Squandering Rs 75,000-crore in the name of self-employment. Why not provide direct income support to farmers instead?

Why can't improved skills be imparted to farmers to make them gainfully self-employed, and eventually turn them into entrepreneurs. 

I have always said that there is hardly any relation between common sense and economic sense. At a time when Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), launched in 2008, has already established 2.21 lakh self-supporting business units, and has created 20.34 lakh person employment opportunities as per Govt claims, the UPA Govt is planning to launch Rs 75,000-crore action plan to provide self-employment opportunities to 7-crore households in rural India over the next 10 years.

Rs 75,000-crore for 70 million households. In other words, each year the UPA Govt plans to invest Rs 7,500-crore in helping self-help groups that will help people become self-employed across rural India. According to a news report in Economic Times (Nov 29, 2013) UPA's Rs 75,000 crore self-employment plan for 7cr rural homes (here is the link: http://bit.ly/1ijXznG):"Funds would be given to self-help groups (SHGs) to impart training to the rural poor to take up skilled and semi-skilled jobs. The idea is to scale up their skills so that they become eligible for concessional credit from financial institutions."

There is already a National Skill Development Agency, the Prime Minister's National Council on Skill Development and the National Skill Development Coordination Board. 

Now, isn't this interesting. Under the new programme, being planned just before the 2014 elections, Rs 75,000-crore is to be spent over 10 years for 7- crore (or 70 million) households. For a year, it comes to Rs 7,500 crore. As per the plan, the Govt would spend Rs 15-crore per block in each village, comprising 10-12 rural households, over the next 10 years. 

Wouldn't it make economic sense if the UPA Govt was to simply distribute Rs 1-crore to each of the rural family? I am sure every one in this country would be able to spend Rs 1-crore in a manner that it makes them gainfully self-employed for all times to come. It will be a dream project for a majority of rural India. And if we were to go by Rs 1-crore per family, imagine how many would be able to immediately join the Crorepati Club.    

Knowing this is not going to happen, the UPA Govt's plan seems to be to allocate this huge amount primarily for collecting some more votes. Everyone knows that much of the amount would be siphoned-off, but then that is how the Govts operate -- turning a blind eye to rampant corruption.  

Anyway, if the idea is to spend so much for enabling people to get gainfully self-employed. Then why not begin with farmers. As per Indian Census 2011, there are 119 million (11.9 crore) cultivators, which means farmers who own land, and there are more than 2,000 farmers who quit agriculture every day (See this report: India losing 2,000 farmer every single day. http://www.ibtimes.com/india-losing-2000-farmers-every-single-day-tale-rapidly-changing-society-1232913). These are also the people who are self-employed and need not only improved skills but also financial support to turn farming economically viable. These are also the people who produce food for the country and are primarily responsible for ensuring food security. 

Admitting that farming has become an economically unviable profession, the Govt is making all efforts to see that those who quit agriculture are gainfully employed elsewhere. The continuing agrarian crisis is also leading to enhanced rural-urban migration. Why doesn't the Govt therefore provide Rs 75,000-crore to the farming community in a way that it becomes an assured monthly income for them? If the farmers become economically viable, the domino effect will be felt across various sectors of the economy. Why don't we therefore put the money where we need it most? Why let the money be squandered under a Govt programme as has been the experience over decades? But then, didn't I say in the very beginning: there is no convergence between common sense and economic sense !

Further reading: As in the West, Indian farmers too need direct income support. http://bit.ly/1agO4vk

Bali Ministerial: The very future of Indian Agriculture is at stake

The battle lines are clearly drawn.

At a time when food security in the developing countries is snowballing into a major trade conflict between the developed and developing countries, what in reality is at stake is the livelihood security of an estimated 1.5 billion small farmers in the majority world.

Food security is simply a smokescreen to provide a cover-up for the global efforts being made to dismantle the very foundations of Third World agriculture.

Numerous U.S. farm groups have written to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman as well as U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack objecting to linking food aid with price support programmes.

Not finding anything wrong in legitimate domestic food aid programmes, 30 farm commodity export groups have however expressed concern at the “price support programmes, which have more to do with boosting farm incomes and increasing production than feeding the poor.”

These U.S. farm commodity export groups, which ironically receive monumental federal support every year, have questioned the need to provide any relaxation in current discipline even on a temporary basis. Accordingly, such an exemption will result in more subsidy outgo and result in further damage to U.S. trade interests.

This response comes in the wake of a representation by 15 of the major farmer unions of India, including the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) and the Karnataka Rajya Ryota Sangha (KRRS), to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh: “Forth-seven years after the green revolution was launched, India is being directed at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to dismantle its food procurement system built so assiduously over the past four decades.

“This ill-advised move is aimed not only at destroying the country’s hard-earned food security but also the livelihood security of over 600 million farmers, 80 percent of them being small and marginal.” India, a country which lived in the shadows of a ‘ship-to-mouth’ existence – when food would go directly from the ship to hungry mouths – has over the years emerged self-sufficient in food production.

This historic turnaround was possible only because India had adopted the two planks of what I call a remarkable ‘famine-avoidance’ strategy: providing farmers with an assured price support for their produce, and introducing a food procurement system that provided for a guaranteed market and at the same time helped get food to the poor in the deficit regions through a network of ration shops.

Withdrawing the price support for farmers or freezing it at the de-minimis level of 10 percent as applicable under the Agreement on Agriculture will make farmers vulnerable to the vagaries of the market.

Since Indian farmers do not receive any direct income support (as producers do in the U.S./EU), this move alone will destroy millions of livelihoods and force farmers to abandon agriculture and migrate to the cities. Already, with agriculture becoming economically unviable, close to 300,000 farmers have committed suicide in the past 15 years.

As per the de-minimis criteria, Article 6.4 (b) of the Agreement on Agriculture provides for total support not to exceed 10 percent of the total value of production for most developing members (except for China, where it is 8.5 percent as part of its accession commitments).

In India, as per WTO calculations, farmers are getting 24 percent more minimum support price for paddy crop since the base period of 1986-1988. Restricting the farm gate prices at a maximum of 10 percent will only push more and more farmers to take their own lives.

Nor does it make any economic sense. Considering that between 1986-1988 and 2013, the prices of rice and wheat have increased by more than 300 percent, and prices of inputs like fertilisers have risen by 480 percent in the same period -according to World Bank commodity price data - the base period of 1986-1988 certainly has become outdated.

Instead of asking India to accept the Peace Clause for a period of four years, WTO chief Roberto Azevêdo should in fact be asking the 159-member organisation to look for a permanent solution to the vexed issue.

The best solution would be to change the reference period from 1986-1988 to something more recent, especially after 2007, when the world witnessed a global food crisis that resulted in food riots in 37 countries.Or set up a Food Security box. 

But that is not acceptable to the U.S./EU, which are pushing aggressively to do away with the commitments of ensuring food security to 67 percent of India’s hungry population under the newly enacted food security law. Still worse, the U.S./EU are openly continuing not only their domestic subsidies but also their export subsidies.

Not complying with the 20 percent reduction in Aggregate Measure of Support, they have very conveniently shifted these subsidies to the notorious Green Box to continue and even increase them without limits.

And as the Indian farmers’ unions said, “the U.S. has more than doubled its subsidy from 61 to 130 billion dollars between 1995 and 2010, while the EU’s subsidy of 90 billion euros in 1995 came down to 75 billion euros in 2002, but rose again to hover between 90-79 billion euros between 2006-2009.”

According to the U.S.-based Environmental Working Group, the U.S. had paid a quarter of a trillion dollars in subsidy support between 1995 and 2009. These subsidies have not been reduced in the 2013 Farm Bill.

Moreover, the U.S. does not find its own 100 billion dollars in support for its various food aid programmes in 2012 as trade-distorting, but has problems with 20 billion dollars in support that India is expected to provide to feed its 830 million hungry people.

U.S. farm subsidies are therefore unquestionable. These are considered to be non-trade-distorting, and are not even on the negotiating table at the Dec. 3-6 WTO Ministerial at Bali, Indonesia.

Well, the writing is on the wall. What is at stake at Bali is not food security, but the very future of Third World agriculture. Feeding the hungry is possible by importing food, and that is what the U.S. farm commodity export groups have conveyed. Putting more income into the hands of Third World farmers is not acceptable, as it makes developing country agriculture economically viable and therefore deals a blow to U.S. agribusiness trade interests.

* Devinder Sharma is a renowned Indian food and trade policy analyst, an award winning journalist, author, writer and thinker, whose incisive analyses makes him a leading voice from the developing world.

Source: The very future of Third World Agriculture is at stake

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/11/future-third-world-agriculture-stake/

World's second smallest cattle breed -- Kasaragod Dwarf -- gets attention.

Kasaragod Dwarf breed of Kerala. 

Ever heard of a cattle breed called Kasaragod Dwarf? No. Well, I am not surprised. I too hadn't heard of it till my colleague Dr G V Ramanjaneyulu of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA) in Hyderabad brought it to my notice. He talked about how an Andhra Pradesh farmer was rearing this endangered breed, which is among the smallest cattle breeds in the world.

Some more research and I found out the Kasaragod Dwarf breed is a little taller than the world's smallest breed -- Vechur, also native to Kerala. With an average height of 90 cms, it can survive on kitchen waste and jungle feeds. Requiring about 2 kg of feed per day it's milk yield on an average hovers around 1 litre. The milk is nutritious, rich in alpha-2 casein proteins which means it is particularly useful for diabetic and hypertension patients.

Kasaragod Dwarf has still not been included in the list of India's 37 native cattle breeds that have been documented by the National Bureau for Animal Genetic Resources (NBAGR) Karnal, in Haryana.

A report published in Times of India (July 4, 2012) Kasaragod Dwarf cattle may get native animal status (Link: http://bit.ly/1iheJ5l) says: "The species has not entered the endangered list in a strict sense as the non-descript category of dwarf cattle found in the district are generally included under this category. As per latest cattle census, there are 36,717 non-descript category of cattle in Kasaragod. But, tracing a pure Kasargod breed will be difficult because of the extensive cross-breeding, says professor Sosamma. There are 34 recognised native varieties of cattle in India and Vechur cow is the only one included in the native list from Kerala." 

A positive development is that Bela Cattle Farm in Badiadukka panchayat in Kerala is now being developed as a research centre under the Central Veterinary University to study, research and popularise this rare breed.

Further reading: Acclaimed abroad, despised at home
http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.in/2010/09/holy-cows-acclaimed-abroad-despised-at.html

WTO is trying to strike at developing country food security. Accepting Peace Clause will kill domestic agriculture

If India has to save its agriculture; if India has to protect the livelihood security its 600 million farmers, it cannot allow to trade hunger at the altar of international trade and development. The Peace Clause being offered to India (for a period of 4-years) at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is simply a temporary reprieve. It only defers for 4-years the dangerous fallout from an unjust and inequitable trade agreement. 

India cannot behave like a pigeon which is known to close its eyes when it sees a cat thinking that the danger will go away. India too cannot close its eyes to a lurking danger ahead. Peace Clause will only postpone the harm by another 4-years. The cat is not going to go away. 

In this video blog of mine, I have explained in detail what the food security issue would mean for India. I have also explained the double standards of the rich industrialised countries, which do not consider their own agricultural subsidies as trade distorting, but spare no chance at pointing fingers at the developing countries. Let us not be cowed down by the threat they try to convey. If the WTO has to be buried, let us not be afraid. It has already lapsed into irrelevance, and by accepting the Peace Clause India will only be trying to infuse some oxygen into an otherwise dying animal. 

Further reading: http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.in/2013/10/peace-clause-in-wto-negotiations-will.html

US emerging as the world's largest cancer economy.

Is the US emerging as the world's largest cancer economy? Well, when I say a cancer economy what I mean is an economy sustained to a larger extent by the growing incidence of the killer disease. The more is the incidence of cancer, the more is the medical costs involved, and that adds on to the country's GDP. It's obviously a drain on the society but at the same time for the medical industry it provides an immense business opportunity. And some would say a profiteering medical industry will provide for more jobs !

In 2008, the US National Institute of Health (NIH) estimated the total annual cost that cancer was causing to the economy at $ 201.5 billion, which included $ 77.4 billion of health expenditures and $ 124 billion as the indirect mortality costs. After all, in a country where more than half a million people are expected to die of cancer this year, and that works out to 1,600 every day, nearly 75 per cent of the health care costs revolve around the cancer epidemic.

This startling analysis is presented in a blog Inspired Bites written by Robyn O' Brian (Link: http://blogs.prevention.com/inspired-bites/2013/11/18/how-the-cost-of-cancer-is-eating-our-economy/) that I came across yesterday. Quoting a report of the President's Cancer Panel she writes: " (The Panel) is urging all of us to do our part to reduce the burden of this disease.  Most notably, they encourage all Americans to reduce their exposures to contaminants like pesticides, insecticides and other chemicals now so pervasive in our food.  Why? Because 41 per cent of us are expected to get cancer in our lifetimes, 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women. It did not used to be this way.  And can we really eat to beat this disease as the President’s Cancer Panel suggests? It’s tough to do with a food supply so dependent on synthetic chemicals.  In the last fifteen years, new ingredients, synthetically engineered in laboratories to withstand increasing doses of toxic weedkillers, have quietly been inserted into our food.  And while correlation is not causation, the soaring use of these chemicals corresponds so directly with the soaring rates of certain cancers that at the very least, it merits an investigation."

Although, as she says, while correlation is not causation, there is a definitely a growth pattern that is clearly visible. Food contamination is certainly linked to the growing incidence of cancer. And if the Panel itself is suggesting to people to be watchful of pesticides, insecticides and other chemicals in food, the indications are loud and clear. I would have however expected more serious efforts visible in America to curb the use of chemicals, including pesticides and insecticides, based on the recommendations of this report. The failure to take the report seriously is not only disappointing but if I may be allowed to say so it is reflective of a criminal neglect. 

Especially at a time when US President Barack Obama has been trying to push for medicare, I thought the best way to prevent the disease from taking such a massive human toll in future would have been to go in for safe food. When Michelle Obama launch organic gardening in the White House complex, she obviously conveyed a powerful statement, but her husband failed to get the message right. As Charles Benbrook has conclusively shown that between 1996 and 2011, an era when GM crops proliferated in the US, the application of pesticides has risen by 404 million pounds. This data alone should have forced the US Department of Agriculture to come down heavily on the industrial farming systems. 

While the USDA continues to push for more of the same, the US President has been trying his best to push the harmful technologies to the developing world. His global food security initiative promotes the faulty and harmful technological approach as the mankind's saviour. This is where the US President fails, and fails miserably. In his desperation to find ways and means (even if these are harmful in the long run) to jack up the economy, he is trying to create conditions for the US health care industry to profit. He is aggressively using the g-20 to push his flawed economic approach. And that makes me wonder when will the world get a political leader who looks beyond the financial capital; who goes all out to build on the human capital.  

Till then, I can only pray for the well-being of Americans. If 1 in 2 men, and 1 in 3 women is expected to live with cancer in the years to come, God save America. But please don't pass on this deadly killer to the developing world. We already have enough problems at hand. 

It's high time the world shifts to A2 milk

If only these children were to be given A2 milk to drink 

Sale of healthy A2 milk in Britain and Ireland has reached £ 1 million in just one year after its launch. A2 milk is now available in 1000 stores across UK and Ireland, including big retailers like Tesco, Morrison and Co-op. In Australia and New Zealand, A2 milk is now the fastest growing with a share of 8 per cent of the milk market, the sales increasing by 57 per cent in a year.

 

This is not a promotion for yet another brand of milk. A2 is actually a beta-casein protein in the milk – A2 allele gene – that makes milk healthy and nutritious. What makes it more significant and relevant for us is that all domestic cow and buffalo breeds – often labeled as desi – contain A2 allele gene. In other words, 100 per cent of milk of desi cattle breeds contains the A2 allele making it richer in nutrients and much healthier than the milk of exotic cattle breeds.

 

If you are not drinking A2 milk, the chances are that in the long term you are likely to suffer from allergies, diabetes, obesity and cardio-vascular diseases. While the exotic cattle breeds may be producing higher milk but because of the concentration of A1 allele gene in their bodies, the milk they produce is much inferior in quality. As per a report in The Telegraph, London, the commonly consumed milk contains A1 allele leading to allergies, causing bloating, abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea and constipation.

 

Accordingly, a study published last month in the scientific journal Infant has linked A1 milk with increased risk of type 1 diabetes in some infants, adverse immune responses, digestive disorders and respiratory dysfunction. It is primarily for the health advantages that A2 milk offers that singer Dannii Minogue, who was faced with digestive disorders, has now become a brand ambassador for the A2 milk.  

 

In Australia and New Zealand, the sale of A2 milk has zipped beyond expectations, raising the share market for Freedom Foods, one of the best performing dairy companies. Pepsi Foods too has been on the forefront, and now plans to take A2 milk to the European market outside Britain. Meanwhile, China too has emerged as a strong market for A2 milk after the scandal surrounding the sale of spurious baby milk powder some years back. It is expected, China’s intake of A2 milk in the rapidly growing infant food market will double by 2020.

 

Meanwhile, studies by the National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources (NBAGR), Karnal, have established the superiority of A2 milk in Indian breeds. In a detailed study scanning 22 desi breeds recently, it found A2 allele to be 100 per cent available in the five high-yielding milk breeds – Red Sindhi, Gir, Rathi, Shahiwal and Tharparkar. In the remaining breeds, the availability of A2 allele gene was 94 per cent. Comparatively, in the exotic breeds Jersey and Holstein Friesian, the availability of A2 allele gene was only 60 per cent. 

 

Although a lot of excitement was expressed some months back, when Pakistan gifted a high-yielding Nili-Ravibuffalo to the visiting deputy chief minister of Punjab, Sukhbir Singh Badal, it is high time Punjab takes a lead in promoting and making available A2 milk. With an average consumption of about 944 grams per day, Punjab does top the chart as far as milk intake in concerned. But it is the quality of the milk that should now be the hallmark of every dairy development expansion plan.

 

The economic cost of promoting desi breeds, even if the Indian domestic breeds are relatively low producing compared to some of the exotic breeds, is relatively much higher given the health advantages, especially in a population where diabetes, cardio-vascular diseases, allergies, digestive disorders are on an upswing. Since A2 milk builds up immunity, it certainly offers a big advantage over the commonly sold milk. Punjabis would be willing to pay a premium if the Milkfed begins to sell A2 milk in pouches. At the same time, promotion for A2 milk will help farmers shift to traditional breeds which very well integrate with natural farming systems. Promotion of A2 milk will also make hundreds of gaushalas spread across the State turn economically viable. #

Spare a thought for a million cashew workers. They live in penury, work in appalling conditions, while the supermarkets rake in millions.

No, they are not in a metal pelting unit. Believe me, these women are processing cashews -- Guardian photo

Diwali -- the festival of lights has just passed by. I am sure hundreds of thousands of people must have distributed or received cashew nuts (and other dry fruits) as part of the gift exchange culture that prevails and predominates the festivities. More so, at a time when adulteration is becoming rampant in the production of sweets, the focus has not shifted to dry fruits. There is nothing wrong in this. My preference too is for dry fruits.

I am sure business worth several millions of rupees, just from the sale of cashews, must have transacted during this Diwali season. But how many of us even know the plight of roughly 10 lakh (1 million) cashew workers and another 200,000 cashew growers in the country? Roughly 60% of the global cashew processing takes place in India, and that according to what I have learnt is value addition. Every time I am listening to speakers at a seminar/conference I hear the world value addition. Unless Indians try to add value to the raw material they produce, the economics will not change for the better, we are repeatedly told. Isn't cashew processing also a part of the value addition chain that is tossed on to us every now and then?

The Guardian report Cashew nut workers suffer 'appalling' conditions as global slump dents profits (Nov 2, 2013. Link here: http://bit.ly/1e2cJLp) came as a shocker. I had thought that since India imports bulk of the cashews for processing (about 60% of the global output) it must be a good business for the people engaged in processing. But the report tells me, how wrong I was. Of course, I had known about the plight of people who suffered from the indiscriminate sprays of the deadly Endosulfan chemicals. My colleagues at the voluntary organisation Thanal had been on the forefront along with the villagers of Kasaragod that spearheaded the movement against Endosulfan. But somehow had remained oblivious to the crisis the cashew workers were faced with year after year, some for over 30 years now.

I must admit I have been to Kollam (in Kerala) a number of times to visit Mata Amrita but never used the opportunity to visit cashew growers and workers nearby. The next time I am there, you will get a first hand field report.

Spare a thought at the plight of the cashew works, and of course the cashew growers. The Guardian picture above is more than a thousand words.