a very interesting compilation by Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements
Handbook on Some Political Issues surrounding Food and Agriculture in India
Reply
Tag Archives: Food Security
Harvesting food security
BABA MAYARAM
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Hopeful alternative:Utera farming enriches the soil quality and keeps away pests. -
The beneficiaries:Ganpat and his wife Beti Bai at their farm.
At the foothills of Datla mountain of Satpuda Valley in the Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh is located the picturesque village of Dhadaw. Located on the banks of Dudhi River that also defines the boundary of the district, Dhadaw falls in the district’s forest belt. Within the periphery of this village lies a world that has efficiently maintained the essence of traditional agricultural practices — a remarkable feat at a time when farmers are increasingly quitting this occupation across the country.
Known as utera cropping, six to seven types of crops are sown simultaneously in this type of cultivation. For example, seeds of urad, jawar, paddy, tilli, tuar, sama and kodo are mixed and then sown collectively. Sown in June, the crop is harvested at different times; urad is harvested first, followed by paddy, jawar and tuar.
Sixty-year-old Ganpat, busy harvesting the crop with his hansiya (reaping hook), shares: “Almost nothing or very less money is required for utera farming. With the combination of our hard work, labour of the bullocks and some help from the monsoon, our crops get ready for harvesting. Every year, we save some seeds for the following season, saving the cost of buying seeds. The bullocks also give us fertilisers which, in turn, nourish our soil.”
As he scales the scaffold to keep parrots and other birds away from the chickpea crop, he explains the significance of utera cropping in their lives. “Utera gives us the complete meal — dal, rice, wheat and oil. It fulfils our yearly requirements of pulses, oil seeds, and cereals. It gives cereals for human beings, stem, straw and fodder for animals, bio-fertilisers for soil and bio pesticide for crops.”
According to the District Gazetteer, people of this region earlier followed Milwan (mixed) farming, in which legumes are sown to maintain the fertility of the soil. Mixed crops are sown in various ratios. Birra was sown by mixing wheat and chana; tiwda and chana were also mixed; cotton, sesame, kodo and jawar were sown together.
Another benefit of sowing legumes along with other crops is that it lowers the need for additional nitrogen-based inputs. Farmers believe that if one crop fails in utera, other crops compensate for it — a sharp contrast to cash crops, where farmers suffer intensely if the crop is destroyed by insects or pests, or even by natural forces. In 2011, soybean crops were completely destroyed and three farmers committed suicide in Hoshangabad.
Ramkhyali Thakur, a farmer from Dhadaw, considers this cropping method to be better than chemical farming because of its low dependence on money and chemical fertilisers. Since every crop gets ready at different interval, family members usually suffice to carry out the harvest. This saves their limited financial resources that would otherwise go into hiring expensive farm labourers and harvester machines. In all, this traditional form of agricultural practice makes a multi-faceted contribution to food security, preservation of soil, live stock breeding, bio-diversity and environmental concerns.
A few years ago, every household had a kitchen garden in which utera crops were sown. Many green vegetables, seasonal fruits and cereals would be planted in the backyard of every house. Bhata, tomatoes, green chilli, ginger, ladies finger, semi (ballar), corn, jawar, among others, were planted. Munga, lemon, berries and guava from these kitchen gardens were a good source of nutrition for the children. Water from household chores would be recycled to feed these crops. Pity, this practice is limited to merely a handful of families.
The livelihood of the people of Dhadaw strongly depends on the traditional utera method and on the forest. The farm and forest duo gifts them everything they require for their daily lives. It also preserves biodiversity by preserving soil, water and the environment.
Utera and mixed cropping are not the only methods of traditional farming that have the potential to liberate us from the shackles of chemical farming. There are several other methods of traditional farming, depending on the climatic and environment conditions of a particular region; satgajra (seven grains), navdanya (nine pulses), and barah anaja (twelve cereals) are various forms of agricultural practices. Each has its own benefits: they resist pest invasion, help increase natural fertilisation of the soil and provides food security.
According to Chandrabhan, an ardent advocate of utera farming, “Chemical farming is burning the soil. It is killing the micro-organisms which help make the soil more fertile. Our fellow farmers need to get rid of their dependency on chemicals. It is up to us to turn the tide.”
(Charkha Features)
Practising traditional utera methods has helped Dhadaw farmers keep away the harmful aspects of chemical farming
Greenpeace Challenges Sharad Pawar, says GM crops cannot offer food security Activists occupy FCI’s godown on eve of Parliament Budget session
New Delhi, February 20, 2013: Rejecting Sharad Pawar’s stance on GM crops being the answer to India’s food security, 17 Greenpeace activists unfurled a massive banner with the message “Say NO to GM, Yes to Food Security” at the Food Corporation of India’s godown in Delhi’s Mayapuri area. As the parliament prepares to kick off the budget session tomorrow, this act reiterates that the solution lies in adopting a holistic view of food security with focus on better food distribution systems rather than promoting false solutions like genetically modified crops (GM).
The police immediately came at the venue and detained the activists, they were later taken to Mayapuri police station. Commenting on the detention, eminent social activist Aruna Roy said, “The Greenpeace activists peacefully protesting against the position taken by Union Agri Minister, Sharad Pawar have been illegally detained. This detention is one more in a series of actions taken by the State to suppress dissent. They were infact protesting against the Minister’s attempt to trivialise the issue of food security by asserting that the controversial GM technology would, infact, offer security of food production. The Minister’s support for GM food crops is highly controversial and there is an ongoing international debate on this issue. We condemn the detention and demand immediate release of peaceful protestors.”
In the Monsoon Session of 2012, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture tabled their report on GM crops. One of the clear recommendations of the report was for the government to come up with a fresh road map to food security that does not adopt risky technologies like GM but addresses the shortcomings of storage, distribution and mismanagement of stocks. That GM food crops are a panacea for food security is an argument made to serve the interests of the biotech sector.
Echoing the voice of the Parliamentary Committee, more than 150 scientists from across the country have written to Smt Jayanthi Natarajan, expressing their displeasure at the Government of India for promoting GM crops as a way forward for food security.
Neha Saigal, campaigner, Greenpeace India said, “So far there has been no single GM crop developed for increasing yields and it has failed to show any such increase in yield in nearly two decades of its existence. Instead of forcing risky GM food down our throats, Mr Pawar needs to address the fact that millions of tonnes of grains in storage facilities across India, consistently fail to reach the people. And, as the environment minister, Smt Natarajan should take an unequivocal stand on GM crops.”
Kavita Srivastava, convenor, Right to Food campaign said, “The issue of food security is broader than production. The problem lies in the lack of a political will for a Universal Distribution System. The UPA Government must not be distracted by GM crops as a solution to food security, but focus on an inclusive food security bill..”
Greenpeace urges the Minister of Environment, Jayanthi Natarajan, who is the decision maker on the environmental release of GMOs to intervene so that the MoA does not mislead the debate of food security.
Our Nutrient World: The challenge to produce more food and energy with less pollution
Our Nutrient World: The challenge to produce more food and energy with less pollution.This Global Overview on Nutrient Management addresses the scientific complexity of how humanity can rise to these challenges and maximize the opportunities of improved nutrient management. The message of this overview is that everyone stands to benefit from nutrients and that everyone can make a contribution to promote sustainable production and use of nutrients. Whether we live in a part of the world with too much or too little nutrients, our daily decisions can make a difference. Its preparation has forged new links between communities, gradually building a network of institutions and actors for better scientific understanding to support future decision making in this field. The work underpinning the report is an outcome from the Global Partnership on Nutrient Management (GPNM). It was prepared by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Edinburgh on behalf of the Global Partnership on Nutrient Management and the International Nitrogen Initiative.
Our Nutrient World (9.5 MB)
Source: http://www.gpa.unep.
“HUNGER AND NUTRITION: TIME TO ACT” Amartya Sen Argues for an Improved Food Security Bill
(New Delhi, 15 February 2013)
Speaking to an enthralled audience of 1,500 students and faculty at IIT (Delhi) today, Amartya Sen said that the idea of the National Food Security Bill was “a matter of appreciation and support”, and that the tabling of the Bill in Parliament was in itself a big achievement. However, he also drew attention to various shortcomings of the Bill and argued for it to be strengthened, particularly in terms of children’s entitlements.
Also in this panel discussion on “Hunger and Nutrition: Time to Act” were Montek Singh Ahluwalia (Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission), Shantha Sinha (Chairperson, National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights) and Shyama Singh (NREGA Sahayata Kendra, Latehar District, Jharkhand). Shyama Singh, an Adivasi activist from Latehar District in Jharkhand, opened the discussion with a spirited account of people’s struggles for their basic entitlements, including employment under NREGA, land titles and the Public Distribution System. She paid homage to her friends Lalit Mehta and Niyamat Ansari who have lost their lives in this struggle.
Recalling the critical importance of early childhood for lifetime health and wellbeing, Sen deplored the fact that children’s entitlements under the food security bill were so weak. Recent Supreme Court orders on midday meals and the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), he said, have made an important contribution to the health and nutrition of children. The Bill, he felt, should not dilute these entitlements in any way.
Sen also stressed that health, nutrition and elementary education were important in themselves as well as for long-run economic success. Neglecting children is not only unjust but also an economic blunder.
Shanta Sinha, chairperson of the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) also pleaded the case of young children and criticized the National Food Security Bill for giving them a raw deal. She took issue with the Parliamentary Standing Committee report on the Bill, which suggests replacing children’s entitlements with an additional allocation of 5 kgs of foodgrains per month for pregnant women under the PDS. The word “anganwadi”, she pointed out, is not even mentioned in the revised version of the Bill, despite the critical importance of ICDS services for children. Shantha Sinha also criticized the proposal to restrict maternity entitlements in the Bill to the first two children.
Amartya Sen recalled that the principles of free and universal provision of essential health, education and nutrition services were part of the country’s vision at the time of Independence. It can be found, for instance, in the Bhore Committee Report on health, 1946. The country needs to revive this broad view of the links between human capability, economic success, and social justice.
Professor Sen recalled in particular three advantages of universal coverage when it comes to basic public services and social facilities. First, it makes these facilities a matter of citizens’ right, and avoids any exclusion. Second, it ensures that powerful and influential people have a stake in them. Third, universal coverage helps to avoid corruption.
Montek Singh Ahluwalia agreed that malnutrition among children was indeed a national shame, as the Prime Minister himself put it a year ago, and gave credit to civil society for sensitizing the government to this issue. Also a matter of shame, he said, was the state of nutrition statistics, with the latest comprehensive data on child health and nutrition going back to the Third National Family Health Survey, conducted in 2005-6. He stressed the need for a range of interventions, related for instance to immunization, breastfeeding, drinking water and sanitation. He said that the government was also committed to a Public Distribution System that provided access to subsidized grain. Anticipating concerns from the business media and others about the costs of the food bill, Ahluwalia said: “I don’t think the government or anyone else should say that we can’t afford the food subsidy because of the fiscal deficit… that would be actually dishonest”. He added, however, that funding the Bill might call for a reduction of other expenditure.
Professor Sen also spoke about the politics of food and other subsidies. He pointed out that there are powerful lobbies for diesel and LPG subsidies, and even for exemptions of custom duties on gold imports, but not for children’s rights. Because of these imbalances of power and influence, there are also massive imbalances in India’s spending priorities. In his concluding remarks, Sen argued that better practice of democracy was the way to bring about constructive change, and invited everyone to contribute to it.
Dr. Reetika Khera (IIT, Delhi), who chaired the discussion on behalf of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, spoke about the findings of recent field surveys of social programmes such as NREGA and the PDS, conducted by student volunteers. One of the main insights of these surveys, she said, was that these programmes can make a real difference to people’s lives – something that the media, and even academic research, often fail to report.
For further information, please contact Ujjainee Sharma (9818364825, ujjaineec@gmail.com) or Reetika Khera (9958801227,reetika.khera@gmail.com).
For a full video of the discussion see www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Farmer unions speak out in Hyderabad on GM crops on National Food Safety Day
On National Safe Food Day (Feb 9, 2013), Farmer Unions and Civil Society groups in Hyderabad declare that GM crops are not required for Food Security, and demand that the government should implement Parliamentary Standing Committee and Supreme Court Tech Committee recommendations
Several farmer union leaders and civil society groups came together at press meet on National Safe Food Day to speak out about GM crops, 3 years after they raised strong concerns about Bt Brinjal which led to the Centre declaring a moratorium on Feb 9th, 2010. This day is being observed as National Safe Food Day by groups across the country.
The following points were highlighted:
(1) We reject the claims of the Bio-tech industry lobby groups and their agents pretending to speak on behalf of farmers, that farmers are demanding GM crops. As farmer organizations representing millions of farmers in Andhra Pradesh, we declare that what farmers are demanding is strong regulation of seed companies including quality, price and royalties on seed, and farmers’ rights over seed (instead of intellectual property rights by companies).
(2) We reject the claim that GM crops are essential for food security and for increasing food production. As farmer organizations representing millions of farmers in A.P., we assert that what is required for food security is urgent measures to ensure remunerative prices, provide support systems for farmers, incentives for food crops rather than risky commercial crops, and preventing diversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes. Instead of acting on these real demands of farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture is batting for the GM, seed and pesticide industries as indicated by the recent conference in Delhi.
(3) In the 3 years since the Bt Brinjal moratorium, various recommendations of the Minister of Environment and Forests, such as establishing independent testing laboratories, independent regulatory and monitoring body, incorporating long-term tests for bio-safety and health impacts of GM crops, etc. have not been implemented. Still, there is a clamour from the biotech companies and Ministry of Agriculture for releasing GM crops.
(4) The Parliamentary Standing Committee and Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee made detailed, well-studied recommendations on GM crops – including stopping certain field trials and permitting certain trials only after bio-safety has been established. These recommendations should be implemented immediately by Govt of India.
(5) The BRAI Bill which is designed to fast-track the approval of GM crops should be set aside, and a new National Bio-Safety Law should be adopted to regulate GM crops.
Several programs with farmers are being taken up to raise awareness about GM crops in the next one month in various districts.
Pasya Padma from A.P.Ryotu Sangham, Sai Reddy from Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, Kiran Vissa from Rythu Swarajya Vedika, Dr.Ramanjaneyulu from Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, and Dr.Narasimha Reddy from Chetana Society participated. Sarampalli Malla Reddy, National Vice President of All India Kisan Sabha, and David Showry, leader of Bharatiya Kisan Morcha (BJP) fully supported the statement but could not join due to health and unavoidable reasons.
Central government to redraft food security bill
Ajith Athrady, NEW DELHI, Jan 30, 2013, DHNS:
The UPA Government’s much-hyped cheap foodgrain scheme is likely to be delayed further with the Centre on Wednesday deciding to redraft the National Food Security Bill by incorporating suggestions made by the Parliament Standing Committee on Food and Consumer Affairs.
The decision was taken at a high level meeting convened at the Prime Minister’s Office to discuss the panel’s recommendations. It was also decided to withdraw the current bill from Parliament and table a new bill in the coming Budget Session.
Though Union Food and Consumer Affairs Minister K V Thomas claimed that the new bill would be passed in the Budget Session, officials are sceptical.
“Drafting a new bill means the entire exercise has to start afresh. Even the Food Ministry has to call a meeting of the states — either of food ministers or chief ministers — to consult on this issue again,” sources in the government told Deccan Herald.
No more review by panel
The new bill, which will be drafted by the Food and Consumer Affairs Ministry, will not be sent to the Standing Committee again as all its suggestions on the existing bill will be incorporated in the new one, sources added.
The new bill will, however, protect the Anna Antyodaya Yojane category beneficiaries, wherein the poorest among poor will get 35 kg of foodgrain in a month. Besides, there will be coverage up to 75 per cent in 250 backward districts, while it will be 90 per cent in 13 states including the northeastern region.
The total coverage under the scheme will remain 67 per cent in the country in the new bill and the cost to the exchequer will also be less than Rs 1.20 lakh crore a year, said an official from the ministry.
Instead of modifying the existing bill, the government has decided to draft a new bill to incorporate the many recommendations made by the Standing Committee on Food and Consumer Affairs headed by Congress MP Vilas Muttemwar, the official said.
Though the government had long ago announced to introduce the cheap foodgrain scheme through legislation, it is struggling to fine-tune it.
Conference organised by the Ministry of Agriculture on “Doubling Food Production in Five Years” – Ignoring Parliament – In brazen support of corporate interests at the expense of farmers
Coalition for a GM-Free India
New Delhi
29-01-2013
To
Shri Sharad Pawar,
Ministry for Agriculture,
Goverrnment of India.
Re: Conference organised by the Ministry of Agriculture on “Doubling Food Production in Five Years” – Ignoring Parliament – In brazen support of corporate interests at the expense of farmers’ – reg.
It has come to our attention that the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) is organising a Conference on “Doubling Food Production in Five years” from February 1-3, 2013 at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi. On the face of it, it appears to be a regular program of the Ministry. However, two things draw our attention to this particular Conference : first, the predominance of vested interests acting behind it i.e, the ones promoting the Conference with full page advertisements in national newspapers – the Pesticide Manufacturers and Formulators Association of India(PMFAI), the National Seed Association of India(NSAI) and the biotech lobby group-ABLE and second, some of the “eminent” speakers selected to address the Conference – some of them controversial figures well known for their support of GM crops without supporting scientific facts or evidence.
Sir, you know very well that the Standing Committee on Agriculture of the Indian Parliament has in its path-breaking report of August 2012, come down heavily on this dangerous path that your Ministry is leading the country into. It said “In their tearing hurry to open the economy to private prospectors, the Government should not make the same fate befall on the agriculture sector as has happened to the communications, pharma, mineral wealth and several other sectors in which the Government’s facilitative benevelonce preceded setting up of sufficient checks and balances and regulatory mechanisms, thereby, leading to colossal, unfettered loot and plunder of national wealth in some form or the other, incalculable damage to environment, biodiversity, flora and fauna and unimaginable suffering to the common man.” [Para 3.48].
Many of the members of the Committee were UPA Parliamentarians, as you are aware.
It is grossly irresponsible, unscientific, misleading and completely unethical for the Ministry to blatantly promote technologies such as GM crops, when as a country, India is trying to come out of the pesticide tread-mill and make its production, agriculture and its farmers livelihood sustainable, safe and remunerative. It is also reprehensible that the Ministry of Agriculture, which is answerable to the larger public and the farmers is acting at the behest of the industries who stand to profit from these unneeded, hazardous technologies. We would also like to point out that the Ministry’s own inquiry through the Sopory Committee has brought to the fore egregious failings with regard to transgenic research and regulation in this country.
This blatant attempt by the Ministry makes it clear that MoA is not genuinely interested in addressing food security in any lasting fashion or acting in a scientific way when it comes to many problems in our farming, but is interested in blindly promoting certain technologies, for private and possibly vested and corrupt interests.
Food security of a country like India is not an issue the MoA should let vested interests sabotage; it requires serious efforts from the Ministry and its officials to listen to all stakeholders and to arrive at a well thought out and optimal solution to address it, drawing from various areas of expertise, experience and knowledge domains. We reproduce what the Parliamentary Standing Committee had said on this matter.
“The present worrisome situation” as regards food security is primarily because of “faulty procurement policy, mismanagement of stocks, lack of adequate and proper storage, hoarding and lopsided distribution, massive leakages in the public distribution delivery system, etc.” It also adds categorically that “If these shortcomings and problems are attended to along with liberal financial assistance to agriculture and allied sectors, proactive measures are initiated to arrest the decreasing trend in cultivable area and farmer friendly and sustainable agricultural practices are put in use, there would not be any compelling need for adopting technologies which are yet to be proven totally safe for biodiversity, environment, human and livestock health and which will encourage monoculture, an option best avoided.”
The committee finally recommends that “the Government come up with a fresh road map for ensuring food security in coming years without jeopardizing the vast bio-diversity of the country and compromising with the safety of human health and livestock health.” [Para – 7.71].
It is unclear how your Ministry thinks that food security can be achieved with the help of the pesticide industry, the seed industry (that is increasingly playing into the hands of the biotech majors such as Monsanto) and the biotech industry with a single agenda of promoting genetically modified seed that is not only inadequately tested but also adequately patented so as to ensure a complete rout of our agricultural sovereignty!!! It is quite perplexing how the post-modern science and discourse in agriculture has evolved towards sustainability and agro-ecology all over the world, but is being denied vehemently by your Ministry in this country. The same applies to the nuanced understanding around the complexity of hunger and malnutrition, including structural poverty-related issues, whereas your Ministry wants unproven techno-fixes to be deployed as a one-size-fits-all solution.
It is surprising that solutions offered by globally recognised initiatives such as the IAASTD do not seem to have attracted your attention at all. And again here the Standing Committee on Agriculture has some excellent suggestions. It says “the Committee would like to remind the Government of India that they are a signatory to this path breaking effort (IAASTD Report) and in the opinion of the Committee, the Government would do well if they adopt this Report as the way forward for development of agriculture and allied sectors in India, in a sustainable and environmental friendly manner, and with no unwanted risks to biodiversity, human and livestock health, flora and fauna. The Committee also desire to be apprised of the concrete action taken by the Government on each of the findings contained in IAASTD Report during the four years after the release of the Report.” [Para 5.52]
All said and done, the Ministry of Agriculture seems to be least interested in anything that is even remotely connected to sustainability (farm as well as farm livelihood) and is only interested in helping corporate and MNC powers to dominate and profit, even at the cost of the lives of farmers and the hapless Indian consumer. There is also deep disrespect being shown towards the Indian Parliament, whose report your Ministry is ignoring and acting in contravention to its recommendations.
Hence, we are writing this letter to express our deep anguish and anger at the really worrying direction that your Ministry and hence the Government of India is leading Indian agriculture into. The fact that you are hosting people like Dennis Avery, Peter Raven, Patrick Moore and Mark Lynas to name a few demonstrates the desperation that your Ministry shares with the GM and pesticides industries to shove such dangerous technologies down the throats of the Indian public. As recently as last week the ruling party in its conclave promised that it will listen more to the people of the country, and this is definitely not the peoples wish!
Therefore, we are sending this letter to express our condemnation of such blatant vested interests being involved in policy-making and within the government. Moreover, there are accountability questions with public funds utilised for such promotional activities of profiteering industries and unscientific worldviews. The government should appreciate that this will only instigate a greater public outcry from citizens for their science, knowledge, experience and worldviews to be heard and taken on board, while shaping future directions.
We urge you not to go ahead with such a wrongly-founded Conference and also urge you to not host these controversial speakers and provide a platform to hazardous industries and waste precious public funds on events such as these.
With due respects and concerns
ridhar Radhakrishnan
Convener,
Coalition for a GM-Free India.
Copy to :
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Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India
-
Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson, United Progressive Alliance
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Sri.Jaipal Reddy, Minister for Science and Technology
-
Smt.Jayanti Natarajan, Minister of State for Environment and Forests
Coalition for a GM-Free India is a broad national network of organizations, scientists, farmer unions, consumer groups and individuals committed to keep the food and farms in India free of Genetically Modified Organisms and to protecting India’s food security and sovereignty.
Coalition for a GM-free India
c/o INSAF, A-124/6, First Floor, Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi 110 016, Phone/Fax: 011-26517814
Website: www.indiagminfo.org, email: indiagmfree@gmail.com, Facebook – GM Watch India
ANNEXURE:
The announcement of the Conference lists atleast two Chief Ministers, many ministers and officials from the Ministry of Agriculture. In addition there are representatives from FAO and ILRI. The CEO of one of the largest agro-business corporations in Latin America and the President of EMBRAPA ( Brazil) find a place in the speakers list. It also has four known GM crop promoters. Some information on them is provided below:
A short note on the affiliations of some of the ‘eminent speakers’
- Dennis Avery – Director of Hudson Institute1 , considered a conservative think tank, which is supported by large corporations including agri-business corporations2. He is an anti-organicfarming advocate and a strong supporter of biotechnology in agriculture, pesticides and a climate change skeptic.3 4
- Mark Lynas - The biotech industry’s newly minted star, according to his own profile is a speaker on climate change5, nowhere he is featured as an anti-GM activist. He began promotingGM crops since the last three years.6 He has claimed to have ‘helped start’ the anti-GM movement and also said to have ‘coordinated with Indian groups’- both untrue! The Coalition has already put out a detailed statement which can be accessed here.7
- Patrick Moore- Runs his own consulting firm which reportedly does “public relations efforts, lectures, lobbying.8”According to Greenpeace (Moore uses his past link to GP even now)Patrick Moore is , “a paid spokesman for the nuclear industry, the logging industry, and genetic engineering industry, frequently cites a long-ago affiliation with Greenpeace to gain legitimacy inthe media.”9 Greenpeace says “Patrick Moore frequently portrays himself as a founder or co-founder of Greenpeace, and many news outlets have repeated this characterization. AlthoughMr. Moore played a significant role in Greenpeace Canada for several years, he did not found Greenpeace.”10 It is interesting to note that even in this profile for the Conference of Ministry ofAgriculture, he gives his long ago Greenpeace affiliation( which ended more than 25 years back) rather than his lobbying work of the past 20 years .
- Peter Raven- President Emeritus of Missouri Gardens which has a long standing and close relationship with Monsanto and is an advocate of GM crops.11 Missouri Gardens has beenworking with and receiving funds from Monsanto since 1999. Even as recently as May 2012 Monsanto gifted three million dollars to the Missouri botanical gardens.12 In addition many of thefacilities in Missuori Gardens are funded by Monsanto like the Monsanto Hall, Monsanto Center etc.13 Along with Monsanto the Missouri Botanical Gradens was one of the key groupsinvolved in forming the Danforth Plant Science Centre, which promotes GM crop research.14
10 ibid
11 http://www.independent.co.uk/
12 http://www.
Food as entitlement: Harsh Mander
Ash in the Belly: India’s Unfinished Battle Against Hunger by Harsh Mander
Reinventing the discourse around human rights today presents new opportunities to advance the possibilities of justice. An excerpt from Harsh Mander’s just released book Ash in the Belly: India’s Unfinished Battle against Hunger.
There are many ways that the story of human history can be told. One of these is of the unending struggles of oppressed people — to fight their chains, to free themselves and others from the bondages which have enslaved and crushed them.
Each epoch has fashioned its own ideas around which dreams and struggles for justice have been forged. In recent centuries, these struggles for justice have increasingly been fashioned at least partly around some notions of rights, or moral and legal entitlements. In post-War, postcolonial decades of the second half of the twentieth century, somewhat sterile debates rose around the conflict and hierarchy of rights. Non-Communist liberal democracies prioritized civil and political rights, such as protection against torture and arbitrary arrest and detention, over social and economic rights of food, shelter, health care and education. Communist regimes ensured food, education, health-care and social security for its citizens, but trampled civil and political rights. However, epochal changes wrought the world over after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the demolition of the Berlin Wall in the last two decades of the twentieth century have posed new and urgent challenges to the notions of both rights and justice.
Discussions about ending hunger and securing every person’s access to food is increasingly being articulated around some notion of rights, rather than appeals to charity, the goodwill of people, religious organizations or public officials, or even development services or basic needs. It is built around the growing acknowledgement of the equal intrinsic worth of every human being, primarily by virtue of their being human. This leads to a belief that governments have the primary duty to ensure that people have the material resources, freedoms and protection required to be able to live a human life of dignity, security and material levels, considered the entitlement of every human being. Rights are these claims that every human being can make from the government stemming from the essential equal humanity and worth of all people. These rights have moral binding, but some are also legally enforceable in courts of law. In other words, rights are entitlements backed by legal or moral principles.
During much of the twentieth century, poverty, hunger, want and inequality were always with, and around us. Their existence formed an essential element of middle class consciousness. Radical socialist and communist formations fought for power in the name of poor and oppressed people, and when in power governed explicitly for their social and economic rights. Postcolonial States derived legitimacy from claims of redistributive justice. Liberal democratic capitalist governments experimented with Keynesian or welfare state solutions to poverty, basic needs and social security. Whatever States actually did for social and economic justice and for better lives for underprivileged people, there was no doubt that they derive legitimacy substantially from these claims and acts. The lives and struggles of poor people were a staple of popular cinema and literature and found spaces, even if limited, in print and television media.
All this changed dramatically in the last decade of the twentieth century. The notion of ‘good governance’ was influentially fostered by international financial institutions like the World Bank, incorporating globalised free markets, private provisioning of public goods and fiscal austerity, and like the assembly line of consumer goods adopted increasingly by populations across the world. There arose also a global assembly line of ideas and culture. In other words, not only did people across cultures and nations start eating the same burgers and wearing the same branded blue denim jeans; they also began to believe that the same set of economic and public policies would benefit people of all classes and gender across nations. Important among these ideas was that the primary duty of the State was no longer to address poverty, hunger and injustice, and to ensure the security of all citizens. It was instead to create the most effective conditions for globalized trans-national capital to flourish with the least encumbrances and uncertainties, so that investment and consequent economic growth could be best secured. States did not even have to provision public goods like food, education, health care and public transport; even these could be competitively secured through the functioning of markets.
This change is also brought about with the breakdown of Keynesian welfare State and the emergence of Schumpeterian workfare regime, in which welfare was downgraded and workfare become the ruling idea. That is, one can only ask for relief if one is willing and able to ‘work’ in ‘productive’ ways as defined by material society. Crucially, a whole group of people (including the destitute, aged, sick and disabled) become devalued and invisible, because they are deemed to be unproductive, even ‘unemployable’. This also leads to de-prioritizing and in a way de-legitimizing the rights of people to means of dignified existence, independent of their perceived inability to ‘produce’.
The contemporary international regime of human rights was established by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly, 1948, which affirmed that the ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’.
Reinventing the discourse around human rights today presents new opportunities to advance the possibilities of justice, faced by the challenges in our times. This is because people can even less than in the past depend only on appeals to the moral authority and legitimacy of the State and conventional processes of representative democracy to secure the rights of citizens, particularly those who are most marginalized.
Rights already exist, but they are often implicit in the fundamental constitutional rights (especially the rights to life and equality), in the normative framework established by international covenants, or in a more universal moral regime that binds all States and informs its actions. These rights can and have indeed been widely and manifestly violated by State authorities. Yet there seems little recourse to the victims and survivors of these violations in the existing regime. The likelihood of these rights being enforced is greatly dimmed in a world where the success of States is judged by their abilities to attract international capital and accelerate market led growth, rather than to actively build a better life for its disadvantaged citizens, and when they are under enormous pressure by international financial and aid institutions to decelerate State spending. A range of rights such as social and economic rights, perhaps the first of which if the right to food, need now to be elaborated, codified and above all made judiciable.
Excerpted with permissions from Penguin Books India from the book Ash in the Belly: India’s Unfinished Battle Against Hunger by Harsh Mander. Penguin India/ Rs.350.
Need for new food security law – Political gimmick won’t do
THE UPA government’s Food Security Bill (FSB) has managed to draw flak from almost every quarter, starting with agencies within the government led by the Minister of Agriculture himself, followed by several experts and public interest groups. This controversial law originates from the National Advisory Council which has drafted it without consultations with scientists, experts, farmers or civil society groups working on agriculture and food issues. Because it has the powerful backing of Sonia Gandhi, this imperfect draft legislation is being pushed in Parliament. The Bill exists in a vacuum and makes no effort to correct any of the problems in the existing food support schemes. It merely suggests another way of distributing food under the PDS and could legitimately be called a Revised Public Distribution System (PDS) Bill rather than a Food Security Bill.
To achieve food security, the Bill proposes to revise the PDS and provide 7 kg of rice and wheat at Rs 3 and Rs 2 per kg, respectively, per person to people below the poverty line. More recently, the government is suggesting that the priority and general categories should be done away with and only one category of people retained for support. These people should be provided 5 kg grain per individual. Not unexpectedly, this has been met with stiff opposition.
The country already has several food support schemes to tackle hunger. These are principally the (PDS), the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and the Mid-Day Meal Scheme. In addition, there is the Annapurna Scheme for old people and Antodaya for the very poor. The implementation of most of these schemes is highly problematic and there are several leakages. PDS grain lands up in the black market, eligible women and children are not able to get their full entitlements from the ICDS and many of the really poor do not have BPL (Below the Poverty Line) cards because the well-off and influential in villages have had them made in their own names. We don’t really need new Bills, we need to plug the loopholes in the existing laws and policies. The new Bill makes absolutely no effort to correct any of the defects in current schemes; it just goes ahead with its own, not necessarily better, version of doing things.
It is understood by people in the know that food security has three essential components. These are food production, food distribution and food absorption. The National Advisory Council draft is faulty because it addresses just one issue — food distribution. It does not touch upon the crucial aspect of food production, nor does it deal with food absorption, which is necessary to ensure that the food that is eaten is absorbed by the body and provides nutrition. To enable proper absorption, we need clean drinking water and sanitation so that people do not suffer from diarrhoea and other stomach infections. Clean drinking water and sanitation will, therefore, have to be essential components of a law that aims to provide food security.
Possibly, the most challenging aspect of achieving food security is the cultivation aspect. Farmers are abandoning farming because it does not pay any more. Farming is the riskiest business in the world, but in India it is also a loss-making enterprise. Input costs have gone through the roof but the minimum support price (MSP) has not. In most states, the MSP does not cover the cost of production of the crops which are procured by the government. This applies to all the major food crops: paddy, wheat, jowar, bajra, maize, ragi, arhar, moong, urad, chana (gram) and barley.
The Food Security Bill fails to respond to the enormous disaster in the making as the agrarian crisis worsens. In the kharif season of 2011, tomato farmers in Karnataka hired tractor- trolleys to dump their produce on the highways because they could not get a price for it. In the same season, farmers in Andhra Pradesh declared a crop holiday and refused to plant their fields since under the present conditions, they end up losing money. In rain-fed regions like Jharkhand, farmers have been leaving their upland fields fallow for the last several years. Now even the more productive lowland fields are not cultivated because the maths simply does not add up.
The current Food Security Bill appears to be a political gimmick rather than an honest effort to tackle the problem. If we are serious and mean to do the right thing, we must start afresh and draft a new piece of food security legislation which is comprehensive. It must address the three main aspects: the production of food, its distribution, and its absorption by the body.
The writer is a scientist with several years of research and teaching experience. She works with Gene Campaign, a research and advocacy organisation, working on food and livelihood security and can be reached atmail@genecampaign.org and www.genecampaign.org