Green Revolution a failure: Prince Charles

Malayala Manorama Indian Newspaper of Malayalam Language from eight places in Kerela

Green Revolution a failure: Prince Charles

London: Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, said in remarks published Wednesday that the Green Revolution in India only worked for a “short time” and is now leading to “disasters”.

Charles, a keen environmentalist and campaigner against genetically modified agriculture, made the controversial claim about India in a newspaper interview where he described GM technology as “the biggest disaster, environmentally, of all time”.

“Look at India's Green Revolution. It worked for a short time but now the price is being paid,” Charles told the Daily Telegraph in remarks that were set to be opposed by agricultural scientists.

“I have been to the Punjab where you have seen the disasters that have taken place as a result of the over-demand on irrigation because of the hybrid seeds and grains that have been produced which demand huge amounts of water.

“The water table has disappeared. They have huge problems with water level, with pesticides, and complications are now coming home to roost,” Charles said.

The Daily Telegraph said Charles is headed for “the biggest outpouring of criticism from scientists since he accused genetic engineers of taking us into 'realms that belong to God and God alone' in 1998.”

His example of India will be particularly contested as the Green Revolution is widely thought to have helped put independent India on the course to food self-sufficiency after suffering a series of famines under the British Raj.

In his remarks, Charles also said he had been to Western Australia where he had seen “huge salination problems” arising from “excessive approaches to modern forms of agriculture”.

Gmail - An Introduction to Biodynamic Agriculture - jacobthanni@gmail.com

An Introduction to Biodynamic Agriculture

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An Introduction to Biodynamic Agriculture
Based on "An Introduction To Biodynamic Agriculture",

Originally published in Stella Natura.

What is Biodynamic agriculture? In seeking an answer let us pose the further question: Can the Earth heal itself, or has the waning of the Earths vitality gone too far for this? No matter where our land is located, if we are observant we will see sure signs of illness in trees, in our cultivated plants, in the water, even in the weather.

Organic agriculture rightly wants to halt the devastation caused by humans; however, organic agriculture has no cure for the ailing Earth. From this the following question arises: What was the original source of vitality, and is it available now?

Biodynamics is a science of life-forces, a recognition of the basic principles at work in nature, and an approach to agriculture which takes these principles into account to bring about balance and healing. In a very real way, then, Biodynamics is an ongoing path of knowledge rather than an assemblage of methods and techniques.

Biodynamics is part of the work of Rudolf Steiner, known as anthroposophy - a new approach to science which integrates precise observation of natural phenomena, clear thinking, and knowledge of the spirit. It offers an account of the spiritual history of the Earth as a living being, and describes the evolution of the constitution of humanity and the kingdoms of nature. Some of the basic principles of Biodynamics are:

Broaden Our Perspective

Just as we need to look at the magnetic field of the whole earth to comprehend the compass, to understand plant life we must expand our view to include all that affects plant growth. No narrow microscopic view will suffice. Plants are utterly open to and formed by influences from the depths of the earth to the heights of the heavens. Therefore our considerations in agriculture must range more broadly than is generally assumed to be relevant.

Reading the Book of Nature

Everything in nature reveals something of its essential character in its form and gesture. Careful observations of nature - in shade and full sun, in wet and dry areas, on different soils, will yield a more fluid grasp of the elements. So eventually one learns to read the language of nature. And then one can be creative, bringing new emphasis and balance through specific actions.

Practitioners and experimenters over the last seventy years have added tremendously to the body of knowledge of Biodynamics.

Cosmic Rhythms

The light of the sun, moon, planets and stars reaches the plants in regular rhythms. Each contributes to the life, growth and form of the plant. By understanding the gesture and effect of each rhythm, we can time our ground preparation, sowing, cultivating and harvesting to the advantage of the crops we are raising. The Stella Natura calendar offers an introduction to this study.

The Life of the Soil

Biodynamics recognizes that soil itself is alive, and this vitality supports and affects the quality and health of the plants that grow in it. Therefore, one of Biodynamics fundamental efforts is to build up stable humus in our soil through composting.

A New View of Nutrition

We gain our physical strength from the process of breaking down the food we eat. The more vital our food, the more it stimulates our own activity. Thus, Biodynamic farmers and gardeners aim for quality, and not only quantity.

Chemical agriculture has developed short-cuts to quantity by adding soluble minerals to the soil. The plants take these up via water, thus by-passing their natural ability to seek from the soil what is needed for health, vitality and growth. The result is a deadened soil and artificially stimulated growth.

Biodynamics grows food with a strong connection to a healthy, living soil.

Medicine for the Earth: Biodynamic Preparations

Rudolf Steiner pointed out that a new science of cosmic influences would have to replace old, instinctive wisdom and superstition. Out of his own insight, he introduced what are known as biodynamic preparations.

Naturally occurring plant and animal materials are combined in specific recipes in certain seasons of the year and then placed in compost piles. These preparations bear concentrated forces within them and are used to organize the chaotic elements within the compost piles. When the process is complete, the resulting preparations are medicines for the Earth which draw new life forces from the cosmos.

Two of the preparations are used directly in the field, one on the earth before planting, to stimulate soil life, and one on the leaves of growing plants to enhance their capacity to receive the light. Effects of the preparations have been verified scientifically.

The Farm as the Basic Unit of Agriculture

In his Agriculture course, Rudolf Steiner posed the ideal of the self-contained farm - that there should be just the right number of animals to provide manure for fertility, and these animals should, in turn, be fed from the farm.

We can seek the essential gesture of such a farm also under other circumstances. It has to do with the preservation and recycling of the life-forces with which we are working. Vegetable waste, manure, leaves, food scraps, all contain precious vitality which can be held and put to use for building up the soil if they are handled wisely. Thus, composting is a key activity in Biodynamic work.

The farm is also a teacher, and provides the educational opportunity to imitate natures wise self-sufficiency within a limited area. Some have also successfully created farms through the association of several parcels of non-contiguous land.

Economics Based on Knowledge of the Job

Steiner emphasized the absurdity of agricultural economics determined by people who have never actually raised crops or managed a farm.

A new approach to this situation has been developed which brings about the association of producers and consumers for their mutual benefit. The Community Supported Agriculture movement was born in the Biodynamic movement and is spreading rapidly. Gardens or farms gather around them a circle of supporters who agree in advance to meet the financial needs of the enterprise and its workers, and these supporters each receive a share of the produce as the season progresses. Thus consumers become connected with the real needs of the Earth, the farm and the Community; they rejoice in rich harvests, and remain faithful under adverse circumstances.

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Gmail - Taking Control of the World's Food Production - jacobthanni@gmail.com
Taking Control of the World's Food Production

By Kristin Palitza
Inter Press Service

DURBAN, (IPS) - Baphethile Mntambo has been farming organically for years because she knows that avoiding chemicals will in the long-term benefit her yield. She decided not to plant genetically modified seeds because she has heard that they cannot be saved for the next season and will eventually deplete her soil.

Mntambo is one of 50 small-scale farmers in the Valley of a Thousand Hills in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province who have been taught how to farm organically by the non-governmental organisation Valley Trust. The farmers learn to plant seasonal crops that will provide their families both with food security and an opportunity to generate income by selling their produce at local markets.

"We decided to promote organic farming to create sustainability for small-scale farmers. We believe it is the only way to give them food sovereignty and stability," explains Valley Trust food security facilitator Nhlanhla Vezi.

The Valley Trust used to cooperate with the Department of Agriculture, according to Vezi, but the collaboration ceased when the department started to put pressure on small-scale farmers to form cooperatives if they wanted its support. "The Department makes very attractive offers to provide farming equipment, water piping and seeds, but then uses this as a strategy to push GMO because of agreements they have signed with multinational GM seed patent holders," says Vezi.

Rural farmers are often lured into planting GM seeds by the Department of Agriculture by promises of substantial bank loans and the prospect of huge earnings, agrees Lesley Liddell, director of Biowatch, an NGO promoting alternatives to GMO farming by encouraging farmers to inter-crop, use natural fertilisers and non-chemical crops. "But in the end, most farmers end up in huge debt, because they can't save seeds and are obliged to buy the matching GM fertilisers and pesticides."

Yet, small-scale farmers are often so desperate for financial support that they consider planting GMO crops against better knowledge if they are offered the seeds for free. "I know that GMO is not good in the long run, but if someone gave me these seeds I would still plant them," says Tholani Bhengu, another small-scale farmer who works with the Valley Trust. "For me, the most important thing is to bring food on the table every week. I can't afford to think now about what will happen next year."

Because small-scale farmers in rural Africa often have little or no formal education, they are generally unable to make informed choices around GMO farming. "We encourage them to attend portfolio committees that discuss GMO regulations, but the farmers' knowledge is very limited, so it's difficult for them to contribute. They understand the issues but not the legislation," says Liddell.

South Africa is the only country within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to grow GM cash crops -- maize, cotton and soya -- commercially. Since 1997, GMO farming is regulated by the Genetically Modified Organisms Act.

"The adoption of GM crops in SA has increased over the last ten years and this has also filtered down to small-scale farmers," confirms Priscilla Sehoole, chief communications officer of the national Department of Agriculture.

"As with any other technology, there are potential risks associated with GMO technology and these include those related to human and animal health and also the environment," she admits. "Therefore, the regulation of all activities involving GMOs is subjected to a scientific safety assessment process that evaluates the potential risks."

Seehole says the South African Department of Agriculture would like to harmonise GMO policies across SADC to "eliminate some of the technical barriers that (currently) hinder trade in the region."

But anti-GMO activists, such as the African Centre for Biosafety, are opposed to this approach. "The GM industry is pushing for harmonised legislation because it will make it easier to commercialise varieties of GM crops across countries. But those concerned with biosafety very much doubt if regional harmonisation (of biosafety legislation) would be of advantage," says African Centre of Biosafety director Mariam Mayet.

"At the moment, each SADC country has its own policies and all these laws are very different from each other. This means that each GMO application has to go through the approval system and public consultation of each country, which is good for transparency and accountability " she explains.

"When South Africa passed GMO legislation in 1997, most people weren't aware of how highly contentious the technology would become. But now there is no way back. Once you're in it, you're in it," says Mayet.

South Africa's food industry is already saturated with GM, she says: "Everything is contaminated, and to make matters worse, labelling of GM content is not mandatory. We need serious policy reform and to implement a testing system that traces which foods contain GMO and which do not."

Over the past decade, South Africa has entered trade agreements with large, multi-national agricultural biotechnology corporations, such as Monsanto, which -- in an attempt to control the world's agricultural production -- promote the subsidisation of patented GM seeds. Through an incentive system supporting monocultures, small-scale farmers are systematically integrated into commercial agriculture, mainly for export, and encouraged to put together their land.

"It all looks very nice on paper, but it is actually a clever ploy to get access to people's land. Small-scale farmers who sign up for GM deals quickly lose control over seed management, production and eventually their land. This means they lose their food sovereignty," says Mayet. "GMO marginalises poor, small-scale farmers. We are in for hard times and need to fight for people's right to land and resources. But we won't give up."

Celebrate, Don't Mourn, Collapse of WTO Talks

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Celebrate, Don't Mourn, Collapse of WTO Talks
By Robert Weissman
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Predictably, the cheerleaders for corporate globalization are bemoaning the collapse of World Trade Organization negotiations.

"This is a very painful failure and a real setback for the global economy when we really needed some good news," said Peter Mandelson, the European Union's trade commissioner.

Even worse, says the corporate globalization rah-rah crowd, the talks' failure will hurt the developing world. After all, these negotiations were named the Doha Development Round.

"The breakdown of these talks is bad news for the world's businesses, workers, farmers and most importantly the poor," laments U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue.

But don't shed any tears for the purported beneficiaries of the WTO talks. If truth-in-advertising rules applied, this might have been called the Doha Anti-Development Round.

The alleged upside of the deal for developing countries -- increased access to rich country markets -- would have been of tiny benefit, even according to the World Bank. The Research and Information System for Developing Countries points out that Bank analyses showed a successful conclusion of the Doha Round would, by 2015, increase developing country income in total by $16 billion a year -- less than a penny a day for every person in the developing world.

The World Bank study, however, includes numerous questionable assumptions, without which developing countries would emerge as net losers. One unrealistic assumption is that governments will make up for lost tariff revenues by other forms of taxes. Another is that countries easily adjust to import surges by depreciating their currencies and increasing exports.

In any case, the important point is that there was very little to gain for developing countries.

By contrast, there was a lot to lose.

The promise to developing countries was that they would benefit from reduced agricultural tariffs and subsidies in the rich countries. Among developing nations, these gains would have been narrowly concentrated among Argentina, Brazil and a few other countries with industrial agriculture.

What the spike in food prices has made clear to developing countries is that their food security depends fundamentally not on cheap imports, but on enhancing their capacity to feed themselves. The Doha rules would have further undermined this capacity.

"Opening of markets, removal of tariffs and withdrawal of state intervention in agriculture has turned developing countries from net food exporters to net food importers and burdened them with huge import bills," explains food analyst Anuradha Mittal of the Oakland Institute. "This process, which leaves the poor dependent on uncertain and volatile global markets for their food supply, has wiped out millions of livelihoods and placed nearly half of humanity at the brink of hunger and starvation."

Farmers' movements around the world delivered this message to government negotiators, and the negotiators refused to cave to the aggressive demands made by rich countries on behalf of agricultural commodity-trading multinationals. Kamal Nath, India's Minister for Commerce and Industry, pointed out that the Doha Development Round was supposed to give benefits to developing countries -- especially in agriculture -- not extract new concessions.

The immediately proximate cause of the negotiations' collapse was a demand by developing countries that they maintain effective tools to protect themselves from agricultural import surges. Rich countries refused the overly modest demand.

And agriculture was the area where developing countries were going to benefit.

The rough trade at the heart of the deal was supposed to be that rich countries reduce market barriers to developing country agricultural exports, and developing countries further open up to rich country manufacturing and service exports and investment.

Such a deal "basically suggests that the poor countries should remain agricultural forever," says Ha-Joon Chang, an economics professor at the University of Cambridge and author of Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. "In order to receive the agricultural concession, the developing countries basically have to abolish their industrial tariffs and other means to promote industrialization." In other words, he says, developing countries are supposed to forfeit the tools that almost every industrialized country (and the successful Asian manufacturing exporters) has used to build their industrial capacity.

In sum, says Deborah James, director of international programs for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, this was a lose-lose deal for developing countries. "The tariff cuts demanded of developing countries would have caused massive job loss, and countries would have lost the ability to protect farmers from dumping, further impoverishing millions on the verge of survival," she says.

By the way, it's not as if this is a North vs. South, rich country vs. poor country issue. Although there have been multiple lines of fragmentation in the Doha negotiations, the best way to understand what's going on is that the rich country governments are driving the agenda to advance corporate interests, not those of their populations. That's why there is so little public support for the Doha trade agenda, in both rich and poor countries.

Says Lori Wallach of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch: "Now that WTO expansion has been again rejected at this 'make or break' meeting, elected officials and those on the campaign trail in nations around the world -- including U.S. presidential candidates -- will be asked what they intend to do to replace the failed WTO model and its version of corporate globalization with something that benefits the majority of people worldwide."

Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, and director of Essential Action.

Sustainers can comment on this article here: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3571

And now the second sample commentary...



WTO Talks, A Tsunami Averted
By Devinder Sharma
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It was a close call. Till the last minute, suspense became overbearing. Glued to our seats and teetering on the brink of fear, with abated breath we awaited the outcome of the last minute efforts to save an unjust an inequitable "Doha round" deal. And as news started to trickle in signaling the collapse of the WTO mini-Ministerial, a sigh of relief emerged.

After all, a tsunami has been averted.

The talks failed to bridge differences over adequate measures to protect poor farmers in developing countries against import surges. Technical dubbed as "Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) - the provisions that protect developing countries from the disastrous consequences of a flood of food imports - had finally driven the nail in the coffin of "Doha round."

But all is not yet over. The tyrants of the food trade will surely launch a renewed assault to arm-twist, coerce and lure developing countries into submission. US President George Bush will certainly have an uphill task before he quits. Three phone calls to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a matter of three days failed to get India sign on the dotted line. He must be disillusioned. Perhaps he is angry. How can the two emerging economies - India and China - refuse to accept the US hegemony? Is the developing world waking up to a new dawn of economic and political independence?

I am not sure whether the developing countries have emerged from the shadows of the colonial past. But what is clearly evident is that at least some countries are picking up the courage and standing up to the two bullies - the United States and European Union. All along an impression had been given - and thanks to the western media for misguiding the world - as if the US and EU have made a huge 'sacrifice' offering drastic cuts in their trade-distorting farm subsides.

In reality, the US proposal of reducing its trade-distorting subsidies by 70 per cent (and the EU following with a promise of 80 per net cut) was simply an eye-wash. These were merely paper cuts, and behind this smokescreen, both the rich trading blocks had actually ensured provisions to double their trade-distorting subsidies. The US presently pays between $ 7-9 billion as trade distorting subsidies, and what it had offered as a 'sacrifice" was to enable it to increase these subsidies further to a maximum of $ 14.5 billion.

For making these paper cuts, the US and EU wanted the developing countries to pay a corresponding price by way of providing more market access in agriculture and industry. While the Shylocks of international trade were keen to extract their pound of flesh from poor countries, look what the United Nation says. In its latest "World Economic and Social Survey 2008," the UN makes it clear that the developing countries have already paid a price in advance at Marrakesh (where the WTO formation was agreed upon in 1994). There is therefore no need for the developing countries to open up their markets still further to imports.

Very cleverly and astutely, the developed countries had managed to divert focus from their burgeoning agricultural subsidies that have inherently distorted global trade. Apart from what is dubbed as trade-distorting subsidies, the richest trading block - the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) provides annually $ 374 billion as farm subsidies. On top of it, the latest US Farm Bill 2008 makes a provision for $ 307 billion support for agriculture in the next five years.

Unless these subsidies are removed, there is no protective shied strong enough to stop the import surges into the developing world. And if you think that import surges are not a real threat you need to rethink. These are no less devastating than the trail of human destruction left behind by a powerful tsunami. Between 1980 and 2003, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) recorded 12,167 import surges hitting 102 developing countries. On an average, each of these developing countries experienced 120 import surges a year wherein the flood of imports exceeded 30 per cent in term of volume of imports.

To put a cap at 40 per cent in import surge volumes therefore as a SSM provision for developing countries renders the entire mechanism redundant. And this is where the talks broke down. By the time 40 per cent import surges are recorded, millions of farmers are pushed out of agriculture. It has happened in the past in numerous instances. In Kenya, for instance, flood of sugar imports between 1984 and 2004 had resulted in 32,000 job losses in the domestic sugar industry. Employment levels were reduced by a whopping 79 per cent. The impact on farm livelihoods was still worse.

In the past 30 years, and thanks to the trade liberalization polices being perpetuated, 105 of the 149 Third World Countries have turned food importers. Some 40 years ago, developing countries were actually exporting food and had a surplus of US $ 7 billion in food trade. Now the developing countries food deficit has grown to a record US $ 11 billion a year. A successful completion of the ongoing "Doha round" in its present form would turn the entire Third World into a food dump. If that is what will emerge from the successful completion of the "Doha round", the question that arises is as to whom is it going to benefit?

Whether it is Special Products - the farm products which do not require any cuts in import duties - in the name of food security, livelihood concerns and rural development or its is the provision of SSM, nothing can save developing country agriculture unless the massive domestic subsidies of the OECD countries are removed. What is conveniently forgotten are the remarks of the WTO director general Pascal Lamy at the Hong Kong Ministerial in 2005: "SP is a carrot that I am dangling before the developing countries to bring them to the negotiating table."�

Sadly, the developing countries have failed to see through the game. SP is merely a temporary measure. For India, where a total of 697 tariff lines in agriculture are being negotiated, only 84 lines can be partially covered under the SP category. Several studies have however shown that Indian agriculture will need at least 57 per cent of the tariff lines being protected. After all, each tariff line is linked to millions of livelihoods. What is therefore urgently needed is to scrap the present deal, and start afresh. Come to think of it, there is no other way out.

At a time when the world is faced with a terrible food crisis there is no escape but to refocus energies on maintaining food self-sufficiency. Food security is essentially linked to food self-sufficiency. The challenge for developing countries therefore is to resist any and every move to open up the domestic markets to a flood of cheap and highly subsidized food imports. Food imports spell death-knell for the farming communities. There is no bigger crime than to sacrifice the livelihoods of an estimated three billion small farmers in the developing world for the sake of higher profits to a handful of agribusiness companies.

Sustainers can comment on this commentary here: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3570