Category Archives: Articles

Weaving a soft cottony story

Posted on by
Reply

http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/weaving-a-soft-cottony-story/article4449096.ece?css=print
Published: February 24, 2013 16:12 IST | Updated: February 24, 2013 16:12 IST

BHUMIKA K.

Back to the basics: Vijayalakshmi and Mani believe going back to organic is the only way. Photo: BHagya Prakash K.

Mani and Vijayalakshmi tell us the fascinating story of how farmers in Karnataka and weavers in Tamil Nadu together bring out an ethical and sustainable range of weaves that includes all.

If you began this story with ‘Once upon a time…’ it would sound fairly long ago and suitably fairytale-like. But the story of Mani Chinnaswamy and Vijayalakshmi Nachiar is not so distant, though at the end, everybody lived happily. It’s a story that travels between Pollachi in Tamil Nadu and H.D. Kote in Karnataka. It’s a story that travels between farmers here and weavers there. It’s a story that travels from the farm to boutiques.

At a time when the country is opening up to MNC clothing companies , Mani and Vijayalakshmi decided to go back to the fabric synonymous with India — . Mani, a third-generation inheritor of the family’s mill Appachi , in Pollachi, Tamil Nadu, decided in 2006 that they should be an “ethical” business. “So we quit our conventional business,” say Mani, an MBA graduate from the U.S.A. The couple were recently in Bangalore for an exhibition of their products.

It was a decision driven by a whole chain of thought — cotton farming in India had gone beyond being chemically intensive to genetically modified (GM). A traditionally culture, with overuse of fertilizers, had failing soil, subsequent crop loss, farmers forcibly moving to GM crop because of low yields, farmers being in debt, leading to suicides… “Over 10 years we lost almost all our native seeds. The solution to reviving the soil, we thought, was going back to organic…it’s the only way. And it’s no rocket science. Most of our farmers have been organic by default. We are only making it a planned event.” And so started their Eco-Logic Project.

They partnered with the Savayava Krishikara Sangha in Karnataka, buying up native seeds that were in cold storage for three years from the Karnataka State Seeds Corporation, Hebbal. But why Karnataka? “Every cotton crop requires a climactic specific condition,” says Vijayalakshmi. “For example, varieties like the Dharwad Cotton Hybrid revived looms from Bengal to Trivandrum. Moreover the weather in Karnataka is best suited for cotton crops. Native seeds are hardy, and the shine and lustre of the cotton is intrinsically built into our picking and weaving traditions. Our interest lies in protecting our own identity,” says Mani. Mani had earlier experimented with the idea of contract farming, providing the farmer assurance that all his cotton crop will be bought, in 2000, with Tibetean farmers settled in Mundgod, in Uttara Kannada district.

The area they worked on reviving organic cotton farming was in H.D. Kote on the banks of the Kabini river in Karnataka. It’s a UNESCO-recognised site as part of the Nilgiris Biosphere where 65,000 acres was under cotton cultivation on the edge of the forest zone. When the Kabini dam was built, farmers were moved out of their agricultural land and had consequently turned to . “It takes about three years for a farm to get certified as organic,” says Mani. They have about 165 farmers in their network now. They don’t offer farmers a pre-fixed price, but a minimum support price; else, a market committee is formed that fixes the price in keeping with market rates.

Vijayalakshmi, a textile graduate, decided that the cotton they grew and ginned should be made into yardage; but that didn’t work because at that time there was no market for organic cotton; in fact perception in international markets was that Indian cotton was one of the most polluted. “That’s when the idea of value addition came in…weavers too have the same sad story as farmers. The weaver works for a wage, gets no recognition for his work, and so doesn’t want his children to continue in that profession,” she surmises. The couple built a 22-room studio with traditional jacquard looms. They also run a free-education school for the children of weavers.

“We finally felt the whole chain was ethical and included everybody — therefore, our brand ‘ethics’ and ‘us’,” she says. They decided to keep the Indian identity, make saris, but with a different look and feel to suit “occasional wear’ that the sari has become. They roped in designers to work with weavers.

Each of their products carries a tag with a picture of the weaver, his name, how long he took to weave it; they have over 50 weavers working with them now. Organic certified dyes have helped them break the colour palette of beige and brown; its more of jewel tones of reds, pinks, greens and blues.The use of mercerised cotton gives their saris, dupattas, scarves and stoles an almost silk-like lustrous finish.

Not a product, but a story

In 2009, Ethicus was finally launched, and boutiques all over the country were willing to stock their products under the original label. “We were sure we didn’t want to sell a product; we wanted to tell a story,” insists Vijayalakshmi. At the same time, they didn’t want people to buy in guilt, so they didn’t want to harp on the organic bit. Point out the high price of organic clothing, and Mani says, “Look at this way…you, as a customer, are paying a ‘conservation contribution’. We pay 10 per cent over what conventional cotton farmers get for their produce.” All the cotton can’t go into handlooms; so they started making machine-made linens, and knit baby garments, exported to Italy and Australia. Designers are invited to come and use the loom and work with them.

The farmer does multi-cropping and so has food for his family; they are now in a position to sell organic jaggery and ragi…a new area of organic food they are exploring. Of course there were many sceptics asking if such a rosy story was true…their clients were invited over to see for themselves everything from farm to weave. The couple saw another business opportunity and started the Eco Logic Tours!

To know more of their endeavour, check, www.ethicus.in

Too much power in too few hands: Food giants take over the industry

Posted on by
Reply
Small producers face poverty as ever more commodities are controlled by a coterie of multinationals #CorporateControl
 As you sip your morning coffee or tea, accompanied perhaps by a chocolate biscuit, or a banana for the more health-conscious, think hard about where your breakfast comes from. Increasingly, a handful of multinationals are tightening their grip on the commodity markets, with potentially dramatic effects for consumers and food producers alike.

The livelihoods of millions of smallholders who produce the drinks and snacks we consume every day are “seriously under threat”, warns a report to be published tomorrow to mark the start of Fairtraide Fortnight. Extreme price volatility, high food prices and more concentrated food markets threaten to leave farmers “condemned to poverty”.

Three companies now account for more than 40 per cent of global coffee sales, eight companies control the supply of cocoa and chocolate, seven control 85 per cent of tea production, five account for 75 per cent of the world banana trade, and the largest six sugar traders account for about two-thirds of world trade, according to the new publication from the Fairtrade Foundation.

Such tight control of the markets by multinationals – which can use their “buyer power” to dictate how the supply chain is run – can leave smallholders “marginalised”, surviving on precarious contracts, poverty wages, and with poor health and safety practices, the report warns. It stresses that, with the G8 summit to be held in Northern Ireland in June, this is the year “to put the politics of food on the public agenda and find better solutions to the insanity of our broken food system”.

More people may be shopping ethically – sales of Fairtrade cocoa grew by more than 20 per cent last year to £153m – but, according to the report, the world’s food system is “dangerously out of control”. Cocoa growers now receive 3.5 to 6 per cent of the average retail value of a chocolate bar; in the 1980s they got 18 per cent.

The report is being published to coincide with the launch of a three-year food campaign by the Fairtrade Foundation, to “pull our broken food system back from the brink and make it work for all”. Its recommendations include asking governments to ensure greater transparency and “fair competition” in international supply chains.

Michael Gidney, chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation, said: “Putting too much power into the hands of too few companies increases the risk of exploitation in food supply chains, where producers have no choice but to sell for low prices, while consumers face a bewildering array of products on shop shelves even though their purchases benefit only a small number of brands.

“Unless we do something now, millions of small farmers are condemned to poverty. If they are in crisis, and farmers see no future in farming, then many of our foods could be at risk.”

About 500 million smallholders produce 70 per cent of the world’s food, but make up half the world’s hungry. Women at are the helm – producing 60 to 80 per cent of the food in developing countries and acting as the main producers.

‘Last year I got $2.20 per pound, this year $1.40′

Gerardo Arias Camacho, 43, a coffee farmer from Costa Rica, has been producing coffee since he was taken out of school to help his father at the age of 10. He works 13 hours a day to produce coffee from five hectares. Mr Camacho, a board member of the first Fairtrade-certified co-op in his country, said this year he might struggle to profit at all from some of the coffee he sells.

“About 40 per cent of our coffee is sold to multinationals, but the problem with the free market is there is no minimum price. Last year, I got $2.20 per pound of coffee; this year it’s about $1.40. This is really bad for us, as the cost of producing is about $1.60.

“They really don’t care about what problems we have here in our village; we worry about having enough food, clothes, and enough money to send our kids to school. Small roasting companies have direct relations with us, know our needs and understand us. This makes a big difference.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/too-much-power-in-too-few-hands-food-giants-take-over-the-industry-8508259.html

THE MOST WIDELY USED HERBICIDE IN THE WORLD CONTAINS COMPOUNDS MORE TOXIC THAN DECLARED – NEW RESEARCH SHOWS

Posted on by
Reply

#RoundupReady #GMCrops #KnowYouFood

Caen, Feb. 21st, 2013 - In a new research published in the high ranked scientific journal Toxicology, Robin Mesnage, Benoît Bernay and Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini, from the University of Caen, France, have proven (from a study of nine Roundup-like herbicides) that the most toxic compound is not glyphosate, which is the substance the most assessed by regulatory authorities, but a compound that is not always listed on the label, called POE-15. Modern methods were applied at the cellular level (on three human cell lines), and mass spectrometry (studies on the nature of molecules). This allowed the researchers to identify and analyse the effects of these compounds.

Context: Glyphosate is supposed to be the “active ingredient” of Roundup, the most widely used in the world, and it is present in a large group of Roundup-like herbicides. It has been safety tested on mammals for the purposes of regulatory risk assessment. But the commercial formulations of these pesticides as they are sold and used contain added ingredients (adjuvants). These are often classified confidential and described as “inerts”. However, they help to stabilize the chemical compound glyphosate and help it to penetrate plants, in the manner of corrosive detergents. The formulated herbicides (including Roundup) can affect all living cells, especially human cells. This danger is overlooked because glyphosate and Roundup are treated as the same by industry and regulators on long-term studies. The supposed non-toxicity of glyphosate serves as a basis for the commercial release of Roundup. The health and environmental agencies and pesticide companies assess the long-term effects on mammals of glyphosate alone, and not the full formulation. The details of this regulatory assessment are jealously kept confidential by companies like Monsanto and health and environmental agencies.

Conclusion and consequences: This study demonstrates that all the glyphosate-based herbicides tested are more toxic than glyphosate alone, and explains why. Thus their regulatory assessments and the maximum residue levels authorized in the environment, food, and feed, are erroneous. A drink (such as tap water contaminated by Roundup residues) or a food made with a Roundup tolerant GMO (like a transgenic soya or corn) were already demonstrated as toxic in the recent rat feeding study (2) from Prof. Séralini team.  The researchers have also published responses to critics of the study (3).  This new research explains and confirms the scientific results of the rat feeding study.
Overall, it is a great matter of concern for public health. First, all authorizations of Roundup-type herbicides have to be questioned urgently. Second, the regulatory assessment rules have to be fully revised. They should be analyzed in a transparent and contradictory manner by the scientific community. Agencies that give opinions to government authorities, in common with the pesticide companies generally conclude safety. The agencies’ opinions are wrong because they are made on the basis of lax assessments and much of the industry data is kept confidential, meaning that a full and transparent assessment cannot be carried out. These assessments are therefore neither neutral nor independent. They should as a first step make public on the Internet all the data that underpin the commercial release and positive opinions on the use of Roundup and similar products. The industry toxicological data must be legally made public.
Adjuvants of the POE-15 family (polyethoxylated tallowamine) have now been revealed as actively toxic to human cells, and must be regulated as such. The complete formulations must be tested in long-term toxicity studies and the results taken into account in regulatory assessments. The regulatory authorisation process for pesticides released into the environment and sold in stores must urgently be revised. Moreover, since the toxic confidential adjuvants are in general use in pesticide formulations, we fear according to these discoveries that the toxicity of all pesticides has been very significantly underestimated.

This study was conducted in the University of Caen with the structural support of CRIIGEN in the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER www.ensser.org).

Contact: criigen@unicaen.fr; phone +33 (0)231565684 (France). www.criigen.org
——————————
Notes :
(1) Mesnage R., Bernay B., Séralini G-E. (2013, in press). Ethoxylated adjuvants of glyphosate-based herbicides are active principles of human cell toxicity. Toxicology http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tox.2012.09.006
(2)  Séralini G. E., et al. (2012). Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize. Food and Chemical Toxicology 50 (11): 4221-4231.
(3)  Séralini G. E., et al. (2013). Answers to critics: Why there is a long term toxicity due to NK603 Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize and to a Roundup herbicide. Food and Chemical Toxicology

Posted on by
Reply

KAVITA SRIVASTAVA

  • Farmers destroying GM crops in Karnataka. GM crops are input-intensive and labourdisplacing. — K. Bhagya Prakash
    Farmers destroying in Karnataka. are input-intensive and labourdisplacing. — K. Bhagya Prakash
  • By arguing that GM crops are essential to food security, the Government seeks to conceal the underlying reality.
 The recent affidavit filed by the Ministry of Agriculture in the Supreme Court arguing that if India does not walk the path of (genetically modified) GM food, then it will starve, gives a scary picture of how the highest court of the country can be misguided in order to protect global corporate interests.

This is a lie, because the situation of hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity of the people in the country is not due to inadequacy of production (we have had record production in the last three years), but due to distribution and purchasing power. The Indian Government is one of the world’s biggest hoarders of foodgrains, about 667 lakh tonnes as on January 1, 2013. This makes the current stock 2.5 times more than the Government’s own benchmark for buffer stocks. One wonders why our Government continues to insist that lack of food production is the cause for hunger in this country? The question to ask is, why are these mountains of foodgrains not being distributed to the people when a third of the children are born malnourished, half of children are underweight and a third of the adult population has a body mass index (BMI) of below 18.5, one of the worst in the world.

CORPORATE INTERESTS

The Planning Commission’s estimate of the required subsistence calorie intake for defining the poverty line is set at 2,400 calories per person per day in rural areas and 2,100 calories per person per day in urban areas. Going by that figure, at least 80 per cent of the population in rural areas and 50 per cent in urban areas fall below the required subsistence intake. We stand way down the Global hunger Index at 65th out of 88 nations, worse than many sub-Saharan African countries.

Despite repeated Supreme Court orders regarding distribution of foodgrains to the poor at Antyodaya prices, the Government does not comply and refuses to allow food to be distributed through the public distribution system (PDS), although clandestine ways are used to export the grain abroad. And now we have this attempt of the Agriculture Ministry with its GM promotion to push for global corporate interests by riding on the backs of our starving millions. It is important to ask whether GM crops are a solution much worse than the problem that is being sought to be addressed.

The decision of bringing in GM food may not only harm Indian agriculture overwhelmingly but also push a majority of people to the brink of starvation. GM crops are an extension of input-intensive and labour-displacing model of industrial agriculture. Hence, they would harm small and marginal farmers and farm labourers, majority of whom are women. It is important to observe that agriculture, unique among sectors of production, plays the dual role of providing an enormously important source of livelihood and of producing the means of life.

MIRAGE OF INCREASED OUTPUT

To link GM to increased food production, and hence food security, is a fallacy. Evidence is emerging that food security indicators have not improved but only deteriorated in countries that have adopted GM crops elsewhere in substantial areas. A recent letter from hundreds of Indian scientists, sent to the Minister for Environment and Forests, presents clear and strong evidence on this.

From our experience with Bt it is clear that cultivation of GM crops, though it failed to increase yields, definitely increases input costs because of the royalty attached to seeds. It also includes increased irrigation and agrochemical requirements. Food security also means availability of safe food. There is growing scientific evidence questioning the safety of GM food. This shows the irresponsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture towards the people of this country, in advocating the introduction of yet-to-be-proven-safe technologies with several potential hazards as a part of our food systems.

COMPREHENSIVE PROVISIONS MUST

Hunger and malnutrition are the greatest threat to India’s national security. The National Food Security Bill is a crucial opportunity to address this. We hope that this will not be missed when Parliament deliberates the report of the Standing Committee on Food and Consumer Affairs on the National Food Security Bill 2011. The present Bill and the Standing Committee recommendations have undermined the issues of farmers and consumers, by not recommending measures to ensure sustainable food production, guaranteeing MSP at real input costs, or providing safe food which is free of contamination from or agrochemicals. Instead, the committee has recommended the provisioning of fortified foodgrains and atta (flour) under the PDS which opens the door for commercialisation of both agriculture and the food system; fortification of food grains could also open the doors for GM technologies.

The committee’s recommendations have also undermined the right to food of children, by provisioning maternal entitlements for only the first two children, thus denying the exclusive breast feeding rights of subsequent children born to the family and also not providing legal cover to the Anganwadis. It has undermined the vulnerable people’s right to food by not bringing Community Kitchens under the law, and undermined nutritional security by only talking of distribution of cereals. Further, it falls far short of providing adequate food to all (universal) through the PDS, by only covering 67 per cent of the population with as little as 5 kg of cereals per head per month. It, finally, has not provided for criminal penalties or independent grievance redressal systems, essentially diluting the legal guarantees given by the Supreme Court in the “right to food” case. We hope that Parliament will undo what the Ministry of Agriculture is trying to do through the courts and bring in the wisdom that food security must address issues related to access to resources (land, forests and water), provide for revival of agriculture, protect livelihoods of food producers and preserve local food systems.

In order to ensure that we are a society free of malnutrition and hunger, the need of the hour is to immediately legislate a truly comprehensive food security Bill rather than the myopic one that is being proposed.

(The author is Convenor, Right to Food Campaign, and National Secretary, People’s Union for Civil Liberties.)

Farmers Income Commission is now a reality in India. Karnataka becomes the first state to establish it.

Posted on by
Reply

#AgrarianCrisis #FarmersIncomeSecurity

Karnataka has done it. Last week it announced the setting up of a . The terms and conditions have yet to be formulated. If implemented properly, and followed up in Punjab, it can be the game changer for Indian agriculture which is reeling under a terrible agrarian distress.

Noted agricultural scientist Dr M S Swaminathan sees merit in this. Thanking me for persuading the Karnataka government to establish an income commission, he wrote in a personal communication: “The National Policy for Farmers calls for a paradigm shift from measuring agricultural progress in terms of production to measuring progress by the real rate in the growth of the farmers income….This is the need of the hour.”
Six years after I first demanded the need to provide farmers with an assured monthly income, the nation is gradually waking up to the desperate need for such a body to address the fundamental issue of income security among country’s exasperated farming community. Credit will go to former Karnataka Chief Minister Y S Yeddurappa who very patiently listened to me, discussed its pros and cons and agreed to set up such a body. Present Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar finally announced it as part of the agricultural budget presented in Feb 2013.
By providing income in the hands of farmers, the mainstay of the economy, we are actually providing the real stimulus to kick-start the economy.

In my opinion, modern farming leads to two kinds of agriculture. First, is the highly subsidised agriculture in the western countries. And second, it results in subsistence agriculture, as is being witnessed in the developing world. The only way to bail out subsistence farmers is to provide them with direct income support, as is being done in the rich and industrialised countries.

Let us make a comparison. In the 10-year period, between 1997 and 2008, the National Crime Record Bureau tells us that approximately 2.40 lakh farmers had committed suicide primarily to escape the humiliation that comes along with growing indebtedness. Another 42 per cent want to quit agriculture if given an alternative. In the US on the other hand, between 1995 and 2009, farmers have been paid Rs 12.50 lakh crore as farm subsidies, including direct income support. In other words, while our farmers were reeling under mounting debt, US farmers got a fat cheque sitting at home.
In Europe, the economic handouts are more lucrative. Farmers receive a per hectare subsidy in the form of direct income support of Rs 4,000. In the case of cereals alone, if you multiply Rs 4,000 with 2.2 lakh hectares area sown in 27 countries of European Union, it comes to a staggering Rs 90.40 lakh crore.
At a time when all out efforts are to launch the 2nd Green Revolution, buoyed with genetically modified crops, and stricter IPR laws that will shift the control over seed into the hands of private agribusiness companies, the market structure being laid out — contract farming, food retail, commodity exchanges, and future trading — all aim at making farmers economically viable, will actually allow the companies to walk away with more profits and leave farmers with empty pockets.
If all this was workable, and was bringing income to farmers, there is no reason why the US and EU governments for instance would be providing huge subsidies, much of it in the form of direct income support or income transfer in one form or the other, to their miniscule population of farmers.

For 45 years, the dominant breed of bureaucrats and technocrats, have been telling farmers that the more they produce the more will be their income. By saying so they were actually not helping farmers, but in the name of farmers promoting the commercial interests of fertiliser, pesticides, seed and mechanical equipment companies. No wonder, the average monthly income of a farming family in 2003-04, which includes five members of a family plus two cattle, had been worked out by NSSO at a paltry Rs 2115. The NSSO has since stopped measuring farm income.

Under the 6th Pay Commission, a peon or a chaprasi in government service gets a minimum monthly salary of Rs 15,000. A farming family earns less than Rs 2115 (in terms of prevalent prices, it would be around Rs 2,400 a month). Can’t we as a nation even think of providing farmers with an income that equals what a chaprasi gets?

If Rs 2115 is the monthly income of a farming family (in Punjab, it hovers around Rs 3,200) shouldn’t we as a nation hang our head in shame? If agriculture was indeed profitable, I see no reason why rural despair would increasingly drive farmers to take their own lives. Even in the frontline agricultural state of Punjab, two farmers commit suicide every day. As per a recent house-to-house survey, 19 people succumb to cancer ever day in Punjab ostensibly from the excessive use and abuse of chemicals in agriculture.

Farmers were made to believe that putting more inputs would bring them more profits. They are now being told that free markets — commodity exchange, future trading and food retail – will make farming profitable and economically viable. What is not being told is that it didn’t work in the US and the European Union. And it will therefore not work in India.
Look at the way such a flawed approach is being aggressively promoted in India. The beneficiaries of future trading and commodity exchange are not the farmers but speculators, the consultancy firms and rating agencies, and the business. And again, this is being done in the name of farmers. On the other hand, farmer unions have been only asking for a higher minimum support price (MSP). None of them have visualised that there are barely 35 to 40 per cent farmers in the country who ultimately get the benefit of procurement prices since they have some surplus to sell in the mandis.
The rest of the farming community, which is in a majority, also produces food. Even if they hardly have anything to sell, they at least produce food. If they were not to produce food for themselves, the country would be importing that quantity of food. In other words, they produce economic wealth. Therefore they too need to be adequately compensated for the economic wealth they produce for the country. #
Devinder Sharma

Bihar potato farmer sets new world record

Posted on by
Reply
Patna: ’s farmers have done it again. A farmer from Sohdih village of ’s Nalanda district has set a new world record in production through this year.
The potato farmer, Rakesh Kumar, has harvested 108.8 tonnes of potato per hectare and set a new world record in potato production, Nalanda district magistrate Sanjay Kumar Agrawal said on Monday.
Last year, a farmer of Darveshpura village in Nalanda had set a world record in potato production through organic farming.
“Rakesh Kumar has created a new world record in potato production through organic farming. It was verified by experts, scientists and officials,” Agrawal told IANS over telephone.
He said several officials and agricultural experts were present in the field at harvest time to verify the claim and record it.
According to him, last March, a potato farmer, Nitish Kumar, harvested 72.9 tonnes of potato per hectare and set a world record.
Till then, the world record was 45 tonnes per hectare, held by farmers in the Netherlands.
Earlier, farmers of the village in Nalanda had created a world record by producing 224 quintals of paddy per hectare.
Rakesh Kumar, who is also chairman of the Nalanda Organic Vegetable Growers’ Federation, said he used his learning, inquisitiveness and innovation to deploy high density plantation technique, used for enhancing mango, litchi and guava production, for growing the kufri pukhraj variety of potato to lift the old benchmark to an entirely new level.
“The big-sized potato also helped to make a difference,” Mr Rakesh said.
District horticulture officer DN Mahto said the achievement occurred because of the use of organic methods. “Once again, the organic method of farming proved superior to other methods of farming,” he said.
Mr Mahto said the loam soil of the village is suitable for several crops, including potato. “The new record will certainly go a long way in removing doubts about low production associated with organic farming and encourage other farmers to adopt it,” he said.
Nalanda, the home district of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, is already the leading potato producing district in Bihar, with farmers growing the crop on over 27,000 hectares.
Bihar is the third-largest potato producing state, after Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Last year, five farmers in Bihar created a world record, producing 224 quintals of paddy per hectare.
The state government has decided to promote organic farming in at least one village in each of the state’s 37 districts. It launched an “organic farming promotion programme” over a year ago, intended to develop organic ‘grams’ (villages).
Agriculture is the backbone of Bihar’s economy, employing 81 percent of its workforce and generating nearly 42 percent of the state’s domestic product, according to the state government.

India’s rice revolution

Posted on by
Reply

# #AgrarianCrisis #RiceRevolution

In a villager in India’s poorest state, , farmers are growing world record amounts of rice – with no GM, and no . Is this one solution to world food shortages?

  • Sumant KumarView larger picture
Sumant Kumar photographed in Darveshpura, Bihar, India. Photograph: Chiara Goia for Observer Food Monthly

Sumant Kumar was overjoyed when he harvested his rice last year. There had been good rains in his village of Darveshpura in north-eastIndia and he knew he could improve on the four or five tonnes per hectare that he usually managed. But every stalk he cut on his paddy field near the bank of the Sakri river seemed to weigh heavier than usual, every grain of rice was bigger and when his crop was weighed on the old village scales, even Kumar was shocked.

This was not six or even 10 or 20 tonnes. Kumar, a shy young farmer in Nalanda district of India’s poorest state Bihar, had – using only farmyard manure and without any herbicides – grown an astonishing 22.4 tonnes of rice on one hectare of land. This was a world record and with rice the staple food of more than half the world’s population of seven billion, big news.

It beat not just the 19.4 tonnes achieved by the “father of rice”, the Chinese agricultural scientist Yuan Longping, but the World Bank-funded scientists at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, and anything achieved by the biggest European and American seed and GM companies. And it was not just Sumant Kumar. Krishna, Nitish, Sanjay and Bijay, his friends and rivals in Darveshpura, all recorded over 17 tonnes, and many others in the villages around claimed to have more than doubled their usual yields.

The villagers, at the mercy of erratic weather and used to going without food in bad years, celebrated. But the Bihar state agricultural universities didn’t believe them at first, while India’s leading rice scientists muttered about freak results. The Nalanda farmers were accused of cheating. Only when the state’s head of agriculture, a rice farmer himself, came to the village with his own men and personally verified Sumant’s crop, was the record confirmed.

A tool used to harvest riceA tool used to harvest rice. Photograph: Chiara GoiaThe rhythm of Nalanda village life was shattered. Here bullocks still pull ploughs as they have always done, their dung is still dried on the walls of houses and used to cook food. Electricity has still not reached most people. Sumant became a local hero, mentioned in the Indian parliament and asked to attend conferences. The state’s chief minister came to Darveshpura to congratulate him, and the village was rewarded with electric power, a bank and a new concrete bridge.

That might have been the end of the story had Sumant’s friend Nitish not smashed the world record for growing potatoes six months later. Shortly after Ravindra Kumar, a small farmer from a nearby Bihari village, broke the Indian record for growing wheat. Darveshpura became known as India’s “miracle village”, Nalanda became famous and teams of scientists, development groups, farmers, civil servants and politicians all descended to discover its secret.

When I meet the young farmers, all in their early 30s, they still seem slightly dazed by their fame. They’ve become unlikely heroes in a state where nearly half the families live below the Indian poverty line and 93% of the 100 million population depend on growing rice and potatoes. Nitish Kumar speaks quietly of his success and says he is determined to improve on the record. “In previous years, farming has not been very profitable,” he says. “Now I realise that it can be. My whole life has changed. I can send my children to school and spend more on health. My income has increased a lot.”

What happened in Darveshpura has divided scientists and is exciting governments and development experts. Tests on the soil show it is particularly rich in silicon but the reason for the “super yields” is entirely down to a method of growing crops called System of Root Intensification (SRI). It has dramatically increased yields with wheat, potatoes, sugar cane, yams, tomatoes, garlic, aubergine and many other crops and is being hailed as one of the most significant developments of the past 50 years for the world’s 500 million small-scale farmers and the two billion people who depend on them.

People work on a rice field in BiharPeople work on a rice field in Bihar. Photograph: Chiara GoiaInstead of planting three-week-old rice seedlings in clumps of three or four in waterlogged fields, as rice farmers around the world traditionally do, the Darveshpura farmers carefully nurture only half as many seeds, and then transplant the young plants into fields, one by one, when much younger. Additionally, they space them at 25cm intervals in a grid pattern, keep the soil much drier and carefully weed around the plants to allow air to their roots. The premise that “less is more” was taught by Rajiv Kumar, a young Bihar state government extension worker who had been trained in turn by Anil Verma of Professional Assistance for Development Action, an Indian NGO which has introduced the SRI method to hundreds of villages in the past three years.

While the “green revolution” that averted Indian famine in the 1970s relied on improved crop varieties, expensive pesticides and chemical fertilisers, SRI appears to offer a long-term, sustainable future for no extra cost. With more than one in seven of the global population going hungry and demand for rice expected to outstrip supply within 20 years, it appears to offer real hope. Even a 30% increase in the yields of the world’s small farmers would go a long way to alleviating poverty.

“Farmers use less seeds, less water and less chemicals but they get more without having to invest more. This is revolutionary,” said Dr Surendra Chaurassa from Bihar’s agriculture ministry. “I did not believe it to start with, but now I think it can potentially change the way everyone farms. I would want every state to promote it. If we get 30-40% increase in yields, that is more than enough to recommend it.”

The results in Bihar have exceeded Chaurassa’s hopes. Sudama Mahto, an agriculture officer in Nalanda, says a small investment in training a few hundred people to teach SRI methods has resulted in a 45% increase in the region’s yields. Veerapandi Arumugam, the former agriculture minister of Tamil Nadu state, hailed the system as “revolutionising” farming.

SRI’s origins go back to the 1980s in Madagascar where Henri de Laulanie, a French Jesuit priest and agronomist, observed how villagers grew rice in the uplands. He developed the method but it was an American, professor Norman Uphoff, director of the International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development at Cornell University, who was largely responsible for spreading the word about De Laulanie’s work.

Given $15m by an anonymous billionaire to research sustainable development, Uphoff went to Madagascar in 1983 and saw the success of SRI for himself: farmers whose previous yields averaged two tonnes per hectare were harvesting eight tonnes. In 1997 he started to actively promote SRI in Asia, where more than 600 million people are malnourished.

“It is a set of ideas, the absolute opposite to the first green revolution [of the 60s] which said that you had to change the genes and the soil nutrients to improve yields. That came at a tremendous ecological cost,” says Uphoff. “Agriculture in the 21st century must be practised differently. Land and water resources are becoming scarcer, of poorer quality, or less reliable. Climatic conditions are in many places more adverse. SRI offers millions of disadvantaged households far better opportunities. Nobody is benefiting from this except the farmers; there are no patents, royalties or licensing fees.”

Rice seedsRice seeds. Photograph: Chiara GoiaFor 40 years now, says Uphoff, science has been obsessed with improving seeds and using artificial fertilisers: “It’s been genes, genes, genes. There has never been talk of managing crops. Corporations say ‘we will breed you a better plant’ and breeders work hard to get 5-10% increase in yields. We have tried to make agriculture an industrial enterprise and have forgotten its biological roots.”

Not everyone agrees. Some scientists complain there is not enough peer-reviewed evidence around SRI and that it is impossible to get such returns. “SRI is a set of management practices and nothing else, many of which have been known for a long time and are best recommended practice,” says Achim Dobermann, deputy director for research at the International Rice Research Institute. “Scientifically speaking I don’t believe there is any miracle. When people independently have evaluated SRI principles then the result has usually been quite different from what has been reported on farm evaluations conducted by NGOs and others who are promoting it. Most scientists have had difficulty replicating the observations.”

Dominic Glover, a British researcher working with Wageningen University in the Netherlands, has spent years analysing the introduction of in developing countries. He is now following how SRI is being adopted in India and believes there has been a “turf war”.

“There are experts in their fields defending their knowledge,” he says. “But in many areas, growers have tried SRI methods and abandoned them. People are unwilling to investigate this. SRI is good for small farmers who rely on their own families for labour, but not necessarily for larger operations. Rather than any magical theory, it is good husbandry, skill and attention which results in the super yields. Clearly in certain circumstances, it is an efficient resource for farmers. But it is labour intensive and nobody has come up with the technology to transplant single seedlings yet.”

But some larger farmers in Bihar say it is not labour intensive and can actually reduce time spent in fields. “When a farmer does SRI the first time, yes it is more labour intensive,” says Santosh Kumar, who grows 15 hectares of rice and vegetables in Nalanda. “Then it gets easier and new innovations are taking place now.”

In its early days, SRI was dismissed or vilified by donors and scientists but in the past few years it has gained credibility. Uphoff estimates there are now 4-5 million farmers using SRI worldwide, with governments in China, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam promoting it.

Sumant, Nitish and as many as 100,000 other SRI farmers in Bihar are now preparing their next rice crop. It’s back-breaking work transplanting the young rice shoots from the nursery beds to the paddy fields but buoyed by recognition and results, their confidence and optimism in the future is sky high.

Last month Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz visited Nalanda district and recognised the potential of this kind of , telling the villagers they were “better than scientists”. “It was amazing to see their success in ,” said Stiglitz, who called for more research. “Agriculture scientists from across the world should visit and learn and be inspired by them.”

A man winnows rice in Satgharwa villageA man winnows rice in Satgharwa village. Photograph: Chiara GoiaBihar, from being India’s poorest state, is now at the centre of what is being called a “new green grassroots revolution” with farming villages, research groups and NGOs all beginning to experiment with different crops using SRI. The state will invest $50m in SRI next year but western governments and foundations are holding back, preferring to invest in hi-tech research. The agronomist Anil Verma does not understand why: “The farmers know SRI works, but help is needed to train them. We know it works differently in different soils but the principles are solid,” he says. “The biggest problem we have is that people want to do it but we do not have enough trainers.

“If any scientist or a company came up with a technology that almost guaranteed a 50% increase in yields at no extra cost they would get a Nobel prize. But when young Biharian farmers do that they get nothing. I only want to see the poor farmers have enough to eat.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/feb/16/india-rice-farmers-revolution

Gujarat: Top expert opposes Bt rice cultivation

Posted on by
Reply

Chief rice researcher at Anand Agricultural University (AAU) Atul Mehta has strongly opposed the idea of Bt rice cultivation in Gujarat.

It was AAU under whose supervision a private seed manufacturing firm had conducted a trial on Bt rice a few years ago. Mehta was a member of the committee that also subsequently submitted a report to the state government.

He was speaking at a seminar on “ and food security” at Gujarat Vidyapith on Friday.

Mehta opposed the argument by supporters of Bt rice that the variety was resistant to stem borer and stem leaf folder infection that spoiled paddy crops in many parts of the country.

He said this problem was negligible in Gujarat. Moreover, Gujarat was having certain improved rice varieties that were as resistant to these pest attacks as Bt rice, he argued, adding that the local varieties were equally good in yield and hence there was no need to allow Bt technology having adverse consequences.

Mehta said the introduction of Bt rice would also hit India’s rice export because it was not allowed in European and other countries.

He said Basmati growers and exporters in Haryana, Punjab, western UP and Uttarakhand were also opposing Bt rice cultivation.

An official in the state agriculture department said no permission at present could be given for commercial cultivation of Bt rice, a food crop. According to him, commercial cultivation for Bt crop can be allowed only after clearance from Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), a central panel which is yet to be reconstituted after its previous term expired months ago.

Bharatiya Kisan Sangh is also opposing Bt rice. Its state president Maganbhai Patel said BKS was not against technology but it needed to be sustainable.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/top-expert-opposes-bt-rice-cultivation/1075520/
Syed Khalique Ahmed : Ahmedabad, Sun Feb 17 2013, 06:35 hrs

 

USA: Farmer’s use of genetically modified soybeans grows into Supreme Court case

Posted on by
Reply

#Monsanto #GMCrops #PatentsOnLife Farmer’s use of genetically modified soybeans grows into Supreme Court case

In SANDBORN, Ind. — Farmer Hugh Bowman hardly looks the part of a revolutionary who stands in the way of promising new biotech discoveries and threatens Monsanto’s pursuit of new products it says will “feed the world.”

“Hell’s fire,” said the 75-year-old self-described “eccentric old bachelor,” who farms 300 acres of land passed down from his father. Bowman rested in a recliner, boots off, the tag that once held his Foster Grant reading glasses to a drugstore rack still attached, aMonsanto gimme cap perched ironically on his balding head.

“I am less than a drop in the bucket.”

Yet Bowman’s unorthodox soybean farming techniques have landed him at the center of a national battle over genetically modified crops. His legal battle, now at the Supreme Court, raises questions about whether the right to patent living things extends to their progeny, and how companies that engage in cutting-edge research can recoup their investments.

What Bowman did was to take commodity grain from the local elevator, which is usually used for feed, and plant it. But that grain was mostly progeny of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready beans because that’s what most Indiana soybean farmers grow. Those soybeans are genetically modified to survive the weedkiller Roundup, and Monsanto claims that Bowman’s planting violated the company’s restrictions.

Those supporting Bowman hope the court uses the case, which is scheduled for oral arguments later this month, to hit the reset button on corporate domination of agribusiness and what they call Monsanto’s “legal assault” on farmers who don’t toe the line.Monsanto’s supporters say advances in health and environmental research are endangered.

And the case raises questions about the traditional role of farmers.

For instance: When a farmer grows Monsanto’s genetically modified soybean seeds, has he simply “used” the seed to create a crop to sell, or has he “made” untold replicas of Monsanto’s invention that remain subject to the company’s restrictions?

An adverse ruling, Monsanto warned the court in its brief, “would devastate innovation in biotechnology,” which involves “notoriously high research and development costs.”

“Inventors are unlikely to make such investments if they cannot prevent purchasers of living organisms containing their invention from using them to produce unlimited copies,” Monsanto states.

Bowman said Monsanto’s claim that its patent protection would be eviscerated should he win is “ridiculous.”

“Monsanto should not be able, just because they’ve got millions and millions of dollars to spend on legal fees, to try to terrify farmers into making them obey their agreements by massive force and threats,” Bowman said.

His squat white farmhouse on the outskirts of his down-at-the-heels home town is now filled with stacks of documents. There are legal procedure books under the living room end table and a copier in the bedroom that regularly churns out Bowman’s six-page statement of events.

The journey from Sandborn to the Supreme Court is a trip through modern American agribusiness and patent law, an increasing part of the court’s docket but a complex area of law that even the justices approach with some trepidation.

At issue is Monsanto’s ubiquitous weedkiller, Roundup, which has revolutionized American farming. “Weeds are the most significant economic challenge to global food production,” says a brief by the American Soybean Association, which supportsMonsanto in the case.

They compete with crops for water, nutrients and light, and Roundup has been especially effective in combating them. The ’s active ingredient, glyphosate, kills almost everything — including conventional soybeans.

So Monsanto in 1996 offered a genetically modified soybean that was resistent to glyphosate, and despite alarm from some who oppose such engineering, it has been wildly successful. Through Monsanto’s own seeds and by its licensing of the technology to other seed producers, a little more than a decade later more than 90 percent of the soybeans grown in the United States were Roundup Ready.

Farmers who buy seeds with the Roundup Ready trait sign an agreement that says they may be used for one planting only. Even though the gene exists in the new beans they grow, farmers cannot save them for a second planting, nor sell them to others for that purpose.

But they are allowed to sell the beans to giant grain elevators, like those that are the most prominent feature on the flat landscape in Bowman’s corner of southern Indiana.

From 1999 to 2007, Bowman purchased Roundup Ready seeds for his first planting of soybeans and abided by Monsanto’s restrictions. But like some farmers, he also plants a second crop later in the growing season; such crops are highly dependent on the weather, which makes them more hit-or-miss.

It is too risky to pay the high price of Monsanto’s Roundup-resistant seeds for the second crop of the season, Bowman said, so instead he purchased cheaper commodity grain from the local elevator, which is usually used for feed. He planted it, and when he sprayed the crop with the herbicide, almost all survived. That wasn’t surprising, because 94 percent of Indiana soybean farmers grow Roundup Ready beans.

Bowman told Monsanto exactly what he was doing, and Monsanto told him to stop.

The farmer was in effect “soybean laundering,” according to some of the companies supporting Monsanto at the Supreme Court — selling Roundup Ready progeny beans to the grain elevator and hoping other farmers were too, then buying them back and planting them.

The company sued when Bowman ignored its warnings, winning a judgment of nearly $85,000.

Bowman argued that under long-standing legal precedent, Monsanto’s patent claims ended — were “exhausted” is the legal term — once Bowman purchased the Roundup Ready seed.

But the specialized court that hears patent cases, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, disagreed and said Monsantocould put restrictions on farmers’ use of progeny beans.

Moreover, the judges said that even if Monsanto’s patent was exhausted by the original sale, Bowman was creating copies of the company’s technology.

“While farmers, like Bowman, may have the right to use commodity seeds as feed . . . they cannot ‘replicate’ Monsanto’s patented technology by planting it in the ground to create newly infringing genetic material, seeds, and plants,” the court ruled.

It was one in a string of victories for Monsanto at the Federal Circuit. But the Supreme Court in recent years has taken a much more aggressive stance in reviewing the lower court’s patent rulings. Even though the Obama administration, at the justices’ invitation, said the ruling should be affirmed, the court accepted Bowman’s appeal.

Those worried about genetically modified crops — now dominant in corn, sugar beet and canola production as well as soybeans — say Bowman’s case presents a “microcosm” of the state of American agribusiness, where corporations dominate and bully farmers through lawsuits.

“The current intellectual property environment of transgenic crops has spurred the privatization and concentration of the world’s seed supply,” said a brief filed by the Center for Food Safety and Save Our Seeds, groups that have been highly critical of Monsantoand genetically modified crops. “Market concentration has resulted in 10 multinational corporations holding approximately two-thirds (65%) of commercial seed for major crops, reducing choice and innovation, and increasing prices for the American farmer.”

The brief asks the court to end the practice of allowing corporations to place conditions on the sale of its seed and to reject an “end-run around patent exhaustion” for regeneration. “Farming is using seeds, not constructing or manufacturing seeds,” the brief states.

Monsanto, alarmed at the possibilities of what the Supreme Court might do, has circled the wagons.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization warns that advancements in agricultural, medical and environmental research “depend critically on a strong, stable and nationally uniform system of patent rights and protections.”

Universities, economists, intellectual property experts and seed companies have weighed in on Monsanto’s behalf.

Bowman originally represented himself, with the help of a local attorney, in the legal proceedings. But now Seattle lawyer Mark P. Walters and his intellectual property law firm are working pro bono on Bowman’s behalf.

Walters calls Monsanto’s dire claims “really such an exaggeration.” Monsanto can protect itself through contracts, for instance, requiring grain elevators to impose restrictions against planting commodity seed. The company could even ensure that its Roundup resistance does not pass on to the next generation of soybeans, ensuring that farmers would have to buy, rather than save, seed.

Monsanto rejects those alternatives as unworkable.

Bowman, meanwhile, denies that he has found an ingenious loophole around Monsanto’s restriction.

“I see no threat in what I’ve done,” he said. “If there was, there’d surely be a hell of a lot of other farmers doing it.” Instead, he said, “as far as I know, I’m the only damn dumb farmer around” that tried.

The case is Vernon Hugh Bowman v. Monsanto .

Hungry for innovation: pathways from GM crops to agroecology

Posted on by
Reply

#GMCrops # #AgroEcology

Late lessons from early warnings: science, precaution, innovation

David  A.   Quist,   Jack  A.   Heinemann,  Anne   I.   Myhr,   Iulie  Aslaksen   and   Silvio   Funtowicz

Hungry for innovation: pathways from GM crops to agroecology Emerging issues | Hungry for innovation: pathways from GM crops to agroecology download

Innovation’s potential to deliver food security and solve other agriculture-related problems is high on the agenda of virtually all nations. This chapter looks at two different examples of food and agricultural innovation: genetically modified (GM) crops and agroecological methods, which illustrate how different innovation strategies affect future agricultural and social options.

are well suited to high-input monoculture agricultural systems that are highly productive but largely unsustainable in their reliance on external, non-renewable inputs. Intellectual property rights granted for often close down, rather than open up further innovation potential, and stifle investment into a broader diversity of innovations allowing a greater distribution of their benefits.
Science-based agroecological methods are participatory in nature and designed to fit within the dynamics underpinning the multifunctional role of agriculture in producing food, enhancing biodiversity and ecoystem services, and providing security to communities. They are better suited to agricultural systems that aim to deliver sustainable food security than high external input approaches. They do, however, require a broader range of incentives and supportive frameworks to succeed. Both approaches raise the issue of the governance of innovation within agriculture and more generally within societies.
The chapter explores the consequences of a ‘top-down transfer of technology’ approach in addressing the needs of poor farmers. Here innovation is often framed in terms of economic growth in a competitive global economy, a focus that may conflict with efforts to reduce or reverse environmental damage caused by existing models of agriculture, or even deter investment into socially responsible innovation.
Another option explored is a ‘bottom-up’ approach, using and building upon resources already available: local people, their knowledge, needs, aspirations and indigenous natural resources. The bottom-up approach may also involve the public as a key actor in decisions about the design of food systems, particularly as it relates to food quality, health, and social and environmental sustainability.
Options are presented for how best to answer consumer calls for food quality, sustainability and social equity in a wide sense, while responding to health and environmental concerns and securing livelihoods in local small-scale agriculture. If we fail to address the governance of innovation in food, fibre and fuel production now, then current indications are that we will design agriculture to fail.