PEOPLE’S AGENDA FOR REJUVENATION OF INDIAN AGRICULTURE

The Government must stop its war against small farmers and the land

The Government has declared a war against India's small farmers. In Nandigram, in Vidharbha, in Punjab, peasants and small farmers are being killed by Government policy.

In Nandigram, the peasants were killed because their land was earmarked for an SEZ and they resisted the land grab. The Chief Minister of Bengal stated "that 63% of the population continues to depend on agriculture for its livelihood is a sign of backwardness". In other words there are too many small farmers, and their number must be reduced by taking away their land for car factories and chemical factories, even though automobile and chemical factories will not be able to provide livelihoods for all the displaced peasants.

In Vidharbha farmers are being killed for Monsanto's profits and because of falling prices of cotton due to U.S subsidies. The Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture has reported the total failure of the P.M's Vidharbha package. The package failed because it was more of a Monsanto aid package than a farmer relief package.

At a time when the Prime Minister should be healing the wounds of India's peasantry, he has once again come out with an anti-small farmer statement, saying small farms have no potential to increase productivity. Over two decades, we have worked with small farmers. We have evolved ecological systems to increase productivity and farm incomes. It is infact in regions where elements of corporate agriculture have been introduced, such as the introduction of Monsanto's genetically engineered Bt. Cotton seeds, that the agrarian distress is most severe and where farmers are committing suicide. In the farmers economy, the corporate definition of productivity is translating either into suicides or land grab. The corporate definition of productivity is also destroying our soil, our water, our air. Industrial agriculture contributes ten times more green-house gases than small farm ecological agriculture. It uses ten times more water than small ecological farms. The climate crisis and water crisis has made sustainable agriculture an imperative. Yet the Government is determined to create a social crisis by uprooting small farmers and an eco-catastrophe by promoting corporate / industrial agriculture.

Scientific falsehood has become the method for conquering India's small farms and displacing India's small peasants. An article about the U.S India Agricultural Knowledge Initiative titled "Battle on to make India's farmers better managers" (Hindustan Times, March 26, 2007) "A quarter of India's agricultural produce is wasted". This is totally false. Only 30% of India's produce is traded non-locally and long distance. Only long distance chains lead to wastage of perishables such as fruits and vegetables. If total food production and total wastage is taken into account, the latter is less than 0.1% of the produce. Total food grains produced in India are 199 million tones. Total oilseeds are 19.9 million tones. Surgarcane is 298.5 million tones. Cotton and Jute are 10 million tones each. Fruit and vegetables are 169825 metric tones.

It is also a sign of cultural colonialism when India Today described our local farmers markets which are people friendly and climate friendly, as "99% inspiration and 1% perspiration". When the world is moving beyond the Walmart model of retail to farmers markets, we are being asked to dismantle our mandis and our haats, increase food miles and energy intensity in our food chains, and aggravate climate chaos.

Wheat and Paddy, Ragi and Jowar do not need cold chains. Vegetables and fruits need cold chains. Yet the entire "infrastructure" for agriculture has been reduced to subsidies for cold chains, which allow corporations like Reliance to monopolise agritrade and stock up "Reliance fresh" while prices of food produce in the open market shoot up. The infrastructure for food security and ecological security is being systematically broken down.

Just as the colonies were declared "Terra Nullius" (Empty land) during colonialism, the new corporate colonialism driven by the World Bank, the WTO, the US India Knowledge India Initiative are declaring India's rural areas with 650 million people "Terra Nullius" - as if we produce no food, have no knowledge, no culture, no rights. We should not exist.

This corporate colonialism was evident in the speech of the Vice Chairman of the Planning Commission when he promoted large corporate ownership of farmland. He tried to separate rural development from agriculture, with agriculture as a corporate sector, and rural development as "direct employment on a temporary basis". The answer he does not provide is what will happen to millions of farmers displaced by corporate industrialized agriculture or how short-term employment for a few people in a few villages will ensure lasting, sustainable, dignified livelihoods for 1650 million people.

The government recipe is for large-scale genocide in the countryside. It is a recipe for Nandigrams and Vidharbhas everywhere. This is a recipe for the growth of Naxalism. It is a recipe for violence and civic breakdown, for hunger and famine, for climate chaos and ecological catastrophe. While promoting agriculture that will increase greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, the Vice Chair has also stated that the corporate sector would be called on to do research on new draught-resistant varieties of seeds and crops to deal with global warming. This too emerges from a "Terra Nullius" paradigm that does not recognize that Indian farmers have already bred robust draught resistant, floor resistant and saline resistant varieties

Navdanya has been saving and sharing these climate change resistant seeds in Orissa, after the super cyclone and in Tamil Nadu after the Tsunami. We are setting up open source, community seed banks to deal with climate change so that farmers do not have to depend on Monsanto's monopoly and every climate disaster area does not also become a permanent suicide zone.

We stand committed to create peaceful, just, sustainable alternatives for our small farmers and rural communities.

To counter the Vice Chairman's corporate centred agriculture strategy, we are preparing a small - farmers centred agriculture policy for India's livelihood and food security, through a participatory process.

We are also starting programs with farmers in Nandigram and Vidharbha for the rejuvenation of small farm agriculturem, to bring hope and peace in these troubled regions.

In this war that the government has declared against the land and the small farmers on behalf of Monsanto, Cargill, Reliance and Wal-Mart and other giant corporations, Navdanya will continue to create peace by strengthening and building farmer and people centred sustainable alternatives, which provide livelihood and food security for all, not super profits for a few.