In the midst of the polarised debate over the need to allow big supermarket retail giants like Wal-Mart and Tesco into India, Uttar Pradesh has laid out a roadmap for expanding the existing network of mandis (market yards) by adding another 2,105 in the next four years.
This step alone will remove the supply-side constraints that we often hear about and provide an assured market for farmers. It is primarily because of the wide network of mandis and that too at an approachable distance that Punjab has turned into a food bowl.
I vividly remember what the distinguished agricultural administrator, late Dr M S Randhawa, had once shared with me. Soon after Punjab had sown the seeds of Green Revolution, the then Chief Minister Laxman Singh Gill had approached Dr Randhawa and asked him as to what he could do so that his name is imbibed in history. Randhawa’s advice to him was to set up a network of link roads that make it easy for farmers to access the mandis.
Laxman Singh Gill made the investment in providing link roads between villages and the procurement centres. The rest is history.
I am so glad to see the Mayawati government making the right kind of marketing investment in agriculture. The proposed network of mandis will save UP farmers from invariably selling their produce in distress. In the absence of a network of mandis there has hardly been a harvest season when farmers have not been exploited and duped by the middlemen. It is not unusual to see farmers carrying their harvested produce to mandis in the neighbouring states. Much of the wheat harvest from western UP every year for instance flows into the mandis in neighbouring Haryana.
UP s the most populous State in the country, and is also the biggest producer of foodgrains. But except for some parts of the western region of UP, agricultural marketing infrastructure remains in its infancy. Farming has therefore been perceived as a curse. In the absence of an assured market, farmers have no incentive to make the right kind of investment for improving production. Nor do they receive the right price for their produce.
Unlike in Punjab and Haryana, which have well-laid out network of mandis and procurement centres, UP had lagged behind all these years. Only 300 procurement centres have existed.
The proposal now is to set up 500 mandis every year. The huge network of mandis when complete will also reduce the average distance a farmer will need to cover to take his harvest to the nearest mandi to approximately seven kms. Instead of handing these mandis to the private sector, as the Planning Commission has been insisting, Chief Minister Mayawati has taken the right decision to let these mandis be operated by the State Agricultural Produce Marketing Board.
There is no denying that over the years commission agents have virtually taken over control of the mandis. Much of this problem is simply because the political parties have handed over the control of the mandis to the arhtiyas (middlemen). Instead of being managed by professionals, most of the mandi boards in the country are being controlled by the commission agents. The answer therefore does not lie in dismantling the mandis and handing them over to the private companies. A better regulatory system without any political interference can rejuvenate the mandi structures, and make it effective.
Nor does the answer lie in allowing the big food supermarkets to set up shop in India. Although the Ministry of Commerce and the Planning Commission are pushing for the entry of big retail giants like Wal-Mart and Tesco into India arguing that big food retail would provide a better price to farmers and also make the produce cheaper for the consumer. The big organised retail is also expected to ensure smooth supply chain linking the farm to the fork, thereby squeezing the middlemen.
I find there is now more pressure to seek entry of private players in the name of more tangible reforms in agricultural marketing. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) says: “So far, in India, while Wal-Mart has succeeded in opening one cash-and-carry outlet since its alliance with Bharati telecom, Tesco has entered into a franchise agreement with Tata Trent, and Carrefour is still scouting for a suitable partner. In the meantime, farmers are robbed in the mandis while consumers pay through their nose to retail vendors.”
This is a flawed argument. Past experience show that big food retail has neither benefited the farmer not the consumer. Nor has the big retail helped in creating jobs.
Claims by the big supermarkets to be driving economic growth by creating thousands of jobs have been exposed as a sham. In England, it has now been shown that super market chains like Tesco and Sainsbury have failed to live up to their promise of creating thousands of jobs and thereby driving up the economy. In the past two years, Tesco had promised to create 1,000 jobs, and Sainsbury another 13,000. Newspaper reports say that Tesco has merely created 726 jobs, while Sainsbury had actually lain off 1,600 job holders.
I have always been saying that if the supermarkets were so efficient and provided dynamism, why the United States is providing massive subsidies to farmers. After all, the world biggest retail giant Wal-mart is based in America and it should have helped American farmers to become economically viable. But it did not happen. American farmers have instead been bailed out by the government, providing a subsidy of Rs 12.50 lakh-crore between 1995 and 2009, and this includes direct income support.
What is therefore urgently required is to set up a nationwide network of mandis in India. This is important knowing that if the mandis had not existed in Punjab, it wouldn’t have turned into the food bowl of the country. Assured procurement in the mandis is what has enabled farmers to get a higher price for their harvest. In Punjab, because of the existence of mandis, you rarely hear of distress sale at the time of harvest. In UP, there is hardly a year when reports of distress sale do not pour in.
It is the absence of mandis in UP that has so far gone to the disadvantage of farmers. According to the National Sample Survey, monthly income of an average farming family in UP is the lowest among all the states. #
How to Keep Poverty Low
In a significant move, the Supreme Court in India has questioned the very basis of counting the poor in the country. Realising that the poverty line is a gross underestimation, the Supreme Court has done what economists had failed to see all these years.
By deliberately keeping the poverty line low, economists and planners had actually betrayed the poor. These faulty poverty estimates became the foundation of the entire development strategies and programmes. No wonder, 64 years after independence, poverty continues to be robustly sustainable.
On top of it, there are so many estimates floating around that I have lost count. Most of these estimates are actually drawn on the same faulty assessment criteria, and therefore have failed to make any appreciable impact on mitigating poverty and inequality.
Now take a look. The Planning Commission had worked out poverty at 27.5 per cent in 2004-05. An expert group set up by the Planning Commission again in 2009 to review the methodology for poverty estimates for the same year (2004-05) upped it to 37.2 per cent, which means a mere statistical readjustment added another 100 million people to the count. And if we go by the international poverty norms of people living on less than $ 1.25 per day than over 456 million Indians live in poverty. But if we go by the Arjun Sengupta commiteee report, which I am discussing later, even this estimate may turn out to be too short.
The National Advisory Council simply pegs poverty at 50 per cent. As if this is not enough, we now have the new Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) which pegs poverty in India at 55 per cent. It has added another ten indicators, including child mortality, school enrolment, drinking water, and sanitation.
Before you get lost, let me decipher the criteria that are used to first gauge the prevailing level of food insecurity and hunger. Previously poverty estimates were done using the calorie norms provided by the Indian Council for Medical Research. Accordingly, 2400 kcal in rural areas and 2100 kcal in urban areas formed the basis of the poverty estimates. This was the basis of earlier Planning Commission poverty estimates. I don't know why the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) uses lower per capita calories consumption cut-off of 1770 kcal.
By keeping the food consumption norms low, the FAO probably succeeds in hiding its own inefficiencies in reducing global hunger. That is why I have always found the Millennium Development Goals action plan to achieve the eight-point poverty goals to be built on a shaky foundation. Current estimate of global poverty by the FAO for instance at 925 million is in itself an underestimation. A realistic poverty estimate for India alone would be around what the FAO projects. According to Arjun Sengupta committee report, 836 million people in India are unable to spend more than 50 US cents a day, and I am sure no one would disagree that these people are not living in poverty.
Read the full article: How to Keep Poverty Low, Huffington Post, Mar 22, 2011
http://huff.to/eO383J
By deliberately keeping the poverty line low, economists and planners had actually betrayed the poor. These faulty poverty estimates became the foundation of the entire development strategies and programmes. No wonder, 64 years after independence, poverty continues to be robustly sustainable.
On top of it, there are so many estimates floating around that I have lost count. Most of these estimates are actually drawn on the same faulty assessment criteria, and therefore have failed to make any appreciable impact on mitigating poverty and inequality.
Now take a look. The Planning Commission had worked out poverty at 27.5 per cent in 2004-05. An expert group set up by the Planning Commission again in 2009 to review the methodology for poverty estimates for the same year (2004-05) upped it to 37.2 per cent, which means a mere statistical readjustment added another 100 million people to the count. And if we go by the international poverty norms of people living on less than $ 1.25 per day than over 456 million Indians live in poverty. But if we go by the Arjun Sengupta commiteee report, which I am discussing later, even this estimate may turn out to be too short.
The National Advisory Council simply pegs poverty at 50 per cent. As if this is not enough, we now have the new Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) which pegs poverty in India at 55 per cent. It has added another ten indicators, including child mortality, school enrolment, drinking water, and sanitation.
Before you get lost, let me decipher the criteria that are used to first gauge the prevailing level of food insecurity and hunger. Previously poverty estimates were done using the calorie norms provided by the Indian Council for Medical Research. Accordingly, 2400 kcal in rural areas and 2100 kcal in urban areas formed the basis of the poverty estimates. This was the basis of earlier Planning Commission poverty estimates. I don't know why the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) uses lower per capita calories consumption cut-off of 1770 kcal.
By keeping the food consumption norms low, the FAO probably succeeds in hiding its own inefficiencies in reducing global hunger. That is why I have always found the Millennium Development Goals action plan to achieve the eight-point poverty goals to be built on a shaky foundation. Current estimate of global poverty by the FAO for instance at 925 million is in itself an underestimation. A realistic poverty estimate for India alone would be around what the FAO projects. According to Arjun Sengupta committee report, 836 million people in India are unable to spend more than 50 US cents a day, and I am sure no one would disagree that these people are not living in poverty.
Read the full article: How to Keep Poverty Low, Huffington Post, Mar 22, 2011
http://huff.to/eO383J
No need for panic on the food production front
The world is almost at the edge. With each passing day, global warming is taking the world closer to a tripping point. There is a looming crisis of sustainability, and equally importantly crisis of feeding the world. So whenever I start reading an article on the emerging food crisis I look forward to something stimulating and sensible enough. I search for some sensible solutions or at least some pointers to take the discussion forward in a meaningful way. But more often than not, I end up utterly disappointed.
Half-way through the article "How we engineered the food crisis" (The Guardian, March 20, 2011), I felt upset. Henry Miller goes on to rant and chant about the virtues of GM crops saying that GM technology provides a tool in the hands of plant breeders to make crops do spectacular new things. I thought he would probably end there, but no he goes to the extent of quoting the GM lobbyist Nina Fedoroff who is now the advisor to Hillary Clinton on GM crops. In essence, the article makes a strong plea to do everything wrong the world can do when it comes to agriculture.
I moved on to the comments section. I was overwhelmed by strong reactions to the article. Reader after reader felt outraged, and came down heavily on the writer. It is there that I learnt that Henry Miller is an employee of the Hoover Institute, which is funded among others by ADM. One letter (with a pseudo name) that caught my eye, and which I would like to share with you, says it all and so correctly:
"Any article talking about food, and whether there is enough grown, or population size, and how many people is too much, that does not mention how much food is grown right now (in the world), how many calories per person of food is grown in the world how much food is projected to be grown over the next few years, is useless and disingenuous. It is notable that the people who argue for more growth of food, or less population, NEVER ever want to address this basic issue."
Yes, that is the catch. There is no shortage of food in the world. We already produce food for 11.5 billion people. In 2050, the world is only expected to have 9 billion people. Which means there is nothing to panic. Even with our present production levels, we can still feed the population by the turn of this century. In terms of calories, although the FAO underestimates global hunger by deliberately lowering the per capita calories consumption norms to 1770 kcal, what is available today is enough to meet the per capita requirement of 4600 kcal.
Panic is in reality being created by the GM industry. They need to sell their unwanted and risky technology, and there are a whole lot of food experts/writers who are willing to oblige these companies. Ministers, bureaucrats, economists and agricultural scientists willingly join the chorus. But you as a reader do not have to fall in the trap. You need to know the facts. You can stand up and question.
Don't forget. The challenge today is how to equitably distribute the abundant food that the world produces. For a population of 6.7 billion on this planet, what we produce is enough to feed double this population. The problem is that one part of the world eats more and the other half is left hungry. No one wants to bridge this gap between the over-fed and the under-fed. Your voice can make the difference.
If you still feel like reading Henry Miller's article, here it is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/20/food-farming
Half-way through the article "How we engineered the food crisis" (The Guardian, March 20, 2011), I felt upset. Henry Miller goes on to rant and chant about the virtues of GM crops saying that GM technology provides a tool in the hands of plant breeders to make crops do spectacular new things. I thought he would probably end there, but no he goes to the extent of quoting the GM lobbyist Nina Fedoroff who is now the advisor to Hillary Clinton on GM crops. In essence, the article makes a strong plea to do everything wrong the world can do when it comes to agriculture.
I moved on to the comments section. I was overwhelmed by strong reactions to the article. Reader after reader felt outraged, and came down heavily on the writer. It is there that I learnt that Henry Miller is an employee of the Hoover Institute, which is funded among others by ADM. One letter (with a pseudo name) that caught my eye, and which I would like to share with you, says it all and so correctly:
"Any article talking about food, and whether there is enough grown, or population size, and how many people is too much, that does not mention how much food is grown right now (in the world), how many calories per person of food is grown in the world how much food is projected to be grown over the next few years, is useless and disingenuous. It is notable that the people who argue for more growth of food, or less population, NEVER ever want to address this basic issue."
Yes, that is the catch. There is no shortage of food in the world. We already produce food for 11.5 billion people. In 2050, the world is only expected to have 9 billion people. Which means there is nothing to panic. Even with our present production levels, we can still feed the population by the turn of this century. In terms of calories, although the FAO underestimates global hunger by deliberately lowering the per capita calories consumption norms to 1770 kcal, what is available today is enough to meet the per capita requirement of 4600 kcal.
Panic is in reality being created by the GM industry. They need to sell their unwanted and risky technology, and there are a whole lot of food experts/writers who are willing to oblige these companies. Ministers, bureaucrats, economists and agricultural scientists willingly join the chorus. But you as a reader do not have to fall in the trap. You need to know the facts. You can stand up and question.
Don't forget. The challenge today is how to equitably distribute the abundant food that the world produces. For a population of 6.7 billion on this planet, what we produce is enough to feed double this population. The problem is that one part of the world eats more and the other half is left hungry. No one wants to bridge this gap between the over-fed and the under-fed. Your voice can make the difference.
If you still feel like reading Henry Miller's article, here it is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/20/food-farming
Whither farmers movement?
I still can’t understand. Mohammed Bouazizi, a 24-year-old vegetable seller in Tunisia, sets himself on fire. Within weeks that fire spread fast forcing Tunisian President Ben Ali to flee the country, deposed Egypt’s long ruling autocrat Hosni Mubarak and is threatening to overthrow Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi in a bloody uprising.
The tremors have still not died down in the rest of Middle East. Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Morocco, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are simmering with discontent. The heat from the fire that began from Tunisia several week’s back still is warm enough to cause political upheavals.
It has been over 15 years when a spate of farmer suicides in Andhra Pradesh had rocked the nation. It was in 1997 when 37 farmers took their own lives unable to bear the crop loss that accrue from the failure of cotton to withstand the attack of the dreaded bollworm pest. Since then, the serial death dance continues unabated. There is hardly a day when reports of farmer committing suicide do not pour in from one part of the country or the other.
More than 2.5 lakh farmers have since then committed suicide. What I don’t understand is that how come one person immolating himself triggers a people’s uprising that brings down undemocratic regimes whereas not less than two farmers taking their own lives every hour – day after day -- fails to even provoke a high-level enquiry. How does one explain this? How come the Arabs feel outraged when a fellow citizen is slapped by a policeman, while Indians remain immune to the bloodbath being enacted on the farm?
The revolt in the Arab world may have been the outcome of a simmering discontent that continued to build up over decades. The spate of farm suicides too is the outcome of a continuing crisis that has been burning the farmlands for several decades now. But while it is easier to blame the unresponsive government and the agricultural scientists and officials for not being able to stem the bloody tide, I fail to come to grips with the possible reason behind the inability of the farmer unions to script the political upheaval.
In a country which has 60-crore farmers, where numerous farm unions – big or small – dot the landscape, it is still beyond my comprehension to figure out why and how the farm movements have remained a mute spectator to the death dance. What has happened to the politically feared farm unions? What has happened to the great farm movement? Is the farm movement in India dying or is it already dead?
Several decades back, I still remember when Sharad Joshi of Shetkari Sanghtana along with a motley crowd of well-to-do farmers owing alliance to Bhartiya Kisan Union swarmed the compound of the Punjab Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh. That was in early 1984. Farmers sat peacefully around the Raj Bhawan building. The gherao lasted a few days. Bhartiya Kisan Union emerged as a formidable voice of the Punjab farmers.
Far away, Narayanswamy Naidu of the Tamil Nadu Farmers Association had led the farmers’ struggles for long. I still recall accompanying him on several of his visits to Punjab. This was the time when BKU was still in the formative stages. The presence of a stalwart like Narayanswamy Naidu did provide a lot of strength to the farmer’s movement in Punajb. Farmer leader Vijay Jawandhia believes that in many ways Narayanswamy Naidu can be called the real architect of BKU.
Narayanswamy Naidu decided to contest elections, and that was the end of the vibrant and powerful Tamil Nadu Farmers Association. Later, Sharad Joshi too decided to fight elections and he is now left without any followers.
Soon thereafter, Prof M D Nanjudaswamy emerged on the scene in Karnataka. Unlike Sharad Joshi and Narayanswamy Naidu who remained confined to farmers immediate problems of unavailability of electricity, and procurement prices, Nanjudaswamy led the campaign against WTO, and the imposition of genetically modified crops till his end came. He gave a new direction to the farmers' anger against the GM crops, knowing that GM would hit the sustainability of farming systems, contaminate the environment, and lead to seed monopolies.
Prof Nanjudaswamy formed the Karnataka Rajya Ryota Sangha. He was convinced that GM technology is part of the same package comprising the World Bank/IMF and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). He devoted his life to fighting for the cause of farmers' pride and their survival against the onslaught of the forces of globalisation that would drive away the farmers from their meagre land holdings.
He succeeded in linking the Indian farmers’ movement internationally. Probably the first farmers' leader from India to be recognized and respected abroad, he gave a new dimension to the farmers' struggle. He effectively used the collective power of the ever-growing anger among the farming communities. Whether it was uprooting Bt cotton plants, or laying a siege around Monsanto's office in Bangalore, or even ransacking the company's office, Prof Nanjudaswamy was always ready to brave the storm. Despite his frail posture, he was never afraid of the police batons nor did a possible jail term intimidate him into backtracking on his conviction.
Simultaneously with the rise of Prof Nanjudaswamy in Karnataka, the emergence of Chowdhury Mahender Singh Tikait of the BKU in Uttar Pradesh remains the golden period of the farm movements. Along with Tikait and Nanjudaswamy, Sunilam too was able to energise the small farmers in central India under the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti. But with the death of Prof Nanjudaswamy and the deteriorating health of Chowdhury Tikait, the farm movements have quietly slipped into oblivion. BKU meanwhile has split into several factions.
Except for a few localised agitations, farmer movement is crying for attention. Much of the decline can be attributed to the political ambitions of some of the stalwarts of the movements. This brings me to the moot question as to why farmers remain a quiet witness to the farm crisis. You can’t expect farmer leaders to call the shot when most of them are aspiring to be in Parliament or the State Assembly. There is nothing wrong in this, some would say. But the same political leaders before whom the farmer leaders bow at the time of elections, surely give a damn to the farmers concerns when they are in power.
The decline of the farmers movement is enabling some regional NGOs to emerge as the farmer’s voice. Some of them have done a remarkable job in highlighting farmer’s woes. At the same time, they have also helped explain and disseminate the negative impact of various international treaties and ongoing negotiations. But the problem is that whether we like it or not, most NGOs act as buffer to quell the anger that prevails at the grassroots. Given the nature of their establishment, it is difficult to expect the NGOs to clamour for change in a manner that it reflects the aspirations of the masses.
Still, not all is lost. I have a feeling that farmers’ anger and hope is not dead. The discontent is brewing, and is perhaps waiting for an honest leadership to lead the way. I can’t tell you when will that happen, but whenever that fire will spread it will change the face of Indian polity forever. Till then, you can only hope that someday someone will ignite the spark that will bring about a change, a change that may define the next course of India's history.
Oh father! Let my country awake !!
The tremors have still not died down in the rest of Middle East. Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Morocco, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are simmering with discontent. The heat from the fire that began from Tunisia several week’s back still is warm enough to cause political upheavals.
It has been over 15 years when a spate of farmer suicides in Andhra Pradesh had rocked the nation. It was in 1997 when 37 farmers took their own lives unable to bear the crop loss that accrue from the failure of cotton to withstand the attack of the dreaded bollworm pest. Since then, the serial death dance continues unabated. There is hardly a day when reports of farmer committing suicide do not pour in from one part of the country or the other.
More than 2.5 lakh farmers have since then committed suicide. What I don’t understand is that how come one person immolating himself triggers a people’s uprising that brings down undemocratic regimes whereas not less than two farmers taking their own lives every hour – day after day -- fails to even provoke a high-level enquiry. How does one explain this? How come the Arabs feel outraged when a fellow citizen is slapped by a policeman, while Indians remain immune to the bloodbath being enacted on the farm?
The revolt in the Arab world may have been the outcome of a simmering discontent that continued to build up over decades. The spate of farm suicides too is the outcome of a continuing crisis that has been burning the farmlands for several decades now. But while it is easier to blame the unresponsive government and the agricultural scientists and officials for not being able to stem the bloody tide, I fail to come to grips with the possible reason behind the inability of the farmer unions to script the political upheaval.
In a country which has 60-crore farmers, where numerous farm unions – big or small – dot the landscape, it is still beyond my comprehension to figure out why and how the farm movements have remained a mute spectator to the death dance. What has happened to the politically feared farm unions? What has happened to the great farm movement? Is the farm movement in India dying or is it already dead?
Several decades back, I still remember when Sharad Joshi of Shetkari Sanghtana along with a motley crowd of well-to-do farmers owing alliance to Bhartiya Kisan Union swarmed the compound of the Punjab Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh. That was in early 1984. Farmers sat peacefully around the Raj Bhawan building. The gherao lasted a few days. Bhartiya Kisan Union emerged as a formidable voice of the Punjab farmers.
Far away, Narayanswamy Naidu of the Tamil Nadu Farmers Association had led the farmers’ struggles for long. I still recall accompanying him on several of his visits to Punjab. This was the time when BKU was still in the formative stages. The presence of a stalwart like Narayanswamy Naidu did provide a lot of strength to the farmer’s movement in Punajb. Farmer leader Vijay Jawandhia believes that in many ways Narayanswamy Naidu can be called the real architect of BKU.
Narayanswamy Naidu decided to contest elections, and that was the end of the vibrant and powerful Tamil Nadu Farmers Association. Later, Sharad Joshi too decided to fight elections and he is now left without any followers.
Soon thereafter, Prof M D Nanjudaswamy emerged on the scene in Karnataka. Unlike Sharad Joshi and Narayanswamy Naidu who remained confined to farmers immediate problems of unavailability of electricity, and procurement prices, Nanjudaswamy led the campaign against WTO, and the imposition of genetically modified crops till his end came. He gave a new direction to the farmers' anger against the GM crops, knowing that GM would hit the sustainability of farming systems, contaminate the environment, and lead to seed monopolies.
Prof Nanjudaswamy formed the Karnataka Rajya Ryota Sangha. He was convinced that GM technology is part of the same package comprising the World Bank/IMF and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). He devoted his life to fighting for the cause of farmers' pride and their survival against the onslaught of the forces of globalisation that would drive away the farmers from their meagre land holdings.
He succeeded in linking the Indian farmers’ movement internationally. Probably the first farmers' leader from India to be recognized and respected abroad, he gave a new dimension to the farmers' struggle. He effectively used the collective power of the ever-growing anger among the farming communities. Whether it was uprooting Bt cotton plants, or laying a siege around Monsanto's office in Bangalore, or even ransacking the company's office, Prof Nanjudaswamy was always ready to brave the storm. Despite his frail posture, he was never afraid of the police batons nor did a possible jail term intimidate him into backtracking on his conviction.
Simultaneously with the rise of Prof Nanjudaswamy in Karnataka, the emergence of Chowdhury Mahender Singh Tikait of the BKU in Uttar Pradesh remains the golden period of the farm movements. Along with Tikait and Nanjudaswamy, Sunilam too was able to energise the small farmers in central India under the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti. But with the death of Prof Nanjudaswamy and the deteriorating health of Chowdhury Tikait, the farm movements have quietly slipped into oblivion. BKU meanwhile has split into several factions.
Except for a few localised agitations, farmer movement is crying for attention. Much of the decline can be attributed to the political ambitions of some of the stalwarts of the movements. This brings me to the moot question as to why farmers remain a quiet witness to the farm crisis. You can’t expect farmer leaders to call the shot when most of them are aspiring to be in Parliament or the State Assembly. There is nothing wrong in this, some would say. But the same political leaders before whom the farmer leaders bow at the time of elections, surely give a damn to the farmers concerns when they are in power.
The decline of the farmers movement is enabling some regional NGOs to emerge as the farmer’s voice. Some of them have done a remarkable job in highlighting farmer’s woes. At the same time, they have also helped explain and disseminate the negative impact of various international treaties and ongoing negotiations. But the problem is that whether we like it or not, most NGOs act as buffer to quell the anger that prevails at the grassroots. Given the nature of their establishment, it is difficult to expect the NGOs to clamour for change in a manner that it reflects the aspirations of the masses.
Still, not all is lost. I have a feeling that farmers’ anger and hope is not dead. The discontent is brewing, and is perhaps waiting for an honest leadership to lead the way. I can’t tell you when will that happen, but whenever that fire will spread it will change the face of Indian polity forever. Till then, you can only hope that someday someone will ignite the spark that will bring about a change, a change that may define the next course of India's history.
Oh father! Let my country awake !!
Why would Monsanto uproots its own Bt maize trial in Bihar?
It is strange. At a time when mega scams are tumbling out of the cupboard every other day, and the electronic media has done a commendable job chasing these scams and keeping the pressure on, somehow you will find that a major scandal in the name of science, and involving the multinational seed giant Monsanto, India's apex regulatory authority -- Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) and the umbrella farm educational and research organisation -- Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) -- will get a quiet burial.
One reason is that the media does not understand the intricacies as well as the grave implications of what illegal GM research trials mean. The other of course is that it involves the MNC giant, and dragging an MNC on prime time day after day will not be 'appropriate' for the sake of foreign direct investments.
If it does not turn into a national issue, it will be a great tragedy, an opportunity lost. Indian science is riddled with massive corruption and it is time to use the broom to clean up the mess. GM maize trial scandal in Bihar provides an opportunity to launch the cleansing process.
Nevertheless, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar deserves all kudos for laying bare the fraudulent ways of GM research in India. In a letter addressed to the Environment & Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh, Nitish Kumar has accused the multinational seed corporation Monsanto, the GEAC and ICAR of conniving to begin trials of GM maize in his State even before it had got clearance from the environment ministry and without informing the state government either, reports Times of India (Mar 15. 2011).
This is scandalous. And this is not the first time it has happened. But this is probably the first time that a Chief Minister has dared to expose the nexus, involving the apex regulatory body as well as multinational giant. Although Jairam Ramesh has promptly asked GEAC to give at least a month's notice to State governments before commencing field trials, I think what is needed urgently is to examine the entire process of scientific approval and the way the GEAC itself has made a mockery of the regulatory regime.
There is a need to hold the country director of Monsanto, as well as the head of GEAC and ICAR accountable for this scientific scandal.
Interestingly, this is also the first time when Monsanto (along with scientists of the Pusa Agricultural University in Bihar where the trials were being conducted) have themselves uprooted the GM crop plants. In his letter, Nitish Kumar says that following Environment Minister's orders, the laid trial was "hurriedly uprooted in an unscientific manner" and that too in the absence of the State Agriculture department. He has also called for a thorough investigation into the 'isolation distance' requirement, and seeks enquiry to know whether safeguard norms for Bt maize as per protocol were followed or not. [Read the news report - GM maize trials done on the sly: Nitish Kumar http://bit.ly/eKZJtf]
Such serious flaws in the regulatory regime had been time and again brought to the notice of GEAC but without any appropriate action. That is why I have always said that GEAC is merely a rubber stamp for the GM industry. Nitish Kumar's letter has vindicated my stand.
Nitish Kumar has also highlighted another major flaw in the seed regulatory laws that does not hold the seed companies liable for any major mishap. While the Seed Bill 2010 is pending before Parliament, the fact remains that it is too soft on the industry. In other words, it actually facilitates the process of private control over seed, and at the same time provides for no exemplary punishment to the seed industry for destroying livelihoods when its seed fails to germinate or to set seeds.
According to the Economic Times (Mar 15, 2011): "Nitish Kumar informed Ramesh of Bihar's "bitter experience of private hybrids" in maize in December 2009-10 , when the state had to step in with distributed assistance to farmers. The state exchequer had to take on an extra burden of Rs 61 crore, which it had to pay as compensation to farmers using private hybrids, on account of "non-formation of grain" . The private companies had disowned their responsibility and the state government had to step in to provide assistance. [Consult States before GM crop trials: Nitish http://bit.ly/eIsRx3]
Nitish Kumar told the media yesterday in Patna that the 'bitter experience' farmers had with hybrid maize seed also pertained to the seed supplied by Monsanto-Mahyco.
It is primarily for this reason that I have been demanding a Seed Liability bill instead of the present Seed Bill that lies before Parliament. You may like to read an earlier post: India Needs a Seed Liability Bill http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com/2010/11/india-needs-seed-liability-bill.html
One reason is that the media does not understand the intricacies as well as the grave implications of what illegal GM research trials mean. The other of course is that it involves the MNC giant, and dragging an MNC on prime time day after day will not be 'appropriate' for the sake of foreign direct investments.
If it does not turn into a national issue, it will be a great tragedy, an opportunity lost. Indian science is riddled with massive corruption and it is time to use the broom to clean up the mess. GM maize trial scandal in Bihar provides an opportunity to launch the cleansing process.
Nevertheless, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar deserves all kudos for laying bare the fraudulent ways of GM research in India. In a letter addressed to the Environment & Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh, Nitish Kumar has accused the multinational seed corporation Monsanto, the GEAC and ICAR of conniving to begin trials of GM maize in his State even before it had got clearance from the environment ministry and without informing the state government either, reports Times of India (Mar 15. 2011).
This is scandalous. And this is not the first time it has happened. But this is probably the first time that a Chief Minister has dared to expose the nexus, involving the apex regulatory body as well as multinational giant. Although Jairam Ramesh has promptly asked GEAC to give at least a month's notice to State governments before commencing field trials, I think what is needed urgently is to examine the entire process of scientific approval and the way the GEAC itself has made a mockery of the regulatory regime.
There is a need to hold the country director of Monsanto, as well as the head of GEAC and ICAR accountable for this scientific scandal.
Interestingly, this is also the first time when Monsanto (along with scientists of the Pusa Agricultural University in Bihar where the trials were being conducted) have themselves uprooted the GM crop plants. In his letter, Nitish Kumar says that following Environment Minister's orders, the laid trial was "hurriedly uprooted in an unscientific manner" and that too in the absence of the State Agriculture department. He has also called for a thorough investigation into the 'isolation distance' requirement, and seeks enquiry to know whether safeguard norms for Bt maize as per protocol were followed or not. [Read the news report - GM maize trials done on the sly: Nitish Kumar http://bit.ly/eKZJtf]
Such serious flaws in the regulatory regime had been time and again brought to the notice of GEAC but without any appropriate action. That is why I have always said that GEAC is merely a rubber stamp for the GM industry. Nitish Kumar's letter has vindicated my stand.
Nitish Kumar has also highlighted another major flaw in the seed regulatory laws that does not hold the seed companies liable for any major mishap. While the Seed Bill 2010 is pending before Parliament, the fact remains that it is too soft on the industry. In other words, it actually facilitates the process of private control over seed, and at the same time provides for no exemplary punishment to the seed industry for destroying livelihoods when its seed fails to germinate or to set seeds.
According to the Economic Times (Mar 15, 2011): "Nitish Kumar informed Ramesh of Bihar's "bitter experience of private hybrids" in maize in December 2009-10 , when the state had to step in with distributed assistance to farmers. The state exchequer had to take on an extra burden of Rs 61 crore, which it had to pay as compensation to farmers using private hybrids, on account of "non-formation of grain" . The private companies had disowned their responsibility and the state government had to step in to provide assistance. [Consult States before GM crop trials: Nitish http://bit.ly/eIsRx3]
Nitish Kumar told the media yesterday in Patna that the 'bitter experience' farmers had with hybrid maize seed also pertained to the seed supplied by Monsanto-Mahyco.
It is primarily for this reason that I have been demanding a Seed Liability bill instead of the present Seed Bill that lies before Parliament. You may like to read an earlier post: India Needs a Seed Liability Bill http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com/2010/11/india-needs-seed-liability-bill.html
Farmers too should be hauled up for soaking veggies/fruits in pesticides
A Delhi-based NGO Consumer Voice had on the basis of a study concluded that fruits and vegetables contain 750 times more pesticides residues and hormones than what is permissible in European Union. What it did not say is that most vegetables sold in Delhi and for that matter across the country more often than not contain 100 per cent pesticide residues.
Don't blame the government, blame yourself. It is because you never felt agitated and you simply accepted whatever was being marketed that both farmers and traders have literally made a killing. Drenching vegetables in chemical pesticides and on top of it applying harmful colours to fruits and vegetables is a common practice.
The above chart appeared along with a news report in The Hindustan Times on March 10, 2011. It tells us what some of the commonly used pesticides do to our body. And yet, we have simply ignored the warnings, and we go on merrily purchasing the pesticides-ridden vegetables and fruits. Nutritionists too have been advising people to consume these chemically-treated vegetables/fruits. The poison on the platter has been the reason behind most of the ailments that the average citizen is afflicted with, but we have simply accepted it as our fate.
The report stated: "Vegetables and fruits finding their way to Delhi markets are a toxic cocktail capable of causing cancer, heart disease and infertility and posing a risk to nervous system and liver. Fresh produce sold in the Capital contains four banned pesticides, the Delhi high court noted on Wednesday, as it ordered surprise checks on traders contaminating their produce with chemicals and endangering people’s health for profit." [Read the report Rat Poison in your Veggies http://bit.ly/eg25dg]
Traders selling contaminated produce will be booked under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act and fined up to Rs1,000 and/or imprisoned up to six years, says the news report. It is because the punishment is not deterring enough that traders continue with the criminal practice. In the past three years, more than 11,000 samples have been collected and 1,344 prosecutions launched, and yet the crime goes on unabated.
Why only traders? And why not farmers?
Over the years, I find that farmers have been mercilessly spraying pesticides and cocktails of chemicals on vegetables/fruits. They know these chemicals are harmful for the people who are going to eat them, but still they spray heavily, generally more than what is recommended. The agricultural university, for instance, never recommends that as many as 24 pesticides sprays need to conducted on tomato. Bhindi, baingan, cauliflower and cabbage are some of the other vegetables that are literally dipped in chemicals. Traders and hawkers too treat with more chemicals and harmful colours simply because they want these veggies to look fresh and attractive. They also treat the harvested produce with deadly chemicals to hasten ripening. Whether it is mango, papaya or bananas, the chances are that what you buy from the market is heavily contaminated. It is at the farmers level that a number of hormones are used to speed up growth. Oxytocin is the most common of these hormones.
And if you think you are safe because you buy from the supermarkets, you are sadly mistaken. Veggies and fruits being sold in the malls have often been found to have higher pesticides residues than what is sold in the open market.
I am aware that many NGOs do not want to point a finger towards the farmers. Let us not be mistaken. Farmers know what they are doing. Don't think they are ignorant. In Punjab, I have seen over the past four decades how farmers keep a patch of their crop field completely free of chemicals, including chemical fertilisers, whereas for the rest of the crop which they know is for the market, they use the chemicals with impunity. The produce from the chemical-free portion of their field is what they use for their own household consumption. Safe food for themselves, and poisonous produce for the market.
The Prevention of Food Adulteration Act therefore needs to be extended to erring farmers. They too need to be held accountable for the harm they are inflicting on unsuspecting consumers.
The bigger responsibility is still with the consumer. If the average consumer was to demand pesticides-free fruits and vegetables, the market will deliver. In other words, your insistence will help force farmers and traders to stop the application of chemical pesticides on fruits and vegetables. Keep on pestering your vegetable vendor to prove how is he saying that what he is selling is chemical-free. The more the consumers start questioning the vendors, the more will be the pressure on him to procure safe food. Demand organically produced vegetables/fruits and then only the markets will source it for you.
At the same time wherever it is possible you need to link up directly with the farmers in your neighbourhood.
On a related note, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar last week said in Parliament that 67 pesticides banned or restricted for use in other countries are being freely used in India. He said: "We take all precautions in allowing use of these pesticides. Certain countries have banned them, but certain countries have allowed their use. We have taken the opinion of the scientific community and considered the interest of the farming community in allowing their use.”
This is not true. There are no precautions worth the name that are being taken. Scientific community literally gets away with murder by hiding behind the argument that such decisions have been taken 'considering the interest of the farming community.' What is best in the interest of the farmers, the consumers and the environment is to stop the use and abuse of chemical pesticides. Only then will scientists and farmers take to safer alternatives.
Don't blame the government, blame yourself. It is because you never felt agitated and you simply accepted whatever was being marketed that both farmers and traders have literally made a killing. Drenching vegetables in chemical pesticides and on top of it applying harmful colours to fruits and vegetables is a common practice.
The above chart appeared along with a news report in The Hindustan Times on March 10, 2011. It tells us what some of the commonly used pesticides do to our body. And yet, we have simply ignored the warnings, and we go on merrily purchasing the pesticides-ridden vegetables and fruits. Nutritionists too have been advising people to consume these chemically-treated vegetables/fruits. The poison on the platter has been the reason behind most of the ailments that the average citizen is afflicted with, but we have simply accepted it as our fate.
The report stated: "Vegetables and fruits finding their way to Delhi markets are a toxic cocktail capable of causing cancer, heart disease and infertility and posing a risk to nervous system and liver. Fresh produce sold in the Capital contains four banned pesticides, the Delhi high court noted on Wednesday, as it ordered surprise checks on traders contaminating their produce with chemicals and endangering people’s health for profit." [Read the report Rat Poison in your Veggies http://bit.ly/eg25dg]
Traders selling contaminated produce will be booked under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act and fined up to Rs1,000 and/or imprisoned up to six years, says the news report. It is because the punishment is not deterring enough that traders continue with the criminal practice. In the past three years, more than 11,000 samples have been collected and 1,344 prosecutions launched, and yet the crime goes on unabated.
Why only traders? And why not farmers?
Over the years, I find that farmers have been mercilessly spraying pesticides and cocktails of chemicals on vegetables/fruits. They know these chemicals are harmful for the people who are going to eat them, but still they spray heavily, generally more than what is recommended. The agricultural university, for instance, never recommends that as many as 24 pesticides sprays need to conducted on tomato. Bhindi, baingan, cauliflower and cabbage are some of the other vegetables that are literally dipped in chemicals. Traders and hawkers too treat with more chemicals and harmful colours simply because they want these veggies to look fresh and attractive. They also treat the harvested produce with deadly chemicals to hasten ripening. Whether it is mango, papaya or bananas, the chances are that what you buy from the market is heavily contaminated. It is at the farmers level that a number of hormones are used to speed up growth. Oxytocin is the most common of these hormones.
And if you think you are safe because you buy from the supermarkets, you are sadly mistaken. Veggies and fruits being sold in the malls have often been found to have higher pesticides residues than what is sold in the open market.
I am aware that many NGOs do not want to point a finger towards the farmers. Let us not be mistaken. Farmers know what they are doing. Don't think they are ignorant. In Punjab, I have seen over the past four decades how farmers keep a patch of their crop field completely free of chemicals, including chemical fertilisers, whereas for the rest of the crop which they know is for the market, they use the chemicals with impunity. The produce from the chemical-free portion of their field is what they use for their own household consumption. Safe food for themselves, and poisonous produce for the market.
The Prevention of Food Adulteration Act therefore needs to be extended to erring farmers. They too need to be held accountable for the harm they are inflicting on unsuspecting consumers.
The bigger responsibility is still with the consumer. If the average consumer was to demand pesticides-free fruits and vegetables, the market will deliver. In other words, your insistence will help force farmers and traders to stop the application of chemical pesticides on fruits and vegetables. Keep on pestering your vegetable vendor to prove how is he saying that what he is selling is chemical-free. The more the consumers start questioning the vendors, the more will be the pressure on him to procure safe food. Demand organically produced vegetables/fruits and then only the markets will source it for you.
At the same time wherever it is possible you need to link up directly with the farmers in your neighbourhood.
On a related note, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar last week said in Parliament that 67 pesticides banned or restricted for use in other countries are being freely used in India. He said: "We take all precautions in allowing use of these pesticides. Certain countries have banned them, but certain countries have allowed their use. We have taken the opinion of the scientific community and considered the interest of the farming community in allowing their use.”
This is not true. There are no precautions worth the name that are being taken. Scientific community literally gets away with murder by hiding behind the argument that such decisions have been taken 'considering the interest of the farming community.' What is best in the interest of the farmers, the consumers and the environment is to stop the use and abuse of chemical pesticides. Only then will scientists and farmers take to safer alternatives.
Tsunami, mangroves and market economy: No lessons learnt
The terrible earthquake and the disastrous sweep of the tsunami has left a trail of suffering in Japan. As our hearts go out to the Japanese, and to the impacted people, every natural disaster should provide us an opportunity to access where we have gone wrong. In the midst of all the technological prowess that the world boasts of, nature still has its own ways of making us realise that we are not on the right track, we need to set our house in order, and we need to redesign our policies and approaches in a sustainable manner.
I am not sure whether we will learn any lessons from this mega-disaster. Earlier too, we have as a humanity risen to help our fellow brethren in distress, but once the so called rehabilitation is done it is business as usual. It happened when tsunami had struck the southern coastline of India a few years back on Dec 26, 2004. The terrible disaster did bring support from across the world. But somewhere the international community and the national leadership failed to draw any lessons and be prepared. The southern coastline of India remains as vulnerable to any impending threat of tsunami as it was.
Here is an article that I had written when tsunami had struck India. This article was published in numerous publications and web portals across the globe. I think this analysis remains valid even today. Please have a look at the article below, and I am sure you will find it so topical and relevant today.
Tsunami, mangroves and market economy
By Devinder Sharma
http://indiatogether.org/2005/jan/dsh-tsunami.htm
11 January 2005 - As the first news reports of the devastation caused by the tsunami killer waves began to pour in, a newsreader on Aaj Tak’s Headline Today television channel asked his correspondent reporting from the scene of destruction in Tamilnadu in south India : “Any idea about how much is the loss to business? Can you find that out because that would be more important for our business leaders?”
Little did the newscaster realise or even know that the tsunami disaster, which eventually turned out to be a catastrophe, was more or less the outcome of faulty business and economics. Since the 1980s, the Asian sea-coast region has been plundered by the large industrialised shrimp firms that brought environmentally-unfriendly aquaculture to its sea shores. Shrimp cultivation, rising to over 8 billion tonnes a year in the year 2000, had already played havoc with the fragile eco-systems. The 'rape-and-run' industry, as the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) once termed it, was largely funded by the World Bank. Nearly 72 per cent of the shrimp farming is confined to Asia.
Shrimp farms are abandoned every 2-5 years, leaving behind toxic waste and destroyed ecosystems. The whole cycle is then repeated in another pristine coastal area.
The expansion of shrimp farming was at the cost of tropical mangrove forests -- amongst the world’s most important ecosystems. Each acre of mangrove forest destroyed results in an estimated 676 pounds loss in marine harvest. Mangrove swamps have been nature’s protection for the coastal regions from the large waves, weathering the impact of cyclones, and serving as a nursery for three-fourth of the commercial fish species that spend part of their life cycle in the swamps. Mangroves in any case were one of the world's most threatened habitats but instead of replanting the mangrove swamps, faulty economic policies only hastened its disappearance.
Ecologists tell us that mangroves provide double protection – the first layer of red mangroves with their flexible branches and tangled roots hanging in the coastal waters absorb the first shock waves. The second layer of tall black mangroves than operates like a wall withstanding much of the sea’s fury. Mangroves in addition absorb more carbon dioxide per unit area than ocean phytoplankton, a critical factor in global warming.
Shrimp farming has continued its destructive spree, eating away more than half of the world's mangroves. Since the 1960's, for instance, aquaculture and industrial development in Thailand resulted in a loss of over 65,000 hectares of mangroves. In Indonesia, Java lost 70 per cent of its mangroves, Sulawesi 49 per cent and Sumatra 36 per cent. So much so that at the time the tsunami struck in all its fury, logging companies were busy axing mangroves in the Aceh province of Indonesia for exports to Malaysia and Singapore.
In India, mangrove cover has been reduced to less than a third of its original in the past three decades. Between 1963 and 1977, India destroyed nearly 50 per cent of its mangroves. Local communities were forcibly evicted to make way for the shrimp farms. In Andhra Pradesh, more than 50,000 people were forcibly removed and millions displaced throughout the country to make room for the aquaculture farms. Whatever remained of the mangroves was cut down by the hotel industry, virtually aided and abetted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Ministry of Industries.
Five-star hotels, golf courses, industries, and mansions sprung up all along disregarding the concern being expressed by environmentalists. These two ministries worked overtime to dilute the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms thereby allowing the hotels to even take over the 500 meter buffer that was supposed to be maintained along the beach. In an era of market economy that was reflected through a misplaced Shining India slogan, bureaucrats are in league with the industrialists and big business interests.
The tourism boom in the Asia-Pacific region coincided with the destructive fallout of the growth in shrimp cultivation. Over the last decade, tourist arrivals and receipts rose faster than any other region in the world, almost twice the rates of industrialized countries. Projections for the year 2010 indicate that the region will surpass the Americas to become the world's number two tourism region, with 229 million arrivals. What is being projected as an indicator of spectacular economic growth hides the enormous environmental costs that these countries have suffered and will have to undergo in future.
In the past two decades, the entire coastline along the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea, and Strait of Malacca in the Indian Ocean and all along the South Pacific Ocean has been a witness to massive investments in tourism and hotels. But Myanmar and Maldives suffered very less from the killing spree of the tsunami because the tourism industry had so far not spread its tentacles to the virgin mangroves and coral reefs surrounding the coastline. The large coral reef surrounding the islands of Maldives absorbed much of the tidal fury thereby restricting the human loss to a little over 100 dead. Coral reef absorbs the sea’s fury by breaking the waves.
The tragedy however is that more than 70 per cent of world’s coral reef has already been destroyed. The island chain of Surin off the west coast of Thailand similarly escaped heavy destruction. The ring of coral reef that surrounds the islands did receive some punching from the furious waves but remained firm and thereby helped break the lethal power of the tsunami. Mangroves also help to protect offshore coral reefs by filtering out the silt flowing seawards from the land. Tourism growth, whether in the name of eco-tourism or leisure tourism, decimated the mangroves and destroyed the coral reefs.
If only the mangroves were intact, the damage from tsunami would have been greatly minimized. It happened earlier in Bangladesh. In 1960, a tsunami wave hit the coast in an area where mangroves were intact. There was not a single human loss. These mangroves were subsequently cut down and replaced with shrimp farms. In 1991, thousands of people were killed when a tsunami of the same magnitude hit the same region. In Tamilnadu, in south India, Pichavaram and Muthupet with dense mangroves suffered low human casualties and less economic damage from the Dec.26 tsunami. Earlier, the famed mangroves of Bhiterkanika in Orissa (which also serve as the breeding ground for the olive-ridley turtles) had reduced the impact of the ‘super cyclone’ that had struck in Oct 1999, killing over 10,000 people and rendering millions homeless.
The epicenter of the Dec 26 killer tsunami was close to Simeuleu Island, in Indonesia. The death toll on this particular island was significantly low simply because the inhabitants had the traditional knowledge about tsunami that happened after a quake. In Nias Island, which is close to Simeuleu, mangroves had acted like a wall helping people from the destruction. The challenge for the developing countries is to learn from the time-tested methods that have been perfected by the local communities.
Look at the comparative advantage of protecting environment and thereby reducing the havoc from the growth-oriented market economy. Having grown tenfold in the last 15 years, shrimp farming is now a $9 billion industry. It is estimated that shrimp consumption in North America, Japan and Western Europe has increased by 300 per cent within the last ten years. But one massive wave of destruction caused by the Dec 26 tsunami in 11 Asian countries alone has surpassed the economic gain that the shrimp industry claims to have harvested by several times. With over 1,50,000 people dead, the staggering social and economic loss will take some time to be ascertained.
World governments have so far pledged US $ 4 billion in aid. This does not including the billions that are being spent by relief agencies. World Bank is in addition considering boosting the aid packet to US $ 1.5 billion. It has already given (Jan 10, 2005) $ 175 million, and bank President James Wolfensohn has been quoted as saying: “We can go up to even $ 1 billion to $ 1.5 billion depending on the needs…” In addition, the World Food Programme (WFP) plans to feed some 2 million survivors for the next six months. The feeding operation is likely to cost US $ 180 million. But if only successive presidents of the World Bank had refrained from aggressively promoted ecologically unsound but market friendly economic policies, a lot of human lives could have been saved.
But can Wolfensohn justify the financial backing doled out to the aquaculture and tourism sectors by drawing a balance sheet of the costs and benefits, including the social cost involved? After all, despite warning by ecologists and environmentalists, the World Bank turned a deaf ear. The magnitude of the disaster was only exacerbated by the neoliberal economic policies that pushed economic growth at the expanse of human life. It was the outcome of an insane economic system – led by the World Bank and the Internation Monetary Fund (IMF) – that believes in usurping environment, nature and human lives for the sake of the unsustainable economic growth for a few.
Take the shrimp farms, for instance. The life cycle of a shrimp farm is a maximum of two to five years. The ponds are then abandoned leaving behind toxic waste, destroyed ecosystems and displaced communities, annihilating livelihoods. The farms come up at the cost of natural ecosystems including mangroves. The whole cycle is then repeated in another pristine coastal area. The WWF and other environmental organisations have quoted one estimate -- economic losses due to the shrimp farms are approximately five times the potential earnings.
It was only after tsunami struck that the Kerala state government was quick to announce an Rs 340-million project aimed at insulating the coastline against tidal surges. Tourism is no better. Kerala in south India, marketed as “God’s own country”, destroyed the mangroves in a desperate bid to lure the tourists. It is only after tsunami struck that the state government was quick to announce an Rs 340-million project aimed at insulating the Kerala coastline against tidal surges. Other tourist destinations in Asia will now probably go for a rethinking.
The question therefore that needs to be asked is whether we need to extract a heavy human toll before we realize the follies of aping the market economy mantra blindly? How many more need to die and how many millions we want to go homeless before we realize the grave mistake? Who will hold governments and free market economists responsible for the human loss and suffering?
I am not sure whether we will learn any lessons from this mega-disaster. Earlier too, we have as a humanity risen to help our fellow brethren in distress, but once the so called rehabilitation is done it is business as usual. It happened when tsunami had struck the southern coastline of India a few years back on Dec 26, 2004. The terrible disaster did bring support from across the world. But somewhere the international community and the national leadership failed to draw any lessons and be prepared. The southern coastline of India remains as vulnerable to any impending threat of tsunami as it was.
Here is an article that I had written when tsunami had struck India. This article was published in numerous publications and web portals across the globe. I think this analysis remains valid even today. Please have a look at the article below, and I am sure you will find it so topical and relevant today.
Tsunami, mangroves and market economy
By Devinder Sharma
http://indiatogether.org/2005/jan/dsh-tsunami.htm
11 January 2005 - As the first news reports of the devastation caused by the tsunami killer waves began to pour in, a newsreader on Aaj Tak’s Headline Today television channel asked his correspondent reporting from the scene of destruction in Tamilnadu in south India : “Any idea about how much is the loss to business? Can you find that out because that would be more important for our business leaders?”
Little did the newscaster realise or even know that the tsunami disaster, which eventually turned out to be a catastrophe, was more or less the outcome of faulty business and economics. Since the 1980s, the Asian sea-coast region has been plundered by the large industrialised shrimp firms that brought environmentally-unfriendly aquaculture to its sea shores. Shrimp cultivation, rising to over 8 billion tonnes a year in the year 2000, had already played havoc with the fragile eco-systems. The 'rape-and-run' industry, as the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) once termed it, was largely funded by the World Bank. Nearly 72 per cent of the shrimp farming is confined to Asia.
Shrimp farms are abandoned every 2-5 years, leaving behind toxic waste and destroyed ecosystems. The whole cycle is then repeated in another pristine coastal area.
The expansion of shrimp farming was at the cost of tropical mangrove forests -- amongst the world’s most important ecosystems. Each acre of mangrove forest destroyed results in an estimated 676 pounds loss in marine harvest. Mangrove swamps have been nature’s protection for the coastal regions from the large waves, weathering the impact of cyclones, and serving as a nursery for three-fourth of the commercial fish species that spend part of their life cycle in the swamps. Mangroves in any case were one of the world's most threatened habitats but instead of replanting the mangrove swamps, faulty economic policies only hastened its disappearance.
Ecologists tell us that mangroves provide double protection – the first layer of red mangroves with their flexible branches and tangled roots hanging in the coastal waters absorb the first shock waves. The second layer of tall black mangroves than operates like a wall withstanding much of the sea’s fury. Mangroves in addition absorb more carbon dioxide per unit area than ocean phytoplankton, a critical factor in global warming.
Shrimp farming has continued its destructive spree, eating away more than half of the world's mangroves. Since the 1960's, for instance, aquaculture and industrial development in Thailand resulted in a loss of over 65,000 hectares of mangroves. In Indonesia, Java lost 70 per cent of its mangroves, Sulawesi 49 per cent and Sumatra 36 per cent. So much so that at the time the tsunami struck in all its fury, logging companies were busy axing mangroves in the Aceh province of Indonesia for exports to Malaysia and Singapore.
In India, mangrove cover has been reduced to less than a third of its original in the past three decades. Between 1963 and 1977, India destroyed nearly 50 per cent of its mangroves. Local communities were forcibly evicted to make way for the shrimp farms. In Andhra Pradesh, more than 50,000 people were forcibly removed and millions displaced throughout the country to make room for the aquaculture farms. Whatever remained of the mangroves was cut down by the hotel industry, virtually aided and abetted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Ministry of Industries.
Five-star hotels, golf courses, industries, and mansions sprung up all along disregarding the concern being expressed by environmentalists. These two ministries worked overtime to dilute the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms thereby allowing the hotels to even take over the 500 meter buffer that was supposed to be maintained along the beach. In an era of market economy that was reflected through a misplaced Shining India slogan, bureaucrats are in league with the industrialists and big business interests.
The tourism boom in the Asia-Pacific region coincided with the destructive fallout of the growth in shrimp cultivation. Over the last decade, tourist arrivals and receipts rose faster than any other region in the world, almost twice the rates of industrialized countries. Projections for the year 2010 indicate that the region will surpass the Americas to become the world's number two tourism region, with 229 million arrivals. What is being projected as an indicator of spectacular economic growth hides the enormous environmental costs that these countries have suffered and will have to undergo in future.
In the past two decades, the entire coastline along the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea, and Strait of Malacca in the Indian Ocean and all along the South Pacific Ocean has been a witness to massive investments in tourism and hotels. But Myanmar and Maldives suffered very less from the killing spree of the tsunami because the tourism industry had so far not spread its tentacles to the virgin mangroves and coral reefs surrounding the coastline. The large coral reef surrounding the islands of Maldives absorbed much of the tidal fury thereby restricting the human loss to a little over 100 dead. Coral reef absorbs the sea’s fury by breaking the waves.
The tragedy however is that more than 70 per cent of world’s coral reef has already been destroyed. The island chain of Surin off the west coast of Thailand similarly escaped heavy destruction. The ring of coral reef that surrounds the islands did receive some punching from the furious waves but remained firm and thereby helped break the lethal power of the tsunami. Mangroves also help to protect offshore coral reefs by filtering out the silt flowing seawards from the land. Tourism growth, whether in the name of eco-tourism or leisure tourism, decimated the mangroves and destroyed the coral reefs.
If only the mangroves were intact, the damage from tsunami would have been greatly minimized. It happened earlier in Bangladesh. In 1960, a tsunami wave hit the coast in an area where mangroves were intact. There was not a single human loss. These mangroves were subsequently cut down and replaced with shrimp farms. In 1991, thousands of people were killed when a tsunami of the same magnitude hit the same region. In Tamilnadu, in south India, Pichavaram and Muthupet with dense mangroves suffered low human casualties and less economic damage from the Dec.26 tsunami. Earlier, the famed mangroves of Bhiterkanika in Orissa (which also serve as the breeding ground for the olive-ridley turtles) had reduced the impact of the ‘super cyclone’ that had struck in Oct 1999, killing over 10,000 people and rendering millions homeless.
The epicenter of the Dec 26 killer tsunami was close to Simeuleu Island, in Indonesia. The death toll on this particular island was significantly low simply because the inhabitants had the traditional knowledge about tsunami that happened after a quake. In Nias Island, which is close to Simeuleu, mangroves had acted like a wall helping people from the destruction. The challenge for the developing countries is to learn from the time-tested methods that have been perfected by the local communities.
Look at the comparative advantage of protecting environment and thereby reducing the havoc from the growth-oriented market economy. Having grown tenfold in the last 15 years, shrimp farming is now a $9 billion industry. It is estimated that shrimp consumption in North America, Japan and Western Europe has increased by 300 per cent within the last ten years. But one massive wave of destruction caused by the Dec 26 tsunami in 11 Asian countries alone has surpassed the economic gain that the shrimp industry claims to have harvested by several times. With over 1,50,000 people dead, the staggering social and economic loss will take some time to be ascertained.
World governments have so far pledged US $ 4 billion in aid. This does not including the billions that are being spent by relief agencies. World Bank is in addition considering boosting the aid packet to US $ 1.5 billion. It has already given (Jan 10, 2005) $ 175 million, and bank President James Wolfensohn has been quoted as saying: “We can go up to even $ 1 billion to $ 1.5 billion depending on the needs…” In addition, the World Food Programme (WFP) plans to feed some 2 million survivors for the next six months. The feeding operation is likely to cost US $ 180 million. But if only successive presidents of the World Bank had refrained from aggressively promoted ecologically unsound but market friendly economic policies, a lot of human lives could have been saved.
But can Wolfensohn justify the financial backing doled out to the aquaculture and tourism sectors by drawing a balance sheet of the costs and benefits, including the social cost involved? After all, despite warning by ecologists and environmentalists, the World Bank turned a deaf ear. The magnitude of the disaster was only exacerbated by the neoliberal economic policies that pushed economic growth at the expanse of human life. It was the outcome of an insane economic system – led by the World Bank and the Internation Monetary Fund (IMF) – that believes in usurping environment, nature and human lives for the sake of the unsustainable economic growth for a few.
Take the shrimp farms, for instance. The life cycle of a shrimp farm is a maximum of two to five years. The ponds are then abandoned leaving behind toxic waste, destroyed ecosystems and displaced communities, annihilating livelihoods. The farms come up at the cost of natural ecosystems including mangroves. The whole cycle is then repeated in another pristine coastal area. The WWF and other environmental organisations have quoted one estimate -- economic losses due to the shrimp farms are approximately five times the potential earnings.
It was only after tsunami struck that the Kerala state government was quick to announce an Rs 340-million project aimed at insulating the coastline against tidal surges. Tourism is no better. Kerala in south India, marketed as “God’s own country”, destroyed the mangroves in a desperate bid to lure the tourists. It is only after tsunami struck that the state government was quick to announce an Rs 340-million project aimed at insulating the Kerala coastline against tidal surges. Other tourist destinations in Asia will now probably go for a rethinking.
The question therefore that needs to be asked is whether we need to extract a heavy human toll before we realize the follies of aping the market economy mantra blindly? How many more need to die and how many millions we want to go homeless before we realize the grave mistake? Who will hold governments and free market economists responsible for the human loss and suffering?
'Eco-Farming Can Double Food Production'
In the mad rush to promote unwanted GM crops, the world had forgotten how China had demonstrated an increase in rice production by 89 per cent (and a reduction a rice blast disease by 94 per cent) when farmers grew a mixture of rice varieties rather than follow the mundane and destructive monoculture. This miracle was reported from Yunan province, and I still remember the report had donned the front page of New York Times. After several years, I am so delighted that Olivier de Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, has made a mention of this in an important report he submitted today.
The report "Agro-ecology and Right to Food" was presented to the UN Human Rights Council at Geneva on Tuesday.
Agro-ecology applies ecological science to the design of agricultural systems that can help put an end to food crises and address climate-change and poverty challenges. It enhances soils productivity and protects the crops against pests by relying on the natural environment such as beneficial trees, plants, animals and insects, the report states. “Today’s scientific evidence demonstrates that agroecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilizers in boosting food production where the hungry live -- especially in unfavorable environments,” Prof Olivier said.
The 21-page report quotes a number of scientific studies that clearly demonstrate the performance of agro-ecological techniques in integrated farming. It quotes projects in Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh which recorded up to 92 per cent reduction in insecticide use for rice. I still recall the former Director General of the International Rice Research institute (IRRI) Robert Cantrell saying that scientists now realise how wrong they were in promoting pesticides for increasing rice production. "Pesticides use in rice in Asia was a mistake," an IRRI press release had quoted him as acknowledging.
IRRI's realisation of its mistake has however failed to prompt the National Agricultural Research System in the Asian countries to phase out chemical pesticides in rice. In fact, I find that the NARS are not even aware of the IRRI finding. In India, for instance, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the plethora of agricultural universities have never recommended removal of chemical pesticides from the package of practices for rice production.
"Agroecology is a knowledge-intensive approach. It requires public policies supporting agricultural research and participative extension services,” says the author. And rightly so. The biggest stumbling block in the promotion of agro-ecological farming systems is the lack of public support, and also equally importantly the 'business as usual' approach of the agricultural scientists and economists. I wonder when will agricultural research and education emerge free from the bonded thought process that does not (or dare not) look beyond the chemically intensive farming systems.
The world has suffered enough and for long. Farmers have paid the price with their blood and livelihood. It is high time the world abandons the highly destructive agricultural farming model, and tries to resurrect the farm lands and thereby save the planet. This report has spelled out the sustainable pathway towards food security for all.
You can read the complete report here: http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/20110308_a-hrc-16-49_agroecology_en.pdf
The report "Agro-ecology and Right to Food" was presented to the UN Human Rights Council at Geneva on Tuesday.
Agro-ecology applies ecological science to the design of agricultural systems that can help put an end to food crises and address climate-change and poverty challenges. It enhances soils productivity and protects the crops against pests by relying on the natural environment such as beneficial trees, plants, animals and insects, the report states. “Today’s scientific evidence demonstrates that agroecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilizers in boosting food production where the hungry live -- especially in unfavorable environments,” Prof Olivier said.
The 21-page report quotes a number of scientific studies that clearly demonstrate the performance of agro-ecological techniques in integrated farming. It quotes projects in Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh which recorded up to 92 per cent reduction in insecticide use for rice. I still recall the former Director General of the International Rice Research institute (IRRI) Robert Cantrell saying that scientists now realise how wrong they were in promoting pesticides for increasing rice production. "Pesticides use in rice in Asia was a mistake," an IRRI press release had quoted him as acknowledging.
IRRI's realisation of its mistake has however failed to prompt the National Agricultural Research System in the Asian countries to phase out chemical pesticides in rice. In fact, I find that the NARS are not even aware of the IRRI finding. In India, for instance, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the plethora of agricultural universities have never recommended removal of chemical pesticides from the package of practices for rice production.
"Agroecology is a knowledge-intensive approach. It requires public policies supporting agricultural research and participative extension services,” says the author. And rightly so. The biggest stumbling block in the promotion of agro-ecological farming systems is the lack of public support, and also equally importantly the 'business as usual' approach of the agricultural scientists and economists. I wonder when will agricultural research and education emerge free from the bonded thought process that does not (or dare not) look beyond the chemically intensive farming systems.
The world has suffered enough and for long. Farmers have paid the price with their blood and livelihood. It is high time the world abandons the highly destructive agricultural farming model, and tries to resurrect the farm lands and thereby save the planet. This report has spelled out the sustainable pathway towards food security for all.
You can read the complete report here: http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/20110308_a-hrc-16-49_agroecology_en.pdf
Ice-cream made with human breast milk. Isn't this repulsive?
Ice-cream being made from human breast milk. To me this is so disgusting, and of course deplorable.
Still worse, the first batch of the ice-cream made from human breast milk, branded 'Baby Gaga', was sold within days of the launch last week in London. According to AFP 'it is now off the menu after Westminster City Council, the local authority, seized the ice cream for health and safety checks. "We are taking the ice cream away for samples," a spokeswoman told AFP, adding that they expected the results on Monday'.
Meanwhile, the popular American pop singer Lady Gaga has threatened to file a lawsuit against the company if it does not withdraw the name.
AFP says 'the ice cream has proved a big hit, with the first batch sold out within days of going on sale. It is made with milk expressed by 15 women who replied to an advertisement posted on an online mothers' forum. Each serving costs £14 and is brought out by waitresses wearing flamboyant costumes, something Lady Gaga is well-known for'.
Although, BBC quotes the owner of the company, Matt O'Connor, who claimed his product is "organic, free-range and totally natural," I don't see any justification in commercially marketing ice-creams made from human breast milk. The idea is simply repulsive, and must be condemned in strongest possible words.
Some years back, BBC had carried a news report of a Chinese restaurant in southern Hunan province using human breast milk in the preparation of some dishes. I was amused to read the restaurant owner saying "when the customers are having the human milk banquet, they can experience maternal love at the same time." That was way back in 2003. But since I didn't hear of it again, I thought it was an idea that flopped.
It is true we live in times when commodification is the new mantra. Commodification has gone to such an extent that natural resources are being increasingly plundered and traded globally. This is probably the easiest way to economic growth. But over period, human beings too are being turned into a commodity. Still I thought the world is wise enough to ensure that certain aspects of human life would remain sacrosanct and the markets would know where to draw a line. But I was wrong.
In our quest to make more money, sab kuch chalta hai.
I shudder to think of the day when breast milk collection would turn into an industry. Although there is no shortage of milk in the world, I am amazed at the way women are themselves offering to turn breast milk into a marketable commodity. In China, we already have reports of how breast milk marketing is becoming an economic activity. See this report: Got Milk? Chinese Crisis Creates A Market for Human Alternatives in the Wall Street Journal http://on.wsj.com/hbwhrw
Even if there is shortage of available milk in certain regions, as some reports would suggest, I don't think there is any need for the human alternative. I can't still fathom the thought of the dying dairy farms in Europe, for instance, being turned into human breast milk collection centres.
Women waiting for their turn to be milked. Oh God ! Is this what constitutes progress?
Maybe I am too old fashioned.
Still worse, the first batch of the ice-cream made from human breast milk, branded 'Baby Gaga', was sold within days of the launch last week in London. According to AFP 'it is now off the menu after Westminster City Council, the local authority, seized the ice cream for health and safety checks. "We are taking the ice cream away for samples," a spokeswoman told AFP, adding that they expected the results on Monday'.
Meanwhile, the popular American pop singer Lady Gaga has threatened to file a lawsuit against the company if it does not withdraw the name.
AFP says 'the ice cream has proved a big hit, with the first batch sold out within days of going on sale. It is made with milk expressed by 15 women who replied to an advertisement posted on an online mothers' forum. Each serving costs £14 and is brought out by waitresses wearing flamboyant costumes, something Lady Gaga is well-known for'.
Although, BBC quotes the owner of the company, Matt O'Connor, who claimed his product is "organic, free-range and totally natural," I don't see any justification in commercially marketing ice-creams made from human breast milk. The idea is simply repulsive, and must be condemned in strongest possible words.
Some years back, BBC had carried a news report of a Chinese restaurant in southern Hunan province using human breast milk in the preparation of some dishes. I was amused to read the restaurant owner saying "when the customers are having the human milk banquet, they can experience maternal love at the same time." That was way back in 2003. But since I didn't hear of it again, I thought it was an idea that flopped.
It is true we live in times when commodification is the new mantra. Commodification has gone to such an extent that natural resources are being increasingly plundered and traded globally. This is probably the easiest way to economic growth. But over period, human beings too are being turned into a commodity. Still I thought the world is wise enough to ensure that certain aspects of human life would remain sacrosanct and the markets would know where to draw a line. But I was wrong.
In our quest to make more money, sab kuch chalta hai.
I shudder to think of the day when breast milk collection would turn into an industry. Although there is no shortage of milk in the world, I am amazed at the way women are themselves offering to turn breast milk into a marketable commodity. In China, we already have reports of how breast milk marketing is becoming an economic activity. See this report: Got Milk? Chinese Crisis Creates A Market for Human Alternatives in the Wall Street Journal http://on.wsj.com/hbwhrw
Even if there is shortage of available milk in certain regions, as some reports would suggest, I don't think there is any need for the human alternative. I can't still fathom the thought of the dying dairy farms in Europe, for instance, being turned into human breast milk collection centres.
Women waiting for their turn to be milked. Oh God ! Is this what constitutes progress?
Maybe I am too old fashioned.
Is India's GDP growth for real?
Economic Survey 2011 talked of robust growth and steady fiscal consolidation as the hallmark of the Indian economy. After all, with a growth of 5.4 per cent for the agriculture and the allied sector on the back of the increase in foodgrain production this year, country's GDP has been worked out at 8.6 per cent in 2010-11. And as many economic writers have explained the impressive economic growth is because of a resounding performance of the farm sector.
I see jubilation all around. Business CEOs, bank heads and the policy makers are all excited. If you have seen the budget discussion -- both prior and after the budget was presented on Feb 28 -- you would have noticed that none of the economists or for that matter economic writers have questioned the veracity of the claim. That is what worries me.
Now let us look at what has been claimed. The GDP in 2010-11 has been estimated at 8.6 per cent. Given the buoyancy in agriculture, and hoping that the monsoon would be normal this year, the government estimates that GDP in 2011-12 would grow at 9 per cent. This however would depend upon the monsoon rains this year. If the rain gods again behave erratically, foodgrain production would slump and in turn the GDP growth would be much lower than anticipated.
This brings me to the question as to how true are the agriculture growth estimates for 2010-11? Since the 8.6 per cent growth the country has achieved in 2010-11 hinges on the robust performance of agriculture or as some analyst say on the manner in which agriculture has rebound, it is important to find out how true are the claims? Or are our policy makers deliberately fudging the figures to show a high economic growth rate? And then claim credit for something that is not there?
Agriculture growth in 2010-11 has been estimated at 5.4 per cent. This is primarily because foodgrain production for the current year is anticipated at 232.07 million tonnes. A year earlier, in 2009-10, agriculture production had fallen to 218.11 million tonnes, a drop of 16 million tonnes, on account of the widespread drought witnessed in 2009. In other words, it is the quantum jump in foodgrain production, from 218.11 million tonnes in 2009-10 to 232.07 million tonnes in 2010-11, that has driven the farm growth. Of course we know that foodgrain production is not the only criteria when we work out farm growth but it remains the predominant factor.
Now is India justified in computing the increase in foodgrain production in 2010-11 as the reason for 5.4 per cent growth in agriculture?
In 2009-10, when foodgrain production was low at 218.11 million tonnes, farm growth was a dismal 0.4 per cent. This was because the year earlier, in 2008-09 when the monsoon season had behaved normally, foodgrain output was at a record 233.88 million tonnes. So obviously the shortfall in production from approximately 234 million tonnes to 218.11 million tonnes meant a drastic slump in farm growth.
In the 2009-10 crop year, farm sector growth was only 0.4 per cent due to severe drought in 2009, which hit almost half the country, reducing foodgrain production by 16 million tonnes, says the Economic Survey 2010.
Interestingly, while the nation rejoices at the recovery in foodgrain production this year, the fact remains that the anticipated food production for 2010-11 at 232.07 million tonnes actually is lower than what was achieved in 2008-09 by roughly 2 million tonnes. Foodgrain production in 2008-09 was 233.88 million tonnes, and in 2010-11 it is 232.07 million tonnes. I don't understand how can the fluctuation in foodgrain production resulting from weather aberration be construed as growth? More importantly, why are the distinguished economists, and there are a dime a dozen of them, point out this serious flaw in the estimates of farm growth?
Does it not mean that whenever you have to show a higher growth rate pray with folded hands that the monsoon fails? If the rains remain normal the next year, you can pat your back for achieving a growth (knowing well that the growth is nothing but fake).
This is exactly what has happened this year. Consider this. Let us assume that the 2009 drought had not happened. With the monsoon behaving normally, foodgrain production would have hovered between 232 to 234 million tonnes. If the foodgrain production had remained more than 230 million tonnes in 2009-10 (presuming that the drought had not struck) this year's foodgrain production would not have shown a quantum jump of 14 million tonnes over what was achieved in 2009-10. Under the best of conditions, India could have claimed an increase in foodgrain production by say 2-3 million tonnes.
If the foodgrain production last year had remained at 230 million tonnes or more, the agriculture growth this year would not have been 5.4 per cent but somewhere in the range of 0.5 to 1 per cent. If the farm growth rate had remained at 1 or a maximum of even 2 per cent, the country's GDP would have been around 6 per cent.
The GDP estimates for 2010-11 are therefore clearly hyped.
As I said earlier, mere fluctuations in foodgrain production is not growth. In agriculture, it is wrong to compute growth based on annual production figures (now it is being done on a quarterly basis !). Almost all well-known farm experts agree that growth in foodgrain productions has to be estimated on a long-term basis, in any case not for a period less than an average of 5 years, to know whether there has truly been any growth or not. Anything less than this is merely a statistical jugglery. #
Also read this: A doubtful harvest
Business Standard, Feb 18, 2011
http://www.sify.com/finance/a-doubtful-harvest-news-analysis-lcsbv0jfgae.html
I see jubilation all around. Business CEOs, bank heads and the policy makers are all excited. If you have seen the budget discussion -- both prior and after the budget was presented on Feb 28 -- you would have noticed that none of the economists or for that matter economic writers have questioned the veracity of the claim. That is what worries me.
Now let us look at what has been claimed. The GDP in 2010-11 has been estimated at 8.6 per cent. Given the buoyancy in agriculture, and hoping that the monsoon would be normal this year, the government estimates that GDP in 2011-12 would grow at 9 per cent. This however would depend upon the monsoon rains this year. If the rain gods again behave erratically, foodgrain production would slump and in turn the GDP growth would be much lower than anticipated.
This brings me to the question as to how true are the agriculture growth estimates for 2010-11? Since the 8.6 per cent growth the country has achieved in 2010-11 hinges on the robust performance of agriculture or as some analyst say on the manner in which agriculture has rebound, it is important to find out how true are the claims? Or are our policy makers deliberately fudging the figures to show a high economic growth rate? And then claim credit for something that is not there?
Agriculture growth in 2010-11 has been estimated at 5.4 per cent. This is primarily because foodgrain production for the current year is anticipated at 232.07 million tonnes. A year earlier, in 2009-10, agriculture production had fallen to 218.11 million tonnes, a drop of 16 million tonnes, on account of the widespread drought witnessed in 2009. In other words, it is the quantum jump in foodgrain production, from 218.11 million tonnes in 2009-10 to 232.07 million tonnes in 2010-11, that has driven the farm growth. Of course we know that foodgrain production is not the only criteria when we work out farm growth but it remains the predominant factor.
Now is India justified in computing the increase in foodgrain production in 2010-11 as the reason for 5.4 per cent growth in agriculture?
In 2009-10, when foodgrain production was low at 218.11 million tonnes, farm growth was a dismal 0.4 per cent. This was because the year earlier, in 2008-09 when the monsoon season had behaved normally, foodgrain output was at a record 233.88 million tonnes. So obviously the shortfall in production from approximately 234 million tonnes to 218.11 million tonnes meant a drastic slump in farm growth.
In the 2009-10 crop year, farm sector growth was only 0.4 per cent due to severe drought in 2009, which hit almost half the country, reducing foodgrain production by 16 million tonnes, says the Economic Survey 2010.
Interestingly, while the nation rejoices at the recovery in foodgrain production this year, the fact remains that the anticipated food production for 2010-11 at 232.07 million tonnes actually is lower than what was achieved in 2008-09 by roughly 2 million tonnes. Foodgrain production in 2008-09 was 233.88 million tonnes, and in 2010-11 it is 232.07 million tonnes. I don't understand how can the fluctuation in foodgrain production resulting from weather aberration be construed as growth? More importantly, why are the distinguished economists, and there are a dime a dozen of them, point out this serious flaw in the estimates of farm growth?
Does it not mean that whenever you have to show a higher growth rate pray with folded hands that the monsoon fails? If the rains remain normal the next year, you can pat your back for achieving a growth (knowing well that the growth is nothing but fake).
This is exactly what has happened this year. Consider this. Let us assume that the 2009 drought had not happened. With the monsoon behaving normally, foodgrain production would have hovered between 232 to 234 million tonnes. If the foodgrain production had remained more than 230 million tonnes in 2009-10 (presuming that the drought had not struck) this year's foodgrain production would not have shown a quantum jump of 14 million tonnes over what was achieved in 2009-10. Under the best of conditions, India could have claimed an increase in foodgrain production by say 2-3 million tonnes.
If the foodgrain production last year had remained at 230 million tonnes or more, the agriculture growth this year would not have been 5.4 per cent but somewhere in the range of 0.5 to 1 per cent. If the farm growth rate had remained at 1 or a maximum of even 2 per cent, the country's GDP would have been around 6 per cent.
The GDP estimates for 2010-11 are therefore clearly hyped.
As I said earlier, mere fluctuations in foodgrain production is not growth. In agriculture, it is wrong to compute growth based on annual production figures (now it is being done on a quarterly basis !). Almost all well-known farm experts agree that growth in foodgrain productions has to be estimated on a long-term basis, in any case not for a period less than an average of 5 years, to know whether there has truly been any growth or not. Anything less than this is merely a statistical jugglery. #
Also read this: A doubtful harvest
Business Standard, Feb 18, 2011
http://www.sify.com/finance/a-doubtful-harvest-news-analysis-lcsbv0jfgae.html
Budget 2011-12 Analysis: Times of 'tough love'
In 2010-11, Rs 5.02 lakh crore was provided by way of tax exemptions to industry. This is nothing but a subsidy for the rich.
Tracking budgets is not easy. While the finer points in any budget get drowned in the chorus that rises to appreciate the finance minister only when more sops are doled out to industry in the name of strengthening economic growth, I have begun to realise that a budget for the ‘aam aadmi’ comes only when elections are around the corner.
You can accuse me of being anti-growth, but the fact remains that unless the government pumps in money to pull out the poor from the clutches of poverty, following the indirect route to sink in money to industry, hoping some of it will trickle down to the poor, remains a faulty assumption. I have always said that if the government launches a direct assault on poverty, the GDP grows.
Well, it has taken several years for the government to realise that farmers need short-term crop loans at a lower rate of interest. The National Farmer Commission had made this recommendation four years back. Pranab Mukherjee has lowered the effective interest rate for farmers who pay back in time to 4 per cent. In addition, the total quantum of agricultural credit has been enhanced by Rs 1 lakh crore, from Rs 3.75 lakh crore in 2010-11 to Rs 4.75 lakh crore in 2011-02. It is time however to differentiate between what the farmers receive and what the agribusiness industry gets in the name of farmers.
With five states going for elections, Mukherjee has reasons to remember the ‘aam aadmi’. Although economists call such concessions ‘populist’ measures, I think these concessions for the poor and marginalised are in reality true economic measures that spur growth. A special relief package of Rs 3,000 crore to the debt-ridden weavers, for instance, has come about only because the UP elections are around the corner. Rahul Gandhi had led a team of weavers from UP to meet Manmohan Singh a week before the presentation of the budget. Whatever the reason, weavers are in crisis and the debt-waiver will benefit 3 lakh weavers working with 15,000 handloom cooperative societies.
A few months back, health minister Gulam Nabi Azad was gheraoed by angry ASHA workers when he visited Jaipur. They were protesting against the paltry wages — Rs 950 per month — they were getting for delivering basic health services and awareness to rural population. These low wages have been in continuation for several years now, and no one took care. I am not sure whether these workers also come in the category of aangadwadi workers. But thanks to the coming elections, the finance minister has doubled the monthly salary of aangadwadi workers who too get Rs 1500 per month, a move that will directly benefit 22 lakh ‘aanganwadi’ workers. There is a need to still raise their salaries. He has also extended the benefit of health insurance that was given to NREGA workers last year, to unorganised labour in several areas.
Integrated development
At the same time, Mukherjee has provided Rs 30 crore for integrated development in each of the tribal districts in the naxalite-affected areas. This is a delayed recognition of the exclusion that almost all budgets have maintained all these years. With a little more vision, he could have launched several sustainable agricultural, health and education initiatives in the red corridor to revitalise the rural economy. If only he knew that agriculture is the first line of defence against Maoism, I am sure he would have thought on those lines.
In the name of inclusive growth, it is only industry and trade that have always walked away with the cake. In many ways the budget is simply an annual ‘maalamal’ exercise for the rich and the business community. Take the tax concessions that are doled out to industry every year and clubbed in the category of ‘revenue foregone’. In 2010-11, the finance minister provided Rs 5.02 lakh crore by way of tax exemptions to industry. This is nothing but a subsidy for the rich. Since 2005-06, the total subsidy being showered on the industry and business sector amounts to a whopping Rs 16.45 lakh crore.
In Budget 2011, Mukherjee has cleverly hidden the annual subsidy dole given to industry, but has in addition to Rs 5.02 lakh crore given last year provided another Rs 1,38,921 crore as corporate and personal tax exemptions this year. Since the economic stimulus that was being given to the industry for tiding over the recession has still not been withdrawn, we can safely compute the total subsidy to the industry at over Rs 6.4 lakh crore. Considering that the annual budget is an exercise involving Rs 12 crore, the massive subsidisation of business and industry has never been questioned.
On the other hand, subsidy on fertilisers, food and fuel has been reduced by Rs 20,000 crore this year, over the revised estimates of last year. This is exactly what Noam Chomsky meant when he said we live in times of ‘tough love’ — love for the rich and tough for the poor.
The finance minister could have easily made a drastic cut in the ‘revenue foregone’ category and thereby made more resources available for making cheaper food and fuel available to the masses, for rebuilding the shattered economy of the naxalite-affected regions, and also for programmes he spelled out for promoting millet cultivation, fodder development, and for sustainable agriculture. These are excellent initiatives, but the budgetary allocation is too low to make any significant impact. More so in case of fodder cultivation, which has remained neglected through the period when a lot of emphasis was given on increasing milk production.
Deccan Herald, Mar 3 2011.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/142494/times-tough-love.html
Tracking budgets is not easy. While the finer points in any budget get drowned in the chorus that rises to appreciate the finance minister only when more sops are doled out to industry in the name of strengthening economic growth, I have begun to realise that a budget for the ‘aam aadmi’ comes only when elections are around the corner.
You can accuse me of being anti-growth, but the fact remains that unless the government pumps in money to pull out the poor from the clutches of poverty, following the indirect route to sink in money to industry, hoping some of it will trickle down to the poor, remains a faulty assumption. I have always said that if the government launches a direct assault on poverty, the GDP grows.
Well, it has taken several years for the government to realise that farmers need short-term crop loans at a lower rate of interest. The National Farmer Commission had made this recommendation four years back. Pranab Mukherjee has lowered the effective interest rate for farmers who pay back in time to 4 per cent. In addition, the total quantum of agricultural credit has been enhanced by Rs 1 lakh crore, from Rs 3.75 lakh crore in 2010-11 to Rs 4.75 lakh crore in 2011-02. It is time however to differentiate between what the farmers receive and what the agribusiness industry gets in the name of farmers.
With five states going for elections, Mukherjee has reasons to remember the ‘aam aadmi’. Although economists call such concessions ‘populist’ measures, I think these concessions for the poor and marginalised are in reality true economic measures that spur growth. A special relief package of Rs 3,000 crore to the debt-ridden weavers, for instance, has come about only because the UP elections are around the corner. Rahul Gandhi had led a team of weavers from UP to meet Manmohan Singh a week before the presentation of the budget. Whatever the reason, weavers are in crisis and the debt-waiver will benefit 3 lakh weavers working with 15,000 handloom cooperative societies.
A few months back, health minister Gulam Nabi Azad was gheraoed by angry ASHA workers when he visited Jaipur. They were protesting against the paltry wages — Rs 950 per month — they were getting for delivering basic health services and awareness to rural population. These low wages have been in continuation for several years now, and no one took care. I am not sure whether these workers also come in the category of aangadwadi workers. But thanks to the coming elections, the finance minister has doubled the monthly salary of aangadwadi workers who too get Rs 1500 per month, a move that will directly benefit 22 lakh ‘aanganwadi’ workers. There is a need to still raise their salaries. He has also extended the benefit of health insurance that was given to NREGA workers last year, to unorganised labour in several areas.
Integrated development
At the same time, Mukherjee has provided Rs 30 crore for integrated development in each of the tribal districts in the naxalite-affected areas. This is a delayed recognition of the exclusion that almost all budgets have maintained all these years. With a little more vision, he could have launched several sustainable agricultural, health and education initiatives in the red corridor to revitalise the rural economy. If only he knew that agriculture is the first line of defence against Maoism, I am sure he would have thought on those lines.
In the name of inclusive growth, it is only industry and trade that have always walked away with the cake. In many ways the budget is simply an annual ‘maalamal’ exercise for the rich and the business community. Take the tax concessions that are doled out to industry every year and clubbed in the category of ‘revenue foregone’. In 2010-11, the finance minister provided Rs 5.02 lakh crore by way of tax exemptions to industry. This is nothing but a subsidy for the rich. Since 2005-06, the total subsidy being showered on the industry and business sector amounts to a whopping Rs 16.45 lakh crore.
In Budget 2011, Mukherjee has cleverly hidden the annual subsidy dole given to industry, but has in addition to Rs 5.02 lakh crore given last year provided another Rs 1,38,921 crore as corporate and personal tax exemptions this year. Since the economic stimulus that was being given to the industry for tiding over the recession has still not been withdrawn, we can safely compute the total subsidy to the industry at over Rs 6.4 lakh crore. Considering that the annual budget is an exercise involving Rs 12 crore, the massive subsidisation of business and industry has never been questioned.
On the other hand, subsidy on fertilisers, food and fuel has been reduced by Rs 20,000 crore this year, over the revised estimates of last year. This is exactly what Noam Chomsky meant when he said we live in times of ‘tough love’ — love for the rich and tough for the poor.
The finance minister could have easily made a drastic cut in the ‘revenue foregone’ category and thereby made more resources available for making cheaper food and fuel available to the masses, for rebuilding the shattered economy of the naxalite-affected regions, and also for programmes he spelled out for promoting millet cultivation, fodder development, and for sustainable agriculture. These are excellent initiatives, but the budgetary allocation is too low to make any significant impact. More so in case of fodder cultivation, which has remained neglected through the period when a lot of emphasis was given on increasing milk production.
Deccan Herald, Mar 3 2011.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/142494/times-tough-love.html
Caught in the food pirates’ trap
Egypt paid the price, so will we if we ignore the Mahatma’s prescription: production by the masses, not for the masses
The unexpected has happened. Rising food prices and high unemployment have triggered an unprecedented uprising in the Arab world. The fire that began from Tunisia had quickly spread across the desert sands. Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan and Algeria were faced with a political turmoil. (Egypt has already got rid of its autocrat of 30 years – Hosni Mubarak.)
Unlike the 2008 global food crisis, when 37 countries faced food riots, ousting the Haiti president in the process, spiralling fuel and food prices, especially since September 2010, have been more piercing this time resulting in a strong political tsunami. It all began when Russia, faced with extended drought and widespread wildfires, brought in an export ban till the next year’s wheat harvest, thereby propelling global prices to an unreasonable hike.
Deadly food riots were witnessed in September in Mozambique, killing at least seven people. According to news reports, anger was then building up in Pakistan, Egypt and Serbia over rising prices. In the first week of January, Algeria faced food riots. A few days later, Tunisia sounded the first bugle, ousting its president, and Egypt followed.
As early as in September, Financial Times had reported that wheat futures had taken advantage, and that wheat prices internationally had gone up by 70 percent since January 2010. This happened at a time when there was neither shortfall in production nor any appreciable rise in demand. Egypt, which imports nearly 50 percent of its food requirement, was hit badly when Russia decided to ban wheat exports. Many believe that the Switzerland-based food major Glencore actually forced the Russian government, which had enough wheat reserves, to impose a ban on exports thereby sparking a killing in the futures market.
The social and political unrest that has swept the Arab hinterland is a pointer to a grave crisis ahead. Although Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agrees that the rising food and fuel prices in recent months are the major factors behind the massive anti-government protests, he suggests more of the same prescription: “As tensions between countries increase, we could see rising protectionism – of trade and of finance.”
Not drawing any lesson from the debacle of the dominant economic model of growth, business leaders from 17 private companies announced at the World Economic Forum at Davos in the last week of January the launch of a global initiative -- New Vision for Agriculture -- that sets ambitious targets for increasing food production by 20 percent, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions per ton by 20 percent, and reducing rural poverty by 20 percent every decade.
The 17 agribusiness giants include Archer Daniels Midland, BASF, Bunge Ltd, Cargill, Coca-Cola, DuPont, General Mills, Kraft Foods, Metro AG, Monsanto, Nestlé, PepsiCo, SABMiller, Syngenta, Unilever, Wal-Mart and Yara International.
All such initiatives are, of course, backed by the USAID, the main driving force for promoting an industrial takeover of global agriculture. “We are witnessing an unparalleled opportunity right now for innovative, large-scale private sector partnerships to achieve significant impact on global hunger and nutrition,” USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah said at Davos. “USAID is committed to creating new public-private partnerships in Feed the Future focus countries to advance their national investment plans.”
Well, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Every global crisis provides an opportunity for business. Multinational giants are quick to grab it. In the days to come, I am sure political leadership across the world, with USAID backing, will welcome the initiative not realising that it is the industrial farming model that has created the global food crisis in first instance -- soil health devastated, excessive mining of groundwater has dried aquifers and chemical pesticides have contaminated the food chain.
Green Revolution has already run out of steam, leaving behind a trail of misery and terrible human suffering. Over the years, an unjust world trade has pushed farmers out of agriculture. In the past 30 years or so, including the years of World Trade Organization, 105 of the 149 third world countries have already become completely dependent on food imports. With food prices manipulated through commodity trading and the entire food chain gradually slipping into the hands of a handful of agribusiness giants, the North will soon emerge as the world’s bread basket. The South is being reduced to a begging bowl.
How is this related to Indian agriculture? Well, let me begin by the latest pronouncements first. Economist Raghuram Rajan, a professor of finance at the Chicago Booth School of Business, and an honorary economic advisor to the prime minister, said the other day: “Thinking that India will remain a country where more than 60 percent of people will remain in agriculture is just a pipe dream. The people dependent on agriculture should be brought down to five percent over years.” This is in tune with what prime minister Manmohan Singh has been asking for a number of years now. At least 70 percent of farmers need to be moved out of agriculture.
Read this in consonance with what planning commission depty chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia says. He has invited Omani firms to farm in India for producing crops that can be exported. At a time when food prices have hit the roof, any measure to limit domestic production should raise concerns. Undeterred, a few weeks ago, Ahluwalia also went a step ahead. He supported the FICCI and CII demand for doing away with APMC laws for horticultural crops. In other words, with fruits, vegetables and grains (wheat and rice were already taken off the APMC Act through an amendment in 2005) no longer required to be brought to mandis, the procurement system is all set for a breakdown.
It doesn’t stop here. Not only the planning commission, economists, scientists and bureaucrats are now clamouring for free markets – commodity exchange, future trading and food retail – as the way to turn farming economically viable. Coupled with land rental policies that have promoted a surge in land acquisitions, setting up of special economic zones, and by encouraging contract farming and commodity trading, India is now getting ready to hand over agriculture to private companies.
Farmers have therefore become a burden on the society, and the government is in a raging hurry to offload the burden. This is being facilitated by tailoring domestic laws on seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, mandis, biodiversity, biotechnology, water and land acquisition to the needs of the industry. Let us be very clear: second Green Revolution has no place for farmers.
What is worrying is that instead of drawing any lesson from the debacle of the first Green Revolution, the government is on a fast track to usher in the second Green Revolution, which will only compound the existing agrarian crisis. This is being backed by an Indo-US Initiative in Agriculture Research, Education and Marketing (KIA), an agreement signed with the Bush administration in 2005, and which is expected to be renewed with Obama Administration. India is committed to privatisation of agriculture and vertical integration of farming to promote “farm-to-fork” model, wherein farmers are not required.
This reminds me of what the World Bank had forewarned way back in 1996. By the end of 2020, the Bank’s estimate was that 40 crore people – close to double the combined population of UK, France and Germany – would be migrating from the rural to the urban areas in India alone.
Prime minister Manmohan Singh has already laid the ground rules for a population shift. The biggest environmental displacement the world will witness will therefore be in agriculture. Ironically, it is barely 44 years after Mrs Indira Gandhi launched Wheat Revolution (which later was re-christened as Green Revolution) that pulled India out of the hunger trap that the country is getting ready to return to the days of ‘ship-to-mouth’ existence when food came directly from the ships into the hungry mouths.
A high growth trajectory and rising incomes do not provide any security from social unrest. Let us not forget Egypt attained 5.6 percent rate of growth in 2010 and has average income levels of $5,000 and yet faced political turmoil when food prices went out of reach. For any country, whether rich or poor, food self-sufficiency remains the hallmark of national sovereignty. Mahatma Gandhi had rightly said that what we need is a production system by the masses and not for the masses.
I thought Manmohan Singh would heed the warning that was sounded by Jawaharlal Nehru just five years after India became a republic. In his August 15 address to the nation, Nehru had said: “It is very humiliating for any country to import food. So everything else can wait, but not agriculture.” With limited option of absorbing the displaced rural population, the socio-economic and even the political fallout from the deliberate destruction of the farming base, is too difficult to fathom. It defies all plausible raesons to find India dismantling the strong foundations of self-sufficiency and resulting food security.
Simultaneous to major economies, including India, removing all the protectionist measures to allow free trade in agriculture, rich countries have already moved in to grab fertile land in the developing world. These ‘food pirates’ come with bag full of foreign direct investment and are moving swiftly where land is available, investing in crops that can be shipped back home. Already an area which exceeds the size of France has either been leased out or out-rightly purchased. Much of this is in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
We are, therefore, entering a phase when even if you have money food will not be available in the international markets. This is primarily the reason why companies from rich countries have invested in developing countries to meet the domestic requirement back home. Add to it the fact that food is now being branded as a hot commodity, the futures market will continue to exploit. Unregulated commodity trading has already multiplied from a mere $0.77 trillion in 2002 to over $7 trillion in 2007.
While people die from hunger or storm into the cities expressing anger against the political leadership (not knowing that the real culprit is the Wall Street), the investment banks and hedge funds quietly make a killing from speculation. With the G-20, IMF/World Bank turning a blind eye to curb food speculation, Hosni Mubarak may not be the last political head to roll. If only Egypt had invested in attaining food self-sufficiency, history probably wouldn’t have witnessed the march of the million.
Sharma is a distinguished food and trade policy analyst.
This article is published in Governance Now, New Delhi, March 1-15, 2011.
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