you will think why should President Obama meddle in the affairs of other countries. I agree, but at least he can stop the American agribiz and finance companies from indulging in offshore farmland grab.
A delegation of Punjab farmers led by India's Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is currently (from Sept 3-13) on a visit to Brazil and Argentina looking for buying or leasing large tracts of land. According to news reports, Sukhbir Singh Badal deputy chief minister of Punjab is also part of the delegation. A farmer, who is cultivating over 30,000 hectares in Argentina, has already given a presentation to the members of the delegation.
Ironically, a recent report by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has brought out how small farmers in Brazil, for instance, are abandoning farming and swarming in to the urban centres. So on the one hand Brazil is driving away its own farmers, on the other it is inviting Indian farmers to come and cultivate the land left behind. What a flawed model of development? Your own farmers go landless while you handover farming to imported farmers.
Africa too is aggressively promoting farm land grab. With the support of the African governments, Indian farmers are likely to grab extensive tracts of land. Africa therefore has become an easy target. I draw your attention to one of my earlier blog posting on land grab in Africa (http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com/2009/06/food-pirates-are-extending-their-reach.html).
In another news report 'Indian firms gung ho on LatAm agri biz', the Economic Times (Sept 8, 2010) says: "Indian company Shree Renuka Sugars recently made it to the club of top five sugar producers in Brazil, South America’s largest country and the world’s biggest sugarcane producer." This is happening in a country which has recently decided to turn back foreign investors in agriculture. I am sure when President Lula's nominee wins the October elections, this rule will be all but forgotten. That's what a lot of people fear.
When I mentioned this to an economic journalist in New Delhi, I was told that Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has stakes in Renuka Sugar, and that makes the jigsaw puzzle simple knowing the interest the minister has been taking to protect the sugar industry. I have no way of verifying Sharad Pawar's involvement with Renuka Sugar, but I think the journalist is better informed than me. Many believe his travel to Brazil is actually to draw tie-ups with Brazilian sugar companies in the light of his proposed de-control of sugar sector in India.
Meanwhile, here is the IANS news report from the Economic Times:
Indian firms gung ho on LatAm agri biz
IANS, New Delhi
INDIAN companies are increasingly getting a foothold into South America, acquiring assets and land not just to get entry into its lucrative agricultural market but also to export commodities such as sugar, pulses and edible oils back to India.
According to Latin American diplomats serving here, Indian company Shree Renuka Sugars recently made it to the club of top five sugar producers in Brazil, South America’s largest country and the world’s biggest sugarcane producer.
India’s largest sugar refiner, Shree Renuka Sugars, had first bought a sugar and ethanol producer, Vale Do Ivai S.A. Acucar E Alcool, in November 2009 for $240 million, including its 18,000 hectares of land and cane crushing capacity of 3.1 million tonnes annually. A few months later, in February, it invested another $329 million for a 51% stake in Equipav SA Acucar e Alcool, that owns two sugar mills with 10.5 million tonnes annual capacity, as well as, 115,000 hectares of cane growing land in southeastern Brazil. The diplomats said other Indian companies are also vying to get into the lucrative sugar industry. These include a consortium led by state-run Bharat Petroleum Corp, as well as private sugar companies like Rajashree and Godavari.
Mumbai-based Bajaj Hindusthan already has a subsidiary in Brazil, Bajaj Internacional Participators Ltd, to scout for investment opportunities in the country. But, it’s not just sugar and Brazil, which are attracting Indian corporate groups.
“It is a natural synergy for Indian companies to look at South America for agriculture. Cultivable land is at a premium in India and growing food overseas to import it back to the country is winwin for both sides,” said a senior diplomat, requesting anonymity. “Frankly, there is also not much sensitivity about the issue of land in South America due to the low population, unlike, say, in Africa where it is often a political hot potato,” the diplomat added.
Interests in sugar and ethanol aside, Sterling Group has a 2,000 hectare olive farm in Argentina, while Solvent Extractors Associations of India — made up of 16 member companies — plans to invest $50 million to grow oilseeds in Uruguay.
Similarly, Olam, a company owned by a non-resident Indian with headquarters in Brazil, cultivates 30,000 hectares of peanut production in Argentina. Indian companies are also increasingly looking for farm assets in Latin America for import of pulses, edible oils and sugar. In 2009, India imported over $1 billion worth of edible oils from Brazil.
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