2013 farmers handbook: food and agricultural politics in india

Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements

Handbook on Some Political Issues surrounding

Food and Agriculture in India

Contents

Sl. Name Page No. No.

1 What is Food Sovereignty by La Via Campesina 1

2 Farmers’ Income Guarantee Act 3

3 Free Trade and Indian Agriculture with contributions

4 The great land grab: India's war on farmers

5 Consequences (of land grab) for agriculture and food security

6 Position of the Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements on the Land Acquisition Bill

7 Power sector issues and agriculture

8 Understanding Livestock in context of FoodSovereignty: Challenges and Action

9 Background note India's Climate Policy forFarmers

10 Restoring Diverse Seeds in the Hands of Farmers – Importance of Seed Sovereignty

11 Genetically Modified Crops and Foods in India 75

12 Seeds Bill- Main Issues from Farmer's Perspective 90

13 Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill (BRAI BILL) 94

14 What is La Via Campesina? 97

12

25

30

34

40

46

59

69

Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements 1

1. What is Food Sovereignty by La Via Campesina

Small and medium farmers, fishworkers, pastoralists and rural people around the world are fighting for a model of development called “food sovereignty”.

In short, Food sovereignty is the right of a nation to decide its own food and agriculture policies by giving full priority to its local farmers, local culture, and the environment. This would imply that local farmers, not corporations, have the first right to markets and to everything needed to produce food – seeds, water, land, fair price and income. They should have the right to make the decisions regarding how all these resources are managed and controlled and also right to self determination. They should have protection from the global market prices and products. Consumers should have access to locally produced healthy and nutritious food, which should be promoted, and not industrial junk food like KFC or Mc Donald’s which is dangerous for peoples health and which utilizes scarce resources to produce unhealthy food.

Below you will find the seven principles of food sovereignty of the global farmers movement – La Via Campesina (LVC). LVC was first to come up with the term food sovereignty which has now turned into a global movement.

What is food sovereignty 1. Food A basic Human Right: Everyone must have access to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food in sufficient quantity and quality to sustain a healthy life with full human dignity. Each nation should declare that access to food is a constitutional right and guarantee the development of the primary sector to ensure the concrete realization of this fundamental right.

2. Agrarian Reform: A genuine agrarian reform is necessary which gives landless and farming people –especially women– ownership and control of

2 Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements

the land they work and returns territories to indigenous peoples. The right to land must be free of discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, race, social class or ideology;the land belongs to those who work it.

3. Protecting Natural Resources: Food sovereignty entails the sustainable care and use of natural resources, especially land, water, and seeds and livestock breeds.The people who work the land must have the right to practice sustainable management of natural resources and to conserve biodiversity free of restrictive intellectual property rights. This can only be done from a sound economic basis with security of tenure, healthy soils and reduced use of agrochemicals.

4. Reorganising Food Trade: Food is first and foremost a source of nutrition and only secondarily an item of trade. National agricultural policies must prioritize production for domestic consumption and food self-sufficiency. Food imports must not displace local production nor depress prices.

5. Ending the Globalisation of Hunger: Food Sovereignty is undermined by multilateral institutions and by speculative capital. The growing control of multinational corporations over agricultural policies has been facilitated by the economic policies of multilateral organizations such as the WTO, World Bank and the IMF. Regulation and taxation of speculative capital and a strictly enforced Code of Conduct for TNCs is therefore needed.

6. Social Peace: Everyone has the right to be free from violence. Food must not be used as a weapon. Increasing levels of poverty and marginalization in the countryside, along with the growing oppression of ethnic minorities and indigenous populations, aggravate situations of injustice and hopelessness. The ongoing displacement, forced urbanisation, repression and increasing incidence of racism of smallholder farmers cannot be tolerated.

7. Democratic Control: Smallholder farmers must have direct input into formulating agricultural policies at all levels. The United Nations and related organisations will have to undergo a process of democratization to enable this to become a reality. Everyone has the right to honest, accurate information and open and democratic decision-making. These rights form the basis of good governance,accountability and equal participation in economic, political and social life, free from all forms of discrimination. Rural women, in particular, must be granted direct and active decision making on food and rural issues.


2. Farmers’ Income Guarantee Act

by: Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) 1

1. INTRODUCTION

The government policies and schemes on agriculture have not improved the economic status of farmers; hence ‘vibrant village economies’ have remained only in dreams. The increasing impoverishment of farming has had a cascading effect on increase in the numbers of rural poor, lower incomes to agriculture workers, food and nutritional insecurity, and distress migration to join the ranks of urban poor. Various government policies including the agricultural pricing and food security policies have neglected the fact that a large population in this country is directly involved in food production; pricing policies that prioritize industry and consumers have led to serious problems for the producers. Policies targeting the poor as mere consumers to be ensured cheap goods undermine the livelihoods of rural producers who ironically constitute a majority of the nation’s poor. The other side of the coin is that costs of cultivation have been growing enormously, and the incentives and support systems that are biased towards high-input agriculture have compelled small and marginal farmers to adopt high risks and get mired in debt and distress – leading them to the extreme step of committing suicide much more often than a civilized humanist society can accept (more than 250,000 in 16 years).

1. Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) is a network of more than 400 organizations across India, including farmer unions, agricultural labourers unions, NGOs, scientists and consumer groups, who came together as part of the nation-wide Kisan Swaraj Yatra that traveled through 20 states during Oct-Dec 2010. Contact: Kavitha Kuruganti: 09393001550, [email protected], Kiran Vissa: 09701705743, [email protected]; Dr. Ramanjaneyulu: 09000699702, [email protected]


The National Farmers’ Commission stated, “Progress in agriculture should be measured by the growth rate in the net income of farm families... moving away from an attitude which measures progress only in millions of tonnes of food-grains and other farm commodities.” 2

Governments spend thousands of crores every year in the name of farmers and talk highly of their support, but there is no clear assessment of how much that has helped the incomes of farmers. As per the National Commission for Enterprises in Unorganized Sector report (NCEUS, 2007), real incomes of farmers have stagnated, with the average being Rs.1650 per family per month. The study also shows that the average family expense in the villages is Rs.2150 per month; even at such below-poverty-level consumption, the average family still spends more than it earns, thus getting into debt. (See Annexure 1)

The time has come for this to change. The government should be directly accountable for improving the net incomes of farming households. The government’s performance should be measured in terms of net household income, not the production or the amount of funds spent. When farmers of India are ensured a dignified livelihood from agriculture, they will be at the forefront of raising production levels!

We must demand for a Farmers’ Income Guarantee Act which assures all farming households a dignified living income to meet the basic living expenses.

2. IMPLEMENTING FARMERS’ INCOME GUARANTEE

The measures required for implementing the farmers’ income guarantee are below.

2.1 Farmers Income Commission: Ensuring living incomes for all cultivators

• A statutory permanent Farmers Income Commission should be established with the mandate of ensuring a minimum living income level for all farming households – including tenants, sharecroppers and agricultural workers.

2. http://krishakayog.gov.in/4threport.pdf


• Income assessment of farming households should be conducted every year. Currently, an extensive national Household Expenditure Survey is done in India every five years, and the numbers are updated every year through a thin survey with a smaller number of households. On the same lines, a Household Income Survey should be conducted for farmer households – with an extensive survey every five years updated by a thin survey every year. These income figures should be analyzed and organized based on region, land-holding, crops grown and allied occupations.

• A minimum living income for rural farming households is mandated by the Commission, which covers basic living costs that include food, shelter, health and education. This is indexed to inflation and updated every year.

• The Commission is required to come up with concrete recommendations to ensure that the net incomes determined by the Income Assessment meet the benchmark of minimum living income.

• The basket of measures would include MSPs, procurement, Price Compensation, marketing and credit support, crop insurance, disaster compensation and producer bonus for rainfed and ecological farmers; these are described in the next sub-sections. If these measures still do not result in the minimum living income, then a direct income payment should be made especially to small farmers.

• In essence, the Farmers Income Commission would provide the accountability for the thousands of crores spent in the name of farmers. It would ensure that all the farmer support measures of the government converge to produce the desired level of incomes for farming households.

2.2 Not only Price Support but also Price Compensation

• So far, we have a Price Support mechanism for farmers in our country based on MSPs and government procurement – but it is highly inadequate. The MSPs are often too low, the procurement happens only in a few crops, and even that is not timely and efficient. Not only should we strengthen the price support mechanism but farmers


need to be given Price Compensation for food crops when the actual price realized by farmers is less than the Fair Price Target. This is essential to ensure economic justice for farmers.

• Strengthen MSP and Procurement mechanism:

o The method of determining Cost of Cultivation should be revamped to reflect full costs.

o Minimum Support Price (MSP) should be 50% above the real cost of cultivation, as recommended by National Farmers Commission.

o State-wise MSP: MSP for each state should be determined based on that state’s Cost of Cultivation; this should be declared either by the central CACP or by establishing state-level CACP. The state governments should be responsible for implementing the respective MSPs.

o MSPs should be announced for all crops well before the season begins so that the farmers can make an informed decision about the crops.

o Timely, efficient procurement should happen in all crops, as market intervention to ensure MSP. Procurement should be directly from farmers. Adequate Price Stabilization Fund should be established.

• Price Compensation for food crops:

In spite of the promised Price Support, governments often intervene to keep prices low for consumers and industry, and this is often used as a reason not to provide adequate MSP. As a principle, we demand that the burden for providing affordable food for the citizens of India should not fall upon the farmers – it should be borne by the nation.

To operationalize this principle, a Price Compensation system should be established for all the food crops which are supported by CACP. The first step is that for each crop, a Fair Price Target is declared which ensures at least 50% returns over the true cost of cultivation, and covers the rising living costs. The second step is to determine the Average Harvest Price


for each crop for each district or taluq (whichever administrative unit is chosen).

If Average Harvest Price is less than Fair Price Target, the difference should be paid by the government to all the cultivators in that district or taluq. The actual payment to the cultivator is determined based on the number of acres cultivated and the average yield for that crop in the particular district/taluq. This payment should be made to the actual cultivators – including tenant farmers and sharecroppers.

The Price Compensation mechanism has two clear advantages: (a) It ensures fair returns to producers even when market prices are low (or deliberately kept low); (b) It supports all food crops and not just the ones that are procured by FCI or NAFED, so it addresses the bias towards paddy and wheat which disadvantages rainfed agriculture.

2.3 Reduce Cost of Cultivation

• Promote low-cost sustainable agriculture: Sustainable models with low input costs and reliance on locally available resources should be promoted, with a decisive shift away from the high input-intensive, high-risk model of agriculture which has pushed the majority of small farmers into crisis. A pro-active programmatic approach should be taken, including extension and support systems. Fertilizer subsidy should be recast to support farmers who make their own natural fertilizers.

• Labor wage support for all agricultural operations: Today we are in an ironic situation where farmers are complaining about shortage of agricultural workers and rising wages, while agriculture workers are unable to get adequate work round the year (which is the reason for NREGA). The government should provide input subsidy towards labor wages (up to 40 days/acre crop season) which is paid to the workers on the lines of NREGS after the completion of work is certified by a joint team of farmers and workers. This is in addition to the 100-day guarantee of work under NREGS – so it ensures additional work-days for the workers and availability of labor for farmers.


2.4 Institutional and Infrastructure support for Storage, Marketing, Procurement and Processing

• In order to strengthen the farmers’ position to negotiate the market better, it is imperative to strengthen their holding capacity so that they can sell at an advantageous time instead of the most disadvantageous time as it happens now.

• Sufficient storage facilities including godowns and cold storage should be built with government support at village and cluster level. Procurement at village-level should be implemented.

• Adequate institutional credit should be provided which covers 100% of farmers who require credit. Warehouse receipts scheme should be implemented effectively.

• Primary and secondary processing facilities should be developed at village and cluster level.

• Farmer institutions should be developed to take advantage of the collective strength for storage, processing and marketing.

• Social Security for all agricultural families: A strong social security system should be put in place to provide health-care, pensions and accident/life insurance for all agricultural workers and farmers including tenant farmers.

2.5 Disaster Relief and Mitigation, and Crop Insurance

Loss of crop and livestock due to natural disasters such as cyclones, floods and drought is a major cause for pushing farmers into debt and distress from which they take years to recover. Utmost attention should be paid to ensure that farmers are protected during disasters. The Calamity Relief Fund should be allocated sufficient funds and used to issue timely and adequate compensation for crop and livestock losses, and also for protection of crop and livestock during impending or ongoing disaster situation. The compensation for crop loss should be at least Rs.10,000 per acre as recommended by the Hooda Committee. Proper crop insurance mechanism to should be made available to all farmers irrespective of whether they access the formal credit system.


2.6 Producer Bonus for Rainfed and Ecological Agriculture

Though rainfed regions constitute more than 60% of the cultivated area in India, only a very small part of the support provided to agriculture has gone to benefit the rainfed farmers. One glaring example is that most of the expenditures in irrigation have gone to the canal-irrigated regions whereas the rainfed farmers either cultivate unirrigated lands or invest large amounts on wells and tubewells. Another example is the much smaller amount of fertilizer use by rainfed farmers, while the biggest share of fertilizer subsidy goes to the irrigated regions. Similarly, farmers practicing ecologically sustainable agriculture using their own local resources perform extremely useful service in terms of conserving precious soil fertility and water resources and preventing the poisoning of resources through chemicals – but they receive very little of the support systems provided by the government.

A Producer Bonus should be given to farmers practicing rainfed and ecological agriculture.

3. CONCLUSION

The Farmers Income Guarantee is the need of the hour for the farmers – so that there is accountability from the government to the farmers for the thousands of crores spent in their name. Since 60% of India’s people are dependent on agriculture and provide most essential service to the nation in terms of food security and raw material for industry, they deserve to be ensured fair incomes.

Farmers Income Guarantee is not a favor to India’s farming community, it is their Right!


Annexure 1: Economic Situation of Farmers

Annexure 1: Economic Situation of Farmers

Land holding (acres)

Category Total Income (Rs/month)

Expenditure (Rs/month)

Percent of total farmers

<0.01 Landless 1380 2297 36 %

0.01-1.0 Sub marginal 1633 2390

1.0-2.5 Marginal 1809 2672 31 %

2.5-5.0 Small 2493 3148 17 %

5.0-10.0 Semi-medium 3589 3685 10 %

10.0-25.0 Medium 5681 4626 6 %

>25.0 Large 9667 6418

Total 2115 2770 All farmers

Source: Report “On Conditions Of Work And Promotion Of Livelihoods In The Unorganised Sector” Arjun Sen Gupta Commission, 2007

Source: Report “On Conditions Of Work And Promotion Of Livelihoods In The Unorganised Sector” Arjun Sen Gupta Commission, 2007


Annexure 2: Inadequate Minimum Support Prices

This situation is continuing for last several years. This is not only the case of paddy but for other crops as well. This is leading to lowering of agriculture prices to farmers to a greater extent.

Cost of cultivation data from CACP shows that the MSPs have not even covered Cost C2 in most of the states for all major crops

Name of the Crop States where the C2 cost projection by CACP for 2005-06 were not covered by MSP of 2004-05

Paddy A.P, Assam, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, M.P, Tamil Nadu & West Bengal

Jowar A.P, Karnataka, M.P, Maharashtra & Tamil Nadu

Bajra Gujarat, Haryana, U.P, Maharashtra

Maize A.P, H.P, Karnataka, M.P, Rajasthan & U.P

Ragi Karnataka, Tamil Nadu

Tur [Arhar] A.P, Gujarat, Karnataka & Orissa

Moong A.P, Maharashatra, Orissa & Rajasthan

Urd M.P, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan & Tamil Nadu

Gram Haryana, Rajasthan

Barley Rajasthan

Source: http://dacnet.nic.in/eands/costofcultivation.pdf

Annexure 2: Inadequate Minimum Support Prices

This situation is continuing for last several years. This is not only the case of paddy but for other crops as well. This is leading to lowering of agriculture prices to farmers to a greater extent.


3. Free Trade and Indian Agriculture with contributions

by Ranja Sengupta

India’s agriculture sector is large and though its share in GDP is falling and currently stands at 19.93% (Current Prices, 2011-12, Advance Estimates) or 13.9% at constant prices, the sector supports about 70% of the India’s population. Structurally, there are numerous small, poor producers with small holdings, low capital, and low education levels. 83695 thousand marginal farmers (those own less than 1 hectare of land) who represent 65% of farmers in India, own only 20% of total land, with an average holding size of 0.38 hectares 1. Only 46.13% of the area under such holdings receives any form of irrigation 2. This makes production difficult but makes shifting gainfully out of the sector, say to formal sector jobs, even more difficult. Agriculture is also a gender sensitive sector where 75.38% of all women workforce are engaged. Apart from the fact that agriculture is crucial for the production of food for the economy overall, it also works to ensure food security for the working agricultural population as most small farmers eat part of what they produce, producers are consumers. Some may shift but most need livelihood in agriculture to ensure access to food for themselves.

However in spite of its crucial importance, relative neglect of agriculture in policy terms has been apparent. Public investment in infrastructure including in irrigation, marketing, storage, transport; extension services has also lagged behind. Agriculture’s share in the economy’s overall gross capital formation declined from 8.3% in 2008-9 to 7.2% in 2010-11. The institutional credit system, technology development and extension services are still weak and unlike in developed countries, Indian farmers

1. Data refers to 2005-06, Indian Agricultural Census, Government of India.

2. Data refers to 2000-01, Indian Agricultural Census, Government of India.


enjoy very little direct subsidy on agriculture. There are 5 estimates of rural poverty which varies between 28% and 87% depending largely on the poverty line. The current official estimates put it at 41.8% for 2004-05 (using Tendulkar Methodology, 2011). Though rural poverty is reported to have fallen according to the recent Planning Commission estimates, there has been a lot of debate in India about the measurement and comparability of different estimates.

A. Dabbling in International Trade: Livelihood & Food Security Concerns

India’s domestic market is largely catered to by its own farmers but India does export and import some agricultural products. However India’s engagement international trade in agricultural products has been relatively limited until now. India’s agricultural imports stood at 59,367.62 crore rupees and is only 4.38% of its total imports while exports are valued at Rs 89,522.59 crores and accounts for 10.59% of India’s exports in 2009-10. This low value and low shares are nothing to be surprised about and is a clear indication of India’s longstanding policy stance towards agriculture. In particular, India had imposed relatively high import duties on many agricultural products so that products from other countries could not come into the Indian market, drive down prices and threaten farmers’ and agricultural workers’ livelihoods and incomes. Even though average applied duties have come down significantly to 31.4% in 2009-10, and India had to fix maximum duties at average level of 113.1% (see WTO section below), duties in India are still relatively high compared to most developed and even many developing countries. There are several reasons behind this policy stance;

1. Globally, value and share of agricultural trade is lower and is only about 10% of world trade in goods.

2. For developing countries, agriculture is not just a means of business but a source of food security and livelihoods for largest sections of their people. It relates to basic survival. India is no different. From a food security perspective, for a large country with 37.20% of population below poverty line, it makes sense to try to achieve self sufficiency in food. The global food crisis of 2008 and the ongoing food crises have taught us important lessons about retaining self


sufficiency in food. Unlike some food importing nations who does not have even the natural resources to produce food, India also has agro climatic zones to produce a range of food that can cater to its vast populations’ needs.

3. Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.

4. From a livelihood perspective, the agriculture sector has been essential because it has provided jobs to millions of small farmers and agricultural labourers, people who have very little/no productive resources to produce who may find it difficult to shift gainfully out of agriculture. We have already seen large migration out of agriculture, mainly due to its policy neglect, but most often into very risky, unstable work in the informal economy in urban areas with unhealthy working and living conditions.

5. In terms of competitiveness Indian agriculture has lagged somewhat behind, given the lack of investment, access to credit and other resources, and the lack of attention in bringing up capabilities of small farmers who dominate the sector. Therefore, export capabilities have lagged behind except in some specific products such as basmati rice, oilseeds, cotton etc.

6. Another set of more recent factors have also shown us the dangers of international trade in agricultural products.

As India has opened up agricultural markets, the high price volatility of global agricultural markets has got increasingly transmitted to domestic markets, and this hurts small both producers and consumers. Most developing country producers do not have the financial resources to provide buffer to either their producers or consumers on a scale required. The naturally fluctuating tendency of agricultural prices has got significantly aggravated by speculation in global commodity markets by big players, and control of trade by a few large multinational firms.


B. Entry of Multilateral and Bilateral Trade Agreements

In spite of compelling arguments to protect its agriculture sector which had for long guided the government’s position on trade, the Indian government has increasingly followed a path of agricultural trade liberalisation and has been bringing down import duties on agricultural products. This has been largely driven by the fact that India has participated in a number of international agreements which has obliged it to reduce or limit the use of import duties.

The World Trade Organisation and the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA)

India became a member of the WTO in 1995 and signed the AoA. As part of this agreement India and other developing countries agreed to sign on to opening up of their agricultural markets in the hope of getting access to developed country markets. But this has not really happened as the points below argue:

• Countries agreed to negotiate on three pillars, namely, market access (how much they will open up and allow imports); domestic support and export subsidies. The last two pillars are mainly about government support in developed countries to their producers which lowers their effective costs and prices at which they can sell to others. These are seen as unfair mechanisms which boost their competitiveness at the cost of farmers in developing countries who do not receive such subsidies.

• India agreed to cap (put a restriction) maximum duties on agricultural import duties on each and every agricultural product. India has set its maximum/bound average agricultural duty at

Box 1: International Trade and Edible Oil

In spite of being one of the largest producers of oilseeds, India reduced duties on processed edible oil after joining the WTO. Immediately imports of palm oil and vegetable oil came into the Indian market, and Indian processing capabilities never grew. Even now India has to import 50% of all edible oil consumed in India which forms 68% of its agricultural imports, even though it is a primary exporter of oilseeds. Import under this chapter was valued at a massive 29860 crore rupees.


113.1%. In spite of a high rate, fixing maximum tariffs has meant India has lost flexibility to protect its agricultural producers when it wants.

• In addition, negotiations are going on at the WTO on how these maximum duties, called bound duties, will be finally cut by member countries.

• To comply with its WTO commitments and to prepare for the ultimate reduction of import duties, India has already capped bound duties on over 73.8% of its products (agricultural and non agricultural together) and has also continuously reduced actual applied import duties (currently at 31.4%). This has allowed the increasing import of these goods and has threatened jobs.

• In addition, another worry has been the increasing threat to domestic processing capabilities. The case of edible oil is the prime example of this (See Box 1).

• India is free to use export measures on a temporary basis to protect food security.

• However, the other two pillars of reduction of domestic and export subsidies have not seen so much movement. For example, while the EU has made some commitments to cut export subsidies, its domestic subsidies have continued to be huge. This has meant that the developed countries’ subsidised agricultural products have entered or have the potential to enter developing country markets once their duties are reduced and devastate their agricultural markets (See Box.2). This has been established by a number of studies including one by UNCTAD India (2007). The developed countries have also engaged in “box-shifting” or passing off different subsidies which were meant to be cut as ones that do not need reduction under WTO commitments.

• On the other hand, under the WTO, countries are free to lay down food standards and other technical standards though these will apply equally to all members. As tariffs/ duties have been coming down most countries have used these standards (known as SPSMs and TBTs) as barriers to protect their markets. However even in this regard, the


developed countries have imposed much higher standards which developing country producers have found difficult to meet, even when faced with low duties.

• At the WTO, developing countries have fought for and won two instruments: the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) and Special Products (SP). The SSM allows developing countries to raise duties when faced with a significant increase (or surge) in imports of agricultural products which can threaten livelihoods of their producers. The SP allows certain products to be listed as special and therefore given certain flexibilities in terms of duty cuts, on grounds of protecting food and livelihood security and for rural development. However the current negotiations at the WTO show the continuous effort of the developed countries to severely restrict the use of these instruments and render them almost ineffective. In 2008, the WTO talks broke

Box 2: The WTO and Subsidised Dairy Imports from the EU

• Import and export of dairy products were

restricted through quantitative restrictions

(QRs) and canalisation of trade, but these

had to be converted to tariffs under the

WTO rules. Imports tariffs ranged between

0 (skimmed milk powder or SMP) to 100-

150% (milk and cream, butter milk, yoghurt

and whey).

• India experienced high surge in imports

of dairy products in 1999-2000 when QRs

had to be removed under the WTO and

became an importer of milk powder and

butter oil/ghee, which account for over

70% of total dairy imports.

• India re-negotiated and established tariff

rate quota (TRQ) for SMP from June

2000. A quota of 10,000 tonnes at a 15%

duty, and an over-quota tariff of 60% were

imposed.

• Source: TWN and others (2011): India’s

FTAs and MSMEs (Part IV): Case Study

of Food Processing.


down because developing countries such as India refused to accept the severe restriction on the use of SSM that the developed countries were trying to impose on the increase of tariffs to beyond-bound rates in the case of an import surge.

• The Trade in Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement includes establishment of intellectual property and knowledge as private property but IPRs related to agriculture such as control of seeds by breeders, IPRs on agro chemicals were largely kept flexible under TRIPS.

Bilateral Trade Agreements or Free Trade Agreement: What does it mean for Agriculture?

With the impasse at the WTO, countries have been signing bilateral or free trade agreements with each other and given each other preferential access. India has also been negotiating about 30 such agreements and about 14 are already signed (including preferential and free trade agreements) and 16 others are being negotiated. In addition some countries have a separate agreement on other issues such as with Nepal on Transit and follow up and broader agreements with existing FTA partners such as ASEAN, Chile are underway. India is engaged in an advanced stage of negotiations with developed countries such as the European Union, EFTA, while talks with Canada, New Zealand and Australia have been recently launched. With many of its partners India is negotiating or has signed bigger agreements called Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (CEPAs) or Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (CECAs) or Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreements (BTIAs).

The FTAs (term used as a generic term to describe all bilateral/plurilateral agreements) are significantly different from the WTO and go much beyond what the WTO involved. While most FTAs include chapters on goods trade, India’s recent FTAs, especially those being signed and negotiated with developed countries, include chapters on services, investment, intellectual property rights, government procurement and competition policy. All these together have significant implications for the agriculture sector.

• Under FTAs, the actual applied duties are cut, not the bound duties, on most products. So even the bound duties allowed by


the WTO are not permitted under the FTAs. This duty cut often has to be implemented in pretty short periods of time. For example the EU-India FTA is apparently talking of duties cut to zero only over 7 years.

• Very few products can be kept out of the purview of the FTAs. This varies from FTA to FTA. While the SAFTA agreement allows quite a large sensitive list of products which can be treated more leniently, the EU-India FTA wants over 92% of goods (agricultural and industrial) to be included leaving very few products that can be protected from tariff cuts. This is why agricultural products, which India has been more protective about, are increasingly being included for duty cuts in order to meet large coverage requirements. EU, for example, wants access to a number of agricultural products such as dairy, poultry, cereals, fish products. The ASEAN Agreement had sparked fears of a threat to plantation and fish products. In addition, sometimes duties on even the exempted products must face a “standstill” which means these duties cannot be raised from current levels even if required.

• Talks on SP and SSM are much stricter than under the WTO and depend a lot on the developing countries’ negotiating skills.

• Agricultural Subsidies CANNOT be negotiated under FTAs and therefore developed countries cannot be asked to cut subsidies even if it undercuts costs and prices of partner country producers.

According to projections for the EU-India FTA, India will get hurt in the dairy where many small holders, particularly women are engaged. The EU and member states maintain substantial amount of subsidies both as domestic support as well as export subsidy in respect of dairy sector, which makes EU’s products competitive and these practices are trade distorting and restrictive.

Source: Vijay Paul Mehta, ‘India-EU Free Trade Agreement: Likely Implications for the Indian Dairy Sector’, Draft Paper, April 2011

• Standards themselves cannot be negotiated but some agreements can be made to recognise each others certification processes.


However, developed countries are often very strict about food standards which can continue to create barriers for developing country exporters even when an FTA is in place (See Box 3).

• EU, for example, wants India to remove its export measures even on food items which India uses from time to time to maintain

domestic food security. Not only will this jeopardise the food security of the country especially in times of food crisis, this will also reduce supply and raise prices of essential raw material for the industry. The cereal and pulse based industries, and confectionary manufacturers will be affected.

• Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Services such as retail which are critically linked to agricultural production and markets are now coming under the purview of FTAs. This can have severe implication in terms of leaving the small farmers out of the market chain, threatening the survival of local markets, and the aggressive domination of contract farming, elimination of nutritious but not commercially viable crops, monoculture etc.

Box 3: Food Standards in the EU and How it can Impact Indian Exports: The Example

of the Poultry Sector

• Lack of harmonization of egg products standards in EU member countries which mean Indian exporters need

approval by individual member countries.

• MRL limits on egg powder. If EU and

India remove tariffs on egg and egg

products and there is no mutual recognition

agreement on standards (or removal of

Non-Tariff Barriers by EU and India, in

general), FTA will be give market access

to EU and not to India.

• Import Restrictions on Indian Poultry Meat In the area of poultry meat, India

does not process much. Demand for

breast is high in EU whereas demand for

legs is high in India. Therefore India can

theoretically sell breasts to EU and EU can

sell legs to India. However again if the FTA

reduces high Indian tariffs (30-100%) but

does not reduce standards or gets MRAs,

India will lose in the bargain.

Source: TWN and others (2011): India’s FTAs

and MSMEs (Part IV): Case Study of Food

Processing.


• India is being asked by developed country partners to include Intellectual Property Rights that go beyond its TRIPS commitments under the FTAs. This can mean that prices of agro chemicals may increase under the provision of “data exclusivity” demanded by EFTA, EU countries (increasing costs for farmers). The EU also wants India to sign international conventions such as UPOV 1991 which recognises seed breeding companies rights and undermines farmers’ traditional practices to save, exchange, and sell seeds freely.

• The investment chapters under these FTAs are increasingly allowing FDI in land and natural resources, critical for the survival of agriculture and the rural population. Unlike the FTAs, investment was included under the WTO in a very limited manner. Though direct FDI in agricultural production is still not allowed in India, FDI in many of the allied activities has been increasingly allowed. In addition, allowing FDI in industry, mining and other areas has also increased the pressure on even agricultural land and has increased the tendency for land grab. Investment chapters under FTAs and the Bilateral Investment Treaties (Stand-alone Investment Agreements signed with about 75 countries) gives very strong rights to foreign investors and challenging land grab and control of natural resources may become a very difficult task for the government as they can be sued by the foreign company in international arbitration tribunals for huge sums of money.

• Interestingly, apart from an overall trade deficit of 540818 crore rupees in 2010-11, India has been facing a trade deficit vis-à-vis most of its FTA partners except for Sri Lanka, SAFTA countries and Singapore. And it is facing a deficit in agricultural trade in many of its current FTAs. The projections for the EU-India FTA, for example, show that our agricultural trade surplus is likely to turn into a deficit with the FTA.

• Trade affects production structures as well. India is increasingly importing processed products from developed countries and giving away its basic food products. International trade model is also oriented towards high-productivity using capital-and resource-


intensive technology. But these are not suitable or sustainable options for Indian agriculture.

C. Are the People Involved in the Process of Trade Policy Making?

The FTAs are threatening the very little space left by the WTO to protect our agriculture sector and the people who depend on it. Liberalisation, even of agriculture, has become the new mantra in India. In fact India’s position on some FTAs is actually challenging the development friendly stance it had taken at the WTO. But the adverse impacts of these policy measures is hardly analysed in totality. In negotiating some big agreements, the government has conducts impact assessments on various service sectors. But no comprehensive impact assessment of the liberalisation of the agriculture sector has been forthcoming. Moreover, the WTO discussions and the documents were at least open and in public domain but the FTAs negotiations are secret where draft negotiating texts are not shared with those that will be affected the most or even with the people’s representatives. There are hardly any parliamentary debates and in fact India is one of the few countries where no parliamentary ratification of these agreements is necessary. State governments need not be consulted even when the agreements include issues like agriculture and health which are under the domain of the state governments. The Ministry of Commerce, directed by the PMO, can negotiate and sign these deals on their own.

When the WTO agreement was being negotiated, India had seen major protests across the country from farmers groups, NGOs, academics, students, workers and others. This was because the discussions were public and the multilateral nature of the agreement made the threat sizeable and credible. But the FTAs are signed in relative secrecy with very little public debates or information dissemination and the bilateral nature of these agreements often make them seem innocuous and less threatening. Also estimating the full impact of these agreements needs an understanding of provision across several chapters and the technical expertise to understand and challenge these provisions. There is very limited space for inputs from and engagements with farmers groups, workers and other interested groups.


Unless India’s political leaders, farmers, workers and civil society gets actively engaged with India’s trade policy, the nature and patterns of agricultural trade liberalisations may increasingly threaten the very survival of the sector. According to Prof. Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, enabling small producers to continue to produce food and not threaten their survival can be the only basis for a country to protect its right to food. He, in particular, challenged the WTO’s role in pushing small producers in developing countries out of agriculture and making countries import dependent. In any case, It is the right of the people to have access to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods through self defined food and agriculture systems. Food sovereignty and food security are interlinked and are in total contradiction with the WTO and FTA rules that put the demands of markets and corporations at the heart of food systems and policies.

D. What do Indian Farmers Demand in Terms of International Trade Policy?

• Take agriculture out of the WTO and FTAs so that there is full flexibility to increase import duties on all agricultural products to stop the inflow of subsidized imports and import surges to protect the national food sovereignty and farmers lives.

• Reinstate quantitative restrictions (QR’s) to prevent dumping of artificially cheep and subsidised products, destroying farmers’ livelihoods and the nations’ food security; QRs are a right to defend ourselves from perverse dumping.

• Change trade’s exclusive focus on corporate agriculture and instead focus its policies on farmer centred and earth entered low lost high output bio-diverse and ecological farming;

• Ensure that the Indian negotiators do not open up agriculture for some concessions in other areas e.g. GATS either at the WTO or in FTAs;

• Ensure Indian farmers fair and just prices and incomes for the vital work they perform for society in food production. Fair prices


require a reintroduction of QRs, given the high levels of subsidies rich countries give for dumping agricultural products. Fair prices also require a minimum purchase price (MPP) independent of whether the buyer is the government, private traders or global MNCs. Price regulation is a duty of the government. Just prices are a fundamental right of farmers.

E. What would be a Just and Sustainable Agricultural Framework?

• Strong protections and support for sustainable family farm based food production for domestic consumption on the national level that must be allowed for within the global trading system.

• A global trading system that disciplines corporate behaviour, and puts an end to dumping.

• A clear prohibition of any speculation on food.

• New regulations on the market based policy of production control (supply management) to stabilize agricultural prices.

• Real agrarian reforms to assure that farmers who produce food for the population have access to agricultural resources (lands, waters, seeds, infrastructure, information, livestock and biodiversity) rather than big businesses which produce for export.

• These measures, taken together, would truly start a strongly needed transformation of our food system, and deliver important progress towards ensuring food sovereignty, farmers’ livelihoods and environmental protection.


4. The great land grab: India’s war on farmers Dr Vandana Shiva

Dr Vandana Shiva

source: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/06/20116711756667987.html

Land is a valuable asset that should be used to better humanity through farming and ecology.

“The Earth upon which the sea, and the rivers and waters, upon which food and the tribes of man have arisen, upon which this breathing, moving life exists, shall afford us precedence in drinking.”

- Prithvi Sukta, Atharva Veda

Land is life. It is the basis of livelihoods for peasants and indigenous people across the Third World and is also becoming the most vital asset in the global economy. As the resource demands of globalisation increase, land has emerged as a key source of conflict. In India, 65 per cent of people are dependent on land. At the same time a global economy, driven by speculative finance and limitless consumerism, wants the land for mining and for industry, for towns, highways, and biofuel plantations. The speculative economy of global finance is hundreds of times larger than the value of real goods and services produced in the world.

Financial capital is hungry for investments and returns on investments. It must commodify everything on the planet - land and water, plants and genes, microbes and mammals. The commodification of land is fuelling the corporate land grab in India, both through the creation of Special Economic Zones and through foreign direct investment in real estate.


Land, for most people in the world, is Terra Madre, Mother Earth, Bhoomi, Dharti Ma. The land is people’s identity; it is the ground of culture and economy. The bond with the land is a bond with Bhoomi, our Earth; 75 per cent of the people in the Third World live on the land and are supported by the land. The Earth is the biggest employer on the planet: 75 per cent of the wealth of the people of the global south is in land.

Colonisation was based on the violent takeover of land. And now, globalisation as recolonisation is leading to a massive land grab in India, in Africa, in Latin America. Land is being grabbed for speculative investment, for speculative urban sprawl, for mines and factories, for highways and expressways. Land is being grabbed from farmers after trapping them in debt and pushing them to suicide.

India’s land issues

In India, the land grab is facilitated by the toxic mixture of the colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894, the deregulation of investments and commerce through neo-liberal policies - and with it the emergence of the rule of uncontrolled greed and exploitation. It is facilitated by the creation of a police state and the use of colonial sedition laws which define defence of the public interest and national interest as anti-national.

The World Bank has worked for many years to commodify land. The 1991 World Bank structural adjustment programme reversed land reform, deregulated mining, roads and ports. While the laws of independent India to keep land in the hands of the tiller were reversed, the 1894 Land Acquisition Act was untouched.

Thus the state could forcibly acquire the land from the peasants and tribal peoples and hand it over to private speculators, real estate corporations, mining companies and industry.

Across the length and breadth of India, from Bhatta in Uttar Pradesh (UP) to Jagatsinghpur in Orissa to Jaitapur in Maharashtra, the government has declared war on our farmers, our annadatas, in order to grab their fertile farmland.

Their instrument is the colonial Land Acquisition Act - used by foreign rulers against Indian citizens. The government is behaving as the foreign


rulers did when the Act was first enforced in 1894, appropriating land through violence for the profit of corporations - JayPee Infratech in Uttar Pradesh for the Yamuna expressway, POSCO in Orissa and AREVA in Jaitapur - grabbing land for private profit and not, by any stretch of the imagination, for any public purpose. This is rampant in the country today.

These land wars have serious consequences for our nation’s democracy, our peace and our ecology, our food security and rural livelihoods. The land wars must stop if India is to survive ecologically and democratically.

While the Orissa government prepares to take the land of people in Jagatsinghpur, people who have been involved in a democratic struggle against land acquisition since 2005, Rahul Gandhi makes it known that he stands against forceful land acquisition in a similar case in Bhatta in Uttar Pradesh. The Minister for the Environment, Mr Jairam Ramesh, admitted that he gave the green signal to pass the POSCO project - reportedly under great pressure. One may ask: “Pressure from whom?” This visible double standard when it comes to the question of land in the country must stop.

Violation of the land

In Bhatta Parsual, Greater Noida (UP), about 6000 acres of land is being acquired by infrastructure company Jaiprakash Associates to build luxury townships and sports facilities - including a Formula 1 racetrack - in the guise of building the Yamuna Expressway. In total, the land of 1225 villages is to be acquired for the 165km Expressway. The farmers have been protesting this unjust land acquisition, and last week, four people died - while many were injured during a clash between protesters and the police on May 7, 2011. If the government continues its land wars in the heart of India’s bread basket, there will be no chance for peace.

In any case, money cannot compensate for the alienation of land. As 80-year-old Parshuram, who lost his land to the Yamuna Expressway, said: “You will never understand how it feels to become landless.”

While land has been taken from farmers at Rs 300 ($6) per square metre by the government - using the Land Acquistion Act - it is sold by developers at Rs 600,000 ($13,450) per square metre - a 200,000 per cent increase


in price - and hence profits. This land grab and the profits contribute to poverty, dispossession and conflict.

Similarly, on April 18, in Jaitapur, Maharashtra, police opened fire on peaceful protesters demonstrating against the Nuclear Power Park proposed for a village adjacent to the small port town. One person died and at least eight were seriously injured. The Jaitapur nuclear plant will be the biggest in the world and is being built by French company AREVA. After the Fukushima disaster, the protest has intensified - as has the government’s stubbornness.

Today, a similar situation is brewing in Jagatsinghpur, Orissa, where 20 battalions have been deployed to assist in the anti-constitutional land acquisition to protect the stake of India’s largest foreign direct investment - the POSCO Steel project. The government has set the target of destroying 40 betel farms a day to facilitate the land grab. The betel brings the farmers an annual earning of Rs 400,000 ($9,000) an acre. The Anti-POSCO movement, in its five years of peaceful protest, has faced state violence numerous time and is now gearing up for another - perhaps final - non-violent and democratic resistance against a state using violence to facilitate its undemocratic land grab for corporate profits, overlooking due process and the constitutional rights of the people.

The largest democracy of the world is destroying its democratic fabric through its land wars. While the constitution recognises the rights of the people and the panchayats [village councils] to democratically decide the issues of land and development, the government is disregarding these democratic decisions - as is evident from the POSCO project where three panchayats have refused to give up their land.

The use of violence and destruction of livelihoods that the current trend is reflecting is not only dangerous for the future of Indian democracy, but for the survival of the Indian nation state itself. Considering that today India may claim to be a growing or booming economy - but yet is unable feed more than 40 per cent of its children is a matter of national shame.

Land is not about building concrete jungles as proof of growth and development; it is the progenitor of food and water, a basic for human


survival. It is thus clear: what India needs today is not a land grab policy through an amended colonial land acquisition act but a land conservation policy, which conserves our vital eco-systems, such as the fertile Gangetic plain and coastal regions, for their ecological functions and contribution to food security.

Handing over fertile land to private corporations, who are becoming the new zamindars [heriditary aristocrats], cannot be defined as having a public purpose. Creating multiple privatised super highways and expressways does not qualify as necessary infrastructure. The real infrastructure India needs is the ecological infrastructure for food security and water security. Burying our fertile food-producing soils under concrete and factories is burying the country’s future.

J.S. Mill, The Principles of Political Economy. Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1848.


5. Consequences (of land grab) for agriculture and food security

BHASKAR GOSWAMI

http://agrariancrisis.in/2008/12/10/consequences-for-agriculture-and-food-security/

AROUND 160 years back political economist John Stuart Mill wrote, ‘Land differs from other elements of production, labour and capital in not being susceptible to infinite increase. Its extent is limited and the extent of the more productive kinds of it more limited still. It is also evident that the quantity of produce capable of being raised on any given piece of land is not indefinite. This limited quantity of land, and limited productiveness of it, are the real limits to the increase of production.’1 Never more do his words ring true than today in India.

With the pressure of billion-plus mouths to feed, and returns on agricultural inputs declining, it would seem prudent to protect the area under agriculture, if not bring more area under cultivation. However, what we are witnessing is the reverse. Faced with competing demands for land from the non-agriculture sector and rapid urbanization, large chunks of prime agriculture land are being diverted for non-agricultural purposes. This has serious implications for food security.

A little over 46 per cent of the country’s area is under agriculture. Between 1990 and 2003, the area cultivated went down by around 1.5 per cent. While in percentage terms this may seem insignificant, in absolute terms it translates to more than 21 lakh hectares. If this area was brought under wheat (for the sake of argument), it would amount to a mind-boggling 57 lakh tonnes, which can feed more than 4.3 crore hungry people every year. Had political will to prevent this diversion prevailed, the number of hungry would have gone down substantially. On the other hand, between 1990 and 2004, land under non-agricultural uses has gone up by 34 lakh hectares.

J.S. Mill, The Principles of Political Economy. Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1848.


All across the country, agriculture land is shrinking. In Kerala, the area under paddy is around 3.5 lakh hectares as against 10 lakh hectares in 1980. As a result the demand for rice is about five times higher than what is produced by the state. Mineral-rich Orissa is losing agricultural land to mining and power projects. Even in the case of a small state like Himachal Pradesh the net sown area has declined by 33,000 hectares between 1991 and 2001.

In recent years this rate of diversion has gone up. For instance, across 25 mandals in and around Hyderabad, 90,000 hectares of agriculture land has been diverted during the last five years. Real estate major Emaar MGF owns over 4,000 hectares of agricultural land across the country while DLF controls a land bank of around 3,500 hectares more. To sustain the high rate of economic growth, major infrastructure development projects such as construction of new airports, roads, power generation plants etc. are coming up. All this and more through large-scale diversion of fertile agriculture land.

Diversion of agricultural land for industry is frequently justified by pointing towards cultivable wasteland – around 132 lakh hectares – which can be developed and put under cultivation. However, cultivable wastelands have also declined by over 18 lakh hectares between 1990 and 2004. Further, even if these wastelands are developed and made cultivable to grow food, the productivity will remain abysmally low for several years.

In addition to increasing production of foodgrains for ensuring food security, pulses and fats are necessary for nutrition security. On the one hand, feeding half of the world’s hungry who live in India will require at least 170 lakh hectares of additional land under cultivation. On the other, to achieve self sufficiency in pulses and edible oils will require 200 lakh hectares more. Where will this land come from? Forget agricultural land; there is not enough cultivable wasteland available to meet this requirement.

The fact is that there simply is not enough land to go around. The statement of the Commerce Ministry, ‘SEZs account for 0.000012 per cent of the country’s arable area’ therefore needs to be viewed through this prism. When the ministry states that just over two lakh hectares of land will be lost once the formally and informally approved SEZs come up, it ignores the fact that this can feed over four million hungry every year in perpetuity. These numbers have gone up recently. Check the Ministry of Commerce website for latest data. Further, the argument of the ministry that most land under


SEZs had already been acquired by state governments is indefensible because prior to its acquisition, it would have been under cultivation.

Agriculturally rich states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh account for over 70 per cent of the land that is earmarked for approved SEZs. Punjab and Haryana which meet a bulk of the country’s foodgrain requirement are promoting SEZs on prime agricultural land. With the Ministry of Commerce announcing on 3 December 2007 that the 5,000 hectare ceiling on multi-product SEZs may be relaxed, it is music to the ears of big developers whose projects were stalled. Now with acquisition of land left to the SEZ promoters, agricultural land is bound to come under increasing pressure.

In addition to land, water is another resource that is limited in supply and increased competition for its use between agriculture and the industry is jeopardizing food security. As it is, barely 40 per cent of the cultivated area of the country is irrigated while the rest depends on unpredictable rains to produce crops. This limited area however accounts for more than half of the total value of output of Indian agriculture. Irrigation also has the potential to increase crop yield by 30 per cent and therefore its importance for ensuring food security cannot be ignored.

Between farming and industry, which sector will have a priority over the use of this scarce resource? The SEZ Act of 2005 and SEZ Rules (2006) do not answer this question. Legislations at the state-level are either silent on this issue or clearly allow SEZs to develop water supply and distribute to its units. Given the present rules governing groundwater resources in the country, there is precious little that a state can do to prevent SEZs from running the underground aquifers dry and leaving nothing for surrounding farmlands.

Not only groundwater, even rivers and reservoirs meant for irrigation purposes are now being put at the service of SEZs. Take for instance the Whitefield Paper Mills SEZ in Andhra Pradesh. Located within five kilometres of the river Godavari, the state government has permitted the SEZ to draw 100 million litres of water per day. While the river at present has ample water, it is noteworthy that more than half of the Godavari river basin is categorized as cultivable land and, naturally, any mass-industrialization along this zone will reduce water availability for irrigation.

In Orissa, the allocation of water to industries from the Hirakud reservoir to industries has gone up 30 times over the 1997 levels. Notwithstanding


protests by farmers against diversion of water meant for irrigation, the state is going ahead with its plans to increase allocation for industries – many of which are SEZs – like the Hindalco industries in Sambalpur district and Vedanta Industries Ltd. in Jharsuguda. POSCO’s proposed SEZ in Jagatsinghpur has been allowed to directly draw water from the river Mahanadi.

While industries are being given a priority over water rights by the Orissa government, Padampur subdivision of Bargarh district of the state, which falls in the command area of Hirakud dam, has remained permanently in the grip of continuous drought and agricultural failure since the 1960s. This area has also earned the dubious distinction of being one of the poorest region of the world. Obviously somebody has been busy stealing water meant for irrigating the crops of poor farmers.

There is more. The Mundra Port SEZ being developed by the Adani Group in the Gulf of Kutch, Gujarat has managed to access six million litres per day of Narmada water for immediate use and they expect the allotment to go up. SIPCOT SEZ in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu will receive water from the SIPCOT water supply scheme. Government of Andhra Pradesh will install a pipeline capable of carrying dedicated capacity of 20 million gallons of water per day for the FAB City SEZ coming up near Hyderabad. The list is endless.

It is unfortunate that despite over 177 lakh hectares of barren and uncultivable land lying unused, scarce resources like rich agricultural land and water are being poached upon to promote SEZs. To feed a billion plus people, 350 million of whom are chronically food insecure, the government is pushing for diversification away from foodgrains to produce non-food cash crops. The cash generated through exports of these will be used to import food.

However, there are some who believe that there may be pitfalls with this approach. ‘It’s important for our nation to be able to grow foodstuffs to feed our people. Can you imagine a country that was unable to grow enough food to feed the people? It would be a nation that would be subject to international pressure. It would be a nation at risk. And so when we’re talking about American agriculture, we’re really talking about a national security issue.’

This was President George W. Bush addressing the National Future Farmers of America Organization on 27 July 2001. For once, Bush does make sense.


6. Position of the Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements

on the Land Acquisition Bill

prepared by : Secretariat, La Via Campesina South Asia

This bill has now been renamed as the “The Right to Fair Compensation, Resettlement, Rehabilitation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Bill”. The government is trying to fulfill the land requirements of corporations, and it has openly stated that it wants to reduce the number of farmers in this country. The Right to Fair compensation, Resettlement, Rehabilitation and Transparency in Land Acquisition is not about using land for the livelihood security and food security and development of its people. This act is about creating a process, whereby farmers will offer the least resistance when land is handed over to corporations. It is in this light, that the ICCFM has been opposing the fundamental nature of this bill. Below are the position of the ICCFM on various issues related to the land bill.

NOTE ON SEVERAL LAND USE AND RIGHTS’ RELATED ISSUES, INCLUDING LAND ACQUISITION

1. Public Purpose:

Private and PPP projects cannot be construed as public purpose. We outright reject giving land to corporations and PPP under the guise of people’s development. We especially reject the inclusion of acquisition for the vague term “infrastructure projects” in the current form of the bill which allows the government to define any project as if it is for public purpose. Furthermore, whether any project is for Public purpose or not must be established by gram sabas.


We stress that when land is acquired then the affected should be the beneficiaries. For instance the government has been acquiring land for private hospitals and schools, however our own communities cannot afford these. Furthermore, many promises of jobs etc made during land acquisition are not fulfilled on the pretext that we are not qualified for them. We therefore are not willing to accept the current broad definition of public purpose in the bill.

Further, it is found that thousands and thousands of acres of land is being diverted for other purposes, once acquired in the name of Public Purpose, as in the case of several airport land acquisitions. The principle of absolutely minimal acquisition has not been applied. There is an urgent need to take up a review of all land allotted so far after land acquisition for stated purposes to see if the land is being put to use against the stated purpose and if not, return the land to the original landowners or to the lowest administrative unit, to be further used for food and livelihood security purposes, including providing land for landless.

2. No Forcible Acquisition:

No forcible acquisition should be allowed. This means 100% consent in the local governance unit (Palli sabha/gram sabha). Land cannot be acquired if not all affected are agreeing to it. This includes the ones whose livelihoods are tied to the resource, even if ownership rights do not exist on the same.

3. No Agricultural Lands To Be Acquired:

No agricultural land should be acquired. The classification into single crop or double crop, irrigated or rain fed does not seem to matter since it is not just about food security at the national level that one should be worried about but livelihood security and food security of the affected, which is more fragile in the case of single-cropped lands.

4. Return unused lands – no land banks:

We strongly oppose any moves to make a land bank. Land unused for 5 years should be transferred back to original owners or the project-affected persons. The government has already acquired thousands of acres of


lands that are lying idle all across the country. These lands were taken from farmers previously and now have not been used or illegally converted to some other use. In many cases farmers are yet to see any compensation or rehabilitation.

5. Land Use Planning:

It is important to initiate a process of land use planning urgently in the country, starting from Gram Sabha upwards, prioritizing food and livelihood security of rural households. This would then give a picture of any land available, if at all, for such acquisitions, after taking into account the needs of various households, including those of livestock rearers and grazing lands for them, eco-system services being provided by water bodies in addition to livelihoods to fisher folk etc. etc. Without such land use planning processes undertaken, with legal legitimacy accorded to the same, with the Gram Sabhas first staking claim to such plans and resources needed for the same, the country will always see a tussle between different forces and will not be able to meet its many development objectives, defined collectively.

6. One Unified Statute:

It makes no sense to have land acquisition happening under more than a dozen laws in the country with one statute being debated under the name of “land acquisition”. It is indeed a great need to have one unified statute and this is what should be enacted in the Parliament – any land acquisition in the country should be only through this statutory regime.

7. Pesa/Scheduled Areas:

The constitutional and legal provisions accorded to scheduled areas should be fully upheld and no diluting should be allowed here.

8. Gram Sabha Has The Authority:

Any statute governing land acquisition has to first uphold the constitutional authority vested in Gram Sabhas . Their prior, informed consent must be obtained and their full participation ensured in all the steps of acquisition-


MOU signing, project planning, assessments, implementation, and R and R. Gram Sabhas should have the right to stop a project if they find any violations.

8. Complete The Pending R&R Processes:

Lakhs of people in this country, “project-affected” and subjected to involuntary displacement, are awaiting just compensation, relief and rehabilitation to this day. This is also an indication of what lies in store for many others in future if things are not improved drastically. It is an urgent imperative that further debates on land acquisition happen only after completing the pending R&R processes, so that the country may learn lessons from the experiences before moving forward.

9. Rights Of Dependent Families:

Today, farming in the country is mostly by tenant farmers and sharecroppers in several pockets of the country with the land owners being absentee landowners. Land acquisition in all such cases will directly disrupt the lives and livelihoods of dependent families, especially in a situation where tenant farming and sharecropping is not recorded anywhere officially for a variety of reasons. Any approach to land acquisition has to first recognize this challenge and ensure that the livelihood rights of these dependent families are fully protected. In fact, using the opportunity of land acquisition as and when it happens in the rarest of rare cases, there should be a special thrust on equity to address the issues of the most marginalized including control over productive resources.

10. Compensation, Resettlement & Rehabilitation:

Compensation cannot be fixed at guideline value given that this is far lower than market prices. Compensation should be pegged at least a value higher than the market price and any industry seeking to acquire land should show it as part of their realistic costing. Further, relief and rehabilitation should be for all affected families, and should have a mandatory land for land option in addition to trying to make rehabilitation as long term as possible. Resettlement and Rehabilitation should be seen as opportunities for ensuring equitable development and planned as such.


12. White Paper On Current Status Of Land Acquisition And Mous:

Various MoUs and agreements are being signed by the governments with a variety of industries to give away land for business and other enterprises. However, there is no clear picture of which land, where, how much, on what terms and conditions are being given away or promised under various agreements. It is very important that governments first bring out comprehensive and accurate White Papers on the status of land acquisition so far, and the agreements related to/involving land acquisition in future. This is very important since numbers range from 18 lakh hectares to 180 lakh hectares (which is equal to the total land diverted to non-agricultural use over the decades from the time of Independence!) are being estimated as the quantum of land, given away in just the past decade or so across different states.

13. Eminent Domain:

While the SC may have conceded the power of the State over the nation’s natural resources to be put to the common good, in the light of the 2G and ‘Coalgate’ scams rocking the nation, the question of trusteeship of the state arises starkly now more than ever before. It is apparent that the trusteeship is being misused with little accountability, towards benefiting monopolistic corporate entities more than the marginalized and common people in the country. It is being shown in analyses related to the ‘Coalgate’ scam that not even the trickle-down model of development that the government believes in is actually accruing from such administration of the trusteeship vested in the State.

Apart from a history of misuse (for ‘crony capitalism’ and even corruption) of trusteeship is the question of why eminent domain is invoked mainly in the context of ‘industrialisation’, ‘urbanisation’ and ‘infrastructure development’ (that too defined narrowly as far as infrastructure development for the poor is concerned, but defined broadly when it comes to businesses that profit out of such development) and not in the context of Ruralisation, Food Security and Livelihood Security. This is not to be seen as empty rhetoric given that the government does have commitments made to the Millennium Development Goals, that we have shameful levels of poverty,


hunger and malnourishment in this country, that we have our farmers committing suicides in tens of thousands….This, then, is our question on the very development model/paradigm that the State follows, in the pursuit of which ‘public good’ often means essential resources of the poorest going into the hands of the rich and powerful. Initiating a national debate on the concept of “eminent domain” and various perspectives governing notions of “development” is a need of the hour, as the country is boiling over with people’s struggles against governments and corporations for resources.

Given all the above, the following are our main demands:

• Suspend all land acquisition across the country immediately given that the debate around issues like eminent domain and public purpose is still unfolding in the country as well as millions of lands already acquired are remaining idle and under land banks.

• We demand the government of India to formulate a committee comprising the representatives of the farmer’s and people’s movements to finalise a new bill and carry out a national debate on public purpose. The government should makes a timeline to build a consensus among the farming and rural communities of India, we need debates at the state and national level. The bill should be translated in all regional languages so that we may be able to have discussions and debate at the grassroots level.

• Bring out a comprehensive and accurate white paper on the status of land and land acquisition/promised land allotments

• Complete pending R&R processes before moving ahead

• Improve the land acquisition and R&R bill taking on board all the concerns of a vast majority of Indians

• Return lands that have been diverted from the stated purpose when land was acquired

• Take up a comprehensive land use planning process with the Gram Sabhas taking the lead in this


7. Power sector issues and agriculture

by Shankar Sharma

Power Policy Analyst

[email protected]

[email protected]

1. Power sector scenario from farmers’ perspective:

• While agriculture is the backbone of any society, it is even more so in India, where more than 40% of the population is known to be dependent on activities related to agriculture. Hence high focus on agriculture is in the overall welfare of the country.

• Agriculture has a major share in electricity consumption in the country. In recent years about 25 % to 35 % of all electricity consumed in the country is being consumed by agricultural sector mostly for pumping water from surface or underground sources.

• In states like Punjab and Haryana the share may be higher because of high agricultural activities.

• During 2009-10 in Karnataka IP sets consumed 35% of total electricity.

• Because of high reliance on ground water electricity has become a major requirement for profitable agricultural practice for most of the farmers.

• Agricultural sector also contributes significantly to GHG emissions.

• While the overall revenue realisation for the sector at the national level is not good (only about 65%), the revenue realisation from agricultural consumers is much less.


• Because of low returns from electricity supply to agricultural consumers, the supply companies are neglecting such consumers resulting in many hardships to the farmers.

• Shortage of power production capacity is being quoted by authorities as the prime reason for restricting power supply to agriculture.

• But due to various reasons power sector has been grossly inefficient, and the accumulated losses in the sector is estimated to be more than Rs. 120,000 crores.

• Adequate generating capacity addition will be unlikely due to economic, environmental and social factors unless a paradigm shift to the whole sector is adopted.

• Natural limits to conventional electricity sources such as coal, dam based hydro, nuclear and natural gas will not allow much additional power capacity from these sources.

• During April 2011 – March 2012 8.5% deficit in annual energy and 11.1% deficit during peak hour usage was reported at the national level.

• There have been such deficits for the last few decades.

• At the national levels the IP sets are generally associated with 40-50% energy losses due to suction and delivery pipe friction, inefficient lubrication in pump sets, bad positioning of pump sets, worn out bearing etc.

• Proper choice of IP set size and quality are not being provided to farmers.

• These losses can be reduced to less than 10% by simple measures.

• Due to reducing water tables it is getting difficult to get adequate quantity of water; higher capacity IP Sets are being needed.


2. Has Indian power sector met its farmer’s electricity needs?

It can be said that during recent years the power sector in the country has largely failed to meet the needs of its farmers.

• In most of the states the IP sets get 3-phase power only during some parts of the day; not necessarily when the farmers actually need it.

• Frequent interruptions and low voltage /high voltage problems are common.

• Break down of lines/transformers are not addressed quickly.

• Burning out of motors.

3. What is energy sovereignty?

Energy sovereignty for our farmers can be defined as the scenario where adequate quantity /quality of energy/electricity is available to them as and when they need it at affordable price on a sustainable basis. Such sovereignty may also mean dependence on one’s own sources such as solar wind or bio-mass power installed and operated on farmers’ premises, and that scenario where the farmers need not depend on outside agencies for such energy/electricity. It may also mean entirely indigenous source of energy in the case of a state/country.

4. What is sustainable energy?

Supply of energy can be said to be sustainable, when it is projected to be reliably available in the foreseeable future in both quantity/quality at affordable price without adversely impacting the natural resources to such an extent wherein the same energy many not be made available to the future generations.

5. What kind of energy is needed to fulfill the needs of Indian farmers?

No one source of energy can meet all the energy needs of our country. It is true with the requirements of our farmers also. There need be an optimal mix of different energy sources such that this combination meets


our energy requirements satisfactorily at the lowest societal costs and on a sustainable basis. In determining such a mix the social, environmental and economic costs of each source to the society must be determined realistically.

Due to social, environmental and economic reasons the conventional sources of electricity (coal, hydro, nuclear and gas) will not be able to provide sustainable electricity to the farmers. Hence alternative avenues need to be employed.

What is wrong with India’s energy policy

• The past policies and practices have not lead to an efficient sector, and has resulted in inequitable supplies to rural and urban consumers.

• Extreme reliance on conventional sources of electricity (coal, hydro, nuclear and gas), centralised generation and grid based supply.

• Very low efficiencies in all segments of power sector.

• Unscientific pricing and subsidies.

Major Issues with conventional Power Plants

(Coal, natural gas, Hydro and Nuclear)

Economic

Unsustainable pressure on natural resources such as land, water and minerals;

reduced agricultural production; huge capital and operating costs; fast depleting

resources

Social

Peoples’ displacement due to large sizes of power plants; health; decay of rural

India; denial of access to grazing and fishing areas; inter-generational issues;

water scarcity

Environmental

Global Warming; pollution of land, water and air; acid rains; impact on bio-diversity


7. Can we fulfill the electricity needs through low scale local energy production and renewable?

Satisfactory electricity supply to our farmers cannot be ensured unless the power sector takes major policy decisions:

• Huge focus should be on ensuring highest possible efficiencies in all aspects of the sector;

• Effective demand side management or highly responsible usage of electricity at residences, agriculture, industry, offices, shops etc. can reduce the total demand for electricity, and hence can provide more electricity to agriculture;

• Renewable energy sources (wind, solar and bio-mass) in distributed mode (low scale energy production) are likely to be the future for agricultural sector; being a tropical country India has a huge potential in these sources.

• Solar photo voltaic panels within the agricultural farms OR in villages OR on roof tops of houses have the potential to meet most of the electricity needs of our farmers/villages.

• Solar energy also are most suited for agriculture because they are available when the farmers need it; during day time and during summer months.

• Community based OR individually owned wind turbines and bio-mass plants are the other credible options for our farmers.

• Bio-fuels are going to play a major role in energy sector, especially in transportation sector, farmers are also advised to consider carefully which bio-fuel crop can be grown, how and where so that such crops can assist them financially, but not adversely impact the food security at the national / international level

8. What farmers can do to overcome the power crises?

• Appreciate the power sector problems at the local, state and national levels;

• Work closely with the electricity supply companies to find suitable solution to their problems;


• Realize that electricity cannot be supplied at zero/low cost; and that every consumer has to pay the realistic price;

• Volunteer to have accurate energy meter and to pay the correct electricity charges.

• By doing so they will get a strong right to demand good quality electricity throughout the day; farmers in few districts of Karnataka (in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts in MESCOM area) are getting much better electricity because of this approach

• Seek the help of professional bodies/ individuals to minimse the electricity requirements by adopting highest efficiency measures.

• Buy only efficient appliances such as IP sets, section and delivery pipes.

• Participate effectively in the deliberations of state electricity regulatory commissions in determining the correct tariff.

• Deliberate and choose the best crop pattern for each farm to minimise the need for electricity and water.

• Do all that is feasible within the individual limits to optimally harness rain water and to recharge the grown water table.

• Make various farmers’ bodies/organizations much more effective by discussing all the related issues inside the movement and take appropriate decisions.

• Choose those crops and farming methods, which will use minimum water and electricity, and which will also assist in ensuring food security: Water will become increasingly difficult in future for our farmers due to increasing demand from other sectors such as industry, increasing population, commerce & entertainment etc, and most importantly due to Climate Change phenomenon. As a matter of fact water, food and electricity are expected to be the three most scarce resources in future. There can be no doubt that farmers will have a critical role in managing these sectors optimally.


8. Understanding Livestock in context of Food Sovereignty:

Challenges and Action

by Dr Sagari R Ramdas, Anthra [email protected]. www.anthra.org

Small and Marginal farmers, dalits, indigenous people and pastoralists , particularly women within these communities form the backbone of India’s food –farming systems. Cultivating crops and rearing animals have always been intrinsically linked and dependent on the other. This circle of connectedness and inter-dependency between animals, crops, land, forests and people has always been known by farming communities, and is aptly captured in this popular proverb used by farmers from Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh:

“ Kasu leka Pashu ledu, Pashu leka, Penta ledu, Penta leka, Panta ledu, Panta leka pashu ledu”.

“Without fodder we have no animals, without animals we have no dung, without dung we have no crops, without crops we have no fodder”

Livestock are critical for India’s Food sovereignty, and play a vital role in supporting the livelihoods of millions of poor landless, small and marginal households in the country. India has one of the world’s largest combined populations of different livestock species. In 2007 it had 199 million cattle, 105 million buffalo, 141 million goats, 72 million sheep, 11 million pigs and 649 million poultry. In fact 57, 16 and 17 percent of the world’s buffalo, cattle and goat populations respectively are reared in India.In sheer economic terms too, according to Government of India, in 2010 to 2011, livestock output was valued at Rs2 207 billion or approximately US$49.6 billion (at


2004-2005 prices) – about 22.7 percent more than the value of foodgrains. Milk, which accounts for more than two- thirds of the value of livestock output emerged as the largest agricultural commodity in the country. Since the mid-2000s the value of milk has been larger than the combined value of rice and wheat the main cereals of India.

In India, Livestock and Agriculture have always been two sides of the same coin. Without one the other becomes redundant. 2 decades of structural adjustments, economic reforms and globalization has sought to transform sustainable mixed crop-livestock food-farming systems to specialized and distinct intensive industrial systems of livestock production and crop production, which is aggravating food, fodder, water and energy security. National policies and plans, rather than re-addressing this growing divide are actually aggravating the situation, evident in the recent 12th Five Year Plans for Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. The unfolding tragedy of the divorce of livestock from agriculture, forced upon the Indian farmer due to irresponsible policies through the years, can be witnessed today in every village.

While the green revolution period set the stage, the white revolution added momentum, and the process has intensified in the last 20 years of globalization in the shape of corporate control of agriculture and the so-called “livestock revolution”, with their emphasis on export oriented agriculture, agro-business tie-ups and foreign direct investment in agriculture. Non-food/fodder-yielding crops have replaced grain and fodder yielding food crops, tractors and machinery have replaced animal traction and ironically animal manure is now far more difficult to obtain than a mobile phone. Post the eighties, the share of farm animals in power supply declined from 71% in 1961 to less than 23% in 1991-92. The 59th round of the National Sample Survey of 2002-03 reports that working cattle in rural areas declined by 25% between 1991-92 and 2002-03. The initial euphoric years of high crop yields due to intensive green revolution technologies, has given way to farmers despairing about declining yields and enhanced pest attacks, which scientists are now ascribing to the excessive use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. This coupled with withdrawals of all input subsidies (both for input and procurement prices) and liberalization of markets at the other end, as a result of the new economic reforms initiated in the 1990s,


has resulted in acute agricultural distress in the country driving millions of farmers into huge debts, despair and suicides. Livestock development policies, plans and programs in the reform era have contributed equally to this disaster: they continue to be largely pre-occupied with pushing “dairy development with high-yielding cross-bred animals as a livelihood option for the poor and others in distress”, privatizing resources (land, water, forests, air, energy) and services (veterinary health care, extension, research) that animals depend upon for their survival, and liberalising the livestock product markets, which is resulting in dumping of highly subsidized goods from the developed countries, which in turn depresses the price paid to our Indian farmers, pushing many out of livestock rearing. The latest threat is the 100% FDI investment policy in agriculture, animal husbandry and allied sectors.

All these changes have meant multiple disasters for these communities, of which an oft-overlooked facet has been the rapidly declining rates of livestock ownership amongst the poorest. Despite 70% of India’s livestock being owned by landless, marginal and small farmers, recent studies across India, have indicated that over half of all these households are “non-livestock owners”, challenging the well entrenched notions of livestock being more equitably distributed than land. The lack of livestock in a small farmers livelihood, increases their vulnerability and reduces resilience. Women in particular have been completed dispossessed, and marginalized from their key decision making roles that they exercised with respect to their lives and livelihoods.

A critical aspect of sustainable agriculture, safe food production and food sovereignty in India lies in restoring our livestock wealth. It also lies in women within these communities leading the movement for food sovereignty. The solutions to this grim situation clearly lie in the political will to immediately reorient and redesign our land-use, agriculture, livestock and more critically investment and trade policies and plans including research and development, to establishing an environment that will enable farmers to farm in ways that will build food, fodder and livelihood sovereignty.


What Livestock Means for Adivasis, Dalits, Peasants, Pastoralists

Sustainable and ecologically resilient farming, by small peasants, adivasis, dalits and pastoralists, have livestock- cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goat, poultry, pigs etc embedded as a key component within the larger cycle of landuse, farming, crops, livelihoods and life.. Indigenous breeds too evolved as a part and parcel of this close bio-cultural relationship of communities with their land and livelihoods. Indigenous breeds are perfectly adapted to their terrain, are inherently resistant to a wide range of diseases, are hardy and contribute to food-sovereignty in multiple ways: food (milk, meat, eggs), energy (agricultural operations,transport, post harvest processing), soil fertility (manure and urine), fibre, cultural and spiritual integrity and as a bank on hooves. Women and men have played complementary roles in shaping the breeds, through their conscious selection choices and knowledge made over centuries. Indigenous breeds largely continue to be reared and managed on grazing-based production systems, which implies the pre-requisite access to land by communities to cultivate food and rear animals.

Historically in India, livestock (large and small ruminants) have obtained their nutritional and water requirements by grazing on common lands, forests, and harvested agriculture fields. Large-scale legal restrictions and imposition of private property by the colonial state were responsible for alienating communities from their natural resource base. This drastically transformed the complex, mutually sustaining relationship that had evolved hitherto between agriculture, forests and the non-forest commons. Despite legal obstacles, livestock rearers in India, cutting across different ecological terrains, land-holding categories, castes and genders, and livestock type continue to depend on the non-forest commons, forests and private agriculture lands to meet their fodder and water requirements. A continuum exists of households that primarily depend on common property resources (forest and/or non-forest) and private lands within their own village to those

We continue to use colonial terminology and mindsets in our perceptions on indigenous breeds. Some breeds are “officially” recognised by Government of India, and the majority of community-bred animals continue to be branded as “non-descript”. We need to steer clear from these colonized frameworks. Animal Populations owned and bred by communities need to be understood for their purpose and role, as envisioned by local communities.


who are mostly dependent on these same categories of resources beyond the village boundaries, sometimes extending to distances of over 400 km from “homebase”. The 54th NSS0 report of 1998, defines CPRs to include village pasture lands and grazing grounds, village forests and woodlots, protected and unclassed government forests, wastelands, common threshing grounds, watershed drainage, ponds and tanks, rivers, rivulets, water reservoirs, canals and irrigation channels. CPRs constituted 15% of India’s total geographic area at 0.31 ha per household and rural India still depends significantly on CPRs to rear livestock. At the all-India level, 20% of households depended on CPRs for grazing livestock, 13% collected fodder from CPRs and only a small percentage (2%) reported cultivation of fodder on CPRs. Livestock owning communities respond in different ways when there is a decline or decrease in access to and/or availability of fodder/water. There could be a shift in species reared: erstwhile pastoralists who reared cattle, have switched to rearing sheep and goats settled farmers who reared cattle are today rearing buffaloes and sheep (. They respond by adjusting the size of their flock such as increasing or decreasing the numbers of animals in their flock/herd. There may be spatial movements of migration to “greener pastures” as it were, in search of new areas to access fodder and water from common property resources beyond the village, or from harvested private fields on mutually beneficial terms, which are negotiated with, farmers. The landowners allow the animals to be penned on their fields and graze on the stubble of harvested crop-residue in exchange for manure and urine that is valuable for enriching the soils. Pastoralists with their animals may alternately migrate to forest areas for extended periods of time. The small peasant, pastoralist or adivasi will relinquish their animals and become “non–livestock owners”, only when there appear to be no other avenues to care for their livestock.


Livestock-Land- Crops

Keeping the soils of common and private lands healthy (dung and urine), providing energy (ploughing, threshing, post harvest oil milling, sugarcane extraction, transportation) for agriculture, and in turn animals grazing/browsing on crop residues, natural grasses, leaves, herbs, which also helps to regulate grass growth and in seeding, is the critical link between livestock and crops on the small farmers farms, within the larger village and beyond. Today communities control the genetics of their animals: they own the germplasm and have the knowledge and skills to manage their breeds. Communities need access to land, and the freedom to be able to democratically and collectively govern these spaces towards sustaining


food-farming systems, wherein which livestock continue to play this key linking role.

However it is this chain in the food-farming system, which is sought to be broken once and for all. It is these remaining outposts of sovereign production, genetics, and local markets that intend to be captured by global capital. Small farmers today are being viewed as “consumers of inputs and services” , and their labour to be harnessed to serve the interests of larger supply chains of the “Food Industry”. The recent global interest to “conserve” indigenous animal genetic resources, has to be understood withn this larger context; it is largely driven by a wordview that looks at indigenous breeds as “gene banks” to mine genes and insert them through biotechnology to boost the breed resilience of high-producing breeds. A growing class of rich and wealthy investors view indigenous breeds as another opportunity to “make quick money”, and are investing in huge tracts of land to farm indigenous breeds.

In the process (as has happened across the world), many small farmers will begin to specialise in crops/ or animals, many will fall deeper and deeper into debt traps, and be pushed out of farming all together. Gradually the entire production base – from land, to breeds, to seeds, to services, knowledge and markets gets captured by a handful of agri-business companies and large farmers, pushing small farmers out. This has happened across the world in the dairy, poultry and pig sectors (see box 1 & 2). These structural changes in the dairy sector, are already underway, with policies making it more favourable and profitable for larger and larger farmers/ farms and capital, to capture the production base (see box 2).

India’s 12th Five Year Plan aggravates the demise of peasants, towards the capture of food markets by Agri-Business

The 12th Five Year plan, reads no differently. It re-emphasizes the industrialisation of Indian Agriculture, this time with a further angle- it invites Foreign Direct Investment into Agriculture with open arms. It re-emphasizes the “growth” paradigm for agriculture, by increasing productivity per unit area of land for enhanced “farm profits”, which is to realized by “….diversification towards high value crops, horticulture, animal husbandry,


enhanced technology and irrigation infrastructure, access to credit, good and reliable seeds, enhanced mechanization and improved post-harvest technology, innovative institutional and contractual arrangements so that smallholders have the requisite technology and market access..”. This enhanced productivity per unit acre of land it argues justifies land-transfer to industry and other non-agriculture uses. Land reforms too envisioned in the plan far from redistributive justice to landless peasants, facilitates further consolidation of land in the hands of a few, so as to enhance a favourable environment for investment. The role of the government and “public investment” will be to invest in and support farmers to aggregate into larger platforms (which is termed as farmer producer organisations) to enable capital formation, attract “private investment” towards securing “economies of scale”.

The plans for animal husbandry complement the plans for agriculture, and visualize further intensification, industrialization and commercialization, of the livestock sector, where the central purpose of animals will be to produce milk or meat through “breed improvement, enhancing availability of feed and fodder and provision of better health services, breeding management. There will also be a focus on conserving indigenous breeds, says the plan.

The National Dairy Plan operational since 2012, financed by the World Bank and implemented through the NDDB, visualizes supporting what are termed as “End Implementing Agencies (EIAs), mainly dairy cooperatives and producer companies, aimed to (i) increase productivity of milch animals and thereby increase milk production

(ii) provide rural milk producers with greater access to the organised milk-processing sector.

Reforming Tenancy Laws: “ will encourage leasing in lands by larger farmers to consolidate lands to invest in modern inputs, reap economies of scale and raise farm productivity. Long term tenancy contracts will enhance agriculture productivity”.

Land Purchase: Land only for homesteads ( small pieces of land)are to be distributed to women, and all other government lands will be distributed to groups of landless and women farmers not individually but groups, which will be facilitated by providing part loan-grants to groups of poor women.

Public Land Banks: Farmers will deposite their fallow lands for fixed periods of time with a Public Land Bank, which will in turn lease the land to groups of women etc. The farmers who deposit their land will receive a payment from the Land Bank.


A key aspect of the NDP is to intensify commercial Breeding Services or Artificial Insemination Services, make available about 900 high genetic merit bulls for replacement of bulls at graded semen stations and thereby achieve 100 per cent high genetic bulls.

The National Livestock Mission envisions intensification of production and marketing of all other species –sheep, goats, pigs, and rural poultry, and feed and fodder markets.

Ofcourse it also then speaks about conserving local breeds, and their importance in context of climate change. In the same breath they speak of high producing breeds, as the mitigating climate change- where high yielding breeds can be fed concentrates to reduce methane production..

India’s 12th Five Year Plan reflects an emerged global consensus amongst national governments, Banks, Transnational Corporations and Multilateral Institutions (World Bank, FAO, IFPRI), backed by their research studies, that the way forward to meet projected global food needs, alleviate poverty and meet the Millennium Development Goals, lie in aggressively enhancing Foreign Direct Investment in Agriculture, which currently contributes 1-2% of total global investment in Agriculture. Global doublespeak fully recognizes that millions of small and marginal farmers anchor agriculture and food production in the global south, and see these millions as investment opportunities. It sees the role of governments as key to make this investment dream a reality. Government will ally with Big Business towards in the interests of Global Capital.

Let us not be fooled: Lets act

The plans and programs visualized nationally, only further separate and alienate small peasants, land, crops, livestock, forests, and water from each other, towards concentrating the power and control of these in the

FAO scientists (Steinfeld, H) argue that high producing milch animals and industrial systems of farming generate less co2 per litre of milk yield than small farmer mixed farming systems. This argument is flawed as it merely takes the total quantity of milk produced and divides it amongst the total number of cows and the methane they generate. It does not include all the externalities into their calculations of CO2 emissions : from the lands converted from food crops to feed, the water consumed to do so, the transportaion of feed, energy expended on processing, manure build up ……. And all the CO2 generated from field to glass..


hands of agribusiness and global capital. Today the biggest threat to small farmers is not merely the dispossession from their own small land holdings, but from the idea and practice of the commons, shared knowledge, skills, and the power to decide upon how they will farm food for themselves and also to market. The threat to indigenous breeds today, are global and local policies that are alienating and displacing peasants, pastoralists and indigenous peoples from their right to land and their autonomy over local markets. When we who represent and work with indigenous people, peasants and pastoralists, speak of conservation of indigenous breeds, we need to remember that its conservation is meaningless unless these animal genetic resources continue to be in the hands of indigenous and local communities, who will control the genetics and shape the breeds towards sustaining food sovereignty.

Given the multiple forces that threaten the future of food farming systems and livestock within, the resistance too encompasses multiple strategies of decentralized democratic governance by local communities. It needs to be re-emphasized here that women within communities leading this movement at every level from taking decisions to actions, is critical for rewriting the narrative, and includes:

1) Democratic governance and control by local communities to Land, Forests, Water bodies, Common lands, Biodiversity, Knowledge

• Resist and organise ourselves to halt the changes in land use which dispossess adivasis, dalits, pastoralists and small and marginal farmers from land – common, private, forests …… (investments in special economic zones, real-estate, Foreign Direct Investment in Animal Husbandry and Agriculture activities, mining, forestry plantations, biofuels)

• Use legislations such as Panchayat Raj Act and Panchayat Raj Act Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA), to exercise collective decisions around protecting and nurturing resources (land, water, commons, forests, etc) towards food sovereignty.

• The Scheduled Tribe and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act, 2006, for the first time gives legal recognition to graze animals – in forests, as one of the ten community


rights. Adivasis, pastoralists and other traditional forest dwellers must exercise their rights to grazing and governing the forests.

2) Re-establishing the linkages between land, crops, local indigenous livestock breeds, and their cultural and spiritual relationships.

Recognise and Rebuild the central role of cattle and buffaloes in villages and farmers fields, as providers of energy (draught) and manure.

3) Build resilience to the challenges of climate change and economies of money by spreading risk through being engaged in diverse food-farming . Let multiple contribution per hectare of land, be the parameter and goals of food farming, and not single mono-product quantities “yield/ ha” be our yardsticks of farming.

Small farmers must grow diverse crops and rear diverse animals to build resilience and resist being pushed out of farming. Local animal breeds of goats, sheep, poultry, pigs, …… as appropriate to the eco-region must once again be present in every farmers house. (eg. Sheep survive best on open grasslands and not in dense forested regions. Goats survive well in all eco-regions. It would be foolish to introduce sheep into forested regions, just because there is a deeply ingrained thinking amongst both development and conservation activists, that goats are harmful to the environment. Similarly recognised indigenous breeds merely because they are “good milk producers”, and good draught animals, must not become the next mono-cultures. But we have to build on understanding the local context, and situations, and nurture local diversity…..

4) Meeting the Nutritional and Water needs of animals

• Typically ruminants meet their requirements from grazing on natural vegetation (trees fodders, grasses, shrubs, legumes, herbs etc), and agriculture crop residues/ or being fed stored crop-residue (dry fodder). Crops without a fodder value (tobacco, tapioca), or with poor nutritive value (rice), or which are potentially toxic (e.g. BT cotton), impact negatively on a fundamental pre-requisite for good health- namely “a balanced diet”. This requires macro policy changes at the level of market, minimum support prices and other public distribution schemes, that encourage farmers to cultivate and grow food crops such as millets, pulses, oil seeds and legumes, that yield diverse crop-residues.


• introducing farmers to agro-silvipastoral practices that nurture diverse local trees/ shrubs/ herbs with a fodder value, on private and common lands..

• Promoting ecological agriculture practices amongst farmers, which will rebuild and strengthen the symbiotic relationship between crops and ruminants.

• Putting a halt to re-vegetation programs such as cultivating mono-crop plantations (biodiesel crops jatropha and pongamia pinnata, eucaluptus,rubber, horticulture trees - which are completely devoid of fodder value and are being pushed through linking them to NREGS and other development programs.

• Assured and free access to drinking water (restoring village tanks, watering ponds, building water troughs with public funds), housing, hygiene and sanitation. A crossbred dairy animal such as a Holstein Friesan or Jersey cross requires nearly 4 times as much water (for drinking and washing and shed cleaning etc) as compared to a local indigenous cow. In context of the growing water scarcity situations, it is disasterous to be promoting crossbreds which drain the water resources.

5) Providing for the Health needs of animals

Reviving indigenous knowledge and practice of management, prevention and healing, along with putting pressure on the government veterinary services to continue play their role in public health, preventive health and treatment. Organise to stop the privatization of government veterinary services in India, through the creation of paraworkers who are being expected to replace the government veterinary doctors.

6) Nurturing Knowledge and Skills on ecological farming, indigenous breeds, management, landuse, breeding, feeding, health, …….

Through learning between elders (women and men) and youth (men and women).

7) Supporting local markets for the breed and its products

Organising communities to be able to directly link to local consumers through local markets – dairy, backyard poultry, goats, pigs. Pushing for


government to make public money available to support and nurture these efforts

Box 2 : Vanishing small farmers: specialize and perish

Box 3 : Dairy Mayhem in India : The Privatizing Trap


9. Background note India’s Climate Policy for Farmers

by Secretariat , La Via Campesina South Asia

Small farmers can cool the planet and feed the world!

What is climate change: Burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas for our energy has increased levels of heat-absorbing gases, especially carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere. So, our planet has warmed over one degree Fahrenheit, and will continue to heat further and faster, as more of these gases build up. The increased heat temperatures are already causing erratic weather such as flooding, drought, changing rainfall patterns etc. There will be a serious impact on agriculture, and agriculture [green revolution style] is also one of the major contributers of the green house gases that cause climate change.

Climate change is mainly caused by burning coal, oil [petrol, kerosene etc] and gas – it is mainly a man made problem. Therefore, massive industrialization, pollution, highly industrial agriculture, transportation are all adding to climate change. The major contributers to climate change are consumerist industrial countries such as the US. However, in developing countries like India too, the elites are consuming as much as citizens of the industrial countries, and are therefore contributing equally to climate change.

We can stop climate change by changing human behavior and overconsumption of our resources and shifting to clean sources of energy, reducing consumerism, and shifting to ecological agriculture among other things. Stopping climate change is a most urgent task facing humanity. The global community is spending millions of dollars trying to come up with a plan to stop climate change, however as you will see with the Indian


government’s policy below, their plans are misguided, and are in fact supporting the very same corporations and consumerist habits that are the main cause of climate change in the first place. At the same time, these policies actually harm the poor and vulnerable, including farmers, by dispossessing them. For e.g. GM seeds are being promoted as a solution to climate change, but everyone knows that GM crops require more pesticides, increase debt, displace local seeds and cause climate change. It is indigenous seeds that are the true solutions. Thus it is up to the people of India, and especially its farmers, to challenge the government who will spend millions of Rupees to support the wrong kind of policies in the name of climate change, when it should be supporting its small farmers instead.

Read below to understand the impacts of climate change on agriculture and farmers, and also a critique of the Indian climate policy in the area of agriculture.

India and climate change

The Indian governments vision of development is double digit economic growth – industrialize and privatize fast, attract foreign investment, move towards urbanization and increase consumerism in the country. This very outlook is a problem when it comes to climate change as industrialization geared towards unsustainable consumption is the root cause behind climate change. Besides heating the planet, this model is also leading to the dispossession of the poor in this country – the poor are losing their resources to private industries – land, water, seeds, education, health are becoming privatized putting them out of reach of the people for their survival.

What is needed instead is a development model which is people oriented. Instead of dispossessing people of their resources, a development model is needed where the lands, seeds, water remain with the people so that they can use these resources for their dignified livelihoods and survival. Instead of pushing agrarian communities out of farming, they should be encouraged and supported to produce food and make India a secure country that can produce all its food needs locally using ecological approaches without relying on imports. Farmers need to be provided with markets, credit, fair prices, sustainable farming techniques and control


over lands, seeds and resources. This model is called Food Sovereignty – a concept that was first introduced by the global farmers movement called - “La Via Campesina” and this model is the peasants solution to global climate change, unemployment and hunger.

There is no doubt that climate change is a real problem and its effects are being felt worldwide. In India a lot of research has been conducted on the impact of climate change and the most vulnerable sectors of our country are Agriculture and Fisheries. Agriculture is both impacted by climate change and it also contributes to climate change. But it is the current green revolution industrial agriculture model using fossil fuel based chemicals that is contributing to climate change. 30% of the green house gas emissions come from industrial agriculture, mainly from methane and Nitrous oxide and Carbon dioxide.

The need of the hour is to phase out the industrial agriculture model that is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, and shift towards low input and no chemical agroecological methods of farming and traditional knowledge of farming communities. India already has several successful models where indebted and chemical farmers have converted successfully to ecological methods. These models are based on farmers traditional knowledge, seeds and crop variates that are time tested to withstand all kinds of environmental stress. One remarkably successful model is the Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture program run by the government of Andhra Pradesh in conjunction with womens organizations and local NGO’s where they have converted 35 lakh acres in the state to non chemical farming. This model is being scaled up across the country and shows us that it is possible to convert the entire country to chemical free farming if peoples institutions are involved and horizontal farmer to farmer training systems are set up. Across the country there are many farmers practicing such methods without any government help, Karnataka’s zero budget natural farming is also one such successful example. It is time to identify and scale up such models at a fast pace.

Below you will find a brief fact sheet of the impacts of climate change as well as criticisms of the Indian Governments National Action Plan on Climate Change.


Impact of climate change

• Rainfall problems: Erratic rainfall in some areas, Mean Kharif Rainfall to increase, More Frequent Heavy Precipitation Events, Monsoons will be affected [rainfed agriculture will suffer tremendously] water tables will fall, floods will increase

• Snow Cover to Contract

• Hot Extremes, Heat Waves to be more Common . Droughts will increase

• Temperature Rise by ; 1 deg. C ( by 2020) to 3 deg. C (by 2100);

• Rise in Sea Level

Impacts on Indian agriculture:

• Food production will be under threat due to unreliable weather patterns

• Pest attacks will increase significantly and new pests will evolve

• Crop yield will reduce – every 1 degree rise [it has already begun- and by 2020 temperature will increase by 1 degree] will reduce wheat production [especially in the Indo Ganga plains] by 4-5 million tons [study by IARI] – most cereal crops production will go down due to less water availability quality of produce will decline

• Heat stress will reduce milk production by 10-25%

• Fisheries will suffer – while crops can adapt to climate changes ..animals and fishes cannot. In the case of marine fisheries, it has been observed already that Sardines are shifting from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal, which is not their normal habitat

Impact on farmers

• For no fault of theirs, Indian farmers, like the most marginalized everywhere, are paying a high price for man-made climate change. The worst-hit, as usual again, are small holders in marginalized locations with social disadvantages to begin with. They have the least resources to deal with the natural disasters like droughts and floods that are increasing with climate change.


• Reduced productivity and climate impacts will have impacts on farmers incomes

• Increase in farm expenditures

The Green Revolution model dominant in India is the main contributer to climate change in agriculture

Current mainstream green-revolution practices of Indian agriculture are the cause of 30% of climate change. CO2, N20 and Methane are three of the main Green House Gases emitted from Agriculture and N20 is the most serious one with a global warming potential 296 times greater than co2.

• The mono-cropping intensive model focused on cash crops and grains only and dependent on heavy usage of chemicals is directly contributing to emissions of green house gases. In India, it is estimated that 28% of the GHG emissions are from agriculture. 78% of methane and nitrous oxide emissions are also estimated to be from agriculture. a g. Application of fertilizer leads to nitrous oxide emissions in high amounts. Pesticides are made from petroleums [fossil fuel], when these breakdown they emit carbon into the atmosphere.

• Monoculture model leads to loss of agricultural biodiversity. Biodiversity is not lost due to over use but because it is not used.

• Also more intensive models use more fossil fuels for machinery like tractors, harvesters, pumps for irrigation etc.

• Inundated paddy fields are one of the main sources of carbon emissions - they increase the emissions of methane; Need to shift to less water intensive forms of agriculture like SRI (Syste of Rice Intensification) in rice. Another major contributor of GHGs is the burning of crop residues. In Punjab, wheat crop residue from 5,500 square kilometers and paddy crop residues from 12,685 square kilometers are burnt each year. Burning of crop residues also impacts the soil (fertility). Heat from burning straw penetrates into the soil up to 1 cm, elevating the temperature as high as 33.8–42.2°C. Bacterial and fungal populations are decreased immediately.


• Large Dams: Another indirect contribution of agriculture to GHG emissions comes in the form of large dams. Large dams contribute 18.7% of emissions in India as per an estimate. Total methane emissions from India’s large dams could be 33.5 million tonnes (MT) per annum, including emissions from reservoirs (1.1 MT), spillways (13.2 MT) and turbines of hydropower dams (19.2 MT).

Can Indian Agriculture mitigate climate change? [reduce carbon emissions?]

Yes – by reducing the emissions of methane and nitrous oxide. And by keeping Carbon in the soil – which is also good for soil fertility. This can be done by good agroecological practices like mulching, no till, organic manure etc. Green revolution model releases carbon into the air.

Governments National Action Plan on Climate Change

Background

India had announced a National Action Plan on Climate Change in August 2008. The action plan was created in a very top down and non-participatory way, and no consultations were carried out with any civil society organizations or peoples movements.

The NAPCC proposes to address climate change- related issues in India through the setting up of eight inter-connected Missions: National Solar Mission; National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency; National Mission on Sustainable Habitat; National Water Mission; National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem; National Mission for a “Green India”; National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture and National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change.

The mission that concerns Agriculture is “National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture” and the aim is to make Indian agriculture sustainable.

Farmers Critiques of the NAPCC

• There are no emissions cuts: The NAPCC has mostly adaptive policies ( I.e what we will do to deal when climate change happens)


– there are no emissions cut goals [also called mitigation – or how we can control climate change by reducing our green house gas emissions]. We need to specify emissions cuts goals. Even China has set up goals for emissions cuts, but Indian government does not mention it anywhere therefore the entire “action plan” is a wrongly named and not really achieving anything to curb climate change.

• No focus on traditional knowledge of farmers: The main focus of any adaptation strategy to climate change needs to value the traditional knowledge of farmer [how to use available indigenous seeds, crops, livestock, practices etc] These have a proven track record in adapting to stress conditions and are already available among farming communities. These need to be discovered, improved and distributed. If we dont use farmers indigenous knowledge then it will be lost and next generation will become dependent on lab produced hybrids, GMOs etc. Instead, the NAPCC merely pays lip service to traditional agriculture but its main focus is on improved hybrid and GM varieties as well as hybrid exotic livestock and fish species.

• ‘Land to lab’ top down extention interventions: The focus is mostly on the research for new crops based on a top down system of lab to land extension system. This is hardly enough to combat climate change and time is short. Furthermore, it ignores the vast knowledge of crops and methods that farmers already have on the ground. We need to set up different extension systems with farmers organization at the center to encourage farmers to share their knowledge with each other. Waiting for scientists to create crops in labs and then wait for a top down system to pass them on to farmers is not the solution when solutions already exist on the ground and need to be scaled up rapidly. Scientists and extension agents should be trained to learn from farmers about agroecological farming and work to spread the methods among other farmers.

• Blind promotion of GM crops: Instead of promoting traditional seeds and plant varieties that are low input oriented and already available among seed savers and farmers everywhere, government is promoting an untested, problematic and expensive corporate technology of GM


crops. Already cotton farmers of India are suffering from the debt burdens of this expensive and failed technology. The Government should instead focus on promotion of low input traditional crops like millets and cut subsidies to chemical fertilizers instead of focusing on GM crops.

• No incentives are provided to organic and non chemical farmers: Instead of providing huge subsidies to the chemical fertilizer industry, incentives should be provided to those farmers that are shifting towards no chemical farming. Subsidies to chemicals should slowly be phased out.

• No meaningful involvement of peoples organizations: It is important that any climate change adaptation and mitigation strategy should involve peoples organizations, especially farmers organizations on the ground to take advantage of the expertise and organizational capacity of community organizations. Many local NGOs and farmers organizations already have underway successful projects of agroecological farming and horizontal extension systems with farmers at the center for example. The NAPCC should involve such organizations to learn from their experience and scale up such efforts and make them partners in the implementation of the action plans. Farmers organizations should be involved in implementing, planning and approval of the climate related agricultural interventions.

What farmers movements can demand from the government:

• Promote sustainable agroecological systems: Shifting to organic/agroecological farming systems will automatically cut emissions. Furthermore such systems actually fix carbon into the soil. We need to demand government to actively phase out from chemical farming by cutting subsidies to chemical industry and other such incentives and instead support farmers to shift to non chemical models.

1. Promote resource conserving techniques such as organic zero till, SRI [system of Rice intensification], crop diversification etc. [warning: monsanto is also promoting a no-till farming with GM crops and its round up ready herbicide – this is not what we


are promoting..we are promoting agroecological no till systems like natural farming for e.g. not tilling the soil reduces CO2 emissions.]

• Promote food sovereignty : We need to localize the food system and procure all the food for India’s needs from Indian farmers. By not importing food we are going to cut down on the food miles and the high emissions from transportation. Also local procurement solutions should be promoted within India - The PDS system should carry out local procurement from farmers for local food needs.

• Strong safety net for farmers and agricultural laborers: As part of adaptation strategies, strong social security nets should be put in place for the rural households, including with a provision of minimal incomes, pension, insurance etc. This is already needed for the farming community and will be important to adapt to climate change for farming families to cope with climate stress.

• Provide financial and other incentives [subsidies, credit, training, market etc] to farmers to shift to agroecological methods and for resource conservation. Farmers are already facing financial difficulty to carry out famring, society should pay farmers if they are going to take on additional burden to contribute to cliamte change adaptation and mitigation.

• Promote traditional farmers knowledge indigenous seeds, livestock, fish which can be easily accessed by farmers.

• Set up community run seed banks for farmers to have access to indigenous seeds as well as fodder banks and food banks. Train local youth to set up seed banks.

• Involve farmers and other peoples organizations to scale up agroecological methods: We support programs like the Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture program of Andhra Pradesh government, farmers organizations and womens groups which is a farmer central horizontal extension system keeping farmers as trainers and has managed to convert 35 lakh acres to non chemical farming. We also support Sikkim governments decision to become a totally organic state.


• Reject false solutions: like GMOs. Already Bt cotton has created serious ecological and social problems in Maharashtra and we cannot label GMOs as solutions to climate change.

• Promote proper risk management: The current risk management system has already failed farmers who have to keep begging for even little compensation for serious situations like droughts. We will need a wide variety of schemes for insurance to weather linked incidences, livestock insurance, crop insurance.

• Provide reliable weather forecasting information to farmers

• Promote local energy options like bio-gas : This is another way to prevent methane from going into the atmosphere and instead being converted to energy for local use. If all the collectible cattle dung in India is used which is 225 Mt, then it will have a mitigation [cutting emissions] potential of 512 Mt of CO 2 every year.

What farmers movements can do :-

Having state and national level meetings on the climate change issue to analyse our governments climate policies so we can prepare our criticism on it and lobby the government as well as educate our members and MOBILIZE when needed.

• Lobby the national/state government to promote our positions and to educate them about models like Sikkim states organic policy or Bhutan.

• Have educational visits of teams of committed farmers to successful models of agroecology, natural farming

• Produce literature and reading materials on climate change in different languages

• Promote network of seed savers and expert farmer teachers in agroecological methods like natural farming and other methods.


10. Restoring Diverse Seeds in the Hands of Farmers – Importance of

Seed Sovereignty

by Kavitha Kuruganti and Krishna Prasad

Seed is the soul of Agriculture. Locally adapted diversity-based cropping patterns and timely availability of good quality seed in required quantities are essential for sustaining farming. In the Indian context, seed has been an openly shared ‘community resource’ carefully bred, conserved and evolved over thousands of years by farmers. However, seed today has been converted into a package; seed choices are determining technological choices that farmers will end up adopting in growing the seed. For instance, if a farmer opts for hybrid or high-yielding seed varieties, since they have been bred in the first instance to be responsive to external inputs like chemical fertilisers and water, they would demand the same inputs from the farmer for optimal results. In that sense, hidden in a seed is a complete takeover of farming choices.

In the name of high yields and profits, farmers are being lured to give up seeds and seed diversity that were theirs. However, once seeds are lost physically from a community and knowledge related to such seeds disappear too, farming itself becomes subservient to external forces. The farmer is forced to buy what is available, at the price it is available and at a time when the supplier chooses to make it available. Keeping this control in the hands of the farming community itself is what we are calling as Seed Sovereignty.

It’s worth recalling that India is a mega biodiversity hotspot and the agro-diversity here is phenomenal. Farmers have developed hundreds of varieties of seeds to suit their agro-climatic requirements, cultural preferences and


livelihood needs. It is said that more than 150000 varieties of paddy alone existed in this country at one point of time, now only a few thousand remain. The knowledge related to breeding, how to select good seed from the crop, how to save it and maintain it, how to treat the seed before sowing the next season etc., used to be common and open knowledge, sound and scientific, mostly with women farmers. Seed production in most cases was not an activity separated from crop cultivation, unlike today, when seed production is considered a specialised, profit-making activity, with seed seen as a commodity.

Today, technological advances, market manipulations, industry-supportive policies and legal systems are the three main strategies that the seed industry uses to make seed into a ‘commercial proprietary resource’, a commercial item owned by someone, separating farmers and their crops from the seeds they require for planting. These mechanisms contribute to increasing commodification/commercialisation of seed, its corporatisation/monopolisation and its alienation from farmers. The policy regime favours such a shift with regard to Seed, and there is no regulatory system/statutory framework which at this point of time makes farmers and their rights as the centre of the effort. A small set of farmers who have become contract seed producers for companies, and a large set of farmers who have become seed consumers for the seed industry are both losing out in the newer world of seed.

Increasing monopolies: Industry data from 2009 shows that the top 16 (out of 250-odd) companies control 23% of 10,000-crore seed market; within this, Monsanto and associates have 40% share. In Cotton seed alone (worth around 4000 crores), 93% control is with Monsanto in India!

Erosion of diversity: Hundreds of crops and varieties within crops have disappeared from our farms. Advent of high-yielding seeds and hybrids has increased this. Disappearance of on-farm diversity has implications on farmers’ resource management, risks & future research. This impacts farm livelihoods deeply (for instance, agri-labour demand and supply is closely connected to diverse cropping).

Undermining farmers’ knowledge & skills: Today’s technological and policy approaches to Seed are undermining the breeding and seed-


keeping skills of farmers. Further, studies show that de-skilling of farmers is also affecting their rational choices related to Seed, very often making seed choices ‘a fad’.

Anti-farmer seed technologies: Seed technologies are actually becoming anti-farmer in many ways: the fact that newer technologies are toxic; that control lies elsewhere; that seed breeding is not done in farmers’ growing conditions or organic conditions and so on, is making the scenario anti-farmer.

Privatising resource & knowledge: laws & policies around seed favor privatisation, including creating property with exclusive monopolistic rights over materials and knowledge. This is in turn supportive of the profiteering objectives of large corporations and not the surival of millions of smallholders.

Quality, Affordability & Accountability regimes are missing in regulation, even as more and more farmers are being pushed towards dependency on commercial seed traders. There is no regulation of advertising and other marketing tactics around seed.

Public sector is rapidly withdrawing in seed breeding arena as well as in seed production and supply, after having enticed farmers towards external seed sources.

The latest threat is from transgenic crops, which have a close link to rigid Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs); contamination of non-GM crop, rather than being treated as a violation of the rights of a farmer, is being treated as an infringement of the IPRs of an external entity!

Seed Sovereignty is greatly threatened at all levels through all the above.

WINDS OF CHANGE ARE BLOWING: ARE YOU YET A PART OF THE REVIVAL MOVEMENT?

In the last 10-15 years, in many villages around the country, farmers have started realising the value of Seed. They are rebuilding their relationship with agro-diversity and have started reviving local varieties and are setting up mechanisms so that they are self-reliant when it comes to


seed. Farmers preference for traditional open-pollinated locally-adapted varieties has stemmed from the fact that these have evolved over time, have strong resilience to local growing conditions, can withstand vagaries of variable climate, pest and disease attacks and often involve less intensive management. This means reduced costs too, and lesser risk of being cheated over a critical input in agriculture. The change in attitude of farmers has triggered many movements of seed diversity revival, in situ conservation, seed breeders’ networks etc. The new wave of revival is looking not just at conservation, but also large scale adoption of diverse seeds, in addition to farm level characterisation, purification and improvements in seed. There are instances when scientists from the establishment have joined hands with such farmers’ networks. For the organic and natural farming movements, it is important to realise that diversity-based farming is the core principle that will make such farming approaches succeed and focusing on seed diversity revival is critical.

WHAT ARE WE SEEKING?

It is in this context that we seek from the government farmer-friendly, farmer-centric statutory regimes, institutional systems as well as programmatic interventions to ensure that farmers have control over and access to diverse, locally suitable, affordable, high-quality seed and knowledge associated with it, available in a timely manner. If it is a commercial situation, affordability of seed and accountability of seed traders also become important.

• When it comes to ownership rights over seed resources, no such rights should accrue to anyone on any life form – it is also antithetical to the way agriculture evolved and developed in this country. However, given that certain statutory regimes have already been put into place (which work within an IPR regime unfortunately), all forms of prior art including NBPGR registry should be used pro-actively by concerned government agencies and authorities to prevent others from seeking IPRs over farmers’ varieties. Further, an open source seed system should be set up, that prevents any exclusive rights for anyone using any farmer-originated material.


• Government should encourage, and invest in farmer-level seed production of locally suitable, high yielding and other seed (traditional or public sector bred); if Hybrids are to be encouraged, these should be bred in organic (farmers’) conditions, with parental lines in the hands of communities, with skills imparted, after risk assessment in a holistic fashion.

• Agri-research & extension systems should prioritise farmer-led participatory varietal selection and breeding programmes.

• Community level seed banks have to be set up and run, through appropriate village level institutions and adequate financial/other support.

• Private (commercial seed) sector should work in a statutory regime that allows the government to regulate not just the quality but price at which seed is sold, in addition to laying down a strict accountability regime that includes penalties, compensation and remediation where required. Regulatory regimes should also pro-actively watch out for seed monopolies/ oligopolies building up and prevent the same. Compensation mechanisms should be simple and time-bound and commensurate with claims and expectations based on claims apart from covering costs incurred.

• Farming communities all over India should have first priority and access to all the germplasm collections all over the country.

• All MoUs/PPPs both in research & extension with private seed corporations should be cancelled immediately by various state governments and the Union Government. Resources should be invested on public sector agencies to strengthen them to support farmers and farmers’ own collectives to make them self-reliant.

• For all those seed technologies which bring in potential environmental and health hazards, such seed should not be allowed even for open air trials.

However, what is really needed is diverse seeds and associated knowledge being brought back into community and communities becoming seed self-reliant. This requires not just government interventions but farmers coming forward in large


numbers, realizing the need for upholding seed sovereignty and ensuring that their own community is self-reliant. Farmers have to resolve that they will not depend on external seed sources for their seed requirements; they should invest on improving their seed breeding and selection abilities again; they should decide that no farm will have monocrops. Women farmers are critical for this to happen.


11. Genetically Modified Crops and Foods in India

Genetically Modified Crops and Foods in India

Genetically Engineered/Modified (GE/GM) crops are organisms created artificially in labs by forcibly inserting genes of unrelated organisms into the genetic structure of the plant. Genetically engineered crops are unpredictable in their character and the plants once released in the environment are uncontrollable and can never be taken back. There are several studies indicating the potential risk to human health and environment- this has resulted in a controversy across the world around the need for introducing such potentially risky organisms. Many countries in Europe, Asia and across the world have adopted a precautionary approach towards GMOs in their regulatory systems.

The Indian government has been forcefully and enthusiastically promoting GM crops and companies. Bt Brinjal was put on a moratorium only because peoples movements, farmers and activists were able to put enough pressure on the government. Now the government is coming up with other ways to promote GM crops. One of the ways it is doing so is by bringing in a new BRAI bill – to set up a Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India, the purpose of which is to give clearance to GM crops in the country. ICCFM has been strongly opposing the BRAI.

Below you will find a comprehensive overview of the various issues surrounding GM crops and Indian agriculture.


1. GM in our food & farming systems – why is there a need for greater concern from policy-makers?

Genetic Engineering is often equated by its proponents with conventional breeding and is also touted as precision-breeding. As per numerous experts that this is simply not true – Nature does not have gene constructs of viral and bacterial genes inserted into other alien organisms and there is much scientific evidence on the genetic instability caused by the process of Genetic Engineering. Genetic Engineering, which allows for transfer of alien genes from one organism to another, for random insertion into the host organism’s DNA, is a novel technology which is unnatural and breaks the barriers that exist in nature in unpredictable and irreversible ways. We would like to strongly argue a case for great precaution before such technologies are deployed in our farming and food systems – all agricultural technologies would have a large and lasting impact for the simple reasons that (a) all of us consume food that comes out of farming, (b) that a majority of land on this planet is under farming and (c) that a vast majority of Indians are directly connected to farming for their livelihoods. Therefore, any technology that will have impacts on health and environment that too on a large scale, has to be deployed after a careful analysis of all possible impacts. Further, a precautionary approach should be the central guiding principle around decision-making. Unlike the technologies that we have deployed in the past, which are showing up various negative impacts now whether it is the case of chemical fertilizers or chemical pesticides, this time around with GM seeds, we are talking about a living technology which also implies that it is irreversible once released into the environment. An analysis of the technologies that get deployed shows that fair apportionment of resources does not happen both at the research level and at the extension level to sustainable and unsustainable technologies. Unsustainable technologies, which usually also mean more markets for some agency or the other, coupled with marketing strategies and financial power, usually edge out the other technologies, especially safer, more affordable and sustainable ones, which are not pushed by anyone for the simple reason that there are no markets involved! There is an urgent need to re-assess all technological options in front of us in a fair and scientific fashion before deploying hazardous and unsustainable technologies; there is need for a policy directive that unsustainable technologies will not be promoted and encouraged.


2. GM crops & food security claims – how true are they?

The biggest reason why GM crops are being given a great consideration by our policy makers is the fear generated by Malthusian arguments that our food supplies will not be enough for the growing population. However, as argued by many experts time and again including by eminent economists like Prof Amartya Sen, food security is not an issue of food supply alone but is related more to access and distribution issues. Further, there are many ways by which food production and productivity can be improved, including by ensuring that land meant for food production is not diverted to other purposes, that agro-ecological methods like System of Rice Intensification which conserve resources even as they increase productivity should be encouraged on a large scale, that output incentives provided to farmers are bound to increase food productivity and so on. Time and again, many agencies including the Planning Commission have been referring to existing ‘technology gap’ between know-how and do-how to be bridged. Further, it has been aptly stated in the Kisan Policy that agriculture is not about production and productivity alone – there is a multi-functionality to Indian agriculture (agriculture as a way of life) that is often ignored by Malthusian arguments. There are also emerging schools of thinking which question the very notion of “yield” as defined by narrow parameters right now, to the exclusion of many other concerns that should govern the “measurement of yields”.

More important and pertinent to the current discussion is the fact that GM technology is not meant to improve productivity – technically, it cannot, since yields are a multi-genic trait and no GM product has been put into the market anywhere in the world that can increase yields, despite years of disproportionately high levels of investment on the technology. Worse, the largest cultivated GM crop in the world, GM (Roundup Ready) soybean, is shown to have actually decreased yields in countries like the USA. An attached report called Failure to Yield, gives more information on how GM seeds are only a red herring when it comes to issues of food security.

There have been multiple instances in the past when senior policy-makers in the country have pointed out that with the existing technologies, both


within the NARS and with thousands of innovative farmers across the country, yields can indeed be increased at the macro-level, by bridging the technology gap. This requires institutional interventions more than anything else. There are hundreds of highly successful farmers, from whom learning can be facilitated to other farmers, provided there is a willingness to evolve intensive farmer-to-farmer extension models. Some such models do exist in the country which include the CMSA (Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture) programme implemented by the Andhra Pradesh government and programmes around promotion of System of Rice Intensification in states like Tripura. Therefore, there is an urgent need to pursue real, lasting solutions for improving farmers’ livelihoods while increasing productivity as some successful examples have already demonstrated.

3. Are there no alternatives?

Given that the S&T behind Genetic Engineering is controversial, even amongst scientists who have specialized in the fields of molecular biology, biochemistry etc., and given that a majority of countries around the world have taken a cautious stand, including based on available scientific rationale, it would only appear prudent that India also take a similar stand. However, there are no policy frameworks that guide the R & D work, if at all, on transgenics. The Supreme Court observer in the GEAC, Dr Pushpa Bhargava had laid down the contours of an ideal regulatory regime and said that for every GM application that is received on the food/farming front, a question that the regulators should immediately ask is whether there are no alternatives to a given problem that this GM product professes to address and proceed only after a thorough need assessment.

Similarly, there are no policy level guidelines that guide R & D on crops for which we are the Centre of Origin and Diversity. Brinjal was such a case and crops like rice, pigeonpea etc., which are in the pipeline also pose a big question on the future of biodiversity in these crops with their GM versions.

Today, any person or agency can walk up to the regulators in India for a permission to tinker with any plant through r-DNA technology, for any novel trait with any set of genes and move almost inexorably forward towards our


plates. This is obviously unacceptable. There is an immediate need to assess all the products in the pipeline and stall/stop/reject a whole set of applications on the simple grounds that there are other alternatives or that we are the Centre of Diversity for a particular crop. Otherwise, this would only constitute a diversion of precious resources from much-needed research on other aspects.

4. The current reality of GM crops – is this what we need?

Despite all the hype around GM crops as being the only solution for a majority of problems in modern day agriculture, the reality is that there are only two “traits” that form the basis of GM crops and their commercial cultivation around the world today – insect resistant Bt crops and herbicide tolerant crops (that too mostly tolerant to Monsanto’s brand of herbicide called Roundup).

Pest management in fact is quite possible without the use of either GM seeds or synthetic pesticides as large scale experiences around India and elsewhere show. In fact, Insect Resistant Bt crops have an intrinsic shortcoming – if a population of insects is sought to be killed by technologies like synthetic pesticides or Bt crops, it is only natural that the pests will select for resistance!

When it comes to Herbicide Tolerant crops, which seems to be the trait that crops have been engineered for in nearly 77% of GM crop cultivation around the world today, it is quite apparent that this is a technology which is meant for labourless farming. It increases chemical usage in farming and has actually resulted in more chemicals being applied in American farming in the past 13 years, after the advent of GM crops, rather than reduce chemicals! Further, resistant weeds are posing a major challenge in several parts of America, as several reports indicate.

A majority of GM crop cultivation to this day is with just one country - the USA. The desperation of this one country to find markets for its produce and for its agri-business corporations (for their seeds and proprietary technologies) is quite apparent, in a world which is increasingly having more and more areas actually reject GMOs and declare themselves GM-Free. Most GM product goes into animal feed, biofuels or cotton products


as shoppers avoid eating GM foods in most countries around the world. In 2008 12.2 million hectares of GM crops in the US were used for biofuels (19.5% of total US GM area and 10% of the global GM area).

This situation has to be kept in mind by policy-makers in India when they advocate GM crops as a solution – that the technology has been applied to mainly two applications both of which are unneeded in our context and that the American need to find more acceptance in countries like ours is commerce-driven. When the world is so divided on the issue and when the scientists of the world are also so divided on the matter, on what basis is India ready to trust the data and defence proffered by crop developers and move ahead on GMOs? If there are any lessons that have been learnt from the Green Revolution, they should teach us not to sacrifice medium and long term sustainability at the altar of short term gains especially when sustainable solutions do exist.

5. The socio-economic aspects – is this technology suitable for India?

A majority of GM crops grown around the world are Herbicide Tolerant (HT) GM crops. In countries like the USA where less than 2% of the population lives off farming, it is understandable that the agriculture research system there comes up with technologies like HT GM seeds, even though that would not necessarily make the technology safe or desirable. A 2002 USDA study which sought to look at GM crop adoption by American farmers raises a pertinent question to itself – “perhaps the biggest issue raised by these results is how to explain the rapid adoption of GE crops when financial impacts appear to be mixed or even negative”, it says suggesting that ‘other considerations may be motivating farmers’ [what is now called the “convenience effect”] .

However, in a country like India, the very concept of introducing GM crops poses a big question on the socio-economic implications for the poorest rural families in the country who earn a substantial part of their livelihood through de-weeding activity which this technology seeks to replace. The poorest rural women in India obtain employment through this activity which HT GM crops will surely decimate, in addition to leaving toxic impacts behind through the increased use of agri-chemicals.


It seems incomprehensible that the government first seeks to destroy existing employment potential in Indian farming and on the other hand, seeks to prop up rural employment by pumping in crores of rupees of taxpayers’ funds in the form of NREGS and such other programmes. This is simply not sustainable and we need a vision for farming in India that creates a win-win situation for agricultural workers and bigger farmers, even as proper social security measures are put in place for the workers.

6. Farmers’ rights and researchers’ rights – will they be protected in the face of big corporations like Monsanto and its IPRs?

GE technology goes hand in hand with rigid IPRs – in fact, it is often seen that even without the IPRs being enforced legally, an unstated “business etiquette” around such IPRs secured by big MNCs allows for more and more exclusive and monopolistic use of this technology.

There are at least two unrecorded instances in India where companies like Monsanto used their IPRs to prevent public sector researchers in their breeding programmes and release of varieties to farmers : one is the initial Bt Cotton development effort by Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR) in the late 1990s; another is the effort by UAS-Dharwad to come up with its own Bt Cotton varieties around 2003. While these instances remain anecdotal, the government might want to look into this and draw out lessons.

It is also well-documented by now that Monsanto does not hesitate to sue and jail farmers in the name of “patent infringement”, in order to secure its own markets and profits. Attached is a report from Centre for Food Safety in the USA on this anti-farmer attitude and behaviour of Monsanto. Right now, there are several anti-trust investigations underway in the USA, undertaken by the Department of Justice, about its anti-competitive behaviour. A French documentary on Monsanto and its misdeeds is available in the public domain (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hErvV5YEHkE), which captures the various ways in which this corporation just chased profits

Fernandez-Cornejo, Jorge and McBride, William D., ‘Adoption of Bio-engineered crops’, Agricultural Economic Report No. 810, Economic Research Service, USDA, May 2002


irrespective of anything else. It is shocking that India, on the other hand, officially provides several platforms to this profit-hungry corporation to direct the policies and regulatory frameworks related to agriculture and to constantly expand its monopolistic exclusive markets at the expense of poor, hapless farmers. We urge you to urgently look at ways by which Seed Sovereignty of this country and thereby, food sovereignty, needs to be protected from corporations like Monsanto.

7. Choices for farmers and consumers – will they have any left?

It has to be remembered that the choices for farmers get limited not just through IPR regimes but through market maneuvers of corporations. In the case of cotton in India today, there are no choices left for farmers since non-Bt Cotton seed is not available in the markets. No seed company or public sector corporation is investing in producing non-GM cotton seed. Nearly 80-85% of the seed in the market is controlled indirectly by just one corporation – Monsanto – through its proprietary technology being sub-licensed to Indian companies. If it took only eight years for nearly all non-GM seed varieties to disappear from the market, after the advent of Bt Cotton, one can imagine what lies in store for the farmers in other crops. It has been documented that seed prices are being raised exponentially after the advent of the GM versions in the market and attached is a report on the same from the USA. This does not augur well for the crisis-ridden Indian farmer. A Fact Finding report of the Planning Commission to Vidarbha found that the rural distress in the region was exacerbated by exorbitantly priced seed and once farmers lose their physical stocks of seed, they would be perpetually dependent on corporations like Monsanto and its sub-licensees for supplying seeds at the prices that they choose. It took a large battle from Andhra Pradesh government to bring down the prices of Bt Cotton seed in the country through challenging the royalty charges on the technology. However, in this battle, it became clear that the governments have no legal power or means to control seed pricing. Special ordinances and state level legislations had to be passed by states like Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat to control Bt Cotton seed price. The Minister for Agriculture in your government is meanwhile refusing to include seed price control into regulation in the proposed Seeds Bill.


Farmers’ choices will also be curbed due to the very nature of this technology to contaminate neighboring crops. Those who wish to remain non-GM or even organic will have their crops jeopardized due to the new threat of contamination from others planting GM seeds.

As far as consumers are concerned, their right to safe food and their right to food of their choice will be jeopardized/violated with the entry of GM foods. In a country where the vast majority of food is consumed in open conditions (not packed or packaged), labeling cannot be a real solution for upholding consumers’ right to informed choices.

8. American interference in India – will the USA allow a similar interference by India?

It is very clearly apparent, on records, that the USA which has a huge vested interest in trying to push GMOs into other countries (with India being the most prominent of these battlegrounds) is being allowed to tweak the regulatory systems in India in favor of the industry, in the name of harmonization of guidelines, laws etc. Analysts are pointing out that the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture (KIA) is more about such regulatory interference than bringing about a second green revolution in India. An initiative of this sort should have been debated in the Parliament, given that it has implications for millions of farmers and given that not enough critical investigation has happened into the lessons we should learn from the first Green Revolution. In the case of Bt Brinjal too, regulatory committees are being tilted by pro-GM people who are part of various USAID-supported projects which leaves very little scope for independent assessments.

9. The regulatory regime: should any more approvals come out of this?

The current regulatory regime in India is ridden with various problems. It is shocking that with the existing shortcomings which clearly demonstrate that scientific, pro-people, democratic, transparent and independent decision-making is next to impossible given the current regulatory regime, that India is still continuing to give approvals for open air trials and for various applicants to move from stage to stage with their R&D efforts. Much has been already written and said about the woeful inadequacies of


the regulatory regime in India and why all approvals of GMOs in should be stopped immediately.

10. Now, the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) draft Bill…

While much has been said and articulated about the problems with the current regulatory regime, the proposals to replace it with a Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India are worse. A version of the draft Bill which has apparently been sent to the Cabinet before being tabled in the Parliament is now available in the public domain and the objectionable and unacceptable shape and components being given to the BRAI has evoked much sharp reactions all around. An attachment here talks about what the ideal regulartory regime should be like, in the form of a National Biosafety Protection statute, and the objections around the BRAI proposals.

11. The health and environmental implications of GM foods:

It has to be remembered that very few studies on chronic impacts of GM foods actually exist and this was a big shortcoming in the case of safety assessment of chemical pesticides too – today, many thousands around the world are paying a heavy price for this lack of assessment of chronic adverse effects of such toxins in our environment and food. The same mistake is being committed, knowingly, in the case of GM foods unfortunately.

While the technical implications of this imprecise and random insertion of alien genes creating changes and instability in the host genome which then manifest themselves as health and environmental implications at the organism and eco-system level are documented through various studies, a point that is worth noting is that not enough resources are allotted for generating more scientific findings on such impacts. Much of the research that is taken up on GMOs is taken up by crop developers and in fact, it has come to light recently that research of an independent nature is actively discouraged by placing curbs on access to seed materials. A Nature Biotechnology (October 2009) article says that “it is no secret that the seed industry has the power to shape the information available on


biotech crops…commercial entities and their ownership of the proprietary technology allows them to decide who studies the crop and how”.

There are several instances where independent scientists’ research funding was cut off or where they even lost their jobs soon after they publicized their findings which showed adverse impacts from GMOs. With very little resources flowing into such independent research and where researchers who are reporting adverse findings are intimidated by critics and face repeated and orchestrated attacks (GM crops: Battlefield, Nature, September 2009), it is obvious that generation of more findings of an independent and rigorous nature in itself is a task before proceeding further on this controversial technology. In fact, given the existing evidence, a precautionary principle-based approach is the only way forward.

It should also be remembered that the situation with GM crops is such that apart from the biosafety concerns flowing from the S&T of genetic engineering, issues around trade security, socio-economic implications and farmers’ rights etc., should also form an integral part of impact assessment of the technology.

12. No liability regime right now

India does not have a liability regime right now to make the crop developer liable for any damage including contamination of non-GM crops. Without such a liability regime being in place, no further approvals should be provided on any product to move forward in the pipeline, especially related to deliberate environmental release of GMOs.

13. Lessons from Bt Cotton in India

The Bt Cotton cultivation experience in India over the past eight years has many valuable lessons to teach policy makers, regulators, farmers and consumers of the country, if we choose to pick them up in pursuit of sustainable development objectives. (a) It has been shown time and again that the Bt technology is unpredictable and the very mixed results over years, locations and hybrids are there for everyone to see. In those places where results have been good, deeper analysis points to good seed source (germplasm into which the Bt gene has been backcrossed), good


monsoon years, higher inputs in the form of water and nutrients etc. The technology has failed in many areas which are resource-poor in terms of soils, irrigation as well as farmers’ ability to provide inputs. (b) Pest and disease ecology has changed in cotton in unpredictable ways. Secondary pests are emerging into major pests in several places. (c) Impacts on soil are being observed and reported by farmers and there is increased use of chemical fertilizers; a senior agriculture scientist of India had predicted that with even a 6% expansion of GM crop land in the country, there would be a doubling of chemical fertilizer demand and this brings its own problems including that of public financing of an unsustainable input. (d) Stress intolerance is found to be higher on Bt Cotton than on other non-GM cultivars. This has implications for risks and vulnerabilities of our resource-poor farmers. (e) Bt Cotton has left its impacts on animals which have grazed on the crop residues in different parts of the country including from consumption of Bt Cotton seed cake etc. Animals have either died or fallen sick after consuming Bt Cotton and this phenomenon though acknowledged by some officials, has not been investigated scientifically and systematically by concerned agencies to this day (f) Agricultural workers have also reported allergies after working in Bt Cotton fields and media and NGO reports exist from different states about this phenomenon which is also uninvestigated to this day. (g) On the regulatory front, Bt Cotton has repeatedly showcased the regulatory incapabilities of India, right from the time that illegal proliferation of unapproved Bt Cotton was first noticed in 2001. Regulatory failures were not just on the biosafety front but in terms of monitoring, reviewing, transparent and scientific decision making and so on. (h) State governments also found out through the tough way that there are no legal mechanisms available to them to regulate seed marketing, seed advertising, seed pricing and for liability and redressal for failures.

Bt Cotton has often been cited as the reason for the impressive yield increases in Indian cotton over the past few years. However a careful analysis of various factors, mostly culled out from official records of state governments, shows that other reasons would have contributed to the success of Cotton and without really factoring them in, GM proponents are hyping up the success of Bt Cotton. Attached is a paper published in Economic & Political Weekly on the myth around Bt Cotton and yields of


Cotton in India. It is surprising that no one has boldly asked as yet why such dramatic results have not come out of other countries (including the USA, which continues to heavily subsidise its farming) that have adopted GM crops if what is being touted about Bt Cotton in India is indeed true!

Finally, the recent admission by Monsanto about pink bollworm developing resistance to its first-generation Bt Cotton and urging farmers to adopt Bollgard II which gives it a possibility of raking in more money and the counter statement provided by a public sector body like Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR) questioning the findings even as it is struggling to find markets for its own single-gene Bt Cotton need to be investigated systematically before moving further. A Dharwad agriculture university study also shows that bollworms are able to survive, mate and proliferate on Bt cotton.

14. Real, lasting solutions lie elsewhere – why are we not investing on them and why are we ignoring them?

There is a growing realization worldover, as the debate about the future course of agricultural research and extension as well as the future course of farming itself on this planet has unfolded on several platforms, that GM crops are not the solution for many of the current problems related to food and farming and certainly not for the real problems of the small and marginal holders of developing countries.

An international scientific research process along the lines of the IPCC for Climate Change was initiated in 2003, supported by the World Bank and the UN and came up with its report in 2009. The IAASTD – the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development – which ran between 2003 and 2008, involving over 400 scientists worldwide, was an ambitious attempt to encourage local and global debate on the future of agricultural science and technology. This global team of 400 experts from different fields, including social scientists, went on to challenge the conventional gatekeepers of agricultural knowledge. The process of IAASTD was initiated ‘to assess agricultural knowledge, science and technology in order to use it more effectively to reduce hunger and poverty, improve rural livelihoods, and facilitate equitable, environmentally, socially and economically sustainable


development’. The IAASTD report was endorsed by 58 governments including India. This report represents the work of the largest research effort to date on the history and future of modern agriculture. IAASTD endorsed a renewed emphasis on technologies that have proven track records for improving yield, reducing external inputs into agro-ecosystems, preventing the conversion of more land for agriculture and helping agriculture to improve the lives of poor and subsistence farmers.

The final report of the IAASTD concluded that the business-as-usual model of prevailing industrial agriculture cannot meet the food needs of the 9 billion who are expected to inhabit Planet Earth within a few decades. In particular the IAASTD report emphasised that food security requires a multi-functional approach to agriculture and ownership structures -- particularly protecting local knowledge systems that have been passed on from one generation to the other over millennia.

The main messages of IAASTD include:

• alternative production systems, notably those based on agro-ecological methods, can be competitive with or superior to conventional and genetic-engineering-based methods of productivity;

• these alternative methods, moreover, not only lower the environmental impacts of agriculture, they may reverse past damage;

• an emphasis on farmer-initiated and conducted innovation, research and manipulation of biotechnologies is a proven method for achieving higher levels of food security and has collateral benefits of building social capacity, community independence and ongoing local research and knowledge sharing;

• to capture the benefits of alternative production systems, the world must readdress the imbalance in funding between genetic engineering and agro-ecological research, must establish workable policies for farmer participation and agree to eliminate developed country subsidies for agriculture intended for export.

These approaches are also ones which will contribute to mitigation as well as adaptation in the era of climate change, as opposed to intensive agriculture models.


It is time that India, which has more stake in conserving and improving its agriculture than most other countries given the rich heritage of farming in this country and given that millions of lives are directly dependent on agriculture, re-looked at its misplaced emphasis on transgenics and promoted farmer-centric agro-ecological models of farming.

We urge you, in the light of all the above arguments which clearly point out the many adverse implications of transgenics and question the very need for this technology in our farming, to put a complete stop on all open air, deliberate releases of GMOs in our food and farming, a ban on import of any GM foods into the country and a complete re-hauling of our vision for Indian farming in the pursuit of sustainable development for all Indians.


12. Seeds Bill- Main Issues from Farmer’s Perspective

Seeds Bill- Main Issues from Farmer’s Perspective


The Seed Bill 2004 is a pending before the Indian parliament. This bill seeks to regulate the quality of seeds sold commercially in India – i.e. sold under brand names for profit. This bill was brought into being because of the changing face of the Indian seed industry with many seed companies and technologies entering Indian agriculture like GMOs and hybrids -already some crops like cotton, maize and sunflower are totally controlled by very few companies. The bill aims amongother things to ensure that Indian farmers receive quality seeds from companies and commercial seed sellers.

On the face of things this bill might seem like it is really great for farmers as it seeks to save them from spurious seeds, however in reality the bill lacks teeth and is letting companies off the hook as there is no control on seed prices –which is the other major issue besides quality when it comes to company seeds. Also in case company seeds fail to perform then the act asks farmers to approach Consumer courts –this is a weak and unfeasible provision. There is no provision to control huge company royalties – letting seed companies have one of the highest profit margins compared to any other industry. State governments as well do not have powers to regulate these companies in their states due to the current weakness of the laws. In AP for example, the state government has been taken to court various times by seed companies on charges of harassment when the state government tried to regulate exorbitant prices, royalties and seed failures to protect their farmers.


The Seeds Bill is an important proposed legislation to regulate seed companies, however without price controls of commercial seed varieties, this bill is pointless.

Very Basic Features of the bill:

• Central seed committee (CSC): A CSC will be set up in Delhi and State seed committees will be set up in the states to implement this bill.

• Registration: There will be compulsory registration of kinds or varieties of seeds. Farmers are exempted from registering and farmers can exchange, replant seeds. Also has a provision that no transgenic variety of seed would be registered unless cleared under the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act

• Seed Analysis and Seed Testing: Central and State Seed testing laboratories will be set up to test the seeds. Foreign certification labs are also allowed if approved by the Indian government.

• Import and Export of seeds: All imported seeds have to be registered. Imported seeds will be cleared based on results of trials conducted in foreign seed testing agencies.

• Penalties: Financial and jail sentence penalties are included. They were 30,000 RS for selling fake, spurious and sub standard seeds. These have been increased after lobbying by MPs and civil society to 5 lakh and one year in jail.

• Compensation: Farmers will be compensated if the seeds are fake, fail, poor quality.

MAIN ISSUES AND FARMERS DEMANDS:-

• Price control and regulation should be with state government: The Seed Bill 2010 does not propose any price controls. Farmers must be able to purchase seed at an affordable price. This is very important since the output price (or the procurement price) is fixed by the government, and often do not take into consideration the prevailing market price for seed. The procurement price therefore does not reflect the true cost of seed. At present, companies are charging prices at will and that too


without any rationale. Tomato seed price for instance varies between Rs 475 to Rs 76,000 per kg, and Capsicum seed price between Rs 3,670 to Rs 65,200 a kg. More recently, seed companies have taken the Andhra Pradesh government to the High Court challenging its decision to regulate prices and royalty. Therefore, the function of the Seed Committee under the Seed Bill must include power to decide on price and price controls (including royalties). Since some seeds are already being removed from the Essential Commodities Act, it is even more essential that the state have the power to fix prices.

• Penalties proposed should be much stronger: Since the penalties have been mild, the Government has failed to check the menace of fake, and sub-standard seeds. Providing a maximum fine of Rs 30,000 for selling seeds not conforming to the laid-out standards is simply not enough. The cabinet has now approved to increase penalty to one year and Rs. 5 lakh on 20th Oct 2010 “misrepresentation/ or suppression of facts, procedural violation or non-performance of the seeds “without intention”.

• State governments should have power to license: While seeds may be registered with the National Register of Seeds, it is imperative that State Governments must be given the authority to decide on which of these registered seeds can be licensed to be used in their State, Clause 12 should be amended accordingly.

• Compensation and Compensation Committee: According to the bill farmers have to approach the consumer protection act for compensation – this is hardly possible for a poor farmer with no legal knowledge or resources. The proposed amendments by Sharad Pawar do ask for the creation of a compensation committee but we demand that localized committee should be appointed by the state government in a manner which is easily approachable by the farmer and so that he can receive quick and reasonable compensation within a time frame of 60 days. Therefore Section 20 of the Clause 2 should be amended accordingly.

Also compensation must include the cost of the expected gains from the seeds that the farmer had planted and not just the cost incurred by the farmer.


• Import of seeds: We should not accept the tests by any foreign certification agencies. The imported seeds should be tested on Indian soil and also produced on Indian soil. The imported seeds should not only match up to the environemntal standards of India but also live up to the claims of performance. e.g. if companies claim that yields will increase then they have to prove so on Indian soil itself before registering and selling.


13. Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill (BRAI BILL)


Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill (BRAI BILL)

The BRAI bill aims to set up the BRAI – a government body that will give fast track clearance to GMOs.

Here are some of the problems with this bill:

• Regulator acting as promoter! This bill accepts that GMOs are okay. There is no space for debate whether GMOS are needed or not needed in India. BRAI will take decision making on GMOs away from the ministry of environment and forests and pass it on to the Ministry of Science and Technology, a ministry which has been promoting biotechnology and has no concern for human and environmental heath or social consequences. There is a strong body of evidence on the health, environmental and socio economic impacts of genetically modified crops. We need a regulation to ensure biosafety and not to blindly promote the use of modern biotechnology. Real solutions for today’s agricultural problems are in ecological farming and a fair economic system and not in GM crops.

• Conflict of interest : BRAI sits inside the Ministry of Science and technology creating serious conflict of interest. Dept of Biotechnology – under the Ministry of Science &Technology, has the mandate of promotion of GE crops. DBT funds several GE crop development projects using public funds and is the nodal agency for redirecting funds from foreign governments to GE crop development projects.


• No proper scientific testing needed: The BRAI says nothing about longterm independent assessments of GM crops. When there is already a huge body of scientific evidence that GM crops can be very dangerous to health and the enthronement, it is even more important that the government take a precautionary approach and carry out serious long term independent studies before even thinking of approval. On the contrary BRAI allows even non accredited labs to submit bio-safety assessments, which means that companies that want to benefit from the approval of their GM crop, can easily carry out their own assessments, through any laboratory and then submit to the government for approval.

• Undemocratic body: The bill proposes a centralized, technocratic decision making authority with no scope for democratic intervention. The apex authority is the BRAI with a chairperson and two members, all scientists with either a biotech or a health background – no one from environment or agriculture background.

• Sections of the bill super cede the Right to Information Act and place the decision to disclose information for public interest with the BRAI instead of the Central Information Commission or the Delhi high court as required by the RTI act 2005. This means that only if BRAI thinks it appropriate will information be given to the public. This would kill any informed public debate on GE crops in future, as citizens would not even be able to use the RTI to get information! A democratic debate was one of the main reasons that helped in stopping Bt Brinjal in India in 2011.

• Unconstitutional: BRAI gives no role to state governments in the approval of GM crops even though agriculture is a state subject under the Indian constitution. The bill states that the center should become the supreme authority on GMOs so that it can fast track clearances “in public interest”. This is rather ironic, that the public has no role to play to decide what is in its own interest!

• Socio economic assessments missing: Socio economic studies for assessing GM crops are not part of the existing regulations. They don’t find any mention in the new one either. Given that GM crops comes with patent tags and have been found to further corporate control on


agriculture this will have a serious impact on a country like India where the majority is dependent on the farming sector.

• BRAI kills consumer choice and promotes GE polluters as it has no provision for labeling of GE crops, and there is no liability to the crop developer if there are any economic losses caused to farmers due to GM contamination of their crops.

Demands of the Indian Coordination committee of Farmers Movements:-

• We need a Bill that will protect our health and environment and that is what the Indian Environmental Protection Act 1989 Rules promise - not just changes in biotech regulatory authority. The primary purpose of the bill itself should be questioned.

• We need a different regulatory process to approve GMOs, which is more democratic and not just scientific. The approval process must remain with the ministry of environment and forests.

• Consultations with the public- farmers groups, consumers, health and environment experts etc must be mandatory.

• Independent evaluation must be done and not evaluation by biotech companies themselves.

• Process should be transparent. Information should be provided to public. In its current form certain info will be given under RTI only if the BRAI authority thinks it is necessary.


14. What is La Via Campesina?

Unity among peasants, landless, women farmers and rural youth

La Via Campesina is a spanish term for “the peasants way”. It is the global movement which brings together millions of peasants, small and medium-size farmers, landless people, women farmers, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers from around the world. It defends small-scale sustainable agriculture as a way to promote social justice and dignity. It strongly opposes corporate driven agriculture and transnational companies that are destroying people and nature.

La Via Campesina comprises about 150 local and national organizations in 70 countries from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Altogether, it represents about 200 million farmers. It is an autonomous, pluralist and multicultural movement, independent from any political, economic or other type of affiliation.

In India, the members of La Via Campesina are Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU), Tamila Vyavasaigal Sangam (TVS), Kerela Coconut Farmers Association. SICCFM (South Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers movements) which has some other movements as members such as Adiva Gotra Mahasabha of Kerela are also closely associated with LVC in India. The network of the Indian farmers movements that are part of LVC in India is called Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements (ICCFM).


A movement born in 1993

A group of farmers’ representatives – women and men- from the four continents founded La Via Campesina in 1993 in Mons, Belgium. At that time, agricultural policies and the agribusiness companies were becoming globalized and taking over global agriculture, markets, and all other resources – land, seeds, water. Small farmers needed to develop and struggle for a common vision. Small-scale farmers’ organizations also wanted to have their voice heard and to participate directly in the global and national decisions that were affecting their lives. The aim of LVC was to unite all the different national and local farmers’ movements into one strong voice at the global level, to challenge international level neo-liberal economic policies that were directly impacting national level policies across the world.

La Via Campesina is now recognized as a main actor in the food and agricultural debates. It is heard by institutions such as the FAO and the UN Human Rights Council, and is also broadly recognized among other social movements from local to global level.

Golbalizing hope, globalizing the struggle!

La Via Campesina is built on a strong sense of unity and solidarity between small and medium-scale agricultural producers from the North and South. The main goal of the movement is to realize food sovereignty and stop the destructive neo-liberal process. It is based on the conviction that small farmers, including peasant fisher-folk, pastoralists and indigenous people, who make up almost half the world’s people, are capable of producing food for their communities and feeding the world in a sustainable and healthy way.

Women play a crucial role in the Via Campesina work. According to the FAO, women produce 70% of the food on earth but they are marginalized and oppressed by neo-liberalism and patriarchy. The movement defends women rights and gender equality at all levels. It struggles against all forms of violence against women.


Defending Food Sovereignty

Via Campesina launched the idea of “Food Sovereignty” at the World Food Summit in 1996. This idea has now grown into a global people’s movement carried by a large diversity of social sectors such as the urban poor, environmental and consumer groups, women associations, fisher-folks, pastoralists and many others. It is also recognized by several institutions and governments.

Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through sustainable methods and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It develops a model of small scale sustainable production benefiting communities and their environment. It puts the aspirations, needs and livelihoods of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.

Food sovereignty prioritizes local food production and consumption. It gives a country the right to protect its local producers from cheap imports and to control production. It ensures that the rights on lands, territories, water, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those who produce food and not with the corporate sector. Therefore the implementation of genuine agrarian reform is one of the top priorities of the farmer’s movement.

Food sovereignty now appears as one of the most powerful response to the current food, poverty and climate crises.

A decentralized structure

Via Campesina is a grassroots mass movement whose vitality and legitimacy comes from farmers’ organizations at local and national level.

The movement is based on the decentralization of power between 9 regions of the world. The coordination among the regions is taken up by the International Coordinating Committee which is composed of one woman and one man for every region, elected by the member organizations in the respective regions. The international secretariat rotates according


to the collective decision made every four years by the International Conference. It was first in Belgium (1993-1996), then in Honduras (1997-2004) and it is currently based in Indonesia until 2013.

The movement is funded by the contributions of its members, by private donations and by the financial support of some NGOs, foundations and local and national authorities.

Join the action! We mobilize on major global trade summits, climate change summits, food related summits to push our position to protect small farmers and food. Some important dates are: 8 March: International Women Day -La Via Campesina joins women movements and social movements from around the world to demand equal rights for women.

17 April: International Day of Peasant’s struggle- Hundreds of direct actions, cultural activities, conferences, film screenings, community debates and rallies are organized by a wide variety of groups, communities or organizations.

10 September: International Struggle Day against the WTO- Commemoration of the sacrifice of Mr. Lee Kun Hae, a Korean farmer who stabbed himself to death during a mass protest against the WTO in Cancun, Mexico in 2003. He was holding a banner saying “WTO Kills Farmers”

Visit our website: www.viacampesina.org

Visit the south Asian La Via Campesina blog at: http://lvcsouthasia.blogspot.com/

2013 farmers handbook: food and agricultural politics in india

Documents

food seeds

nutritious food

food security

appropriate food

unhealthy food

principles of food sovereignty

term food sovereignty

local farmers