Indian farmers shun GM for organic solutions - Guardian report

The following is not a regular report as we find in our newspapers. We are still vary of comparing GM technology with organic farming. GM is seen as 'scientific' and organic seen as 'people knowledge', hence the two cannot be compared.  GM is corporate (hence professional) driven whereas organic is NGO (and thereby suspicion) driven.  This news item has not said anything not known to people regularly following the GM stories, but, the brevity of the title is powerful and needs to be taken note of. The quote in the end is from the friend who has forwarded the news item and not part of the article, but, so apt it is worth resending.

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Indian farmers shun GM for organic solutions
Sue Branford
The Guardian, July 30 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/30/gmcrops.india

*Genetically modified cotton was to be the saviour of India's farmers, but ill-health and financial worries are fuelling a backlash*

"My family was one of the first to stop using pesticides," says Sattemma, a lively Indian woman in her mid-40s, confidently talking to a group of visiting farmers. "Three years ago, we realised we were spending over half our income on chemicals. It was too much. We were getting into debt and the pesticides were making us ill." Sattemma is in the village of Lakshminayak Thanda in Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh. The visitors are keen to know how she and other villagers are progressing after their decision to stop using pesticides and Bt cotton, the genetically modified variety manufactured by US biotechnology firm Monsanto.

Bt cotton was engineered to combat pests, with the introduction into the cotton seed of a gene from a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which has a natural insect-killing poison called Bt-toxin. When it was introduced into India at the turn of the century, it was promoted as the "wonder product" that would solve the serious problem of pests, which many of India's 17 million cotton farmers were facing.

Many of the farmers had not been growing cotton as a cash crop for very long. In the late 1980s, under pressure from the International Monetary Fund, India had opened up its strongly protected economy and encouraged its farmers to switch to modern farming, with its hybrid seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. The idea was to turn India into an important exporter of commodities, including cotton.

At first, cotton farmers did well. They got high yields and enjoyed a real increase in income. But then problems arose. The hybrid cotton proved susceptible to pests and diseases, and it was not uncommon for farmers to spray their fields up to 30 times in a single season. Production costs went through the roof and farmers got trapped in debt. They became desperate for a technical fix, and Bt cotton seemed to be the answer.

In its first year of sales, Mahyco-Monsanto sold its entire stock of Bt cotton. According to the company, the area in India under Bt cotton rose from 3.1m acres in 2005 to 14.4m acres in 2007. According to Sekhar Natarajan, regional leader of Monsanto India, Bt cotton yielded 700kg-900kg per acre, compared with 300kg-400kg an acre with conventional seeds.

However, some say that what has been happening on the ground has been very different from the official success story. Scientists Abdul Qayum and Kiran Sakhari assessed Bt cotton's performance in the first three years and found that, despite claims by the company, farmers were not achieving big yields. This perhaps was to be expected, because Bt cotton had been engineered to reduce pesticide use, not to increase yields. But, more surprisingly, they found that pesticide use was not falling either, because farmers were facing serious problems with secondary pests. They worked out that, on average, the income of non-Bt farmers was 60% higher than that of Bt farmers. Monsanto contests these numbers.

There have been other, more alarming problems. In her chat with the visiting farmers, Sattemma says she had seen several of her neighbour's goats die after spending all day grazing on post-harvest Bt cotton plants. Such a story could be dismissed as anecdotal, if it were not backed up by more solid evidence. In 2006, more than 1,800 sheep died in similar circumstances in other villages in Warangal district. The symptoms and post-mortem findings suggested that they had died from severe toxicity. Hundreds of agricultural workers had also developed allergic symptoms when exposed to Bt cotton.

Safety investigation

One might have expected such reports to have led to a thorough investigation into the safety of Bt cotton but, according to the US-based Institute for Responsible Technology, this has never happened. Again, Monsanto contests this account. According to Natarajan, Bt cotton was exhaustively tested for six to eight years before it was authorised for release and there were no reports of adverse impacts on the health of humans or animals.

Less controversial is the financial risk that Bt cotton, along with other hybrids, brings to small farmers. Farmers have traditionally saved seeds from one harvest to another, but this is not possible with hybrids, as they lose vitality. So farmers purchase on credit from middlemen a package of hybrid seed, fertiliser and pesticide, paying back the loan once the crop is harvested. The problems start when a farmer loses a crop through bad weather. Unable to repay, they can easily get caught in a debt trap. Problems were serious before Bt cotton but have got worse because Bt cotton seed is expensive.

Despite these problems, the Indian government believes that cotton has proved a success. In 2006, India overtook the US to become the world's second largest cotton producer (after China). The biotechnology industry is taking the credit, though some farmers are reporting new problems, saying Bt cotton is highly susceptible to wilt. On one occasion a Mahyco-Monsanto representative was taken hostage by irate farmers demanding compensation. More difficulties could lie ahead: a recent study by the Nagpur-based Central Institute for Cotton Research showed that the main cotton pest, bollworms, is becoming resistant to Bt cotton.

Many farmers, like Sattemma, have not followed the debate around Bt cotton. She says it was practical considerations that led to the change in farming. "It was the 15 women in our village's self-help group who got things going," she says. "We were worried about the health of our children. We got the men on our side by showing them that they would save money." Sattemma points to a chart on the wall of a nearby house, on which, with the help of a non-governmental organisation, they have recorded side-by-side the expenses of growing cotton with and without pesticides. Non-pesticide management (NPM), as the system is called, is clearly more profitable, not because yields are higher but because expenditure is so much lower.

In Yenabavi, about 30 miles away, the farmers have gone further, becoming organic and declaring their village GMO-free. Their conversion also began with dissatisfaction with pesticides, this time because they didn't work. "Ten years ago, this field was covered with red-headed hairy caterpillars," says Malliah, the farmer who has led the change. "I kept applying more pesticides but I couldn't get rid of them." By chance, an organic agronomist was visiting. He showed Malliah how to set up solar-powered light traps and, to Malliah's delight, they worked. Since then, he and the other farmers have developed other natural pest controls.

Other villages are following suit. Almost 2,000 in Andhra Pradesh have adopted NPM. Raghuveera Reddy, the state's minister for agriculture wants 2.5m acres under community-managed sustainable agriculture within a few years. The long-term goal is for 10m acres, 45% of the state's cultivable land.

Sustainable agriculture involves hard work and does not guarantee huge profits, but it will not harm the farmers' health, brings personal satisfaction, and involves fewer financial risks. It is crucial to remember what is truly sustainable for small farmers.

"It is now 30 years since I have been confining myself to the treatment ofchronic diseases. During those 30 years I have run against so many histories of littlechildren who had never seen a sick day until they were vaccinated and who, in the severalyears that have followed, have never seen a well day since. I couldn't put my finger onthe disease they have. They just weren't strong. Their resistance was gone. They wereperfectly well before they were vaccinated.. They have never been well since. "---Dr. William Howard Hay

the single killer vote!!

As we inch closer in perhaps the most publicly debated power struggle in the centre, new standards seem to be set in politics. There are reports of 100Cr being offered per M.P. to either vote for government or abstain, there was reports of someone being offered a berth in the Central cabinet and someone else a Chief Ministership, someone else has been offered a divided state. The opposition not to be out done by the government has also proposed someone as the future Prime Minister! and is trying its own tactics.

Individual MPs are suddenly so caught up in their importance of their single vote, they seem to feel more valuable (some MPs may be wondering why the hell they have only one vote, why not do what is done in municipality elections and let the powerful one cast more votes!?) and in their excited state almost forget what they are talking about. 'In the national interest' has been most heard in the last one week in our media than ever before, 'I believe the Nuclear Deal is in the national interest', 'we need the energy for our future', 'this is strategically important for us', etc. all being mouthed by people who suddenly want to mix emotions, national pride, loyalty, blind faith, meaningless morality and any other kind of sentiment to justify a policy decision that has its roots in science and technology. Even the normally sane looking Dayanidhi Maran was on television declaring his loyalty and reiterating his faith in the 'wisdom of Manmohan Singh' as the reasons for supporting the Nuclear 'Deal' (to the utter irritation of Ms. Gandhi that is what the nation calls it despite her insistence that it be called a agreement and not a deal).  I wouldn't be surprised if there will be prayers to Gods and Godesses across the country that we sign the Nuclear deal and that the government survive. The other day there were reports of Sonia Gandhi being offered laddus from Tirupathi temple for precisely this reason!!! 

Electrical energy is a function of technology, technologies for producing energy are many and some of them are clean and some cheap, some are destructive to the environment and others not too destructive. Nuclear energy (after this deal) will make us depend external players for raw material, technology, regulation, usage and maybe even trading and charges. It is high technology dependent, requires extreme precaution in terms of safety and security, needs enormous amount of resources as initial investment and maintenance, is certainly not clean or green as the government advertisements claim and could leave residues that takes many thousands of years to dissipate.

But, that is of least concern to the MPs, they are currently consumed by the single killer vote that they possess in their person. Never has every insignificant MP felt so important and so sought after. 

The visual media is loving it too, post-IPL, they have been fighting among themselves for re-re-re-re-run of Ramayana and Mahabaratha for bolstering their TRPs and here is an opportunity to squeeze a live coverage to its maximum. All kinds of meaningless debates and even more meaningless surveys seem to be conducted by the media. One of them, which I briefly watched, had a survey of Muslims across metropolitan cities as to what they feel about the deal. That is the most stupid development in the media. Why are Muslims being asked an opinion based on their religion on an issue that is about energy and technology? Will we next ask Christians about their opinion on the Iran-Pakistan pipeline, because Iran has snubbed the Christian nations? Similarly will we seek the opinion of Buddhists before we protest against Sri Lanka for killing fishermen in the Tamilnadu coast? What kind of the insensitive media can come up with divisions such as energy for Indians and energy for Muslim Indians.

This sure is the most macabre political theatre we are witnessing and the killer votes are shooting at our foundations of democracy and political life.  We all may suffer this process as long as its eventual policy outcome.

two articles on the nuclear issue from a previous debate...

The 80s was the in-between decade. we had already had one nuclear test, we were not going to conduct any more immediately, at least the political climate was not to conduct any more tests; nuclear energy would be discussed as a possibility. 

The scientific establishment had not started to be so visible with its opinion that has happened post-IT era, it was still the bunch of scientists doing their work in pune, bangalore and other small towns, they were not the popular, powerful opinion builders that they have become since Kalam. 

The alternative to congress had failed in the late 70s, and BJP was yet to arrive in the political scene. A group of Science and Technology students and young professionals were re-discovering indigenous sciences and technologies as they re-looked at their roots with the newly acquired proficiency. There were many such groups across the country doing it in their own way with whatever resources they had. One of the most promising and intellectually powerful was the Patriotic People for Science and Technology (PPST), a group consisting of students and youth with technology degrees, primarily from the premium institution of that time, IIT. As they rediscovered the world of ordinary people, they produced a series of articles through the PPST Bulletins that were both presenting the people's knowledge in the emerging new idiom as well as challenging the dominant and mainstream thought patters. They posted some serious questions on development, technology and our understanding of society. 

Though the group neither survived in its shape beyond the decade of 80s nor could it sustain its tempo to challenge the dominant paradigm, the knowledge it produced and the arguments it made were significant and set the tone for many later day initiatives and certainly inspire people even after a couple of decades. 

Recently, we rediscovered two articles on the nuclear issue that were prevalent at that time. The arguments look significant even today and are worth a read for anyone taking a serious interest beyond the immediate political significance on the nuclear issue in particular and energy overall.

1. Is there a case for Nuclear Energy, March 1982 by Rathin Roy

2. The Indian Nuclear Energy Programme - Net Energy Analysis, March 1989 by Ashok Kumar

small minds and their strategic significance in a global game...

Karl Marx, and it is ironic that I quote him now, had said about India: '...we must not forget that these idyllic village communities, inoffensive though they may appear, had always been the foundation of Oriental despotism, that they restrained the human mind within the smallest possible compass, ... enslaving it beneath traditional rules, depriving it of all grandeur and historical energies. …' (article on British Rule in India), Marx a sincere modern western thinker seems to have got it better than his contemporary followers, Com. Karat & Co.,

Ultimately it is the economic benefit from some of the industries that will benefit from the Nuclear deal (for whom this is a small change investment) and ability to settle scores in their small town rivalries will ensure that the UPA manages the adequate numbers for the global game of nuclear comeuppance. The internationally experienced PM who during this tenure 'invited' the British to India again promising a better reception that what Robert Clive & Co., got has done what RC&Co mastered best, using small time rivalries of small people to gain political mileage. It is Amar Singh Vs. all those who humiliated him, Mulayam Singh Vs. Mayawati, Ambani Vs. Ambani, Soren's image Vs. Soren's 3 MPs wanting to be ministers, Gowda's image Vs. his own greed, Telengana Vs. AP Congress wishes...as long as their small time feuds are even temporarily shown as settled, they would support any global power to set-up anything anywhere. Nuclear deal doesn't mean anything to them. 'I don't know much about it', says Amar Singh about the Nuclear deal, in one of his numerous interviews that has suddenly crowded our public space with all its podgy dramatics, I am sure Deva Gowda, Shibu Soren, Mulayam Yadav and Chandrasekhar are no better aware of it. If they can get the centre to help settle their local scores, they will go anywhere to support it to do anything. Small chieftains across India sold their local kingdoms to settle small scores with Clive's help and the rest is in our history books. As far as the PM goes, while he waits the G8 sidelines, all these people and their petty rivals are 'expandable', they can sell their souls to hell for settling their rivalry scores today and the consequences can wait while they gloat in their transient victories.

Govt launches ad blitz to push nuke deal

Govt launches ad blitz to push nuke deal: I think this is sick! they cannot do it till the trust vote is done with in the Parliament and if this issue is one of the major election issue, then i would think such an advertisement is a built up for the elections itself. To claim as part of the advertisement that the nuclear energy is the "most efficient, environmentally cleanest and safe source of energy" is really pulling a fast one on the public.

Gandhi and Charlie Andrews...

Have been reading c.f.andrews on gandhi written in 1930.

He ends his book with this highly insightful para that i think makes sense today in the Indian context too 

"throughout the western world there are many voluntary organizations appealing to different sides of the population - some to the women, some to the youth, some to the men. these have often displayed great enthusiasm in the cause of world peace. europe is not lacking in the power to create and sustain such voluntary, organized effort. but what has not yet been found in the west is a moral genius of such commanding spiritual personality as to be able to unite and combine these various organized efforts into one overwhelming movement of Non-Violence which should be strong enough to sweep away on a tide of world approval the opposing forces". 

‘expert’ and ‘expert consultation’ on policy issues

Yesterday’s news headlines read how the Samajwadi leader Mulayam Singh had decided to support the struggling UPA government on the nuclear deal after he sought and received ‘expert’ advice from the man credited with the second nuclear bomb testing and the former President Dr. Abdul Kalam on the issue. Interestingly Amar Singh the secretary of the Samajwadi party mentioned in the press meet that Mulayam singh will decided the experts who will be consulted on this issue. Based on the news reports Kalam is the only ‘expert’ consulted.

Perhaps the role of expert in this case was notional as the SP had already decided to side with the congress on this deal and Kalam filled the convenient gap (as he did during his Presidency). But, the larger question that it throws light is on the definition of the word ‘expert’ in our public discourse and the larger perception and understanding of the need of and the purpose behind an expert consultation.

In a recent interview with Tehelka, noted thinker Ashish Nandy talks about how our political system is undermined with alien categories. Not just our political categories, but, our policies making processes too are guided by such principles.  Specifically in the areas of technology there seems to be no bigger ‘authority’ than that of an ‘expert’ in the said technology, leave aside the fact that the impact of the policy on technology is on everyone not merely on the experts alone.

So, all through the nuclear deal debate we have had anyone with a vague involvement with the scientific establishment, repeatedly consulted over media and public sphere. We assume that the will be able to give an impartial and unbiased opinion on an issue of national significance that has not as much to do with the technology as much as the national demand on the technology and what it claims to achieve.

Surely the needs of the nation and the achievements are functions beyond technology, which is only a means and not an end in itself. If the question was posed as to what are the electrical energy demands of the nation, what are its applications, how significant are these applications in the national priority, how important is it to sustain these applications, what are the levels of efficiencies in our current electrical energy utilization, are these optimized, have we managed to make the best use of them, how much do we need to pay for these electrical energy needs, etc., we may find that the questions automatically broaden the scope of engagement and the role of ‘experts’ on this issue. Much of our questions on technology policy are rather limited and often the solutions are para-phrased as questions and the questions didn’t arise in our minds till the solutions were presented to us.

A few years back, S.M. Krishna as the then Chief Minister of Karnataka had opined that anyone who did not possess a formal qualification in the field of biotechnology was not eligible to discuss the Genetic Modification issue. Time and again we see such statements being made on the role of experts by politicians willing to pursue a certain policy.

With the political structure becoming increasingly weak and the leaders having neither the courage nor the knowledge to make any decisions on their own, they seem to rely upon the bureaucrats, judiciary and technocrats to make the decisions for them. Whether such a policy would ruin their political status being their only concern, everything else seems to be of no consequence all together. Inability to tackle the increasingly vocal media and knowledgeable civil society also seems to corner them to adopt such respite. The media is just overwhelmed and civil society challenged polemically through such ‘expert’ involvement. The media is dictated by its time constraints and the civil society by their resource constraints.  

What are our definitions of expert or expertise in the sphere of public good or national importance? What are the competencies we expect from such experts? Is position of power such as judiciary or bureaucracy or association with a scientific establishment adequate for such experts? Who among these represent the ‘aam admi’ interests and the betterment of the nation?

A rare english lecture by Gandhiji!!!