The Farce of GM Food Economics

We live in a bizarre world, where those out to make a quick profit on the back of dying farmers sponsor global prizes that they award to themselves in the hope of what?  Pacifying their conscience? Eye-washing the consumer society?

Monsanto, Syngenta (better known for the neonicotinoid insecticides responsible behind the recent drop in bee population worldwide) and other GM seed companies has been awarded the World Food Prize for their contribution in feeding the world!  What a joke!

The news coming out form independent research is being stifled in order to protect these companies commercial interest.  World wide, the Bt gene introduced in a variety of crops (in India: Bt bringal, Bt tomato, Bt corn, Bt cotton) is giving rise to an evolution in insects resistant to the gene, effectively creating a time-bomb waiting to explode.  The frightening face of GM crops is that it was created to resist herbicides, allowing farmers to use stronger more potent herbicides that the crop could resist and other herbs killed off.  Use of herbicides have increased compared to non-GM crops, and these have been harsher and more poisonous.  The use of GM crop has had the effect of increasing the pollution in the land and waterways.

The rise of resistance to Bt genes among insects means that farmers will now revert to using chemical insecticides, and since our legislators and politicians have handed over the control of our agriculture to these GM companies, traditional seeds have been removed from the market in order to monopolise it.  We are left with an agriculture that is immensely worse off than 2o years ago.

What a miracle!  And these geniuses have the audacity to sponsor the World Food Prize in order to award it to themselves. 

Putting a spin on Cotton

Hand picked cotton from India fed the English Industrial revolution... at what cost?

Microsping start-up is all geared to introduce a micro-revolution in the cotton industry.  In order to understand why, we need to go back a in time in order to set the tone...

It is 1740, India is under the grip of the East India Company.  To tap into the economic potential of their Jewel in the Crown, rail-roads, bridges, canals and ports are developed in order to facilitate the transport of raw Cotton from India's hinterland to the ports on the west coast.  The systematic plunder of the country leads to to the great famine of 1770.  Towards the turn of the century, British textile mills are now so mechanised that in order to feed this mammoth industry, American cotton (cheaper and of better quality) is imported.  In order to ship cotton, it has to be packed into bales, a manual process in India that requires over 600 man-hours per bale.  The cotton export in India slows down, unable to compete with the Americans.  The American civil-war quickly turns the tables as blockades of southern American ports by the confederates stops the supply of the raw material to the English mills.  For a while the English industry turn to Egyptian cotton, eventually leading to that nation's bankruptcy.

In the mean time, India's cotton production had vastly improved and much effort was put in by the colonial rulers to reduce the price of export to a minimum with mechanised baling.  The situation was aptly summarised by Gandhi,

1. English people buy Indian cotton in the field, picked by Indian labor at seven cents a day, through an optional monopoly.
2. This cotton is shipped on British ships, a three-week journey across the Indian Ocean, down the Red Sea, across the Mediterranean, through Gibraltar, across the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic Ocean to London. One hundred per cent profit on this freight is regarded as small.
3. The cotton is turned into cloth in Lancashire. You pay shilling wages instead of Indian pennies to your workers. The English worker not only has the advantage of better wages, but the steel companies of England get the profit of building the factories and machines. Wages; profits; all these are spent in England.
4. The finished product is sent back to India at European shipping rates, once again on British ships. The captains, officers, sailors of these ships, whose wages must be paid, are English. The only Indians who profit are a few lascars who do the dirty work on the boats for a few cents a day.
5. The cloth is finally sold back to the kings and landlords of India who got the money to buy this expensive cloth out of the poor peasants of India who worked at seven cents a day. (Fisher 1932 pp 154–156)

 This further ruined the country, leaving its footprint and consequences long after the English masters had departed.

The legacy

Cotton trucked to baling factories

Today, Indian cotton industry relies on the legacy of its British masters.   The commercial cotton industry has not evolved for lack of leadership and innovation.  Cotton is trucked to a baling facility (an energy intensive process), the bales are carried to cotton mills that unpack the bales (another energy intensive process) and finally spun and weaved into yarn.  Bales where introduced specifically to address shipping issues to English mills.  So why do we still bale cotton when spinning and weaving is relative stone throw from the cotton fields?

Spinning a new era

Enters Microspin, a small Chennai based start-up company that is turning the industry on its head.  The concept behind Microspin's business model is simplicity and efficiency.  Get rid of the baling process!  Spin the cotton next to where its grown by introducing micro-spin setups using electronic controls to lower the energy cost and render the process more efficient.  Not only does the model makes perfect sense in light of the history of cotton farming in India, but the greatest contribution is the value addition the farmers can leverage with this set up, allowing them to sell spun cotton at a higher cost than the raw material.

Chennai Organic farm, Nalla Keerai, sprouting wings

Ladies-fingers/Okra/Bindi/Pottu

As we reported sometime back about a new organic farm in the outskirts of Chennai, Nalla Keerai (good greens/spinach in Tamil) is now ready to spread the love of their efforts to Chennai residents.  They are calling for suggestions for a list of 10 parks within Chennai to which they will deliver early morning fresh organic keerai for customers to buy.  So to your keyboards and send your suggestions if you love organic greens.  You can vote for your park either through their email (NallaKeerai at gmail.com) or via their Facebook page.

Red Ladies-fingers/Okra/Bindi/Pottu look lovely

Love & consciousness are important ingredients, fertile soil is contained in small cultivable patches

Jagannathan, organic farmer with a passion

Some wonderful Keerai

Greens are not always green!

Optimising your compost pile

A great little post from Root Simple, a blog dedicated to DIY farming at home, on how to manage the optimal compost pile.  It's all to do with temperature and the post really highlights the simplicity of it.  A great insight for all those into home gardening and roof farming.

Optimal temperature for a compost pile should be kept between 55 C (131 F) and 73 C (163 F) the red bands above.  When the temperature dips below this, it should be turned over.  Furthermore, from the post,

• You can make sure that the pile does not get too hot. Above 71 C (160° F)  you start to kill off the thermophilic bacteria that decompose your pile. To decrease temperature you turn and add more carbon material and water.
• Washington State University recommends subjecting all of the pile to temperatures above 65 C (150° F) to kill potential pathogens. I’m fairly certain that, with the turn I did at day 14, all of the pile got up to 65C (150°F).
• Weed seeds are killed above 55 C (130°F)–another reason to watch temperature.
• Failing to get high temperatures can be an indication of too much carbon or a lack of water. To correct, add more nitrogen and water and turn.
• A loss of temperature could indicate that the pile is going anaerobic. The solution is to add more carbon material and turn.

New discoveries from Chernobyl disaster

An article in The Hindu paper reports on an amazing research done of soya beans farmed within the vicinity of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.  Although the consequences from the radioactive fall out from the damaged reactor have been gruesome, ongoing studies on nature's adaptation to the unique environment on earth reveals that plants have adopted unique mechanisms to repair and retain its genetic make up.  The article points out to studies of soya beans and how the plant concentrates radioactive metals found in the soil into its shoots, leaving the beans (in this case the seeds of the plant) with relatively lower levels of damaging radioactive material.  In effect the plant shields its seeds' genetic heritage from stored exposure of radiation therefore allowing the seed to preserve the genetic make of the plant and the next generation a fighting chance to retain the original make-up of the species.  The scientist are at a loss as to what are the mechanisms operating this miracle.  It shows that Nature is a lot more intelligent than we previously thought.

It will be interesting to see our level of awareness in a few generation when further analysis of affected nature from the Fukushima disaster in Japan reveal its secrets.  I can foresee interesting applications from such studies in the search for adapting plants for growing food in similar hostile conditions such as in outer space, the surface of the moon and possibly other planets where shielding from the solar radiation is not as effective as the magnetic field of the earth.

The Farm Mela @ Chennai

The Farm is a multi-acre farm located among the new office jungle of the Chennai IT corridor.  It set off to offer family-fun experiences based on farm activities.  They do a brunch on w.e. and this coming w.e. (18th and 19th August) they are promoting a Mela for local artisans to promote their wares.  Do come and visit, the Farm is counting on this kind of activity to promote its offer and allow it to sustain its existence.  There is tremendous pressure from land developers to sell the farm and make way for more office buildings.

A new organic farmer in Chennai!

We were pleasantly surprised to see the news of a new local organic farmer in Chennai.  Nalla Keerai (Good Greens or Good Spinach) was started by s group of IT professionals wanting to make a difference for the plight of farmers who see their cost rise and their income drop.  Applying their minds to the problem, they have stepped forward to set up a model farm with practices that optimize cost and cut out the expenses of chemical pesticides and fertilizers.  Furthermore, they are experimenting with local vegetables and for now attempting to grow green leaves such as spinach.

They have 20 varieties of spinach being sold at 15 Rs a bunch.

A yield class from Tel Aviv

drip irrigation of tomato crop

A small article in the Hindu this Sunday points to the small contingent of 2000 farmers from India that have attended the recently held 18th International Agricultural Exhibition help in Tel Aviv, Israel. Of these 2000, 600 each from Maharastra and Gujarath were sent there on government sponsored programs. A small but intrepid group of 40 farmers from Tamil Nadu attended, but they had to shell out the 1 lakh plus expenses to attend from their own pockets. The exhibition central theme was awareness of thrifty use of water resources.

The Tamil contingent let by organic farmer Mr. Thooran pointed out the importance of the lessons learnt and the need for government to support farmers whole heartedly as agriculture is the base of human development.

 The Israelis are famous for their prowess at turning desets into oasis of agriculture miracle. We should by now realise that our governement is incapable of forming comprehensive policies that provide integral support to farmers aspiring to make a difference, therefore it is important to secure, as pointed out by the author of the article, private co-operatives that create the frameworks that can enable small farmers to leverage this kind of knowledge and better market their produce.

The International Agriculture Exhibition is held every three years, lets hope that we can see more farmers from South India in 2015.

Indian farmers adapting to Climate change

An interesting article in the Times of India about various reports of farmers adapting to the realities of the climate vagaries in different parts of the country.
Bihar, in northern India, has seen its fare share of floods in the last decade, and as a result of fields being submerged in water, farmers have adopted to grow a plant that adapts very well to these condition, makhana or fox nut of the water lily family which produces white seeds that can be eater raw or cooked.  The makhana plant is easily recognisable by its unique leaf as show below.  Mahkana farming is a flourishing business today.  There has also been an interesting social change as a result, previously the growing of the makhana plant was only done by communities of low caste people who grew the plant in fish ponds.  The upper caste farmers deemed it below their dignity.

Bihar floods in 2007

Makhana leaf

Another story from Rajasthan where according to the TOI article ice was seen to form in the Jaisalmer report (but this is unconfirmed as I could find no other sources mentioning this story... maybe the TOI reporter has been out in the hot sun a little too long).  There desert state has been having erratic and scattered rains, a new phenomena, which has adversely affected the traditional species of herbs and grass plants.  As a result, animal husbandry has taken a toll.  However, the farmers have been switching to mixed cropping in order to compensate for their losses, and as a result, a sweet local variety of melon, the matira, rich in water content and producing delicate seeds used for making sweets has become very popular as it requires little irrigation.

Organic Farming & Sustainable Future

I recently read a very interesting article on “Organic Farming in India: Relevance, Problems and Constraints”. This is fairly dated and old about 7 years old yet most of the points mentioned in this paper are still valid and pertinent.

Here is the link to the document http://www.nabard.org/fileupload/databank/occasionalpapers/oc%2038.pdf

The document is about 95 pages long, but every bit of it is eminently readable.

Most of the “Certified” organic produce from India is exported at a very attractive price for the farmer. But a sad reflection of our Farming industry in India is that due to high input cost of Conventional farming (with Chemical fertilizer / pesticide), majority of our farmers are “By-default Organic”. However, for the only reason that they are not able to afford the certification fees, they are missing out on the bonanza they may get on the price front.  

There are various solutions to this problem and one of the solutions is a community based certification. However, since there is a big price advantage, very soon compulsions of politics, bribery and favouritism can kill the credibility of the initiative. Therefore this may be at best a limited time solution and the long term solution would be a less painful and more robust certification mechanism that is affordable / reachable by all farmers.

On a positive note, we are awakening to the fact that India was the pioneer in Sustainable farming practices. It is just a matter of time before India gets back her past pride.

Farming fish in paddy fields!

I found this article some time back about intercropping in an original way.  Apparently there is a tradition in some Chinese rice growing regions to farm fish in flooded paddy fields.  The interesting part about this article is the report on the scientific research that was done to study the advantages to both rice and fish farming when compared to monoculture.  The results are stupendous.  It is one thing to have some cool innovation, but when the innovation renders such incredible results, the world ought to sit up and pay attention.

If you think fish in a pond you think insects being gobbled up from the water surface and you think lots of pooh-pooh at the bottom of the pond.  Well in the case of rice paddy this is good news.  The fish swim and bump into the rice stems which causes insect to drop in the water... insects that would otherwise eat the rice.  The fish waste product fertilises the rice.  the research showed that when compared to commercial rice cultivation, the intercrop rice needed a whopping 70% less pesticides and 30% less fertiliser to produce the same yield.  In case of organic rice, yield in intercrop paddy where higher than the monoculture equivalent.  As for the fish, the extra shade provided by all the rice stalks made for a cooler environment which was beneficial  to the growth of the fish during the hot season.   For more info on the scientific report, read here.

What an Idea I say!!