1.Seed of the crisis
2.Indian Govt fabricated data on food production
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1.Seed of the crisis
Kavitha Kuruganti
DNA India, July 27 2009
http://www.dnaindia.com/opinion/main-article_seed-of-the-crisis_1277714
The US and India are back at it again. This time around, it is not the spectre of a looming famine in Bihar that is expected to kill thousands through starvation but global hunger and malnutrition, for which India and USA will collaborate to provide leadership in agriculture to raise crop yields.
Never mind that India has record buffer stocks of food grains right now and still more people sleep hungry in India than ever before and that India ranks 66th on the Global Hunger Index for 88 countries.
Never mind that intensive agriculture models led to more farmers killing themselves than the projected numbers of starvation before the Green Revolution was ushered in or that Punjab for example, the seat of the Green Revolution in India, is reeling under a severe environmental health crisis quite closely connected to agricultural technologies deployed in the name of increasing yields.
The first time around, they said that they were trying to get away from the ship to mouth existence that is being imposed by the Americans on us through PL 480 food aid programmes -- and whose help did they take to get away from the American intrusions? The Americans themselves!
It is interesting to see how American leaders make it a point to include agriculture into their agenda during their India visits. George W Bush decided to stop over at the agriculture university in Hyderabad and Hillary Clinton at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Pusa. For a country which has only 1.9 per cent of its labour force working in agriculture and a mere 0.7 per cent of total GDP contributed by agriculture (2002), why this American interest in Indian agriculture?
The answer possibly lies in potential huge markets held in the seeds and food processing sectors. In India, this market is emerging in an impressive fashion. In the global seed market estimated at $30 bn, India already has a large market worth $1 bn. The domestic seed market, especially of hybrid seeds, is expected to grow at an impressive growth rate of 13 per cent at least. In the food processing and retail sector, the Indian urban food market is expected to form a major chunk of the $50-bn-mark retail market in India in the near future.
Clinton's speech at Pusa Institute made a clear mention of seeds and food processing as the sectors where investment will go. Interestingly, the second green revolution in this country, with the help of the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture (KIA) is supposed to be ushered in under the guidance of corporations like Monsanto and Wal-Mart which are on the KIA board. How investment on food processing would increase productivity of our food grains is an unanswered question, of course.
There is also mention of "cutting edge technologies" to raise crop yields and Clinton affirmed with authority that crop productivity was the 'root' of the problem of world hunger.
No mention at all of food lands going for bio-fuels, no mention about food grains being used for cattle feed and building inefficient food chains, no mention of the shocking wastage of food in the developed world not at the grain level but of processed foods, which would have already consumed much energy in their processing and packaging.
Nor any mention of overflowing granaries in India continuing to mock at the poor in the country who cannot access such food.
While Clinton is reported to have avoided the use of "GM" as the frontier technology, given the vast controversy over it, our agriculture minister was more forthright. He opined that collaboration in frontier areas like biotechnology would make a significant contribution to the world!
What our leaders don't seem to realise is that there are vast differences not just in conditions of farming in the USA and in India but in the very philosophies and outlook towards agriculture. India for instance opposes patents on life forms in international forums while the USA and its corporations seek to patent everything that they can.
The rigid patent regimes in the USA have led to hundreds of farmers sued and/or jailed for doing something that they have done for millennia -- saving their seed! Who is India listening to, on world hunger and the way out?
It would be extremely unwise for our leaders to provide ready platforms and markets for profit-hungry US corporations in the name of food crisis, world hunger, second green revolution and climate change.
If the government is keen on tackling the food crisis, it would do well to evolve a deeper understanding of both food production and access related issues, take up a comprehensive analysis of the Green Revolution and then chart out an Indian course of action. In this hundredth year of "Hind Swaraj", our modern day leaders would do well to revisit Gandhiji's vision.
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2.Indian Govt fabricated data on food production
Express News Service, 28 July 2009
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=%E2%80%98Indian+Govt+fabricated+data+on+food+production%E2%80%99&artid=HBHi/dm9D/Q=&SectionID=7GUA38txp3s=&MainSectionID=fyV9T2jIa4A=&SectionName=zkvyRoWGpmWSxZV2TGM5XQ==&SEO=
MYSORE: Environmental and Development activist, Vandana Shiva, on Monday, accused the Union Government of fabricating data on India's food production; especially when India ranks below a few conflict - plagued , drought-stricken Sub-Saharan African countries in the Global Hunger Index.
Delivering a lecture at the Mysore University’s Foundation Day on "Future of India's food security” at Crawford Hall on Monday, Shiva said that the government has always projected a rosy picture on food production which, has been declining over the years. She said that multinational companies (MNC) now controlled production, supply of seeds and food security in the country.
"Erratic monsoon has hit food production in northern states of the country. The need of the hour is to focus on food security, ecological security, land, seeds and biodiversity to protect the interests of the farming community," she said.
'NREGA - a security to farmers'
Speaking on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), Shiva said self-employed farmers should also be provided with the security of minimum wages.
"Even the poor have a right to nutritious food. Security of food, water and seeds should be given to farmers.
They cannot be controlled by MNC's, markets and middlemen.
It is the government's duty to ensure affordable, adequate and nutritious food to all its citizens,from which self employed farmers cannot be excluded” she said.
Farmer suicides driven by MNCs
Shiva said that the issue of seeds was central to the mass suicide of farmers in various parts of the country. "The suicides began only after genetically engineered cotton seeds were supplied to cotton growers in Andhra Pradesh in 2002,” she said.
MNCs like Monsanto produced genetically modified seeds and promised greater yields to farmers, she added.
"BT cotton from such seeds was cultivated in a 4 millionacre area in Vidharba -- a region of Maharashtra that witnessed 84 suicides due to crop loss.
Quoting from various studies, she stated that BT cotton has forced farmers to use pesticides by 30 folds making farming more expensive and thereby, leading them to debt and suicide.
Vandana Shiva strongly opposed the new land acquisition Act for special economic zones (SEZs).
"Countries in the West have begun outsourcing aluminium, iron and other polluting industries to India; when they themselves are closing these industries for environmental and financial reasons,” she said. Shiva advocated the creation of a decentralised food supply system, supplemented with locally available food grains.