It's ironical that the eco-friendly properties of neem, native to the Indian sub-continent, need approval from abroad.
The world is gradually discovering the hidden treasures in neem. In the next five years, the global trade in neem products for pest control, medicines, pharmaceuticals, and toiletries is expected to grow to US $ 500 million.
Realising the immense potention of this wonder tree, massive plantations are comeing upon across globe. China has already overtaken India as the country with the largest number of neem trees. Against an estimated 22 million neem trees in India, China has already planted 25 million trees in Yunan and other southern provinces. Brazil boasts of some 5 million neem trees, and many countries in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean have been on a massive neem planting spree. Tanzania for instance has planted 600,000 trees, and Uganda has another 200,000.
Growing wild in all kinds of soil, including wastelands, the evergreen neem grows even in arid and nutritionally deficient soils. For centuries, Indian farmers have used the traditional wisdom associated with its insect repelling properties. We have heard stories of grandmothers telling us to use neem leaves while packing woollens. We are aware of the role neem can play in warding off insects. But with the advent of DDT, the broad-spectrum pesticide, the entire focus of the government and the private industry shifted to the marketing the chemical pesticide. Neem was slowly relegated to fables.
Native to Indian sub-continent (its origin is traced to Burma), neem certainly opens up a Pandora box when it comes to environment friendly, biodegradable pesticides. What makes it unique is its ability to harm the harmful insects and at the same time boost the role of the beneficial insects like predators, pollinators and parasites. I don’t know of any such environment friendly bio-pesticide that can play this double role. And yet, because the tree grows in our own backyards, we have remained oblivious to nature’s gift that we could have given to the world, provided we had researched and promoted the virtues of this wonder tree.
Recognition has to come from abroad. A report of an ad hoc panel of the Board of Science and Technology for International Development states: “this plant may usher in a new era in pest control, provide millions with inexpensive medicines, cut down the rate of human population growth and even reduce erosion, deforestation, and the excessive temperature of an overheated globe.” Isn’t it sad that we have to be told of neem’s worth by an international panel? Isn’t this a slap on the face of Indian science as well as agriculture?
Neem has more than 100 unique bioactive compounds, which have potential application in agriculture, animal care, public health, and for regulating human fertility, says Dr R C Saxena, chairman of the Neem Foundation. He began his work on neem several decades back at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines. He has since been relentlessly advocating neem as a viable alternative to the chemical pesticides. Agriculture scientists, who continue to be in the awe of imported technologies, have still not accepted neem as a viable alternative.
Sounds incredible, but neem affects as many as 537 pest species, including ostracods, mites and ticks, nematodes, some species of snail and fungi, and aflatoxins. What makes its application environmental friendly is its ability to neutralise or incapacitate the pest species rather than killing it instantaneously. Neem therefore does not have a knock-down impact which is immediately visible to the farmers but plays a more powerful role of incapacitating these pests.
A large number of neem-based medicines, pharmaceuticals and toiletries are being manufactured and marketed. Neem oil is in great demand for treating skin infections, ringworm, foot rot, scabies, lice, burn wounds, bruises etc. Not only in humans, the plant-based derivatives are equally effective against ticks, mites, and blood sucking flies in livestock. The use of neem and fertiliser mixtures can increase the efficiency of nutrient availability from chemical fertilisers. Its role in reforestation and rehabilitation of the waste lands has been well documented.
Interestingly, Dr Saxena claims that neem has a cooling effect equivalent to that of ten air-conditioners. The temperature under a full grown neem tree is 10 degrees less than outside, and based on these inherent advantages that flows he has quantified the economics from a neem tree. It provides a lifetime service (considering its life span of 250 years) equivalent to US $ 25,000. But unfortunately, economists fail to add the ecological and economic worth of a standing neem tree while computing the GDP. Multiply US $ 25,000 with 22 million (the number of neem trees in India) and you will understand where the real GDP lies.
Even after the infamous attempts to patent neem properties, we as a nation have failed to realise the economic and ecological strength lying in our own backyards. It is only lately that the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) has launched a nationwide project on the production and promotion of neem based pesticides. The project, being operated in collaboration with the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers, is now entering its second phase. It is high time that neem becomes a true symbol of Incredible India.
Deccan Herald, Bangalore; Jan 29, 2009
Jan 28, 2009
Bug in the system
As the economic collapse and now the Satyam saga show, computers cannot eradicate corruption
For years we were painstakingly told that consistent, reliable and accurate information is a precursor to curbing corruption. Bridging the digital divide by extending computerisation across the country is still being promoted as a sure way to fight corruption. The World Bank says it, the UN promotes it, and the business of making corruption history proliferates.
I had always stood up and challenged the popular contention. The New Age management gurus and that include academicians and bureaucrats, whose jobs are linked to promoting the use and application of the technology, would only snigger. E-governance is the buzzword and how can someone dare to question the perceived role computers can play in fighting corruption.
The Satyam saga has surely blown this e-governance façade. If computers could help in curbing corrupt practices, how does one explain that Ramalinga Raju, the disgraced founder of Satyam Computer Servives, was able to forge computerised bank statements to dupe auditors, fake employee numbers to siphon-off money, and divert funds from his company to enter into benami land deals for thousand of acres? And what about the auditors, a part of the global PriceWaterhouseCoopers organisation? Were they not using computers?
There is certainly more on the plate than what can be chewed. Take the case of land records and property transactions. The computerisation of land records, for instance, which began in 1991, is now being hastened up. No one will discount the dire need to computerise the land records. But why use the flawed argument of curbing corruption? Bhoomi, Karnataka’s famed model of digital land records, for instance, has failed to check corrupt practices. In fact, it is now becoming much easy for the land grabbers and big business to misappropriate the electronic data.
The collapse of the financial markets in the United States, which triggered a global economic meltdown, happened under the very watchful eyes of the computer. I can understand what must have gone wrong when computer was non-existent at the time of the Great Depression in the 1930s, but still can’t fathom how did the 2008 financial collapse took place when everything was computerised. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not against the use of computers, but strongly feel that taking the e-governance and information communication technology (ICT) argument to eradicating corruption is not only far fetched but fundamentally flawed.
Bug in the system, Edit page, Hindustan Times, Jan 28, 2009
For years we were painstakingly told that consistent, reliable and accurate information is a precursor to curbing corruption. Bridging the digital divide by extending computerisation across the country is still being promoted as a sure way to fight corruption. The World Bank says it, the UN promotes it, and the business of making corruption history proliferates.
I had always stood up and challenged the popular contention. The New Age management gurus and that include academicians and bureaucrats, whose jobs are linked to promoting the use and application of the technology, would only snigger. E-governance is the buzzword and how can someone dare to question the perceived role computers can play in fighting corruption.
The Satyam saga has surely blown this e-governance façade. If computers could help in curbing corrupt practices, how does one explain that Ramalinga Raju, the disgraced founder of Satyam Computer Servives, was able to forge computerised bank statements to dupe auditors, fake employee numbers to siphon-off money, and divert funds from his company to enter into benami land deals for thousand of acres? And what about the auditors, a part of the global PriceWaterhouseCoopers organisation? Were they not using computers?
There is certainly more on the plate than what can be chewed. Take the case of land records and property transactions. The computerisation of land records, for instance, which began in 1991, is now being hastened up. No one will discount the dire need to computerise the land records. But why use the flawed argument of curbing corruption? Bhoomi, Karnataka’s famed model of digital land records, for instance, has failed to check corrupt practices. In fact, it is now becoming much easy for the land grabbers and big business to misappropriate the electronic data.
The collapse of the financial markets in the United States, which triggered a global economic meltdown, happened under the very watchful eyes of the computer. I can understand what must have gone wrong when computer was non-existent at the time of the Great Depression in the 1930s, but still can’t fathom how did the 2008 financial collapse took place when everything was computerised. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not against the use of computers, but strongly feel that taking the e-governance and information communication technology (ICT) argument to eradicating corruption is not only far fetched but fundamentally flawed.
Bug in the system, Edit page, Hindustan Times, Jan 28, 2009
Jan 27, 2009
Economy grows, and so does hunger
Hunger is keeping pace with economic growth. At a time when economy is growing at an average of 7 to 8 per cent, hunger too is growing.
The 2006-07 report of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) brings out the stark truth. The correlation between hunger and economic growth is robustly positive – more the economic growth, more people go to bed hungry. This challenges the widely held view that economic growth pulls poor out of poverty and hunger.
The disturbing report, which should have shocked the nation, and has lessons for the global economic community, has been very conveniently pushed under the carpet. While all efforts are aimed at minimising the impact of the financial meltdown, the damming indictment of the state’s failure in feeding its population receives scant attention. It is therefore quite obvious that the definition of a welfare state, which India’s founding forefathers had wanted the country to adhere to, is now being interpreted to mean only corporate welfare.
The poor and hungry have simply disappeared from the economic radar screen. Except for setting up a panel on nutrition, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is busy battling the economic turndown. Like his predecessors, there is hardly a day when he is not hobnobbing with the industrialists. If only successive governments had devoted a fraction of the effort that has gone into propping up trade and industry, into fighting hunger and malnutrition, India’s dismal ranking in the 2008 Global Hunger Index – a shameful 66th among the 88 hungry countries, much below Sub-Saharan Africa – would have left something to cheer about.
Although the Global Hunger Index prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) puts the number of hungry in India at 200 million – the largest population of hungry in the world -- this is simply a gross underestimation. The National Commission on Enterprise in Unorganised Sector on the other hand had earlier computed that 837 million people spend a paltry Rs 20 (less than 50 cents) a day. Surely, Rs 20 a day cannot buy two square meals. In other words, 77 per cent of the country’s population is living on the edge, and somehow manages to survive.
What makes the alarming situation still worse is that ever since economic liberalisation was launched in 1991, the NSSO tells us that cereal consumption has been on a steady decline, with no corresponding increase in the intake of more nutritious eggs, vegetables, fruits and milk. It means hunger has been on a rise and is now more widespread and well-entrenched. So far the feeling was that with the changing food habits, people have shifted from cereals to nutritious foods like fruits, vegetables and milk. This assumption too does not hold true anymore.
The decline in cereal consumption has more or less followed a steady pattern in the rural and urban areas, of course much faster in the rural areas. Per capita cereal consumption per month in the rural areas across the country has fallen from 13.4 kg in 1993-94 to 11.7 kg in 2006-07. The decline has been sharper between the period 2004 and 2007 when just in three years, cereals consumption fell from 12.1 kg to 11.7 kg. In the urban centres the decline was from 10.6 kg in 1993-94 to 9.6 kg in 2006-07. In a largely vegetarian society, cereals constitute the single important source of nutrition and therefore its importance in the Indian context is well established.
This is still not the real picture. The NSSO survey des not cover the period 2007-08 when the world was faced with an unprecedented rise on global food prices. In any case, the average household expenditure on food shows an increasing trend, but does not translate into more food consumption. It only means food prices have been on an upswing, and the poor are finding it difficult to fill their bellies. The recent price rise had made it still more difficult for the poor to be well fed. Cereal consumption therefore is expected to fall still further in 2007-08, and the impact it must have had on the poor and hungry can be well imagined.
It is well known that India is fast sinking into a quagmire of deprivation and despair. Ignoring the premise that economic growth does not automatically translate into human development, successive Prime Ministers have been repeatedly asserting that the opening up of the markets is the key to attract foreign investments and accelerating growth. Sadly, in the absence of any plausible understanding of the politico-economic system that a country like India must follow, and with our vision fixed on treating GDP as the benchmark of economic policy, we are harping on a path which is laden with acute poverty and chronic malnutrition.
Strange isn’t it that such widespread and extreme inhuman conditions are not even remotely reflected in the growth projections. It means there is something terribly wrong with the way economic growth is computed. The net economic worth of 36 billionaires constitutes one-third of India’s GDP, and very conveniently hides the acute poverty and squalor in which 837 million Indians live in. Even if we were to accept the Global Hunger Index compilation, the face of 200 million hungry remains camouflaged under the growth projections. Growth projections hide the real face of India -- the global hotspot of hunger.
I have often quoted the former Finance Minister of Pakistan and the author of the UNDP’s Human Development Report, the late Mahbub-ul-Haq, who had once remarked, “We were wrongly taught that we should take care of GDP and it will automatically take care of poverty. Let us reverse it. We need to take care of poverty and it will automatically take care of GDP". As Pakistan’s Finance Minister in the 1960s, he was able to generate a GDP growth rate of seven per cent. “And still people voted us out,” he told me once, adding “it was a rude awakening for me. I realised that economic growth is no indicator of human development."
Well, is there a way out in the short term? Yes, there is, provided what the BJP and the Congress party promised at the time of state assembly elections in Chhatisgarh becomes the official agenda. The Congress party had promised to provide rice at Rs 2 per kilo and the BJP wanting to outdo has come up with a pledge to provide the staple food at Re 1 for 7.8 lakh Antyodaya families and at Rs 2 for the 34 lakh other identified poor. The BJP has come back to power, and many believe that it is because of their promise for making available cheaper rice. This scheme, whatever be the financial implications, must be expanded to cover the entire country. The hungry immediately need food and not the promise of a trickle down through economic growth. #
The 2006-07 report of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) brings out the stark truth. The correlation between hunger and economic growth is robustly positive – more the economic growth, more people go to bed hungry. This challenges the widely held view that economic growth pulls poor out of poverty and hunger.
The disturbing report, which should have shocked the nation, and has lessons for the global economic community, has been very conveniently pushed under the carpet. While all efforts are aimed at minimising the impact of the financial meltdown, the damming indictment of the state’s failure in feeding its population receives scant attention. It is therefore quite obvious that the definition of a welfare state, which India’s founding forefathers had wanted the country to adhere to, is now being interpreted to mean only corporate welfare.
The poor and hungry have simply disappeared from the economic radar screen. Except for setting up a panel on nutrition, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is busy battling the economic turndown. Like his predecessors, there is hardly a day when he is not hobnobbing with the industrialists. If only successive governments had devoted a fraction of the effort that has gone into propping up trade and industry, into fighting hunger and malnutrition, India’s dismal ranking in the 2008 Global Hunger Index – a shameful 66th among the 88 hungry countries, much below Sub-Saharan Africa – would have left something to cheer about.
Although the Global Hunger Index prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) puts the number of hungry in India at 200 million – the largest population of hungry in the world -- this is simply a gross underestimation. The National Commission on Enterprise in Unorganised Sector on the other hand had earlier computed that 837 million people spend a paltry Rs 20 (less than 50 cents) a day. Surely, Rs 20 a day cannot buy two square meals. In other words, 77 per cent of the country’s population is living on the edge, and somehow manages to survive.
What makes the alarming situation still worse is that ever since economic liberalisation was launched in 1991, the NSSO tells us that cereal consumption has been on a steady decline, with no corresponding increase in the intake of more nutritious eggs, vegetables, fruits and milk. It means hunger has been on a rise and is now more widespread and well-entrenched. So far the feeling was that with the changing food habits, people have shifted from cereals to nutritious foods like fruits, vegetables and milk. This assumption too does not hold true anymore.
The decline in cereal consumption has more or less followed a steady pattern in the rural and urban areas, of course much faster in the rural areas. Per capita cereal consumption per month in the rural areas across the country has fallen from 13.4 kg in 1993-94 to 11.7 kg in 2006-07. The decline has been sharper between the period 2004 and 2007 when just in three years, cereals consumption fell from 12.1 kg to 11.7 kg. In the urban centres the decline was from 10.6 kg in 1993-94 to 9.6 kg in 2006-07. In a largely vegetarian society, cereals constitute the single important source of nutrition and therefore its importance in the Indian context is well established.
This is still not the real picture. The NSSO survey des not cover the period 2007-08 when the world was faced with an unprecedented rise on global food prices. In any case, the average household expenditure on food shows an increasing trend, but does not translate into more food consumption. It only means food prices have been on an upswing, and the poor are finding it difficult to fill their bellies. The recent price rise had made it still more difficult for the poor to be well fed. Cereal consumption therefore is expected to fall still further in 2007-08, and the impact it must have had on the poor and hungry can be well imagined.
It is well known that India is fast sinking into a quagmire of deprivation and despair. Ignoring the premise that economic growth does not automatically translate into human development, successive Prime Ministers have been repeatedly asserting that the opening up of the markets is the key to attract foreign investments and accelerating growth. Sadly, in the absence of any plausible understanding of the politico-economic system that a country like India must follow, and with our vision fixed on treating GDP as the benchmark of economic policy, we are harping on a path which is laden with acute poverty and chronic malnutrition.
Strange isn’t it that such widespread and extreme inhuman conditions are not even remotely reflected in the growth projections. It means there is something terribly wrong with the way economic growth is computed. The net economic worth of 36 billionaires constitutes one-third of India’s GDP, and very conveniently hides the acute poverty and squalor in which 837 million Indians live in. Even if we were to accept the Global Hunger Index compilation, the face of 200 million hungry remains camouflaged under the growth projections. Growth projections hide the real face of India -- the global hotspot of hunger.
I have often quoted the former Finance Minister of Pakistan and the author of the UNDP’s Human Development Report, the late Mahbub-ul-Haq, who had once remarked, “We were wrongly taught that we should take care of GDP and it will automatically take care of poverty. Let us reverse it. We need to take care of poverty and it will automatically take care of GDP". As Pakistan’s Finance Minister in the 1960s, he was able to generate a GDP growth rate of seven per cent. “And still people voted us out,” he told me once, adding “it was a rude awakening for me. I realised that economic growth is no indicator of human development."
Well, is there a way out in the short term? Yes, there is, provided what the BJP and the Congress party promised at the time of state assembly elections in Chhatisgarh becomes the official agenda. The Congress party had promised to provide rice at Rs 2 per kilo and the BJP wanting to outdo has come up with a pledge to provide the staple food at Re 1 for 7.8 lakh Antyodaya families and at Rs 2 for the 34 lakh other identified poor. The BJP has come back to power, and many believe that it is because of their promise for making available cheaper rice. This scheme, whatever be the financial implications, must be expanded to cover the entire country. The hungry immediately need food and not the promise of a trickle down through economic growth. #
Jan 26, 2009
Give Stimulus Package to Farming
Buried under the whole array of angry reactions following the Mumbai terror is yet another and perhaps more violent disaster. A terribly shocking and startling news that should have shaken up the country’s screaming elite has not even been perceived by the electronic media as worthy of being dubbed as breaking news. That 16, 632 farmers had committed suicide in 2007, with Maharashtra topping the list, has been simply brushed aside.
The reason is obvious. They did not belong to the Taj-is-my-second-home class.
While the serial death dance in the countryside continues unabated, with an estimated 1,82,936 farmers as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) taking the fatal route since 1997 to escape the humiliation that comes along with growing indebtedness, the government is on a bailout spree. Since September, the government has provided a fiscal stimulus of US $ 100 billion by way of liquidity and other budgetary provisions. Another stimulus package is awaited.
The stimulus package has so far gone to sectors that erred. The proposed interest sops to housing loans of Rs 20 lakh is one such economic misadventure. By forcing banks to reduce interest rates on housing so as to create more demand is completely unwarranted. Why should the government even consider a bailout for people who can afford to pay an EMI of Rs 25,000 a month? Why should the government bail out the real estate sector which has fleeced the society? In the past four years, the prices of flats have risen by an estimated 450 per cent. Why not allow the property prices fall to its real worth and become affordable, which in turn will stimulate more people to invest in housing?
Indian banks needed liquidity inflow to jumpstart the economy. That is what we were made to believe. The Reserve Bank of India moved in swiftly. Through a series of measures, including a cut in repo rate, opening a special lending facility for the banks, and cutting cash reserve ratio, RBI has pumped Rs 300,000-crore into the banking system since mid-September. And look, what happened. The banks are putting the money back with RBI as safe deposits. Between Dec 1 and Dec 8, in just eight days alone, banks have deposited Rs 327,000-crore back with RBI at a nominal interest
of 6 per cent, which was further lowered to 5 per cent.
The fiscal stimulus is expected to control the economic slump to some extent. In effect, the guiding principle appears to appease different lobby groups keeping an eye on the forthcoming elections. Exporters, for instance, have twice received a stimulus package. First when the rupee/dollar exchange rate had slumped to 37, the textile and garment exporters had pitched for higher support. The government had moved in swiftly pumping in over Rs 1400-crore. Now when the exchange rate is 50, the industry has again managed a second dose. And don’t forget, at the time of the phase out of the multi-fibre agreement of the WTO, economists had projected that India would be the biggest gainer providing millions of jobs. Where are those jobs that were projected to accept the otherwise unjust global trade regime?
Not to be left behind, Indian cotton ginners and exporters are also demanding a bailout. They want the government to bridge the difference between a higher minimum support price for cotton, and the world prices. Citing a 95 per cent drop in exports, the industry is demanding a rescue package. Wonder when the MSP was low and the international prices were higher, why the industry never asked the government to compensate the cotton farmers.
Amidst all the doom and gloom, the only sector that has emerged unscathed to a large extent is agriculture. Whether India was shining or sinking, agriculture truly remained the mainstay of the economy. Despite complete apathy and neglect of the farm sector driving farmers to commit suicide, and also to quit farming, still agriculture is not down as much as the industry is. Facilitating the demise of agriculture are the government policies that are now forcibly enforcing land acquisition, and bringing in polices for corporate takeover. Prime Minister himself, following the World Bank prescription, has been talking of population transfer from the rural areas.
With 60 per cent of India’s population directly engaged in agriculture, and another 200 million landless workers indirectly banking on farming, the real stimulus to economy can come only if the focus shifts to agriculture. When I say agriculture, I don’t mean a bailout package for the tractor industry or the food processing industry. This would be counter-productive. Nor would it be cost effective. Let us be very clear that the subsidies that are provided in the name of agriculture have only benefited the input suppliers – seed manufacturers, pesticides and fertiliser companies and tractor manufacturers.
What is urgently needed is a radical shift by stimulating the farm sector. This is a sure recipe for revitalising the economy. First, the package should be for regenerating agriculture, providing sops for organic farming systems that can restore soil health. The Rs 1.20 lakh-crore fertiliser subsidy should be given directly to farmers so that they can make an informed choice of shifting to natural farming systems. And finally, the package should focus on farmer’s welfare. A fixed monthly income based on the principle of direct income support is what the beleaguered farming community needs..
In addition, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (NREGA), which guarantees a minimum 100 days employment every year to rural workers and promises a minimum wage of Rs 60 per day, should have the upper cap of 100 days immediately removed. Rural workers need to be given employment for 365 days, like all of us in the organised sector. The National Commission for Enterprise in Unorganised Sector has already suggested a stimulus package of Rs 58,000-crore, and this should be used for 365-days employment under NREGA.
In addition, agriculture should receive Rs 100,000-crore. Part of it could come from merging the fertiliser subsidy, and this should be used to provide a fixed monthly income to farmers. This in turn will generate demand that is expected to kick-start the economy. At the same time, there is an urgent need to link NREGA with agriculture. This is the recipe for all around growth. And not only limited to those who consider the Mumbai Taj to be the national icon. #
The reason is obvious. They did not belong to the Taj-is-my-second-home class.
While the serial death dance in the countryside continues unabated, with an estimated 1,82,936 farmers as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) taking the fatal route since 1997 to escape the humiliation that comes along with growing indebtedness, the government is on a bailout spree. Since September, the government has provided a fiscal stimulus of US $ 100 billion by way of liquidity and other budgetary provisions. Another stimulus package is awaited.
The stimulus package has so far gone to sectors that erred. The proposed interest sops to housing loans of Rs 20 lakh is one such economic misadventure. By forcing banks to reduce interest rates on housing so as to create more demand is completely unwarranted. Why should the government even consider a bailout for people who can afford to pay an EMI of Rs 25,000 a month? Why should the government bail out the real estate sector which has fleeced the society? In the past four years, the prices of flats have risen by an estimated 450 per cent. Why not allow the property prices fall to its real worth and become affordable, which in turn will stimulate more people to invest in housing?
Indian banks needed liquidity inflow to jumpstart the economy. That is what we were made to believe. The Reserve Bank of India moved in swiftly. Through a series of measures, including a cut in repo rate, opening a special lending facility for the banks, and cutting cash reserve ratio, RBI has pumped Rs 300,000-crore into the banking system since mid-September. And look, what happened. The banks are putting the money back with RBI as safe deposits. Between Dec 1 and Dec 8, in just eight days alone, banks have deposited Rs 327,000-crore back with RBI at a nominal interest
of 6 per cent, which was further lowered to 5 per cent.
The fiscal stimulus is expected to control the economic slump to some extent. In effect, the guiding principle appears to appease different lobby groups keeping an eye on the forthcoming elections. Exporters, for instance, have twice received a stimulus package. First when the rupee/dollar exchange rate had slumped to 37, the textile and garment exporters had pitched for higher support. The government had moved in swiftly pumping in over Rs 1400-crore. Now when the exchange rate is 50, the industry has again managed a second dose. And don’t forget, at the time of the phase out of the multi-fibre agreement of the WTO, economists had projected that India would be the biggest gainer providing millions of jobs. Where are those jobs that were projected to accept the otherwise unjust global trade regime?
Not to be left behind, Indian cotton ginners and exporters are also demanding a bailout. They want the government to bridge the difference between a higher minimum support price for cotton, and the world prices. Citing a 95 per cent drop in exports, the industry is demanding a rescue package. Wonder when the MSP was low and the international prices were higher, why the industry never asked the government to compensate the cotton farmers.
Amidst all the doom and gloom, the only sector that has emerged unscathed to a large extent is agriculture. Whether India was shining or sinking, agriculture truly remained the mainstay of the economy. Despite complete apathy and neglect of the farm sector driving farmers to commit suicide, and also to quit farming, still agriculture is not down as much as the industry is. Facilitating the demise of agriculture are the government policies that are now forcibly enforcing land acquisition, and bringing in polices for corporate takeover. Prime Minister himself, following the World Bank prescription, has been talking of population transfer from the rural areas.
With 60 per cent of India’s population directly engaged in agriculture, and another 200 million landless workers indirectly banking on farming, the real stimulus to economy can come only if the focus shifts to agriculture. When I say agriculture, I don’t mean a bailout package for the tractor industry or the food processing industry. This would be counter-productive. Nor would it be cost effective. Let us be very clear that the subsidies that are provided in the name of agriculture have only benefited the input suppliers – seed manufacturers, pesticides and fertiliser companies and tractor manufacturers.
What is urgently needed is a radical shift by stimulating the farm sector. This is a sure recipe for revitalising the economy. First, the package should be for regenerating agriculture, providing sops for organic farming systems that can restore soil health. The Rs 1.20 lakh-crore fertiliser subsidy should be given directly to farmers so that they can make an informed choice of shifting to natural farming systems. And finally, the package should focus on farmer’s welfare. A fixed monthly income based on the principle of direct income support is what the beleaguered farming community needs..
In addition, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (NREGA), which guarantees a minimum 100 days employment every year to rural workers and promises a minimum wage of Rs 60 per day, should have the upper cap of 100 days immediately removed. Rural workers need to be given employment for 365 days, like all of us in the organised sector. The National Commission for Enterprise in Unorganised Sector has already suggested a stimulus package of Rs 58,000-crore, and this should be used for 365-days employment under NREGA.
In addition, agriculture should receive Rs 100,000-crore. Part of it could come from merging the fertiliser subsidy, and this should be used to provide a fixed monthly income to farmers. This in turn will generate demand that is expected to kick-start the economy. At the same time, there is an urgent need to link NREGA with agriculture. This is the recipe for all around growth. And not only limited to those who consider the Mumbai Taj to be the national icon. #
Jan 2, 2009
Bonding it together
They had come to attend a wedding ceremony. After blessing the newly weds, they were quietly ushered to their seats in front. They sat glued to their chairs, not even once looking adroitly to the pandal where food was laid out. Instead, they listened attentively to speakers who talked on various aspects of the prevailing agrarian crisis and the resulting rural distress.
Ever attended or heard of such a unique marriage? Well, welcome to Hosdurga village in Chitradurga district of Karnataka (in south India). This village is surely a trend-setter, which should put to shame the neorich in the cities who unabashedly put up obscene display of wealth at the time of marriages.
It was an exceptional, innovative and a stimulating marriage ceremony. For hundreds of villagers from Chitradurga and adjoining districts in Karnataka who trudged in along with their wives to attend the wedding ceremony of Ravi Shankar and Shakunthala in Hosdurga village in the last week of December 2008, it wasn’t the sombre mood in Mumbai that made them avoid the festivities. It was their own plight, the terrible agrarian crisis afflicting rural Karnataka, drawing them to deliberate on their own future, and the future of their children of marriageable age.
Some 2000 guests who had assembled were surely taken in by surprise when the hosts told them they had invited four guest speakers to dwell on some of the burning issues the farming communities were grappling with. “I knew for sure they would be surprised. But I wanted to provide them not only some gourmet delights but also food for thought. And what better way then to make them talk about their own pain, their own grief, and their own struggles,” says Siddaveerappa, a village elder and the brain behind the entire show. He is also the general secretary of Karnataka Rajya Ryota Sangha (KRRS).
They didn’t disappoint. They sat patiently, men with their traditional green shawls tucked on their shoulders and the women in colourful saris, listening to each of the four speakers. Such was the intensity of discussions that followed that dinner had to be delayed again and again, finally to be served at about 2 am. No one complained, not even the bride and bridegroom. In fact, the young couple sat through the entire discussions, beginning at about 11 in the morning and finally ending past 3 the next morning, only to be interspersed with some one walking and blessing them.
They talked about the environmental destruction wrought by green revolution technologies, about how their soil have been plundered making them dependent for all times upon chemical fertilisers and pesticides, the resulting mining of the groundwater adding to their woes. They talked about the virtues of organic farming, deliberated on various aspects of the natural farming systems seeking answers to some of the commonly asked questions as to whether the crop yield would fall, and would it result in low incomes. Chandrashekhar, an activist originally from Kolar but now based in Bangalore, answered their queries on organic farming systems.
Krishnamurthy, a lecturer for a rural college in Tipturu spoke about the alternatives and the challenges facing the faming community, the spate of suicides in the dryland regions of Karnataka, and the failure of the State to rescue the farmers. Siddaveerappa later explained that his objective was to make farmers realise that they were a victim of agribusiness. “A big disconnect has set in between culture and agriculture. Farmers have forgotten that agriculture was a culture and not business. We are paying for treading on the wrong path. No wonder farmers are dying.”
Ujjajji Rajanna, a newspaper journalist, also from Tipturu, spoke about the special economic zones (SEZ), land being grabbed in the name of development, the resulting displacement of the farmers, and the social, economic and political repercussion of the flawed policy approach. Dr T N Prakash, a professor of economics from the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) in Bangalore, addressed them on issues relating to the importance of biodiversity in the context of dryland agriculture, and the role of millets in assuring nutritional security.
“Chitradurga district,” says Dr Prakash, “was once rich in millets. Sorghum, ragi, kodu millet and some small millets used to be cultivated in this region. Not only millets, farmers have even stopped cultivating vegetables.” Growing vegetables is one of the best ways to encourage sustainable farming systems. During the discussions that followed, women showed a lot of interest in reverting back to vegetable cultivation. The district horticulture and agriculture officers were also present.
So much interest was generated on the nutritional aspect of farming that a resolution was eventually passed wherein it was agreed that every household in the district would have a kitchen garden. It was also agreed that each farm would grow at least one millet crop. “Ever heard of a marriage resolution,” asks Dr Prakash, adding “this was something I could have never anticipated even in the wildest of my dreams.”
“If we grow vegetables and millets, we can surely ensure self-sufficiency in primary health care,” says a beaming Siddaveerappa. No wonder, it was decided that KRRS, women organisations and some local NGOs would work collectively to ensure that each farming household kitchen should have a kitchen garden within a year. It was also resolved that in future marriages, at least half of the dishes served should be traditional. Therein lies an important lesson for the farming population not only in Karnataka but in the entire country. If only they stopped aping the urban elite and instead focus on their own survival, they would find the right answers. #
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