permaculture

[Suraj Kumar <suraj@sunson.in>]

I'm from India and I thought this would be
interesting/shocking/sick/useful news to people here.

News#1:
The south indian state of Tamil Nadu has recently passed a bill in the
TN Assembly that prevents anybody without a specific type of
"Agricultural degree" from providing agricultural consultancy. Breach
of law can result in Rs.10,000/- fine and/or upto 6 months of
imprisonment... and guess who shapes the course material? The World
Bank (which sure has well intending, purely humanitarian, non-profit
goals the only problem is, the means to achieve those goals are
dictated by people who've been doing some ping-pong from
Mega-Corporations to such bodies).

News#2:
TN's neighbouring state: Andhra Pradesh, now has government backed
"Co-operatives" which will function to solve the "ultimate problem" of
inefficiencies due to duplication of effort and wasted resources. IOW,
if a hundred different farmers produce compost, there will tend to be
a bell-curve shaped inefficiency pattern where only some 20% will be
good while the majority will be producing 'average quality' stuff.
So... they say "this should be done centrally". Of course, you get a
more accurate picture when I mention that they will use "emerging
technologies" like "Biotech". The icing on the cake is this: The
farmers are encouraged to sell their land to the "members of the
co-operative" whose job is to make these farms more centralised,
planned and efficient. The farmers in turn get paper "shares" and can
be worry free for the rest of their lives for afterall, the shares
will perpetually keep growing by a specific percent, wouldn't it?. If
unwilling (who is unwilling? The co-operative isn't willing to buy?
the farmer isn't willing to sell? I don't know), the government will
buy the land at "standard market rates".

Like someone says in a famous movie: "This country is going straight to 
hell!".

  -Suraj

References:
1. 
http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com/2009/07/tamil-nadu-introduces-draconian-bill-to.html
2. http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/27/stories/2009072752250300.htm


-- 
"The Greatest Shortcoming of the Human Race is
our Inability to Understand the Exponential Function"
Dr. Albert Bartlett