Strategic workshop on Mainstreaming Organic' was successfully organised by Navdanya at its Biodiversity conservation farm at village Ramgarh on Old Shimla Road. A policy draft was evolved by the team of Scientists and representatives of the community movements in this 2 day workshop. Following people participated in the workshop:
Dr. R.D . Gaur, Prof. Emeratus, H.N. B. Garhwal University, Srinagar Garhwal; Prof. Vir Singh, Pantnagar agriculture University; Dr. J.M.S. Rana, Director, DBT, Uttarakhand; Dr. V.P. Uniyal, WII, Dehradun; Dr. Rajesh Naithani, Advisor, CM Uttarakhand; Dr. Arvind Bhatt, Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of Himachal Pradesh; Sri Pawan Shah, Manager KM& IT, Livelihoods Improvement Project for the Himalayas, Uttarakhand; Sri Hari Raj Singh, Consultant, Soil Ecology and Disaster Management, Dehradun, Dr. R.S Rawat, Dr. Vinod Kumar Bhatt and Dr. Vandana Shiva, Managing Trustee of Navdanya.
Strategic Workshop on ‘Mainstreaming organic”, 7th -8th August, 2010
Venue: Navdanya Biodiversity Conservation Center “Bija Vidyapeeth” at village Ramgarh on Old Shimla road on Road, Dehradun.
All of us are aware that there are three major crises prevalent these days all over the world.
1. Food and malnutrition
Today every 4th Indian is hungry, and nearly half of the world’s children are malnourished. One million children die every year for lack of food in India. Today most Indians are eating less than what they were eating a decade ago i.e. before the era of globalisation and trade liberalization. The per capita availability of food has declined from 177 kg per person per year in 1991 to 152 kg per person per year. The daily availability of food has declined from 485 to 419 gms per day. Daily calorie intake has dropped from 2220 cals / day to 2150 cals / day.
2. Rising cost of cultivation and agrarian crisis leading to farmers suicides
Ever rising cost of cultivation has resulted into an epidemic of farmers’ suicides which has spread across four states of India over the last decade. According to official data, more than 200,000 farmers have committed suicide in India since 1997.
3. Increasing Climate insecurity
External input based industrial chemical agriculture is making each crisis worst. It is increasing with the every next day. Intensification of drought, floods and cyclones is one of the predictable impacts of climate change and climate instability. The failure of monsoon in India and the consequent drought has impacted two thirds of India, especially the bread basket of India’s fertile gangetic plains. Bihar has had a 43% rainfall deficit, Jharkhand – 47%, Uttar Pradesh – 64%, Haryana – 61%, Punjab – 26%, Himachal Pradesh – 63%, Uttarakhand – 42%.
It is the high time to found the sustainable solution to these ever these ever increasing crises. Biodiversity based Organic farming is the tested solution for all the above crises. Organic solution will vouch to protect our farmers from the increasing climate instability.
Therefore, in order to provide climate resilience to scale up the organic solutions both on the ground and policy we are calling a small group of the leaders from the scientific communities and organic movements for the strategic workshop on ‘Mainstreaming organic” to respond to the multiple crisis.
