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Dream fulfilled
Milestone achieved |
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Water-borne poison
US polity deeply divided
Gain of real inheritance
Organic foods are not healthier or better for the environment – and they’re packed with pesticides, argued Rob Johnston in his article “The great organic myths” published in these columns on August 8. Here is the counter view
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Dream fulfilled
Verghese
Kurien, who died on Sunday, aged 90, nurtured a fledgling cooperative movement that grew under his visionary leadership and saved farmers from exploitative middlemen. It began with a strike by milkmen of Gujarat’s Kaira district. Kurien taught them how to run a cooperative as a business, taking over the work of procurement, marketing and even advertising. Playful cartoons have made Amul a household name – all this in the face of competition from multinationals. Some 30 lakh farmers from 12,000 villages now run the cooperative, which earned Rs 11,600 crore revenue in the year ending March, 2012. The modest movement that began at Anand has spread all over, empowering ordinary rural women engaged in milk work. The success story has been effectively captured in Hindi film “Manthan”, directed by Shyam Benegal. It was the first movie funded by farmers, each contributing Rs 2 for the venture. It must have been quite tough for Verghese Kurien, born a Syrian Christian in Kerala, graduating in mechanical engineering at the University of Madras and studying dairy engineering at Michigan State University to spend much of his life in a Gujarat village. Initially, vegetarian Gujaratis didn’t even give the beef-eating bachelor a place to stay. For relief, he would escape to Bombay on weekends. Despite odds, Kuiren stayed on – largely because of the efforts of his friend, Tribhuvandas Patel – to create the White Revolution and the Amul saga. Later, he even became the Chairman of the Gujarat State Electricity Board and the Vice-Chancellor of Gujarat Agriculture University. In his memoirs, “I Too Had A Dream”, Verghese Kurien acknowledges the generosity shown by the people of Gujarat. He not only had a dream but had the satisfaction to see it fulfilled in his life time. Though his cooperative model has been replicated within and outside the country, none could match the level of success in Gujarat. Politics and the bureaucracy usually hamper the growth of cooperatives apart from the absence of visionaries like Kurien.
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Milestone achieved
The
Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) launch on Sunday was special, not only because it placed two foreign satellites in orbit but also because it became the Indian Space Research Organisation’s 100th mission. Every India satellite built by ISRO is considered a mission, as is every space vehicle launched by the organisation. It has so far launched 62 Indian and 29 foreign satellites from India and abroad. That even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was there to witness the launch is a testimony of how proud the nation is of ISRO whose space programme began in 1975 with the launch of its first satellite, Aryabhatta. With 21 consecutive missions that were launched successfully, the PSLV has proved to be a reliable workhorse for ISRO, and indeed, it was the launch vehicle of our nation’s only moon mission. The PSLV success, however, is yet to be matched by the Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). Such launch vehicles are necessary to put heavy satellites into a geo- stationary orbit. To be fair, the GSLV is an immensely more complicated launch vehicle the cryogenic engines of which are very difficult to master. India has been using Russian cryogenic engines, but our own effort to develop such engines has not fared well and the last GSLV launch failed because the Indian-built cryogenic engine did not perform successfully. As of now, India is dependent on foreign space agencies to put its heavy satellites into geo-stationary orbits. By any standards, ISRO has done the nation proud with its success in mastering space technology. India is on the threshold of achieving greater success in space, both in satellite technology as well as satellite delivery systems. In this endeavour, ISRO has achieved yet another milestone, but it cannot rest on its laurels because there are miles to go, thousands of miles.
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Water-borne poison
These
are the floodplains along the Sutlej, ‘served’ also by the Budha Nullah that runs parallel to the river in Ludhiana district before merging with it. Residents of the Sidhwan Bet area would at one time have considered the easy availability of water a blessing, the basis of all civilisations. Today, however, civilisation itself has made life along the natural drain impossible. Toxic effluents flow into the nullah from the industrial city, which then seep into the ground. Water drawn from the ground by the villagers turns yellow within hours. Even the water supplied through the public waterworks is not much better, which means pollution has percolated deep. The incidence of various diseases, including cancer, is high, and the medical facilities inadequate. The Budha Nullah is arguably the filthiest drain in the state, and therefore also the most discussed. There have been certain initiatives driven by the pollution control board to stop the electroplating units in Ludhiana from releasing untreated effluents, which have borne results. Money has also been released by the Centre to start biological treatment of the nullah. However, such is the scale of pollution — untreated sewage included — that the benefits are negligible for those affected. What is required is a concerted and sustained effort on the part of municipal, pollution control, state and Central government authorities, backed by a guaranteed stick for those who continue to violate pollution norms. What the Budha Nullah is doing to the Sidhwan Bet area is typical of what various water bodies — big and small — are doing all over the state. This nullah pours into the Sutlej, which also receives water from other natural drains that are only marginally less polluted. Through canals, these waters also reach south Punjab, where cancer is already a scourge. The land of five rivers lost two to Partition. The remaining are being lost to pollution. Today’s technology makes it possible to clean up, only the funds are required. If we can find the money to generate the muck, we surely can find some to clean it up too.
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Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close. —John Ruskin
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US polity deeply divided Once
in four years Americans have a fiesta, with campaigns of the two main parties ending the first phase in conventions with extravagant speeches, and in line with tradition, the near and dear ones of the main contestants wear their hearts on their sleeves. The Republican and Democratic conventions were no exceptions to the rule, except for the fact that the United States is more polarised today than it has been in a long time. There is the insurrectionist right wing group, the Tea Party, on the Republican side while among Democrats and their sympathisers, there is a palpable sense of disappointment over President Barack Obama’s broken promises although he has brought in landmark legislation such as health care. But his strong point is the weakness of the Republican candidate, Mr Mitt Romney, who won his party’s nomination in the end but is generally viewed as somewhat weak and colourless. Mr Obama’s bugbear is the prevailing weak economy. The two candidates and their parties are split not only over social issues such as abortion and same sex marriage but also over the traditional American fault line on less government and how much of it. Given the country’s backdrop as a colonising and immigrant country in what was a vast wilderness of space and the indigenous people who were pretty much brutalised and often eliminated, the myth Americans have imbibed is that the less government there is, the better it is for individual citizens. Republicans tend to slur over the fact that vigorous government intervention has been essential in pulling America out of a morass of problems, the anti-slavery legislation or FD Roosevelt’s pioneering social legislation or the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson. Their credo is the individual’s free choice to live the American Dream. This dream is, of course, defined in different ways by the two main parties, and it is a requirement of the technological age that there can be little progress without government intervention in key areas. Republicans of every stripe, including the Tea Party, generally believe that there should be as little government intervention as possible in every American’s dream to be a millionaire. They tend to give the rich tax breaks while further impoverishing the middle class — the backbone of any democratic system — and make savings by cutting welfare programmes such as medical care by classifying them as matters of individual choice. They also tend to spend more on defence even as they cut social programmes for the less fortunate. Thus far there have been few surprises, with President Obama seeking four more years while he is fully conscious of the hard sell he has in a time of economic downturn and disappointing jobless figures. Mitt Romney is having a field day picking holes in his opponent’s economic record, despite President Obama’s bailout of the American automobile industry during recession saving many jobs. The Republican slogan is: Are you better off today than you were four years ago? There is, of course, much campaign rhetoric such as Romney’s description of Russia as America’s “geopolitical enemy number one” years after the end of the Cold War (an easy target for Obama’s jibe). Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reaction was to say that he would work with whoever was elected President, and that although Mr Obama was sincere in his efforts to improve relations with Russia, the point was whether the Pentagon and the US State Department would let him carry out his programme. Similarly, Romney has declared that he would be tough with China on currency immediately after assuming office. American election campaigns have become progressively more extravagant affairs with the main candidates requiring billions and expensive television advertisements, usually of the negative variety, making the channels rich while leaving the people befuddled. Indeed, the kind of money required for contesting the presidential and Senate and Congressional bouts is no advertisement for democracy. Where it will end is anyone’s guess, but there will come a point when the American system will have to lay down police norms of expenditure. The American polity is so deeply divided because many have not made peace with the demands of the technological age in which the tendency of segments of influential opinion tended to turn their backs on the rest of the world by adopting an isolationist policy. The world is too inter-connected, too dependent on others in a changing framework in which China is emerging as a major power and other emerging nations are demanding their say. The United States does not merely have to accommodate these developments but also to respect others’ interests. It is not so much that the US is a declining power, but rather a question of others having risen to challenge US hegemony after the fall of the Soviet Union. Despite the close race the two candidates face, astute analysts are giving President Obama the edge in crossing the finishing line first. Apparently, the disappointment over President Obama’s failings — given the strength and clout of the Israeli lobby, few are faulting him on going back on his promise of giving Palestinians a homeland and justice — the vote will be not so much for the incumbent but against his Republican opponent. Indeed, Mr Romney has not been able to present himself as a worthy successor to Mr Obama, and his efforts to tailor his views to the new conservative mores dictated, among others, by the Tea Party, have given him the unenviable tag of being a flip-fop candidate. This is highlighted most starkly by his changing attitude to the deeply felt and divisive issue of abortion. America has a great ability to correct itself after flirting with excesses. Nobody is betting on the often reactionary attitudes adopted by leading candidates seeking election prevailing in the longer run. But there is a crisis brewing in the demographic nature of less educated white males being unable to adopt and entwine with the new technological age. They form the constituency Republicans are banking on. Given the Republicans’ views on denying women the choice to abort a baby and on other issues, women’s votes are likely to swell Mr Obama’s support. And nobody can make Republicans less fervent in their right to possess guns, despite the growing menace of slaughters gun-wielding men perpetrate on their fellow
citizens.
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Gain of real inheritance A
few months ago, a long lost friend, after 28 years, paid a surprise visit to me at Shimla. First, we were modest, civil and a bit formal. But soon we slipped into reverie of the years spent together in close proximity in the past. I was sensing that his sudden visit was not without reason. I was right. He needed my help, through my connections in the civil services to get his ancestral property issues settled amicably with his brothers. He opened up and lamented that so long as property issues are not raised there is harmony in the family, social visits are not only welcomed but encouraged. But once partition issue is raised, there comes a strange coldness and bitterness in the relations. Social visits are now avoided and even prior fixing of meetings do not get materialised on one pretext or the other. Bhabhies, who were once warm and affectionate, show distinct indifference. Uncharitable comments are passed such as, “Loji, chaalis saal baad hissa mangane aa gaye”. Their usual queries: For the past 40 years the family has been maintaining the whole property by spending huge amounts. Who’ll compensate for that? They will grudge — both are earning handsome assured salaries at Delhi, have two flats, cars and the children too are settled in highly paid status jobs. Further they add — they or their children will never come to settle at the ancestral place and will only sell their part to others for money, meaning thereby continuous trouble for the brothers and their families at the native place. Suggestions are extended, through extended family and well-wishers, to relinquish the share and accept some token amount in return. My friend’s argument was how one could severe his connection with the property of his father and place of his birth. As property prices were high, he was determined to fight for his legal rights. He was running around to collect papers of the properties which were in possession of the other brothers; visiting patwaris, revenue officers, and exploring local political and bureaucratic connections to get his due. He asked me quite exasperatedly if it was a universal truth in society that the brothers who had migrated out of the native place were not only slowly forgotten but their legal due was also denied. While affirming his contention, I apprised him that those siblings who have migrated should presage that with the passage of time they will lose claim (not legally) on ancestral properties. As soon as the siblings living at the native place will have expansion of their respective families and their children grow up, denial of the rights to the migrated ones becomes an unavoidable compulsion and enforced without any compunction. This was the normal cruelty despite rare exceptions, that defined the rules of relationships. We easily forget sisters, who are trained to relinquish their rights, and send a few rupees annually on Raksha Bandhan, Bhai-Dooj or some other social occasions, due to deeply ingrained social customs. I advised him to take whatever money his brothers offer and even if they don’t give, make a proposal gracefully to relinquish his rights in their favour and avoid life-long legal hassles along with the loss of “real inheritance”. “What did you do?” he quipped blithely. “Exactly the same,” I pontificated, “and gained my real inheritance, not in terms of property but by winning my siblings, their love, affection and respect and close-knit bonding even with their families till date.” My friend met me at Delhi last week. I inquired about his dispute with his brothers. He smiled and exclaimed, “I too have gained my real
inheritance.”
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Organic foods are not healthier or better for the environment – and they’re packed with pesticides, argued Rob Johnston in his article “The great organic myths” published in these columns on August 8. Here is the counter view
Industrial agriculture is an inefficient and wasteful system which is chemical intensive, fossil fuel intensive and capital intensive. It destroys nature’s capital on the one hand and society’s capital on the other, by displacing small farms and destroying health. It uses 10 units of energy as input to produce one unit of energy as food.
This waste is amplified by anther factor often when animals are put in factory farms and fed grain, instead of grass in free range ecological systems, Rob Johnston celebrates these animal prisons as efficient, ignoring the fact that it takes 7 kg of grain to produce one kg of beef, 4kg of grain to produce 1 kg of pork and 2.4 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of chicken. The diversion of food grains to feed is a major contributor to world hunger. And the shadow acres to produce this grain are never counted. Europe uses seven times the area outside Europe to produce feed for its factory farms. Targeting small farms The biodiversity of agriculture is being maintained by small farmers. As the ETC report states “peasants breed and nurture 40 livestock species and almost 8,000 breeds. Peasants also breed 5,000 domesticated crops and have donated more than 1.9 million plant varieties to the world’s gene banks. Peasant fishers harvest and protect more than 15,000 freshwater species. The work of peasants and pastoralists maintaining soil fertility is 18 times more valuable than the synthetic fertilizers provided by the seven largest corporations” (ETC Group, “Who Will Feed Us?”). When this biodiversity rich food system is replaced by industrial monocultures, when food is commoditised, the result is hunger and malnutrition. Of the world’s 6.6 billion, one billion are not getting enough food, another billion might get enough calories but not enough nutrition, especially micro nutrients. Another 1.3 billion who are obese suffer the malnutrition of being condemned to artificially cheap, calorie-rich, nutrient-poor processed food. Hunger by design The dominant myth of industrial agriculture is that it produces more food and is land saving. However, the more industrial agriculture spreads, the more hungry people we have. And the more industrial agriculture spreads, the more land is grabbed. Productivity in industrial agriculture is measured in terms of “yield” per acre, not overall output. And the only input taken into account is labour, which is abundant, not natural resources which are scarce. A resource hungry and resource destructive system of agriculture is not land saving, it is land demanding. That is why industrial agriculture is driving a massive planetary land grab. It is leading to the deforestation of the rainforests in the Amazon for soya and in Indonesia for palmoil. And it is fuelling a land grab in Africa, displacing pastoralists and peasants. Industrial agriculture is responsible for 75% biodiversity erosion, 75% water destruction, 75% land degradation and 40% greenhouse gases. It is too heavy a burden on the planet. And as the 2,70,000 farmers suicides in India show, it is too heavy a burden on our farmers. The toxics and poisons used in chemical farming are creating a health burden for our society. Remember Bhopal. Remember the endosulfan victims in Kerala. And remember Punjab’s cancer train. A series of media reports have covered another study by a team led by Bravata, a senior affiliate with Stanford's Center for Health Policy, and Crystal Smith-Spangler, MD, MS, an instructor in the school's Division of General Medical Disciplines and a physician-investigator at VA Palo Alto Health Care System, did the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date of existing studies comparing organic and conventional foods. They did not find strong evidence that organic foods are more nutritious or carry fewer health risks than conventional alternatives, though consumption of organic foods can reduce the risk of pesticide exposure.” This study can hardly be called the “most comprehensive meta analysis.” For their study, the researchers sifted through thousands of papers and identified 237 of the most relevant to analyse. This already exposes the bias. The biggest meta analysis on food and agriculture has been done by the United Nations as the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology (IAASTD). Parading junk science Industrial chemical agriculture creates hunger and malnutrition by robbing crops of nutrients. Industrially produced food is nutritionally empty mass, loaded with chemicals and toxins. Nutrition in food comes from nutrients in the soil. Industrial agriculture, based on the NPK mentality of synthetic nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium based fertilisers leads to the depletion of vital micro nutrients and trace elements such as magnesium, zinc, calcium and iron. David Thomas, a geologist-turned-nutritionist, discovered that between 1940 and 1991, vegetables had lost – on average – 24 percent of their magnesium, 46 percent of their calcium, 27 percent of their iron and no less than 76 percent of their copper (Ref :David Thomas 'A study on the mineral depletion of the foods available to us as a nation over the period 1940 to 1991'. Nutrition and Health 2003; 17: 85-115). Carrots had lost 75 percent of their calcium, 46 percent of their iron and 75 percent of their copper. Potatoes had lost 30 percent of their magnesium, 35 percent calcium, 45 percent iron and 47 percent copper. To get the same amount of nutrition people will need to eat much more food. The increase in “yields” of empty mass does not translate into more nutrition. In fact it is leading to malnutrition. Poor nutrition Our 25 years of experience at Navdanya shows that ecological, organic farming is the only way to produce food without harming the planet and people’s health. This is a trend that will grow, no matter how many pseudo-scientific stories are planted in the media by the industry. Vandana Shiva is the author of “Violence of Green Revolution” and Director, Research Foundation for Science Technology & Ecology, New Delhi
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