India’s Quest For Sustainable Farming Healthy Food, Bharat Dogra, Kumar Gautam. Vitasta Publishing Private Limited, New Delhi February 2022 320 pages
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hat was hidden in plain sight is now out in the open but it is possible that we may not recognise it since it has been couched in a language that hides its ugly face even more. At the Indian Express Adda forum recently (Dec 06, 2022), Union Minster for Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav gave a ringing endorsement to Genetically Modified seed farming in India. Addressing concerns at the adoption of genetically modified mustard, Yadav told his interlocutors that its “environmental release” was based on sound scientific research and “followed the prescribed regulatory process.” Warming up to his defense of this justification for such a move, and perhaps sounding the herald of more genetically modified farming practices, Yadav pointed to the import of more than 50 per cent of cooking oil from countries that practice GM crop farming as an incentive for India to reduce this dependence by building up its own GM farming! Should India not use scientific research to create modern farming techniques in its bid for self-sufficiency in food, leastways oilseeds?
What we have here is the development discourse in full swing against what is believed to be primordial; fears about GM farming techniques: the minster reaches out for the old tropes that have used for decades to justify its poisonous spread through the agency of multinational corporations engaged in GM research and the export of their seeds: food security and agriculture’s modernization. The appeal of that discourse is seductive for it corals “national interest” “self-sufficiency” for the adoption of practices that have been long considered harmful to both farming and the environment not to mention the health of all life. What should be considered a disturbing trend—the import of GM-based cooking oil—is turned into an incentive for this country to emulate, at least in order to reduce our dependency, if nothing else. The question implicit in the honourable minster’s statement about the imports is fine but its inference completely erroneous. The answer should be to rely on, and encourage the rich traditions of Indian farming with its varied non-GM oil-seeds grown for centuries to fill the shortfalls in demand. That would be the right path toward self-sufficiency and meet ‘national interests’ for such measures would keep out multinational corporations such as Monsanto and Cargill peddling their noxious GM seeds and attendant practices.
Indian farming has been no stranger to attempts to transform it through the interventions of western multinationals propagating the spread of GM crops—under the same pretext and language of self-sufficiency and food security. . At times the government of the day caved in, as for example in the case of cotton farming; but the resistance at policy levels kept the spread of genetically modified farming at bay. So far the official stance had been ambivalent, but now it is clear: GM crop farming is essential for food security and this government will go ahead. The doors are opening to the entry of multinationals into the most vulnerable and vital sector of the Indian economy and one should be prepared for the worst consequences of this road taken with such alacrity.
Related essays by Bharat Dogra: On GM Mustard Supreme Court Raises Extremely Important Questions:
But the legitimation of GM mustard seed farming ought not to be viewed as the pioneering policy of this government alone nor as a facet of policy in isolation from the overarching attempts at what has in a distortion of language once again, have been considered ‘reforms’ for the betterment of Indian agriculture, considered ever since the colonial period a backward sector in dire need of overhauling. At an immediate level, the GM mustard approval for “environmental release” is part of the attempt by this government to corporatize Indian agriculture, just as the infamous farm laws were meant to be.
But at a deeper level and from a historical point of view it is nothing more than part of the continuum begun decades ago, specifically in the mid-1960s to transform the farm sector through what would become the Green revolution. And to get an exhaustively rich view of this history, Bharat Dogra and Kumar Gautam’s “India’s Quest…” take us on an illuminating tour of that developmental model dating back to the Green Revolution’ and its accompanying ‘revolutions” such as in dairy farming, wrought through the Amul experiment that would change the fate of Indian agriculture and food policy.
The ostensible purpose of the authors, Dogra and Gautam (hereafter D&G) is, as the title suggests, to search for sustainable farming, through what they term “social-agro-ecology” that encapsulates not just farming practices that have stood the test of time but protection of the environment, food sustainability and, the vital, life-giving link of the farmer to his land such that it blends and creates not just produce-as-commodities but a nurturing ecosystem. “In a nutshell,” as Dogra states it at the outset, “it is a meeting point of equality and environment protection, of justice and safety, of livelihoods and health”
But “India’s Quest…” could not have spelt out this ecosystem without taking us through the harrowing journey of development, which as Ashis Nandy had so well put, meant, in effect, the effacement of the Indian peasant and farming. To understand the roads travelled to this juncture where GM mustard is considered as a good thing for Indians, where cooking oil imports from GM crops is viewed as an inspiration and not as a warning to steer clear from, you have to believe in a sense of political continuity that binds governments seemingly at odds wwith each other by a common fascination with neo-liberalism as the lodestone to progress.
The journey starts with the Green revolution and the task the authors set before themselves to help us get rid of its “myths” The discourse on which the Green evolution” rested was one that set the tone for all future attempts at transforming the sector into American style market capitalist farming: had the revolution not occurred, it was held, India would have faced severe food shortages. This specious, and as the authors show, fallacious idea, has been used to brush aside the deleterious effects of the ‘green transformation effected since the 1960s as the price we have had to pay for its bounties. Nothing comes for free, it seems.
D&G unpack the myths of the bountiful results and the reasons for that transformation whose price both the farmers in the areas it was effected and the country have had to pay. To start with, they nail the falsehood that farm yields before the revolution were falling; in fact they were rising. IN the case of rice, which was to become the first ‘victim’ of the revolution, yields were higher than they would be in the green revolution years. The idea that farmers were backward and incapable of using efficient methods also comes in for some heavy shelling. Indigenous technologies were sound and very “suitable,” The reader sold on the development discourse of farmers as backward may find this hard to believe as D&G quote John Augustus Voelcker, of the Royal Agricultural Society of England who in 1893 expressing his belief, based on extensive tours of rural India, that Indian agriculture was not “backward and primitive, “that in many parts there is little or nothing that can be improved.”
Cut to the post-Independence, era when, Dr. R. H. Richharia, agricultural scientist and former director of the Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) did extensive research on rice farming in Madhya Pradesh Chattisgarh and Odisha to show that the rice farmers, traditionally, used their inherent and collective faculties to breed thousands of rice cultivars. In 1971, a survey in MP showed that 74.8 per cent of these indigenous rice types fell under the category of high yielding types. Dr. Richharia would go on through that decade to survey and showcase the richness of indigenous rice types. He would do more than just record such data: under his tutelage the CRRI would go on to conduct experiments on indigenous rice types to increase their yield potential.
Then the development discourse came barging in as the rice culture with “dwarfing genes” was hoisted on the CRRI much to the distress of its director and young scientists. As the authors point out:
“…much better alternatives compared to green revolution were available and had reached an advanced stage to increase production in a sustainable way but these were not allowed to progress and were even sabotaged.” (34)
The deleterious impact of the imported rice type foisted on Indian farmers became apparent soon enough As Dr. Richharia would observe, “It has come to my notice that most of this material is susceptible to a very peculiar disease not known to this country so far; it is suspected to be a virus.” (36)
The warnings were ignored; the eminent and conscientious agricultural scientist was prematurely retired and “The pest and disease susceptible varieties were allowed to spread” to other states
The revolution was on. Within less than two decades its toxic effects were being felt on the farms, water resources, crop varieties nurtured for centuries in harmony with time tested crop rotations and mixed farming systems. The narrow genetic base of crops ushered in by the change agents created new-found vulnerabilities and damage in terms of pests and diseases with chemical fertilizers destroying the soil’s organic nature, reducing the fertility of the land.
Leave aside the impact on the environment for a moment. The revolution claimed its intended beneficiaries as victims: high costs, decreasing yields all added up to a level of economic distress beyond the tipping point. Farm subsidies did not help, espeecially the small and medium farmers. Just six per cent of the power subsidy reached small farmers who, in the Punjab, contrary to popular belief, constituted a third of the farming community in 2012. In the decade to 2011, 3,507 farmers took their own lives; 74 per cent on account of indebtedness and 80 per cent of them small farmers.
From the green revolution in food crops such as wheat and rice to what the authors call the ‘greater revolution’ in dairy and forestry it was only a matter of time before the pressures for genetically modified cropping systems began, once again spearheaded by multinational corporations eager to test out and propagate their hybrid GM seedlings and attendant pesticides on Indian farmers. The discursive underpinnings of this push remained the same and peddled not just by some political leaders and policymakers but also media persons especially in the financial press about the need to beef up food security. What the proponents of the GM lobbies seemed to be implying was that the green revolution had not succeeded in achieving that food security it had been meant to: GM seed farming would do the trick. What was missing in that narrative was of course the hegemonic role of the multinationals and foreign, mainly western governments guiding this discourse into the policy world and urban middle class perceptions through mainstream print media. But as D&G inform us with a wealth of evidence, the opposition to this latest entry of toxic practices into Indian farming was opposed at the policy and scientist level. While the role that Jairam Ramesh played in stalling the entry of GMM through a report put out by the ministry of environment he headed at the time was widely acknowledged, it is the unsung heroes of the scientific community such as Dr. Pushpa Bhargava, founder of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, vice chairman of the Knowledge Commission who stressed repeatedly the dangers of attempts to push such technology into India, often with the connivance of policy wonks and politicians.
“There are over 500 research publications by scientists of indisputable integrity who have no conflict of interest, that establish the harmful effects of GM crops on human,, animal and plant health and on environment and biodiversity. For example, a recent paper by Indian scientists showed that the Bt gene in both cotton and brinjal leads to inhibition of growth and development of the plant. On the other hand, virtually every paper supporting GM crops is by scientists who have a declared conflict of interest or whose credibility and integrity can be doubted.” (58)
Dr. Bhargava would sound a warning that, in retrospect, seems to have been ignored as this government pushes ahead with its GM agenda:
“The ultimate goal of this attempt in India, of which the leader is Monsanto, is to obtain control over Indian agriculture and thus food production.” (60)
The body of evidence contained in “India’s Quest…” is impressive as testimony to the ill-effects of genetically engineered farming all around the world: yields have not improved at best and at worst, need herbicides and pesticides similarly engineered (Round uP by Monsanto) that create havoc with the environment and multiple cropping patterns that have, for centuries nurtured the earth and the agro-ecology. D&G do more than just drop scientific evidence countering the claims of the development discourse about GM farming.
They showcase traditional wisdom of Indian farmers in creating what they call for as the panacea for this crisis it is in: a social agro-ecology that has been observed as routine time tested practice down the decades starting with Voelcker and A.O Hume, both agricultural scientists during the British Raj who would not endorse the colonial discourse of Indian agriculture as primitive and backward down to Richharia and Bhargava, to name a few. Such traditional and intuitive practices had kept Indian agriculture in a harmonious agro-ecological system and amply served the communities by way of what we consider to be “food security.”
In India’s Quest…the reader gets a sense of what it could take to turn back from the roads to perdition being trod for decades by the unholy alliance of multinational domination via their willing partners in government and policyaking. What we get are immense possibilities of new beginnings that harken back to the past to create a better future; a future that the authors consider to be one which “…makes available satisfactory livelihood to all members of the farming community wholesome nutritious food to al people in a sustainable way, ensuring the welfare of farm animals, protecting the soil and its fertility for future generations.” (239)
History teaches us, if we can bear to hear its muffled voices that such change needs the agency of those most affected by the dominating of selfish interests. So the possible alliance of science and tradition, of “great scientists, skilled farmers” (248) needs the agency of the Political space, an arena not of parliamentary politics but of the moral agency of the oppressed and victims of the neo-liberal development agenda saying “No!” The farmers’ protests against the three farm laws, one of which involved “contract farming” succeeded in staying the hand of a Centre hell bent on corporatizing the sector; but it was just the beginning. D&G offer the reader a recap of that struggle and its causes but they also point to the limitations of demands of “mainstream farmer movements” for higher purchase price over given costs. The problem with this perspective is its willingness on to accept rising costs; costs that include, in the main, precisely those inputs required by the green revolution and GM farming, “industrial cash-purchased inputs that harm farm ecology” (292) Under the circumstances it’s like chasing your own tail; endless demands for higher purchase prices trying to stay above rising costs that eventually leave the farmer worse off.
For the authors then, campaigns to decrease these costs have to be the starting point of an agenda that aims to rid the sector and, society in general of the ills wrecked o by the development discourse via the green revolution and the GM project. A movement that pursues “the real objectives of justice, sustainability, protection of environment and creative, durable livelihoods” (293).
At the end of the day, chasing this future involves resisting corporate domination say the authors. India’s quest for “ecologically protective farming” would require this as a starting point; the widespread recognition that the neo-liberal programmer has dominated post-Independence India despite state controls during the early years till 1991 and because of increasing public acceptance of its reset agendas and their realization in the corporatization of the most vital sector in the Indian economy since 2014. It would also, concomitantly, involve looking back at tradition, not as blind faith or nostalgia but toreclaim, repossess..
The question is: Has that quest begun?
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