Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - [Livingontheland] Stem Farmers’ Suicides with Organic Farming

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Stem Farmers’ Suicides with Organic Farming
  • Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 09:23:59 -0600


ISIS Press Release 12/10/06
Stem Farmers’ Suicides with Organic Farming
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/farmersuicides.php

Amid a rising epidemic of farmers’ suicides in India, an organic farmer
appeals to the father of the Green Revolution to embrace organic
agriculture. Sam Burcher

A fully referenced version of this article is posted on ISIS members’
website. Details here
UN slams India for farmer suicides

India has enough food to feed her population of one billion, yet hunger and
food insecurity at household level increased at the end of the 20th
century. A new UN report casts doubt on the government’s claim that
poverty declined from 36 to 26 percent between 1993-2000 [1]. It criticizes
the shift to cash crops that reduced the cultivation of grains, pulses and
millets for household consumption. The report slams the rise of farmer
suicides in India and links them to the unremitting growth of a market
economy that does not benefit all Indians equally.
Impassioned plea to India’s government

Bhaskar Save is an 84-year-old farmer from Gujarat who has petitioned the
Indian Government to save India’s farmers from exploitation and worse. In
an open letter to Prof M.S. Swaminathan (chairperson of the National
Commission on Farmers in the Ministry of Agriculture) he puts the blame
squarely on his shoulders as the ‘father’ of the ‘Green Revolution’
that has destroyed India’s natural abundance, farming communities, and
soil [2]. He writes: “Where there is a lack of knowledge, ignorance
masquerades as science! Such is the ‘science’ you have espoused,
leading our farmers astray – down the pits of misery.”

The Green Revolution defines the forty years after India’s independence
in 1947 when technology was widely introduced into agriculture. Farmers
came under intense pressure to provide marketable surpluses of the
relatively few non-perishable cereals to feed the ever-expanding cities.
Since then, India’s integration into the global economy has served
transnational corporate interests championed by the World Bank, the IMF,
and the WTO, but not her farmers [3]. Fifteen years of market reforms
guided by the international financial superstates have unleashed a second
wave of agrochemicals, biotechnological seed and pesticides into the Indian
countryside with devastating effect.
A silent revolution of suicide

Mumbai and Bangalore have benefited from the boom in the information
technology sector that contributes an eight percent growth to India’s
economy each year [4]. The two cities are now poised to take advantage of
the boom in the biotech industry. The picture of “India shining” touted
by an expensive government backed media campaign is considerably clouded by
the rural areas being torn apart at the roots by biotechnology. The
countryside is home to 70 percent of India’s population.

The second ‘Gene Revolution’ in agriculture is proving more deadly in
the wake of the first. The cost of taking on the extra burden of gene
biotechnology is too much to bear. Farmers unable to pay back debts
incurred by the purchase of seed, pesticides, fertilizers and equipment,
kill themselves at a rate of two per day. In despair some drink the
chemical pesticides, while others burn, hang, or drown themselves. At a
help centre set up to monitor farmer suicides in Vidarbha region in the
central state of Maharashtra, black skulls mark the number of dead farmers
on the map. There are 767 skulls clustered together that were pinned up in
fourteen months to August 2006. India’s agricultural minister Sharad
Pawar acknowledged in Parliament that a total of 100 000 farmers have
committed suicide between 1993-2003 [5]. A further 16 000 farmers per year
on average are said to have died since then.

“You, M.S. Swaminathan…More than any other person in our long history
it is you I hold responsible for the tragic condition of our soils and our
debt-burdened farmers, driven to suicide in increasing numbers every
year.” Bhaskar Save writes.
The cost of cotton kills farmers

Nearly all who died farmed the once profitable cotton crop known as “King
Cotton” from the days of the British Raj. Now it’s called “Killer
Cotton” not just because the cost of inputs has increased, but the state
also cut its guaranteed purchase price by 32 percent, and buys less of the
harvest than before, leaving farmers to find other buyers who tend to pay
low prices. Competition from foreign trade has intensified as reduced
import duties give heavily subsidized US cotton an advantage.

The final nail in the farmers coffin is expensive genetically modified (GM)
cottonseed that has proved disastrous for the small, non-irrigated plots
common to most of India’s hundreds of millions of farms [6] (Indian
Cotton Farmers Betrayed). Farmers encouraged by agricultural officials to
increase productivity try to do so by borrowing money to buy Monsanto’s
expensive cottonseed. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President
George Bush agreed the Knowledge Initiative in Agricultural Research and
Education in March 2006 that will ultimately bring Indian agriculture under
the control of US corporations like Monsanto. Transgenic animals and
poultry are also part of the deal. The Indian government’s ability to
protect farmers, consumers and the environmental health from the risks of
GM crops has been called into question [7] (Outsourcing Ecological and
Health Risks & Reducing Scientists to Bio-coolies for Industry).

The recent Supreme Court of India’s decision to ban any further GM crop
trials until further notice [8] will force the government to rethink its
biotechnology strategy. Unfortunately, existing GM cotton trials are not
included in the ban despite documented health hazards to humans and
livestock [9, 10] (More Illnesses Linked to Bt Crops; Mass Deaths in Sheep
Grazing on Bt Cotton).

Prime Minister Singh has now invested a hefty Rs 160 billion in a debt
relief package to persuade farmers in the high-risk suicide areas of Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharastra to continue farming [11]. The
package consists of loans, interest waivers, seed replacement, minor
irrigation schemes, and subsidiary incomes for farming livestock, dairying
and fisheries. The investment comes too late for those farmers that have
already died. Many more have already turned their backs on the perils of Bt
cotton farming to regain their health and independence [12] (Message from
Andhra Pradesh: Return to organic cotton & avoid the Bt cotton trap).
Agricultural education unsustainable

Perhaps it is not surprising that farmers fall for the promise of increased
productivity by buying the long list of equipment from the agribusiness
salesman. According to Bhaskar Save, of the 150 agricultural universities
in India that own thousands of acres of land, not one grows any significant
amount of food to feed its staff and pupils. Instead the focus is on
churning out hundreds of graduates each year to tell farmers what they must
buy to increase productivity, not what they must do to ensure the
sustainability of the land for future generations.

“Nature, unspoiled by man, is already most generous in her yield. When a
grain of rice can reproduce a thousand-fold within months, where arises the
need to increase its productivity?” Save asks Swaminathan.
Natural abundance in organic orchard

Save’s own orchard-farm “Kalpavruksha”, near the coastal village of
Dehri close to the Gujarat-Mararashtra boarder, has become a “sacred
university” specialising in natural abundance, or Annapurna [13]. Every
Saturday afternoon the farm gates open to farmers, agricultural scientists,
students, senior government officials, and city dwellers, who come to share
Save’s philosophy and practice of natural farming: “Co-operation is the
fundamental Law of Nature.”

The high yields in the organic orchard easily out-perform any farm using
chemicals and this is apparent to its many visitors. Masanobu Fukuoka, the
renowned Japanese natural farmer said: “I have seen many farms all over
the world. This is the best. It is even better than my own farm.” The
coconut trees produce an average of 400 coconuts per tree annually; some
produce more than 450 coconuts, and are among India’s highest yielding
trees. There is an incredible variety of fruit trees: banana, papaya,
mango, lime, tamarind, pomegranate, guava, custard apple, jackfruit, date,
and chikoo (similar to lychee) which produces an average of 300-350 kg of
delicious fruit per tree each year.

Fruit trees are also planted on soil platforms raised by Save above the
rice crop in low-lying paddy fields. Between every two adjacent platforms
are trenches that act as irrigation channels in the dry season and drainage
in monsoon. As the trees grow, the trenches are placed further away from
the trunks to encourage the roots to spread out to optimise water
efficiency. This pioneering feature of his work has greatly increased
yield, and attracted attention all over the world.
Diversity essential to soil health

Diversity of plant life is the key factor on organic farms. Save
simultaneously plants short life-span (alpa jeevi), medium life-span
(madhya-jeevi), and long life-span (deergha-jeevi) species. The community
of dense vegetation ensures that the soil’s microclimate is well
moderated all year round. The groundcover provides shade on hot days, while
leaf litter (mulch) cools and slightly dampens the surface of the soil. On
cold nights it serves as a blanket that conserves heat gained during the
day. High humidity under the canopy of mature long-life trees reduces
evaporation, and minimizes the need for irrigation. The drooping leaves of
plants act as a water metre to indicate falling moisture levels.

Save grows a tall, native variety of rice, Nawabi Kolam, that is rain-fed,
high yielding, and needs no weeding. After harvest, he seasonally rotates
several kinds of pulses, winter wheat and some vegetables on the paddy
field that grow entirely on the sub-soil moisture still present from the
monsoon. When they too are harvested, cattle can browse the crop residue
and provide dung fertilizer to further enrich the soil for the next cycle
of planting.

The polyculture model produces a year round continuity of harvests. First
from the short life-span species such as the various vegetables, and then
from the medium life span species such as banana, custard apple and papaya,
until the long life-span species of coconut, mango and chickoo begin to
bear fruit. It provides self-sufficiency for a family of ten (including
grandchildren) and an average of two guests from a modest two-acre plot.
Most years, a surplus of rice is gifted to relatives or friends.
Signs of hope in story of change

Bhaskar Save was not always an organic farmer. At first, he used chemical
fertilisers together with dung manure for his vegetable plants and rice
paddy. His rice harvest was so good that it attracted the attention of the
Gujarat Fertilizer Corporation. They asked him to teach other farmers to
use the chemical fertilizers for which he received 5 rupees for every bag
he sold. He quickly became a “model farmer” for the new technology
while earning enough to extend the acreage of his farm. Soon he realised
that he was caught in a cycle of spending more money to use more chemicals
to maintain productivity. Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and his successor
Vinoba Bhave, he adopted some of the farming methods of the Adivasi, the
tribal majority of India’s rural population. From then on his costs
reduced and the soil flourished. By 1959-60 he abandoned chemicals
altogether.

Save has learned his major lesson: “By ruining the natural fertility of
the soil, we actually create artificial ‘needs’ for more and more
external inputs and unnecessary inputs for ourselves, while the results are
inferior and more expensive in every way. The living soil is an organic
unity, and it is this entire web of life that must be protected and
nurtured”
Water and food security depends on soil

Save has updated a traditional intercrop system specifically for growing
cotton in low rainfall areas (see fig 1). The six integrated crops are
harvested in stages during a 365-day cycle: two types of millet, three
kinds of edible pulse legumes, and cotton. Every other row of legume crops
provides nitrogen to the soil. Weeds that attract predators that feed on
crop damaging species are welcome. So are worms that aerate and provide
compost, and nutrient rich soil microrganisms. All are the natural keepers
of soil health. As this system needs no irrigation, it is crucial that
chemicals are not added as they diminish the soils capacity to absorb
moisture.

Or read other articles in the Science and Food
section of the Institute of Science in Society Website
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/scifood.php
----------------


paul tradingpost@lobo.net

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
--Henry David Thoreau






  • [Livingontheland] Stem Farmers’ Suicides with Organic Farming, TradingPostPaul, 10/12/2006

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page