So now we know why Hugh Grant was on tour in India. Despite all Monsanto's aggressive marketing to squeeze the very last rupee out of India's farmers, the company's profits in India have almost halved (item 1).

1.Profit margins - John Vidal, The Guardian
2.India's regulators meets today - Kavitha Kuruganti
3.Sowing seeds of misery - Kanchi Kohli
4.Second Green Revolution: For whom? By whom? - Devinder Sharma
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1.Profit margins
John Vidal
Eco Soundings
The Guardian, February 8, 2006
http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,,1704122,00.html

Funny old times for GM company Monsanto. Hugh Grant, its Scottish chief, was treated like royalty on a recent visit to India, meeting both the president and the prime minister. But within days the company's Indian subsidiary reported a 47% fall in profits. Meanwhile, one of its spokesmen in Kenya admitted that Monsanto's long anticipated "drought-resistant" varieties of staple crops could take another 8-10 years to develop, and even longer before they reached Africa. To add to Monsanto's woes, the Greek government last week extended its ban on a variety of Monsanto maize, despite the European Union ordering them to lift it.
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2.GEAC meets today

India's GM regulatory body - the GEAC - meets today to discuss among other things irregularities in field trials. Their agenda is available at: http://www.envfor.nic.in/divisions/csurv/geac/geac-ag-63.pdf

Kavitha Kuruganti <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture writes:

"As you can see, one of the agenda points is the evidence presented by the Monitoring & Evaluation Committee [MEC] of civil society groups on irregularities in field trials. If you need a copy of this report, pls get in touch with me. We also have a 13-minute film with evidence of biosafety violations and unscientificity in field trials from five states.

Even though we have been assured of a presentation slot in this [February] GEAC meeting, we have now been told that we will be called for the meeting in March and that our representation would be discussed in this meeting without us! we are therefore faxing our planned presentation to the GEAC...

The absolute failure of regulation is evident from the fact that unapproved GM soy imports continue to surge in India in violation of rules of the EPA, that well-established seed companies in India start marketing their Bt Cotton hybrids without approval from the GEAC, that there are gross irregularities in the field trials of Bollgard II and Fusion Bt Cotton [the stacked genes technology is being sought to be introduced as the next generation GM cotton crops in india] and that this failure of regulation is now being carried into food crop field trials too, as the case of GM Okra demonstrates. This, of a technology which is showing up its imperfections in many ways all over the country.

It is time for GEAC to take stock, suspend all trials and fix liability for all these violations.

In case you would like to get in touch with the regulators to find out the outcomes of tomorrow's meeting, the phone numbers are:

1. Dr Desh Deepak Verma, Co-Chair, GEAC - 011-24361613 2. Dr Ranjini Warrier, Member-Secretary, GEAC - 011-24363964

kavitha kuruganti
centre for sustainable agriculture
09393001550
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3.Sowing seeds of misery
Kanchi Kohli
Hindustan Times, February 7, 2006
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1619856,00120002.htm

While inaugurating the 93rd Indian Science Congress in Hyderabad, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called upon the scientific community to work towards bringing about a second green revolution. Unlike the first one, this would have a special focus on dryland agriculture and address the needs of small and marginal farmers. At the outset, the idea seems novel, but not when one digs deeper to understand what it entails.

The second green revolution envisages making agriculture technology- and market-driven. Here, the technology in question is biotechnology and more specifically, genetically engineered (GE) technology. There is no doubt that it only operates within a globalised market system. Traditional Indian farming practices, knowledge systems, biodiverse and self-sustaining agriculture have no place in this regime.

Leave alone the arguments around the risks or economics of such agriculture, there are some fundamental, moral and ethical issues that cloud this technology. GE agriculture brings something as basic as a seed, which was always considered to be the right of the farmers, saved on their fields and exchanged freely, into the domain of business. It then becomes private property open to patent and plant variety protection regimes, where royalties have to be paid for the use of these seeds. It increases the dependency of farmers on large corporations and pushes them to operate within an international market.

While there is a section of society pushing the above approach, there is another set terribly concerned. While they have been in discussion for the last three years, finally some of them have come together to collectively react and campaign against the introduction of GE in agriculture. On January 7-8, over 50 representatives from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra came together to reject GE as a solution for addressing the issue of agricultural crisis and hunger. They have called themselves South Against Genetic Engineering (Sage).

Sage has representatives from various sectors, including farmers, farmer's organisations, NGOs, consumer groups, mediapersons, scientists, academicians and civil society activists. It says it will continue to strive for GE's deserved death.

But the members of the network are also worried with the pace with which GE is being promoted. As Bharmegowdra, a farmer from northern Karnataka said, "In agriculture, GE is not good for crops, soil, animals or humans. Its introduction leads to the loss of agro-biodiversity. It increases seed costs and use of pesticides continues. Further, the farmers don't get returns. Since farmers are not literate, they believe whatever the companies tell them. But it is clear these crops have no nutrition, only water and pesticides."

This is not the voice of a single person but of several farmers across the country. Today, the farmers in the dryland regions (which were ignored by the green revolution) are desperate and willing to take on any option. The propaganda of GE is attractive but gives only one side of the picture. Therefore, when farmers like Kumaraswamy from Andhra Pradesh fall for crops like Bt Cotton, they suffer heavy losses for two years. They finally realise that the best option is to revive traditional agricultural practices, which require low external inputs, no pesticides and also allow for biodiverse farming.

But the government continues to push for GE in agriculture. Perhaps, like many other countries, it is pressured to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal of reducing hunger by half by 2015. This is a reality which seed corporations are using to their advantage. GE is being offered as a solution for addressing hunger and nutrition. UN bodies like Food and Agriculture Organisation fall in line and endorse it. The question is, do we need the GE industry to give us solutions for hunger and malnutrition? Or does it require a reinstatement of faith in our own agricultural practices? Which is a more farmer-friendly option - one that makes a farmer dependant or the other that makes him self-reliant?

The problem of hunger and malnutrition is deeply linked with access to food. No amount of technology and market-driven agriculture can address these. It is important to bear in mind that GE focuses on making up for inadequate nutrition from existing crops. It does not deal with the fundamental reasons that lead to hunger. These include the induced crisis in agriculture, issues around distribution and access to food, etc. As was pointed out during the Sage meeting, "Ironically, the largest numbers of people suffering from micronutrient malnutrition live in South Asia, a region otherwise rich in fruits and vegetables."

We don't really need the formation of a Sage or the rage of its campaign to prove that GE is not the real answer to hunger and nutrition. Just a little common sense and faith in our own systems can do wonders for the agriculture in the country.
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4.Second Green Revolution
For whom? By whom?
Devinder Sharma

Forty years after the dawn of 'Green Revolution', Indian agriculture is once again at the crossroads. With agriculture becoming unremunerative over the years, and with input-ouput ratios faltering, the growth in agriculture has decelerated. When forests are destroyed or soil fertility is dimnished or water table plummets to dangerously low levels, the rural poor often have no option but to migrate to towns and cities in search of jobs. Such inequitable development is leading to social disintegration.

For a country, which emerged from the throes of a 'ship-to-mouth' existence, to be subsequently able to build up foodgrain reserves from homegrown wheat and rice, sustainable agriculture was the unmistaken path to equitable growth, development, and national food security. The green revolution technology, which ushered in 'food self-sufficiency', however came with enormous environmental costs. It used massive amounts of chemicals, fossil fuels and water. In energy terms, it was less efficient than many traditional farming systems. Monoculture, mechanical ploughing, soil erosion, the extension of crops into forests and the use and abuse of chemicals has contributed to the second-generation environmental impacts that the intensively-farmed lands of the country are grappling with.

Collapse of First Green Revolution

Four decades after the launch of the Green Revolution, agricultural scientists are now discovering that chemical input-based farming systems were environmentally unsound and economically unviable - more often than not resulting in a complete waste of time and money. They have realized the grave mistake only after poisoning the lands, contaminating the ground water, polluting the environment, and killing thousands of farmers and farm workers. Although David Pimental of the University of Cornell had concluded in early 1980s that only 0.01 per cent of the pesticides reached the target pest, whereas 99.9 per cent escapes into the environment, yet farmers were asked to go in for more sprays.

Pesticides and fertilisers were aggressivly promoted, with huge subsidies doled out to keep the fertiliser companies afloat, without realising the resulting devastation these chemical inputs have wrought on the sustainability of agriculture. At no stage, did the scientists call for a mid-term correction to rectify the imbalance and destruction of the soil fertility through excessive application of the chemicals. The second-generation environmental impacts became so serious that the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which governs the 16 international agricultural centres, did launch an initiative for studying the negative impact of the green revolution model on sustainability of agriculture in the Indo-Gangetic plains but the results were never made public

Says an IRRI press release (July 28, 2004): Imagine 2,000 poor rice farmers in Bangladesh, whose average farm income is around US$100 per year, suddenly take on the role of agricultural scientist. Over the course of 2 years -- 4 seasons ñ they prove that insecticides are a complete waste of time and money. IRRI senior entomologist Gary C. Jahn, states: "To my surprise when people stopped spraying, yields didn't drop -- and this was across 600 fields in two different districts over 4 seasons. I'm convinced that the vast majority of insecticides that rice farmers use are a complete waste of time and money.î

This is the outcome of a joint IRRI-British DFIDís Livelihood Improvement Through Ecology (LITE) project, which has demonstrated that insecticide can be eliminated and nitrogen fertilizer (urea) applications reduced without lowering yields. ìWe've reduced insecticide use among participating farmers by 99%, and by 90% among non-participating farmers in the same villages, Dr Jahn added.

What's more, if LITE continues as it has started, in less than a decade, most of Bangladesh's 11.8 million rice farmers -- almost a 12th of the country's population of 141 million, according to the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, a key project partner -- will have eliminated insecticides and optimized their fertilizer use.

Similar studies in the Central Luzon province of the Philippines and in certain parts of Vietnam have already demonstrated that pesticides were not required. Does it not mean that agricultural scientists had pushed and promoted chemical all these years without looking for viable and sustainable alternatives? Does it not mean that the technology for productivity increase was not based on sound ecological and environmental parameters? Does it not mean that the land grant system of research had ignored the potential of traditional agriculture growth that existed in the developing countries, based on time-tested technologies and sustainable farming system?

High-chemical input based technology has already mined the soils and ultimately led to the lands gasping for breath, with the water-guzzling crops (hybrids and Bt cotton) sucking the groundwater acquifer dry, and with the failure of the markets to rescue the farmers from a collapse of the farming systems, the tragedy is that the human cost is entirely being borne by the farmers. In Punjab, for instance, of the 138 development blocks, 109 have already been declared dark zones, the level of groundwater exploitation in these blocks has been in excess of 98 per cent against the critical limit of 80 per cent. Six of the 12 districts in the State have recorded groundwater utilization rate of 100 per cent. The average fall in groundwater is around 52 cms. And yet, crops that are being promoted under the second Green Revolution (read crop diversification) require more water.

The National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning in India estimates that nearly 120 million hectares of the total cultivable land of 142 million hectares in the country is degraded. Green revolution was projected to have saved the country some 58 million hectares of additional land to be brought under the plough to produce more food, whereas almost twice that land mass has been rendered degraded and ecologically devastated in varying degrees in its aftermath.

Green revolution has not only gone sour, it has collapsed. The unexplained number of huge number of suicides a testimony to the entire equation going wrong. However, the fundamental issue of destruction of sustainable livelihoods is not at all being addressed.

All these years, for instance, the dryland regions of the country, which comrpise nearly 75 per cent of the total cultivable area, have increasingly come under the hybrid crop varieties. While the crop yields from the hybrid varieties was surely high, the flip side of these varieties - these varieties are water guzzlers - was very conveniently ignored. For the sake of comparison, let us take the example of rice.

Not only rice hybrids, all kind of hybrid varieties that require higher doses of water - whether it is of sorghum, maize, cotton, bajra, and vegetables are promoted in the dryland regions. In addition, agricultural scientists have misled the farmers by saying that the dryland regions were hungry for chemical fertilisers. The harmful combination of chemical inputs with water guzzling crops have played havoc with the drylands turning the lands not only further unproductive but also barren. The water table plummeted, the impact of deficient rainfall became more pronounced forcing farmers to abandon agriculture and migrate. As if this was not enough, Bt cotton requiring more water than hybrid cotton, was knowingly promoted so as to allow the seed industry to make profits.

Technology too has its pitfalls. Much of the crisis today that afflicts every nook and corner of rural India is the result of an unsustainable technology that did not integrate well with the social milieu. Nor is any effort being made to see through the dirty politics of technology, whether these new technologies are relevant given the farm size, varying agro-climatic conditions, environment and above all the needs of the farming community. Let us try to examine a few of the known technologies and the trail of woes it left behind. While the companies that marketed these technologies have made their profits, millions of farmers are paying the price for such unwanted technologies, all backed by government support.

The controversial Seed Bill 2004 introduced in India, which has now been referred to a Parliamentary select committee, lays emphasis on ensuring quality of improved seed being supplied to farmers. It seeks to make it mandatory for farmers to grow seed that is registered, a proposal that has come under severe criticism from the farmers as well as the civil society.

Seed quality is an important aspect of crop production. For ages, farmers had traditionally been selecting and maintaining good quality seed. They knew and understood the importance of quality seed in production. With the advent of Green Revolution technology, based primarily on the high-yielding dwarf varieties of wheat and rice, the mainline thinking changed. Agricultural scientists, for reasons that remain unexplained, began to doubt the ability of farmers to maintain seed quality.

Aided by the World Bank, the Ministry of Agriculture launched a National Seeds Project in 1967. Under the project, spread into three phases, seed processing plants were set up in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa. Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh were covered under phase III. All that the huge processing plants were supposed to do was to provide ëcertifiedí seeds of food crops, mainly self-pollinating crops, to farmers.

A majority of these plants have since emerged as white elephants. It was primarily for the lack of demand for certified seeds of self-pollinating crops that a majority of these seed processing plants slid deep into red and often remained burdened with carryover stocks. Farmers refrained from buying the ëcertifiedí seeds, and if the seed replacement ratio is any indication, they preferred to save and clean a part of the grain harvest for sowing in the next season.

Studies have subsequently shown that there is hardly any difference in the quality and productivity of processed ëcertifiedí seed and the normal seed of self-pollinating crops like wheat and rice. In fact, what remains relatively unknown is that the 18,000 tonnes of dwarf wheat seed that was imported in 1966 from Mexico, which ushered in the wheat revolution, was not ëcertifiedí processed seed. It was cleaned wheat grain collected from Mexican farmers. If the cleaned grain could bring about a record production what was the need to push expensive ëcertifiedí seed to the farmers?

Not only the quality of seeds, even the traditional method of sowing paddy was dubbed as inefficient and thereby considered to be the cause for low yields. Agricultural scientists urged farmers to discard the traditional way - through broadcasting -- of sowing paddy. Farm extension machinery was mobilised to disseminate the improved technology of transplanting from a paddy nursery. Within a few years of the advent of the high-yielding varieties of rice, paddy transplantation changed the rural landscape.

Transplanting paddy required additional farm labour and therefore increased the cost of production. The crop was transplanted in rows which made it easier for the tractors and other mechanised instruments to operate in the rice paddies. It also forced farmers to go in for more irrigation thereby resulting in the increased withdrawal of groundwater.

In mid-1980s, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines concluded in a study that there was hardly any difference in the crop yields from transplanted rice and from the crop sown by broadcasted seeds. Puzzled, I asked a distinguished rice breeder: "If this is true then why in the first instance were the farmers asked to switch over to transplanting paddy?" He thought for some time, and then replied: "We were probably helping the mechanical industry grow. Since rice is the staple food in Asia, tractor sales could only grow if there was a way to move the machines in the rice fields."

No wonder, the sales of tractors, puddlers, reapers and other associated equipment soared in the rice growing areas. Tractors became a symbol of a proud farmer. With the banks manipulating the loans lucratively, tractors have now turned into a symbol of distress and suicides.

Farmers spraying insecticides on crops have also been a usual feature of modern farming. Pesticides on rice (and others crops) were deemed necessary since the fertiliser-responsive dwarf varieties would attract horde of insects. To make the pesticides reach the target pest, farmers were advised to use ëknap-sack sprayersí mounted on their backs. These sprayers came with varying kinds of nozzles ñ different sizes for different crops. Tractor driven sprayers were also promoted for various crops.

For several years now, almost two decades, basking in the afterglow of the green revolution, and with abundant monsoons to boost it, farming and agriculture ceased to attract attention. Policy-makers began to believe that there was no cause for undue concern since the country had the capability to ëreproduceí another green revolution. Not realising that green revolution had run out of steam, and rural despair was growing. Slow on-farm agricultural employment and the overal employment growth trailing behind the gorwth of the labour force, more and more people began migrating to the cities.

The alarm bells have been ringing for quite some time. The spectacular yield growth recorded in the post-Green Revolution years in Punjab and Haryana have receded into history. Among the multiplicity of problems confronting agriculture, rapid fragmentation of land holdings is keeping pace with increasing population. In 1976-77, the average size of the holdings was estimated at two hectares, and in 1980-81, it came down to 1.8 hectares. Today, it stands at less than 0.2 hectares. The total number of land holdings in 1981 were around 89 million, today these have crossed 100 million.

Forty years after the dawn of green revolution, Indian farmers realised that their love affair with intensive agriculture was on decline. Despite a bountiful monsoon (14 normal monsoons in a row), harvests were not as plentiful as could have been expected. As intensive farming began to bare its fangs, mining the ground water, and destroying the soil fertility, sustainable livelihoods began to fall apart. At the same time, by the turn of the century, per capita foodgrain availability had dropped to an abysmal low of 152 Kg, nearly 23 kgs less than early nineties. This compared favourably with the stark hunger that prevailed in sub-Saharan Africa, and was no better than the crisis-laden food situation that existed at the time of the Bangal Famine.

The philosophy of agricultural planning is changing. Gone are the days when the nationís emphasis was solely on attaining self-sufficiency in foodgrain production. Gone are the days when farmers were the newly Independent Indiaís heroes, revered for their role in keeping hunger and sure starvation at bay. Today, at a time when food production struggles to barely keep pace with the burgeoning population growth, farmers are being asked to diversify, produce crops that are suitable for export and to compete in the international market. With promise of cheap food available off the shelf in the global market, the focus has shifted from agriculture to industry, trade and commerce, from the small and marginal farmers to the agri-processing companies, which alone can bring in investments and add value to produce.

Whither second Green Revolution:

Regardless of the existing ground realities, year 2005 witnessed a farm technology agreement signed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the United States president, George Bush. Addressing a joint session of the US Congress during his visit, Prime Minister said: ìThe Green Revolution lifted countless millions above poverty.... I am very happy to say that U.S. President George Bush and I have decided to launch second generation of India-US collaboration in agriculture."

The Indo-US agriculture technology cooperation is being put in place without first ascertaining the reasons behind the terrible agrarian crisis, much of it the result of imposing environmentally-unfriendly alien technology, the government embarks on the faulty promise of a ësecondí green revolution. Even before the ink dried on the technical cooperation agreement, news reports pointed out that two of the American multinationals, Monsanto and Wal-Mart, have already said they are not interested in research and development but on the increased trading opportunities that India offers.

Talking of new technology, government accepted that genetically modified Bt cotton had failed in Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) therefore had not renewed permission for cultivation of the three Mahyco-Monsanto Bt cotton varieties. But despite the AP government demanding a compensation of Rs 1496 per acre to affected farmers, which totals Rs 3.84 crore, the seed company found it appropriate to appeal before the State-level Memorandum of Understanding Committee and the High Court.

Reports of Bt cotton failure continues to pour in from other states too. Up to 75 per cent of the Bt cotton seeds in 35 per cent of the area sown in parts of Salem and Namakkal districts of Tamil Nadu is reported to have failed to germinate this season. In western Madhya Pradesh, Bt cotton crops in over two lakh acre area in Nirmar region suffered partial or complete wilting. But again, the seed companies are not even remotely concerned. No wonder, Monsanto and Wal-Mart are not interested in research but only on selling technology.

With government facilitating the process, the Indian industry and business is upbeat on the potential of agriculture (read agribusiness). While the FIICI-sponsored ëreforms for raising farm incomesí aims at pumping in huge public finances to push in an industry-driven agriculture, the farmer has been left to survive on the margins. Agriculture reforms are not aimed at resurrecting agriculture, but to bring profits for the industry. This will upscale the growth rate in agriculture without making the necessary investment, both political and economic, in order to pull the farmers from the prevailing crisis.

The lure and glamour of industry-driven agriculture in turn is sure to acerbate the existing crisis. The new technology that the multinationals (as well as the Indian Council for Agricultural Research) are planning to provide is so sophisticated that a majority of the farmers will remain outside the ambit. Precision farming is one such misplaced technology that is receiving budgetary support from the government. Removing the bottlenecks in the commodity supply chain management by amending the APMC Act and also by enlarging the scope of future trading are aimed at helping the new range of middlemen and business.

Even in America, the entry of retail chains in the agriculture sector have only shifted the profits to a horde of middlemen -- retailers, processors, certification agencies, quality controller and so on. Farmers earn only 4 per cent from whatever they sell. In 1990, farmers would earn 70 per cent of what they would sell. The rest of the profits are shared by the chain of middlemen. In Canada, the National Farmers Union has in a study shown how the combined profits of 70 retailer and agribusiness firms have multiplied whereas the farmers have mounting losses. The same model is now being shifted to India.

The reforms being introduced in the name of increasing food production and minimising the price risks that the farmers continue to be faced with, is actually aimed at helping the agribusiness industry. Whether it destroys the production capacity of the farm lands and leads to further marginalisation of the farming communities does not figure in the policy planning process. Encouraging contract farming, future trading in agriculture commodities, land leasing, forming land-sharing companies, allotment of homestead-cum-garden plots, direct procurement of farm commodities and setting up of special purchase centres will however drive out a majority of the 600 million farmers out of agriculture.

To farmers in such pitiably reduced circumstances, the ministry has contrived the sophisticated alternative of future trading. In a country where only 43 per cent of the rural households have electricity, and where the average land holding size is too low, to expect farmers to engage in future trading is no more than a clever ploy to deprive them of state support and ask them to fend for themselves. Future trading requires a level of understanding of demand, price movements, and market forecasting that is simply beyond the scope of most farmers in their current condition. As many as 60 per cent percent of the farmers are so much beyond the pale of the institutionalised support system that they are dependent on private money-lending sources to meet their credit requirement and most of them cannot identify a spurious pesticide from a genuine one. These are the kind of people the government expects to comprehend all the complicated nuances of future trading.

In a country where land holdings are meagre, the biggest challenge is to ensure how can agriculture be made more attractive for these small and marginal farmers. At the same time, in the green revolution areas, comprising Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, parts of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, agriculture faces a severe crisis in sustainability. As a result, Punjab and Haryana are fast heading towards desertification ñ a process that leads to the inability of the lands to sustain the production levels achieved at the height of the green revolution era.

Although the land holding size is diminishing, the answer does not lie in allowing the private companies to move in by way of contract farming. Private companies enter agriculture with the specific objective of garnering more profits from the same piece of land. These companies, if the global experience is any indication, bank upon still more intensive farming practices, drain the soil of nutrients and suck ground water in a couple of years, and render the fertile lands almost barren after four to five years. The once fertile and verdant landscape will fast turn grey. These companies would then hand over the barren and unproductive land to the farmers who leased them, and would move to another fertile piece of land.

Rebuilding ground water resource should be an essential parameter for any meaningful agriculture reforms. Unfortunately, at a time when excessive withdrawals of underground water have already become a major political issue, cropping pattern continues to play havoc with the irrigation potential. The lessons from the other contract farming models should be too apparent. Sugarcane farmers, who follow a system on cane bonding with the mills, actually were drawing 240 cm of water every year, which is two and a half times more than what wheat and rice requires each on an average. Rose cultivation that was introduced in Karnataka a few years back, required 212 inches of groundwater consumption in every hectare. Contract farming will therefore further exploit whatever remains of the ground water resources.

Legal recognition of land leasing is therefore no protection to farmers. Once the production capacity of the land has been destroyed what can the farmer be expected to reap thereafter. Knowing this, the government is talking of homestead-cum-garden plots for those who lease out their lands. The objective is simple: to pacify those who question the impact of contract farming on household food security. Policy makers and planners are not even aware of the basic objective behind encouraging contract farming. Often it is said that these companies will only be there for helping the farmers in marketing. What is deliberately not being mentioned is that nowhere in the world are private companies involved with contract farming just to help the farmers find a marketing outlet.

Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Karnatakaís and subsequently other stateís foray with contract farming therefore is a misplaced adventure. It is actually accentuating the sustainability crisis on the farm front by destroying whatever remains of the farmland's production capacity with more intensive and destructive farming systems. The resulting monoculture also destroys the agriculture biodiversity in the region thereby hitting sustainability parameters. In simple words, contract farming is the modern version of the ëslash and burní agriculture (jhum cultivation) that the tribals followed in the northeast parts of the country. Tribals were doing it for environmental reason, whereas the private industries are forcing this for commercial motive alone.

Already contract farming has done irreparable damage to agriculture in countries like the Philippines, Zimbabwe, Argentina and Mexico.

Allowing direct procurement of farm commodities, setting up special markets for the private companies to mop up the produce, and to set up land share companies, are all directed at the uncontrolled entry of the multinational corporations in the farm sector. Coupled with the introduction of the genetically modified crops, and the unlimited credit support for the agribusiness companies, the focus is to strengthen the ability of the companies to take over the food chain, a recipe for the entry of multinational corporations in agriculture.

Agribusiness companies in reality hate farmers. Nowhere in the world have they worked in tandem with farmers. Even in North America and Europe, agribusiness companies have pushed farmers out of agriculture. As a result, only 900,000 farming families are left on the farm in the United States. In the 15 countries of the former European Union, the number of farmers has come down to less than 7 million. In EU, every minute one farmers quits agriculture. The underlying message is crystal clear: farmers should get out of agriculture. In India, the same prescription will lead to an unforeseen catastrophe, worsening food insecurity and multiplying hunger.

To expect farmers to collectively mobilise the land resources to facilitate access to modern technology and professional management in the farm sector, a concept being floated in the name of land sharing companies, too is aimed at private control of the farmland. In India, except for a handful of such cases, farmers do not have the ability to pool land resources unless backed by a private company. In other words, land sharing is another name for contract farming. All such experiments would be forcing the farmers to shift from staple foods to cash crops like cut flowers, tomato, strawberries, melons which do not meet the food security needs at the macro level. At the same time, the intensive nature of cash crop cultivation, requiring more external inputs, would do more damage to the environment.

But in the brave new world of corporate remedies, empirical proof is not sufficient to dissuade the studious theoreticians who manage the globe. Perhaps that is the reason why the World Bank (and the USAID) have so strenuously been advocating for over a decade now the transition to commercialised agrarian monocultures. And in submitting to the coercive recommendations of the World Bank, the new agricultural reforms on the anvil will push more and more farmers of India to the cities. Migration from rural to urban centres is turning into a deluge that the city cannot withstand. Complementing the socio-economic change in village demographics is the stress on urban employment capacity and the imbalance in the employment profile.

If it has taken 40 years to realize that the technology promoted by the USAID and blindly aped by the National Agricultural Research Systems in the developing countries, and that too after inflicting an irreparable damage to human health and environment, was faulty; what is the guarantee that the second Green Revolution being promoted by the United States again will not leave behind still more damaging consequences? Who will be responsible for the destruction that is being enforced through corporate control of agriculture coming mainly through genetic manipulations and further destruction of the natural resource base?

Second Green Revolution will only exacerbate the existing crisis. It will only help push farmers out of agriculture thereby allowing private companies to not only take possession of the farm lands but also destroy their production capacity by excessively and intensively farmed systems. The Second Green revolution will bring in the western agricultural model into India - drive out farmers and instead create an enabling environment for the agri-business industries to produce food.

(An agricultural scientist by training, Devinder Sharma is a New Delhi-based distinguished researcher and policy analyst specialising in global food and agriculture. Mr Sharma was invited to address parliamentary briefings at six parliaments in Europe in 2004-05. Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)