Food wastage in India is not 40 per cent but 5.8-18 per cent in fruits; 6.8 to 12.4 percent in veggies; and 4.3 to 6.1 per cent in cereals.

Wasted food at a landfill site in the United States. 

Sometimes, when I am finished with my meal at a marriage ceremony and go out to throw my patal (made from leaves) in the dustbin, I watch with great regret and concern when a team of urchins would descend to look for leftovers. After these children are done away with, I find the dogs moving in. At the same time I can spot a number of crows waiting for their turn.

The clamour for food security extends beyond us, the well-to-do.

What we therefore consider as food wastage becomes essential to meet the food security needs of not-so-lucky, and also that of the animals and birds. I have always therefore wondered whether food actually goes waste. I still find my mother providing a handful of kneaded wheat to the cows every morning, and also leave aside some chapatis for the dogs after dinner. What she does it so religiously is actually aimed at ensuring food security for the animals. Indian religion teaches us compassion and to believe in sharing and caring.  

This however does not mean that food does not get waste. In America and Canada, 40 per cent food is wasted, much of it at the household level. The landfills are full of stale food, adding greenhouses gases. There are studies which have computed the food wastage in the US, including this NRDC study (How America is losing up to 40 per cent of its food from farm to fork to landfill. http://bit.ly/QWpLOv). In fact, the other day on a TV show on FDI in retail the anchor asked me would FDI not help reduce the 40 per cent wastage we have in fruits and vegetables. My reply was that first I don't buy these figures, and secondly how can Wal-Mart curb food wastage when it has not been able to do so in America where 40 per cent food gets wasted. I think the anchor didn't even know that food wastage was so high in the US.

Nevertheless, where has this figure of 40 per cent food wastage in India come from? As a student of agriculture, some 30 years back, I remember my teachers would often quote this figure. And I find even now the same figure is being nauseatingly used again and again simply to justify FDI in retail. Prime Minister uses it, Food Minister K V Thomas too uses it, and of course the Wal-Mart Minister Anand Sharma has to use it. FICCI/CII have been playing it up. But now I find Rahul Gandhi going a step ahead and saying 60-70 per cent food gets wasted !

Sometimes back FICCI had asked McKinsey (or was it some other consulting firm?) to do a study on food wastage. It also came up with the imaginative figure of 40 per cent. Speak a lie a hundred times and it becomes a truth, isn't it?

The Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering & Technology (CIPHET) at Ludhiana has finally cleared the mist. Based on a nation-wide study to make quantitative assessment of harvest and post-harvest losses for 46 agricultural produces in 106 randomly selected districts in 2010, showed wastage in fruits to vary between 5.8 (in Sapota) to a maximum of 18 per cent (for Guava). In vegetables, cauliflower has the minimum loss at 6.8 per cent while tomato faces 12.4 per cent loss. 

Wastage for other items was much lower. For crops (3.9 to 6 per cent), cereals (4.3 to 6.1 per cent), pulses (4.3-6.1 per cent), oilseeds (6 per cent), meat (2.3 per cent), fish (2.9 per cent) and poultry (3.7 per cent).

These figures are much lower than the imaginative 40 per cent food wastage figure that is being tossed around. It only goes to show how we hype the crop losses to benefit the industries. This is primarily the reason why most Indian policies fail to deliver. If the foundation is faulty, based incorrect figures and estimates, the policy too will be faulty. Lots of people blame implementation to be the cause for tardy progress. I blame the wrong policies to be the primary cause for this lop-sided development.       

Brave New World: Cows to send an SMS when in heat

Oh, my God ! This is a Brave New World that even Aldous Huxley failed to predict. Dairy farmers getting a text message on mobile phone from cows. I too couldn't have imagined this. 

The text message is to let the farmers know when they are in heat so that arrangements can be made for artificial insemination or procuring a bull for breeding purposes. Considering that milch cows in Switzerland and for that matter in Europe and America are in terrible stress as a result of which there is a significant drop in the reproductive activity, it is expected the new technology will enable farmers to know precisely when the cow is sexually active, says a news report in New York Times (Swiss Cows send texts to announce they're in heat, NYT Oct 1, 2012. http://nyti.ms/QmdZe2).

The device is undergoing tests and would be available soon in the market. According to the news report it's use involves inserting a thermometer with a tiny transmitter and antenna in the cow's genitals. I am not sure how the animal right's activists are going to perceive the new technological development, but a private company in Switzerland is getting ready to market the product.

Only a few days back, speaking a conference in New Delhi, I was talking how dairy farms in Europe (and the West for that matter) have a computer chip on the strap along the neck of the cow, which comes into contact with a sensor on the wall when the cow puts its head in the feed bin at the time of milking. This tells the dairy owner of the body weight of the animal and how much feed and proteins it requires, and only that quantity of feed comes out. So, let us be clear. The cow is the most food secure animal on Earth.

Now with a transmitter fitted in the cow's genitals, cows are going to be monitored for its heat cycle. Poor cows, even their sex life is now getting restricted. Gone are the days when cows would roam free in the meadows, with the bells around their neck clinking. It has become so mechanized nowadays. Cows are nothing more than milch machines, and of course have more or less become a staple food for a society that claims to be civilized. I am sure the cows must be cursing us for putting them in such an ordeal.

One in four Americans live in poverty. What has gone wrong with the American dream?

Is America competing with India on poverty? Looking at the latest data that Oxfam (Ignoring the nation's poor: A political peril in 2012? http://bit.ly/SewjEf) has put up, I am not only shocked but must accept that it has taken me quite sometime to digest the appalling American poverty figures. If every one in four American's live in poverty or near poverty, a  number that has grown by 22.6% since 2007, and every one in seven is living in hunger, and with unemployment soaring, wonder what has gone so wrong with the  American dream. 

In India, the poverty estimates have recently been raised from 27.5% to 37.2% after the Planning commission accepted a report submitted by economist Suresh Tendulkar. The new poverty line pegs the number of Indians in poverty at 410 million, a jump of about 100 million. If we were to accept the official poverty line, although I have always argued that India's poverty line is too stringent, it is one in every three Indians who live in poverty.

If in the United States, it is one in every four Americans. In India, it is almost close to one in every three Indians !

In 2010, US official estimates show 46.9 million people living in poverty, up from 37.3 million in 2007 -- the fourth consecutive annual increase in the number of people in poverty. In 2010, for which data was released in Sept 2011, poverty remains the highest in past 52 years. A superpower cannot be sustained for long on a growing population of hungry and poor. Nor can the economic mirage hide forever the startling realities.

Jeffrey Buchanan, Oxfam America's senior domestic policy adviser, writes that while the economic shift that is taking place towards growing poverty does not find much of echo in media (like in India), the number of working families sliding below the poverty line has grown by over 25 per cent since 2007. Here he is talking about working families who have been impacted by the 2008 economic slowdown and have probably lost their jobs or are being under-employed since then. From 2007 onwards,10.4 million Americans have seen their incomes fall below the federal poverty mark, $ 23,500 for a family of four.

The US incidentally does not measure poverty the way the UN deliberately tries to underplay by computing it on the basis of a bare minimum that is need to survive, at less than $1.25 a day. In India, the official poverty line has been pegged even much lower at 64 US cents for urban areas and  52 cents for rural areas. India, as is quite obvious, wants to hide its poverty under the statistical smokescreen (Indian government seeks to lower official poverty line to 50 cents per day, Wall Street Journal, http://bit.ly/r3bF5B).

The question that arises is how come in a country which is considered to be the Mecca of economic liberalisation and free markets, where hundreds of billions of dollars are pumped in social security programmes, including supplement nutrition, poverty and hunger have broken all records? US has also gone in for Quantitative Easing (QE), which in layman's language means printing of currency notes, and still poverty zooms. Isn't it therefore time to sit up and take notice as to where and why has this economic dream gone bust?

Something has gone terribly wrong.

It is the flawed economic model that has probably outlived it's utility. It is the betrayal by the educated, including the mainline economists and the rating agencies, who have relentlessly worked hard to justify the wrongs. It is the all pervasive intellectual corruption, an art perfected by academicians, management gurus and policy makers, that has seduced the people to believe that the only path to progress is through growth economics.

To borrow the thoughts of Rabindranath Tagore I pray to God to let more and more people emerge free from the confines of economic fundamentalism. Where the mind is held high, and without fear; where knowledge is free ...

From Pepsico to Wal-mart: Selling a fake dream

In the mid-1980s, Pepsico came up with a proposal to bring in a 2^nd horticultural revolution in Punjab. It was hailed as a path-breaking initiative that would put an end to the continuing distress on the farm. It was expected to usher in the latest technology, improve farm research and extension, create supply-chain infrastructure, and provide marketing linkages from farm to the fork. I remember the kind of excitement that prevailed all around. Politicians, bureaucrats, economists, agricultural scientists and even the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) joined the chorus. All my efforts to reason out the hollowness of the claims, based on Pepsico’s own studies, were simply lost in the din and noise created by the drum-beaters. 

Some 15 years after the project was approved, Pepsico’s horticultural revolution is all but forgotten. Agriculture has gone from bad to worse.  The food bowl of the country has also become a major hot spot for farmer suicides. While the soft drink giant remains busy marketing its colas, Pepsico has not been held accountable for its failed promises. It will never be punished for selling a fake dream to the beleaguered farming community. 

It is now the turn of Wal-Mart and other big retail giants. FDI in retail is once again being projected as a panacea for all the ills plaguing Indian agriculture. FDI in retail will lay out backend infrastructure, bring in a chain of cold storages and improved transportation thereby reducing crop losses; remove middlemen which rob the farmers of profits, and thereby provide him higher prices; bring in improved technology to help in crop diversification; and of course create millions of jobs. The cheerleaders are once again on the road. This time, it is the corporate controlled electronic media that is drumming up the hype.

Having spent Rs 52-crore in two years for lobbying alone, and after the recent New York Times exposure showing how Wal-Mart bribed its way to control 50 per cent of the retail market in Mexico, the Union Cabinet finally allowed big retail to set shop. If Wal-mart could bribe its way in Mexico, what makes us think they have not been able to do so in India?  

We are being told that Wal-Mart, Tesco, Sainsbury, Carrefour and a host of other big retail players are expected to increase farm income. In the US, where Wal-Mart has completed 50 years, if farmers were getting a better income, there was no reason why the farming population should plummet to less than one per cent of the population. Farmers in US survive on the farm not because of Wal-Mart but the massive subsidy support, which includes direct farm income. Between 1997 and 2008, Rs 12.60 lakh crore was provided as income support to farmers. A UNCTAD-India study shows that if these subsidies, classified as Green Box in WTO parlance, are removed, the American agriculture collapses.

In Europe, despite the dominance of big retail, every minute one farmer quits agriculture. Europe provides the highest amount of subsidies, including direct income support. But because 74 per cent of these subsidies are cornered by Corporations and big farmers, small farmers are quitting farming. In France, farm income has come down by 39 per cent in 2009, down from 22 per cent in 2008. In OECD, the richest trading block comprising 30 countries, Rs 14 lakh crore was the farm subsidy support in 2009 alone. It is not big retail, but direct income support that keeps farmers in agriculture.

These subsidies also bring down the domestic and international prices as a result of which big retail sells cheap. Empirical studies show big retail charging 20-30 per cent higher than open market in Latin America and Southeast Asia. In India, organised domestic retail has not been able to sell cheaper. A NABARD study for Hyderabad shows Reliance Fresh and other charging 15-20 per cent higher prices. Even at the peak of inflation in India, these domestic organised retailers did not reduce prices. So where is the advantage to consumers? 

Studies show in America, before 1950, when farmers would sell their produce for one dollar, 70 cents was his income. In 2005, it had fallen to 4 per cent. With the middlemen wiped out, I thought the farmer’s income should have gone up. No, it is the new battery of middlemen – quality controller, standardiser, certification agency, processor et c—who walk away with farmer’s profits. Number of middlemen, operating under the same hub, actually increases. Let us not forget, Wal-mart is a big middleman, it eats away the smaller middlemen.

There is no evidence that big retail creates backend infrastructure. In US and Europe, rural infrastructure has been created through government support which came in the form of agricultural subsidies. To say that 40 per cent agricultural food that goes waste in India will be drastically reduced is also an illusion. In US also, 40 per cent food is wasted and much of it is after processing where Wal-Mart’s should have played a much important role. 

Regarding employment generation and poverty alleviation, lessons need to be drawn from a 2004 study of Pennsylvania State University by Stephen  Goetz and Hema Swaminathan, which showed how higher poverty prevailed in areas where Wal-Mart stores had come up compared to those states where big retail was absent. In any case, for a $450 billion turnover, Wal-Mart employs only 2.1 million people. Whereas for an estimated $460 billion market, Indian retail employs 44 million people. Let us not forget, Pepsico had also promised to create 50,000 jobs. As per a question in Parliament, it became known that Pepsico had created less than 500 jobs, including 250 unskilled workers. Moreover, last month, massive demonstrations rocked US by Wal-Mart workers complaining of poor working conditions and exploitative salaries. Who creates employment, and also provides better working conditions, therefore is all evident.

Yes, there is a need to improve rural infrastructure, provide a sophisticated supply chain, and provide better income to farmers. The milkman of India, late Dr Verghese Kurien, had shown us the way. The cooperative dairy structure, which led to the evolution of the Amul brand, is the right approach. If he could do it for milk, which is a highly perishable commodity, there is no reason why it can’t be replicated in fruits, vegetables and other agricultural commodities. From a milk importer, India has now become world's biggest producer of milk. It is therefore obvious that solutions to the plethora of problems on Indian farms does not lie in the west, but in our own backyard. We need to look inwards. Otherwise we will go on committing the same mistakes, and in the process turn farms into killing fields.

Monsoon came in late but was in no hurry to leave.

In the midst of all the noise and din over the approval of FDI in multi-brand retail, comes the bad news. Despite the revival of monsoon in late Aug and September, the acreage under kharif sowings remains dismally short by 55.62 lakh hectares. While the area and production of paddy has not been severely impacted, it is coarse cereals, kharif pulses and oilseeds like groundnut which will record lower production. 

Some estimates point to a shortfall of about 15 million tonnes in foodgrain production, but there is no cause for alarm given the overflowing stocks of wheat and rice. 

Monsoon rains, which began late leaving Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh as the worst hit, appeared to be in no hurry to leave. Getting it all wrong this year, the Indian Meteorological Department is now finding it embarrassing to explain why southwest monsoon is not withdrawing as predicted. IMD had pointed to a dry September hoping the phenomenon of El Nino – which mostly brings in dry conditions in India – to become active in the tail-end of the rainy season. 

On the contrary, widespread rainfall lashed much of India in the week ending. What began as a dry season, with 42 per cent rainfall deficiency recorded in June, the country as a whole has received normal and above normal rainfall for most days of the first half of September. Of the 36 meteorological subdivisions, excess or normal rainfall has been recorded in 23 and deficient in the remaining 13 subdivisions. Accordingly, no region now falls in the category of scanty rainfall. 

Interestingly, most of the areas that were reportedly faced with a severe dry spell, and that comprised nearly 300 districts, have been slashed by continuous rains over the past two weeks. In some parts of the country, heavy and incessant rains have on the other hand created flood-like conditions, disrupting life and even forcing the State governments to launch evacuation measures. The erratic rainfall pattern has thrown up serious lessons, which we intend to forget after the monsoon season is over. 

Four States had officially declared drought – Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Rajasthan. In Gujarat, for instance, several parts of north, south and central state were hit by a drought. In addition to Kutch-Saurashtra and north Gujarat regions, neighbouring Union Territory of Diu, Daman and Dadra Nagar Haveli too was reeling under drought like conditions. Gujarat had demanded a drought-relief package of Rs 18,673.37 crore from the Centre. 

But in the second half of August and the first fortnight of September, most parts of the drought-affected regions were lashed with heavy rains as a result of which excess water from several reservoirs had to be released inundating in the process several villages and towns. Gujarat had to press in evacuation services. What is equally more intriguing is that while Kutch received the lowest rainfall in June-July, Surat district registered the highest rainfall in a decade. Such extreme variations exists in almost each of the states. 

In Madhya Pradesh, heavy rains not only disrupted life in several major cities but also ended drought in east and western parts. Rainfall now remains deficit in only four districts – Barwani, Umaria, Balaghat and Dindori. In Karnataka, where the Chief Minister had to order 12 legislators of the Estimates Committee travelling to Argentina to cut-short their visit in view of the public outcry at the time of the drought, recent rains have brought in some relief. 

I am not sure whether the Rs 17-crore puja programme evoked sympathy from the rain gods, but according to the Bangalore-based Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre moderate rainfall has been received in Chikmagalur, Davangere and Haveri districts, and light to heavy rains in Chikkaballapur, Gulbarga, Hassan, Chitradurga, Gadag, Belgaum, Kolar, Mandya, Bellary, Tumkur, Koppal, Ramnagar and Dharwad districts, while dry conditions prevailed in rest of the State. Karnataka had sought Rs 11,488.96 crore as drought relief. 

In Rajasthan, many days of heavy downpour has turned several parts of the State as flood-affected. Against a shortfall of 29.69 per cent till Aug 10, Rajasthan has now received 4.89 per cent above normal rainfall. It had to rope in Army in rescue and relief operations after 33 lives were lost. In Uttarakhand, which too reeled under drought in June, heavy rains have left 50 people dead, sparked landslides and flash floods, and brought in Army to evacuate 20,000 people to 60 relief camps.   

Let us be very clear that it is however too late to reverse the damage done to the ongoing kharif harvest. The absence of rainfall at the time of sowing has already left a soaring gap in the production potential. Late rains can help the standing crop but cannot bring in the remaining unsown area under foodgrains production. While it remains a fact that the country has failed to bring in effective measures for preparedness as well as mitigating drought, and has not been able to draw out a drought-proofing plan despite being faced with recurring dry spells, what worries me is the refusal to draw any immediate lessons from the monsoon drift – heavy rainfall in August and September. 

Call it erratic rainfall or the changing weather pattern, the fact remains that subsequent bouts of dry spell followed by heavy rains, often leading to floods in dry pockets, should be alarming enough. So far we have witnessed floods in one region while a sizable portion of the country goes dry, and at the same time there are some indications of monsoon beginning early in east India, but the new phenomenon of monsoon drift should be the focus of disaster preparedness. 

Farmers are more ingenious than planners. While the planners and policy makers will wait for screaming editorials before they take any notice, farmers have already moved to adaptive technologies. Take Punjab, for instance. Hit by a severe dry spell, Punjab farmers have shifted to late-sown and less water consuming basmati rice varieties. This year, one-fourth of the area under paddy has been brought under basmatirice.  

FDI in retail: Made in the United States

India has buckled to outside pressure by allowing in the multinational retailer — the only beneficiary of this move

For U.S. President Barack Obama there could be nothing more cheering. The ‘underachiever’ now goes to the presidential polls with a lot of confidence — India’s decision to open up FDI in multi-brand retail comes as a shot in the arm for the beleaguered American economy and will obviously boost his poll prospects. 

Mr. Obama certainly knows what is good for the U.S. economy; Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also knows what is in America’s interest. Mr. Obama, for instance, wanted to stop outsourcing to protect U.S. jobs. No amount of persuasion from India changed his mind. Similarly, knowing how important FDI in retail is for him, he had pitched for a new wave of economic reforms. It was surprising to see Mr. Obama telling India what is good for us.

Aided and abetted by TIME magazine and credit rating agencies like Standard&Poor’s, Fitch and Moody’s, India finally buckled under global pressure. What is little known is that India was also under a G-20 obligation to remove all hurdles to the growth of multi-brand retail.

But is FDI in retail really good for India? Will it improve rural infrastructure, reduce wastage of agricultural produce, and enable farmers to get a better price for their crops? While a lot has been said and written about the virtues of big retail, let me make an attempt to answer some of the big claims. 

Agriculture: The Prime Minister has repeatedly projected FDI in retail as a boon for agriculture. Unfortunately, this is not true. Even in the U.S., big retail has not helped farmers — it is federal support that makes agriculture profitable. In its last Farm Bill in 2008, the U.S. made a provision of $307 billion for agriculture for the next five years.

Where is the justification for such massive support if big retail was providing farmers better prices? And let us not forget, despite these subsidies studies have shown that one farmer in Europe quits agriculture every minute.

The second argument is that big retail will squeeze out middleman and therefore provide a better price to farmers. This is again not borne by facts. In the U.S., some studies have shown that the net income of farmers has come down from 70 per cent in the early 20th century to less than four per cent in 2005.

This is because big retail actually brings in a new battery of middlemen — quality controller, standardiser, certification agency, processor, packaging consultants etc. It is these middlemen who walk away with the profits and the farmer is left to survive on the subsidy dole.

Monopolistic power enables these companies to go in for predatory pricing. Empirical studies have shown that consumer prices in supermarkets in Latin America, Africa and Asia have remained higher than the open market by 20 to 30 per cent.

And finally, the argument that multi-brand retail will provide adequate scientific storage and thereby save millions of tonnes of food grains from rotting. I don’t know where in the world big retail has provided backend grain storage facilities?

FDI is already allowed in storage, and no investment has come in. Let it also be known that even the 30-per-cent local sourcing clause for single-brand retail has already been challenged and quietly put in cold storage by the Ministry of Commerce. 

Employment: The Indian retail market is estimated to be around $400 billion with more than 12 million retailers employing 40 million people. Ironically, Wal-Mart’s turnover is also around $420 billion, but it employs only 2.1 million people. If Wal-Mart can achieve the same turnover with hardly a fraction of the workforce employed by the Indian retail sector, how do we expect big retail to create jobs? It is the Indian retail sector which is a much bigger employer, and big retail will only destroy millions of livelihoods

State government’s prerogative: Very cleverly, the Central government has allowed the State governments the final say in allowing FDI in retail. This may to some extent pacify those State governments opposed to big retail. However, the industry is upbeat and knows well that as per international trade norms, member countries have to provide national treatment. Being a signatory to Bilateral Investment promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPAs), India has to provide national treatment to the investors. Agreements with more than 70 countries have already been signed. State governments will, therefore, have to open up for big retail. Industries will use the legal option to force the States to comply.

And more importantly, let us look at how the virus of big retail spreads, even if the promise is to keep it confined to major cities. Recently, a New York Times expose showed how Wal-Mart had captured nearly 50 per cent of Mexico’s retail market in 10 years. What is important here is that as per the NYT disclosure “the Mexican subsidiary of Wal-Mart, which opened 431 stores in 2011, had paid bribes and an internal enquiry into the matter has been suppressed at corporate headquarters in Arkansas”.

In India, we are aware that Wal-Mart alone had spent Rs.52 crore in two years to lobby, as per a disclosure statement made in the U.S. It has certainly paid off. 

(Devinder Sharma is a noted food and agricultural policy analyst).

Source: Made in the United States, The Hindu, Sept 15, 2012

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article3897906.ece

Where benign insects control harmful pests.

In the great Indian epic, Mahabharata, there is a telling story of the valiant Abhimanyu who died fighting while trying to force his way through a chakravyuah (seven rings). Mahabharata tells us that Abhimanyu had learnt the art of smashing through the seven layers of the human chain of the chakravyuah. In lot many ways, I find the Indian farmer is also like Abhimanyu. He has been forced to get into a chakravyuah but does not know how to emerge out of it. Like Abhimanyu, he too is fighting it out valiantly but eventually will meet Abhimanyu's fate who died on the battle field.   

In a country where 290,740 farmers have committed suicide between 1995 and 2011, I am always reminded of Abhimanyu. Pushed deeper and deeper into a chakravyuah by a profiteering agro-chemical industry and an insensitive scientific community, Indian farmer faces a Hobson choice. He knows that sooner or later he too will become a victim of the serial death dance being enacted on the farm or will be forced to quit agriculture. Intensive farming systems in the name of increasing crop productivity has devastated soil fertility, contaminated the environment, mined the groundwater and turned agriculture into a losing proposition. Farmer is left to die.     

Much of the destruction that we see on the farm is the result of unwanted and exorbitantly expensive chemical inputs. Take the case of chemical pesticides. It was in late 1970s that David Pimental of the Cornell University had said in his landmark paper that 99.9 per cent chemical pesticides go into environment and only 0.01 per cent of the pesticides sprayed reach the target pest. Despite this warning, agricultural scientists continued to advocate the use of chemical pesticides. While the industry gained immensely, farmers as well as the gullible consumers suffered. This makes me wonder whether there is a way out. Can the Indian farmer ever emerge out of the chakravyuah? 

In search of viable alternatives, I have spanned the globe. I have seen and worked with farmers who took up the challenge to produce crops without the use of chemicals. Across the country, and even outside Andhra Pradesh which has an impressive 35 lakh acres under no pesticides, I have seen numerous initiatives which provide hope. Last week, I visited Nidana and Lalit Khera, two tiny and nondescript villages in Jind ditrict of Haryana. Farmers and village women in these villages have gone a step ahead. Not only they don't spray chemical pesticides on cotton, they don't even use bio-pesticides. They have allowed the insect equilibrium to prevail to such an extent that the harmful insects are taken care of by the beneficial insects.   

The amazing story of Nidana has to be told. Ask any cotton farmer about mealy bug and he will shudder. Ask any pesticides manufacturer, and he will break into a big smile. This tiny insect, which has emerged as a major pest of the cotton belt, is a blessing for the pesticides industry. Over the past few years, this pest has paved the way for a multi-billion rupee business for the chemical pesticides industry.

For some illiterate and semi-literate women and some enterprising farmers around Nidana village, mealy bug poses no threat. Mealy bug is a sucking pest and is known to be devouring crops at will. The mere presence of the insect in the cotton fields sends a chill among the farmers. Not only in Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, the insect has been a major threat to cotton production in neighbouring Pakistan. Massive and timely chemical sprays are advised by worried farm officials. But here in Jind district, some farmers remain unconcerned and take it easy.

Meena Malik is a 23 year-old graduate, who along with some 30 women of the nearby villages, partakes in a mahila keet pathshala (women insect school) every week. Once in a week, they spread across cotton fields in small groups early in the morning, each carrying a magnifying glass and with a notebook in hand. They identify the beneficial insects, which are mostly non-vegetarian, and count its population on a few plants. Similarly, they look for the harmful insects, mostly vegetarian feeding on the plant foliage and fruits, and based on their observations make a note of the insect diversity that exists in the crop fields.

"We have been able to identify 109 non-vegetarian insects and 43 vegetarian insects in our cotton fields," Meena tells me. An elderly lady Santosh Malik adds: "Mealy bugs are controlled by 16 kinds of beetles, 6 kinds of bugs, 7 kinds of flies and insects like praying mantis and chrysopa." At her age, I was surprised when she brought some beetles and bugs for me to see. Explaining to me the how different insects adopt different mechanisms to kill, she told me how an insect called angira, black in colour, would lay eggs in the stomach of the mealy bug. One egg per mealy bug. This eats up the stomach of the mealy bug which turns red in colour and eventually dies. Besides angira, she named two other of the same kind -- fangira and jangira.        

Among the bugs that feed on seeds in the cotton bolls of are kala baniya, lal baniya. The third of the species -- matku baniya -- sucks the blood of lal baniya. The bugs, very small in size, literally are blood suckers. Among the lady beetles, both the adults as well as the larvae, feed on the crawlers (children) of the mealy bug on priority basis. In its life cycle of 30-35 days, each mealy bug lays on an average 400 eggs, which becomes a rich food source for the lady beetles and their offsprings. Such is the importance of lady beetle insects that the women have prepared a Haryanvi folk song highlighting the virtues of the insect. If I understood properly, the lyrics of the folk song do plead for the lady beetles to come and save the cotton crop which has been destroyed by pests.

The most dreaded pest on cotton is the American bollworm (locally called American sundi), which is polyphagus in nature surviving on some 90 plant species. Dr Surinder Dalal, an Agricultural Development Officer of the Haryana Agriculture Department, who is considered to be the moving spirit behind this remarkable initiative in preserving insect equilibrium so as to maintain ecological balance, says: "The moths of the bollworm lay on an average anything between 700 to 3000 eggs on different plant leaves". Adds Kuldeep Singh Dhanda, pradhan of village Brah Kalan Bahra in Jind district, "The beetles eat the eggs, and 9 different kinds of bugs -- two of which are locally called katil burga, didar burga -- suck the eggs, and the moths are eaten by robber fly and dragon fly." Together they control the American bollworm.

The Nidana experiment began in 2007. Certainly it wasn't easy to convince cotton farmers that they can do without chemical and biological pesticides. But with each passing year now, more and more farmers are becoming aware of the ecological pathway. And this makes me wonder whether the approach scientific institutes followed all these years -- from 'lab-to-land' -- is in reality the bane of Indian agriculture. If only agricultural scientists had learnt from the farmers, if only they had adopted the reverse pathway -- from 'land-to-lab' -- probably farmers would have not been thrown to the gallows.

To me, the Nidana experiment is the way out of chakravyuah. The sooner we spread the message far and wide, the better it would be for the future of Indian agriculture as well as for the very survival of the farmers.

Also see: 
A ray of farming hope, Deccan Herald, Bangalore/Delhi, Sept 11, 2012
bit.ly/SCLMnV