August , 2011

Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill in Parliament
Dr. Krishan Bir Chaudhary
The Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of
India (BRAI) Bill is to be introduced in the Monsoon
session.The ostensible stand of scientists defending genetic
engineering technology in seed production is that utmost priority to a
product's impact on humans, plants, animals and environment shall be given.
The first problem arises out of the claim that “scientists are experts in their
respective areas of specialization.” This is farthest from truth. It is a known fact
nearly all Agriculture biotechnology scientists have sold their souls to the seeds
multinational corporations and work for them; only a handful remain
“independent” and increasingly under pressure to fall in line. In fact, how
systematically just a handful of powerful seeds corporations destroyed scientific
integrity of world's leading scientific establishments itself serves as hard evidence
of what the present “scientific establishments” have become.
The second problem arises out of lack of transparency. The Bill was earlier prepared
under Official Secrets Act . Why? Was national security at stake? In fact, yes. The Bill
undermines national security, it undermines food security and food sovereignty, and it
seeks to compromise public health. Since the Bill seeks to destroy three vital aspects of
India as a nation. Please remember, India is the last bastion of food mega-diversity and
seed mega-diversity. Until and unless the seed system and food system come under
control of just five multinational corporations based in the USA and EU, they are not
going to rest.
The third problem is that the Bill seeks to give primacy to genetically engineered seeds.
Why should company manufactured seeds have primacy over farmer saved and farmer
bred seeds? Is corporate profiteering more important that people health and India's food
security?
The fourth problem is the silence on “polluter pays” principle. Thus far the polluters
have not paid, not compensated any farmer for destroying their natural or organic farms
anywhere in the world. Only when farmers lodged court cases that in some instances
some have been compensated but not to the extent they should have been.
The tide is slowly turning in some countries and we in India are not far behind. The
producers of conventional and genetically-modified (GM) crops and the users of
proprietary pesticides and herbicides that accompany them are now facing serious
legal battles from natural and organic farmers. All four issues raised here stem from
basic human rights. If the Bill does not address even one of these, it should be
scrapped.
Krishan Bir Chaudhary
Vol. 2 No. 8
August , 2011
Editor :
Dr. Krishan Bir Chaudhary,
President,
Bharatiya Krishak Samaj,
F-1/A, Pandav Nagar,
Delhi-110091
Advisory Board :
S. P. Gulati, Sect. G.O.I., Retd.
Lingraj B. Patil
Prof. Sanjay Jadhav
Dr. R.B. Thakare
D. Guruswamy, Adv.
Rajesh Sharma “Bittoo”
Pratap Singh, DIG Retd.
Hatam Singh Nagar, Adv.
K. Sareen
Ajay Singh
Ajit Singh Adv.
Desiged by : Rahul Sharma
Aastha Chaudhary
Printed & Published by :
Dr. Krishan Bir Chaudhary on behalf of
Bharatiya Krishak Samaj.
Printed at Everest Press, E-49/8, Okhla
Industrial Area, Phase-II, New Delhi-20.
Published at :
F-1/A, Pandav Nagar, Delhi-110091
Mob.:9810331366, Telefax:011-22751281,
E-mail: [email protected]
[email protected]
Website:- www.kisankiawaaz.org
August - 2011
Dutch agri-business companies looking for Indian partners
2
Germany can phase out nuclear by 2017
* Paul Gipe
3
US Ends Opposition to GM Labelling Guidelines
4
Who Pollutes : The Rich and Powerful or Poor and Powerless?
* Dr. Vandana Shiva
5
Pesticides and Air Pollution Trigger Birth Defects
* Emily Main
7
Court rules organic farmers can sue conventional, GMO farmers
* Ethan A. Huff
9
Mobile Phones Damage the Brain
* Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
11
Hkkjr dk fdlku
*Dr. D. Kumar
13
The debate on Land Acquisition Act
* Arun Shrivastava CMC
19
Prime Minister Keeps Environment Ministry and
22
Subsidy for the poor is bad; subsidy for the
* Dr. Devinder Sharma
25
International farmers' “speak out” warned Aquino
26
Three distress vidarbha farmer commits suicides reported
28
Monsanto-spawned superweeds growing
* Ethan A. Huff
29
BioFach and Vivaness 2012: Presenting India's
31
Dutch agri-business companies looking
for Indian partners
A
trade mission of 40 agri-business companies
from Holland was in Delhi recently to explore
business opportunities in the Indian agriculture
sector, with a focus on green genetics, floriculture, food
processing (potato, dairy and meat), water management,
cold chain, logistics and retail.
through collaborative programmes and private sector
investment (locally, in India),” he added.
Steven Lak, President of the Product Board for
Livestock, Meat, Poultry and Eggs, who was
accompanying the trade mission, said that using Dutch
technology, Indian meat companies can increase inhouse productivity by extracting more parts out of
animals for consumption as well as for use by other
industries.
Holland is a logistics hub for the whole of Europe in
terms of livestock and poultry. “We believe Indian
companies can benefit tremendously through
information sharing and exchange of best practices,” he
added. In India over the last decade, the Dutch have
invested in local production facilities and offered
technology transfer to strengthen local capabilities.
Speaking at the Indo-Dutch Seminar on June 6 in the
Indian capital, the Dutch ambassador Bob Hiensch said:
“Dutch innovation and knowledge are transforming
Indian practices in growing, processing, storing and
transporting food as well as maintaining food safety.
Existing Dutch businesses in India have confirmed the
benefit of tapping potential with significant success. I
look forward to more such robust Indo-Dutch
collaborations.”
Henk van Duijn, Counsellor for Agriculture, Nature and
Food Quality at the Dutch embassy in India, said The
Netherlands has a five-year plan that concentrates on
major areas where the Dutch companies have
technology and innovations to offer to India.
“To secure trade, our strategy is to invest in local
production facilities and enhance local capabilities
through technology transfer. A public-private
partnership involving the Dutch government, the private
sector and knowledge institutions, together invests in
R&D (often in the Netherlands) and implements it
2
One problem Dutch exporters to India face is the
absence of adequate cold storage facilities in different
parts of the country. “Given the size of India, logistics is
paramount for all our food distribution needs,” Lak
stressed. “Cold storage facilities will not only make the
Fragile: It is not known what effect
entire chain hygienic but also enable better storage of
the toxins have on the unborn foetus
perishable products.”
Apart from offering technology and know-how in agribusiness, Lak said the Dutch companies are also looking
to import specific items to India, such as buffalo beef and
parts of pork.
Meanwhile, India's Ministry of Agriculture has signed a
joint work plan 2011-2015 with Government of The
Netherlands for agricultural cooperation, with an aim to
boost bilateral trade in agriculture commodities to Euro
1 billion.
Agricultural trade contributes about 2/3rd of the net
revenues of the Dutch government. The Dutch food
industry consists of around 4,500 companies, with a
combined turnover of Euro 63 billion. The port of
Rotterdam is the world's largest fruit harbour
http://www.imagesfood.com/news.aspx?Id=2940&t
opic=2
Kisan Ki Awaaz
August - 2011
Germany can phase out nuclear by 2017
* Paul Gipe
T
he conservative German government has
issued a document outlining how Germany
can close all of its nuclear reactors by 2017 -sooner than the government's official proposal of
2022 -- and still keep the lights on.
The report, and the timing of its release, indicates the
intense political debate within and without the ruling
coalition of Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats and
her junior partner the neoliberal Free Democrats.
As noted by Craig Morris for Renewables
International, the report was issued by an agency
within the German Ministry of the Environment, but it
was not "commissioned" by the ministry itself.
This subtlety would be lost on all but the most avid
political junkies. The ministry is led by the up-andcoming conservative party member Norbert Röttgen,
who distanced himself from the report but did not
prevent its publication. The report will surely be used
by the opposition parties in arguing that the exit from
nuclear can be quicker than the Merkel government is
proposing.
Ironically, the conservative Merkel government has
proposed essentially the exit policy planned by the
previous red-green government of Social Democrats
and the Greens.
Merkel's conservative party rose to power in part on a
platform of extending the operation of the existing
reactors. Her policy reversal is historic not only in
Germany, but worldwide.
Critics of the reversal have charged that:
Germany will suffer power outages;
Germany will import nuclear power from other
countries, notably France; and
Germany will build massive new coal plants to
make up the shortfall.
The analysis by the German environment agency
specifically examined these issues. It concluded that
August - 2011
Germany can close the reactors within five years and
do so:
without power outages;
without importing nuclear power from other
countries;
without building new coal plants; and
with only a modest increase in the cost of
electricity.
The agency says that Germany can close the nuclear
plants by faster development of its renewable sources
of energy and the construction of 5,000 megawatts of
new natural-gas-fired generation. The new gas-fired
generation will give the grid the needed flexibility in
meeting demand while also preserving Germany's
commitment to reducing its carbon dioxide emissions.
To the surprise of many critics of Germany's
renewable energy program, the country is not a net
importer of electricity. In recent years, Germany has
been a net exporter of generation.
The study found that electricity imports to Germany
are based on price and not on any shortage of supply
and that this will continue as the reactors are taken offline. That is, Germany buys electricity on the
liberalized market when it is cheaper than generating
the electricity from its own fossil-fired power plants.
The German Environment Agency estimates that a
rapid exit from nuclear will cost ratepayers only
$0.009 to $0.01 per kilowatt-hour. This increase, it
says, is less than the price swings of natural gas and
coal during the past year.
Interestingly, the higher market price for electricity
will reduce the cost of Germany's renewable energy
program by decreasing the differential between the
market price of electricity and the average cost of
feed-in tariffs for renewable energy.
http://www.grist.org/nuclear/2011-06-07germany-phase-out-reactors-2017-conservativegovernment
Kisan Ki Awaaz
3
US Ends Opposition to GM Labelling Guidelines
C
onsumers International (CI)i and its member
organisations have claimed a victory as
regulators from more than 100 countries
agreed on long overdue guidance on the labelling of
genetically modified (GM) food.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission, made up of the
world's food safety regulatory agencies, has been
labouring for two decades to come up with consensus
guidance on this topic.
In a reversal of their previous position, on Tuesday,
during the annual Codex summit in Geneva, the US
delegation dropped its opposition to the GM labelling
guidance document, allowing it to move forward and
become an official Codex text.
The new Codex agreement means that any country
wishing to adopt GM food labelling will no longer
face the threat of a legal challenge from the World
Trade Organization (WTO).
This is because national measures based on Codex
guidance or standards cannot be challenged as a
barrier to trade.
This will have immediate implications for consumers.
Edita Vilcapoma of the Peruvian consumer group
ASPEC, representing Consumers International at the
Codex meeting in Geneva, said: “Peru's recent
introduction of GM food labelling faced the threat of a
legal challenge from the WTO.
This new Codex agreement now means that this threat
has gone and the consumer right to be informed has
been secured. This is major victory for the global
consumer movement.”
particularly pleased that the new guidance recognises
that GM labelling is justified as a tool for post market
monitoring.
This is one of the key reasons we want all GM foods to
be required to be labelled - so that if consumers eat
modified foods, they will be able to know and report to
regulators if they have an allergic or other adverse
reaction.”
The labelling milestone is particularly welcomed by
CI member organisations in Africa, who have been
fighting on behalf of their consumers for the right to be
informed about GM food.
Samuel Ochieng, President Emeritus of Consumers
International and CEO of the Kenyan Consumer
Information Network said:
“While the agreement falls short of the consumer
movement's long-held demand for endorsement of
mandatory GM food labelling, this is still a significant
milestone for consumer rights.
We congratulate Codex on agreeing on this guidance,
which has been sought by consumers and regulators in
African countries for nearly twenty years.
This guidance is extremely good news for the worlds'
consumers who want to know what is in the foods on
their plates”.
http://www.foodingredientsfirst.com/news/USEnds-Opposition-to-GM-LabellingGuidelines.html
The agreement also recognises the enormous health
monitoring benefits of giving consumers transparent
information about the presence of GM foods.
Consumers International's lead delegate at Codex,
and a senior scientist at Consumers Union of the
United States, Dr Michael Hansen, stated: “We are
4
Kisan Ki Awaaz
August - 2011
Who Pollutes : The Rich and Powerful or
Poor and Powerless?
* Dr. Vandana Shiva
O
n 29th of June, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh met with editors of a few newspapers.
When asked about whether he had been
putting pressure on the Environment Ministry to
approve environmentally destructive projects, he said
“yes”, and justified by quoting Indira Gandhi
“poverty is the biggest polluter, we need to have a
balance”. Indira Gandhi had said this in Stockholm in
1972 at the first Environmental Conference. She had
also quoted from the Atharvaveda
“Whatever, I dig of you, O Earth,
May that grow quickly upon you,
O Pure One, may my thrust never pierce thy
Vital points, thy heart”.
The Prime Minister has conveniently ignored the
more significant quote.
The Prime Minister's duty is to uphold the nation's
constitution and nations laws, including
environmental laws, not subvert them. By admitting
that he has been putting pressure on the environment
ministry, he has admitted that he is subverting the law.
Most commentators view the removal of Jairam
Ramesh from the Environment Ministry during the
July 12th, 2011 cabinet reshuffle as a further step in
environmental deregulation.
While quoting Indira Gandhi to justify his subversion
of environmental law, the Prime Minister seems to
have forgotten that Indira Gandhi created the
country's environmental governance structure during
her tenure as Prime Minister. It was Indira Gandhi's
intervention that supported the call of movements and
scientists to not build a hydro-electric project in Silent
Valley in Kerala saving a biodiversity rich ecosystem.
It was Indira Gandhi's concern that Mussorie, the
queen of the hills, was being stripped naked by
limestone mining that led to the Environment
Ministry to take action. We were invited to do the
study of the environmental impact of limestone
mining in Doon Valley in 1981. Our study became the
August - 2011
basis of the Supreme Court case. In 1983, the Supreme
Court shut down the mines.
In the pre-trade liberalization days, it was accepted
that if commerce undermines ecosystems which
support life, then commercial activity must stop,
because life must carry on. Art. 21 of the Constitution
make it the duty of the state to protect life. Since
ecological processes support life, the state has a duty
to protect ecology.
Under Prof. Manmohan Singh's leadership since the
1990's based on “growth fetishism”, all ecological
devastation is justified in the name of growth. Who is
driving this ecological devastation and the pollution?
The rich and powerful corporations or the poor and
powerless women, farmers, tribals and the displaced
rural communities who become urban slum dwellers?
The poor live in the places polluted by the rich. They
do not cause the pollution. And they live in polluted
places because they are displaced from their homes in
rural areas where they have lived sustainably for
millennia.
They are victims of pollution because they are victims
of dispossession. This is environmental injustice. And
it is an inevitable consequence of outsourcing of
pollution from rich countries in the garb of FDI.
Coastal Orissa is a case in point. In the Jagatsingpur
district where POSCO's giant steel plant is planned as
the highest FDI of $ 12 billion farmers, grow
biodiversity betel vines and paddy, coconut and
cashew, fruits and fish. There is no pollution and no
waste. There is a prosperity that GDP does not count.
This economy of sustenance is being uprooted with
violence to enable POSCO to export our iron-ore and
steel. Every law of the land including the Forest
Rights Act and the Coastal Zone Regulation Act are
being violated as committee after committee has
recognized. And when the Ministry of Environment
Committees affirms the violation of laws, it is the
Kisan Ki Awaaz
5
Prime Minister who puts pressure on the Environment
Minister to give an approval to POSCO. It was the
women and children of Govindpur, Dinkia and
Nuagaon who lay down in front of the police in the
scorching sun to stop the land grab in June. They were
still forming a human barricade when I visited on 23rd
June.
The Prime Minister is intervening to promote this land
grab and resource grab. POSCO gets our land and our
resources. What we will inherit from the POSCO
project is ecological destruction, pollution, displaced
people and the destruction of our democracy.
In India, it is the corporations that are building giant
coal based power plants who are major climate
polluters. It is the automobile industry that pushes
more cars on our roads that are leading to higher
carbon dioxide emissions.
Emissions from the use of fossil fuel are driven by the
economically powerful, not the poor. But it is the poor
who are most vulnerable to the floods, droughts and
cyclones that climate change intensifies.
The same applies for toxic pollution. In 1996, we filed
a case in the Supreme Court to stop the import of toxic
waste from the U.S. This waste was generated by rich
consumers in the U.S, not by the poor in India who put
their lives at risk sorting out the toxic garbage. The
Bhopal disaster and it its still continuing toxic
pollution was not caused by the poor who died in
thousands. It was caused by Union Carbide, now
owned by Dow.
A major issue related to toxics is the pesticide,
endosulfan. The U.N has banned it. Most countries of
the world have banned it. The Supreme Court has
ordered an interim ban. 1000 people have died in
Kasargod where endosulfan was sprayed on Cashew
plantations for 20 years.
Nitrogen oxide released from nitrogen fertilizers
accumulates in the atmosphere as a green house gas
that is 300 times more damaging than carbon dioxide.
These synthetic fertilizers also make bombs as the
recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai and the Oklahoma
bombings in the U.S have shown.
We now have a new form of pollution in agriculture
genetic pollution from genetically engineered crops.
Genetic pollution is destroying biodiversity and
devastating farmers livelihoods.
The poor do not cause chemical and genetic pollution
giant chemical / biotechnology corporations do. And
the chemical corporations are also the gene giants who
now control seed. Here too, instead of being the voice
of poor and vulnerable farmers, the Prime Minister is
the voice of powerful global corporations through his
repeated reference to genetic engineering as the
second Green Revolution.
Whether it is atmospheric pollution, toxic pollution,
genetic pollution or urban waste pollution,
environmental pollution is an externality of a greed
based economy which privatizes profit and natural
resources and socializes pollution. The rich
accumulate the land, the biodiversity, the water, the air
and the profits. The poor bear the burden of
dispossession and accumulated pollution.
We expect the Prime Minister to uphold India's
Constitution and environmental laws not subvert
them. We do not expect him to support and promote
the polluters. We expect our Prime Minister to
recognize that the poor are victims of pollution and
environmental degradation, not its cause.
We expect the Prime Minister to remember that he
holds our precious natural heritage and natural capital
in trust for future generations, not to be given away to
greedy corporations and destroyed for short term
profits.
More than 9000 are crippled. The innocent victims did
not cause the toxic pollution. It was caused by
powerful corporations who influence decisions and
have blocked a ban on endosulfan, even as people die
and children are born disabled.
We expect our Prime Minister to grow beyond his
“growth fetishism” and recognize that we are all part
of Mother Earth, and pollution is violence against the
Earth and people.
Toxic agrichemicals harm all life. Synthetic fertilizers
run into rivers and oceans, creating “dead zones”.
* Founder Navdanya
6
Kisan Ki Awaaz
August - 2011
Pesticides and Air Pollution Trigger Birth Defects
New research from China suggests a disturbing link between chemicals in our environment and neural tube
defects.Eat organic…and wipe your feet before coming inside. Spending less time in carmaggedon like this
may reduce your baby's chances for certain types of birth defects.
* Emily Main
R
ODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PAChemical
agriculture and pollution from traffic could
raise an unborn baby's chances of developing
national average). Out of a total 130 babies, 80 were
born with the defects. Placental blood from those 80
babies contained significantly higher levels of air-
neural tube defects, suggests new research from
China. A new study published in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences has found that
certain persistent organic pollutantschemicals that
linger in our environment and never break downcan
contribute to stillbirth and common birth defects like
spina bifida.
polluting polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)
and the organochlorine pesticides
hexachlorocyclohexane (known more commonly as
lindane), DDT, and endosulfan than the placental
blood of the 50 healthy babies.
THE DETAILS: The authors recruited pregnant
women living in a region of China where the rates of
neural tube defects were uncharacteristically high, 14
out of every 1,000 births rather than 1 out of 1,000 (the
August - 2011
High PAH concentrations were associated with a 4.5fold increase in all neural tube defects and a nearly 6fold increase in the two most common neural tube
defects, spina bifida, when a baby's spine and
backbone do not close before birth, and anencephaly,
in which babies are born missing a large part of their
Kisan Ki Awaaz
7
skull and brain; anencephaly often leads to stillbirth.
Similar results were found for high levels of DDT.
WHAT IT MEANS: The most common cause of
neural tube defects is a folic acid deficiency,
accounting for 50 to 70 percent of cases, according to
the Duke Center for Human Genetics.
But the authors write that environmental chemicals
have long been suspected of contributing to the
problem.
PAHs have been pegged before in research finding
that mothers who have high levels of PAHs in their
blood have higher rates of having babies with such
defects.
Pesticides are increasingly seen as suspects, as well.
Animal studies and studies of people who encounter
frequent occupational exposure to pesticides have
shown disturbing links between pesticides and neural
tube defects.
For instance, one study from the California Birth
Defects Monitoring Program found that women
living within a quarter-mile of agricultural crop fields
saw a modest increase in the chances of having a baby
born with neural tube defects, as did women who
frequently used household pesticides.
Eating organic and using chemical-free pest-control
methods are the easiest ways to avoid pesticide
exposure, although this study shows that even longbanned pesticides continue to have disastrous impacts
on our health: Although endosulfan is still used in
some countries, DDT and most forms of
hexachlorocyclohexane have been banned for more
than 20 years.
Avoiding PAHs is a little more difficult, as these
chemicals crop up in things you can't avoidsuch as the
air you breathe.
Here are a few ways to at least reduce your exposure:
Eat organic…and wipe your feet before coming
inside.
Spending less time in carmaggedon like this may
reduce your baby's chances for certain types of birth
defects.
8
Stop smoking…and move. People with the highest
levels of PAHs in their blood are smokers, people who
live or work with smokers, and people who live near
major highways or industrial sources.
PAHs enter the atmosphere through the incomplete
combustion of fossil fuels, so auto exhaust and coalfired power plants are big sources.
Unfortunately, there aren't any federal or state
regulations of PAH levels in the air, so avoiding these
sources is the only way to protect yourself.
Cook smarter. Food is the next biggest exposure
source for PAHs. The chemicals form on foods when
they're charred, usually through grilling or broiling
meat. To keep PAHs away while grilling, keep your
grill temperature low, and opt for lean meats, such as
fish or poultry.
They cook faster, so there's less of a chance that you'll
overcook or char them, and there's less fat. It's fat
dripping onto charcoals that leads to the smoke flareups that can deposit more PAHs onto your food. In
addition, cleaning your grill regularly removes
leftover PAH-containing charred residues that can
stick to your food.
You don't need to resort to harsh chemicals, either. The
best grill-cleaning tools are a stiff wire grill brush, a
sturdy spatula or spackle knife, tongs, a wadded-up
paper towel, and inexpensive vegetable oil; see our
article on grill-cleaning tips for more.
Buy a doormat. The coal-tar sealants used on asphalt
driveways and parking lots contain high levels of
PAHs, and as a result, the chemicals get tracked into
your home via dust.
Wipe your feet before coming indoors, and if you're a
homeowner, find a less-toxic driveway sealant (or
switch to a permeable pavement) and swap out your
dust-trapping carpet for hardwood flooring.
This will also reduce the levels of pesticides in your
home. Plenty of evidence suggests that
outdoor pesticides, too, get tracked inside via the dirt
and dust on our shoes.
Kisan Ki Awaaz
August - 2011
Court rules organic farmers can sue conventional, GMO
farmers whose pesticides 'trespass' and contaminate their fields
* Ethan A. Huff
August 03, 2011 - (NaturalNews) Purveyors of
conventional and genetically-modified (GM) crops -and the pesticides and herbicides that accompany
them -- are finally getting a taste of their own legal
medicine.
Minnesota's Star Tribune has reported that the
Minnesota Court of Appeals recently ruled that a large
organic farm surrounded by chemical-laden
drifted onto the Johnson's farm in 1998, PFU
apologized, but did not agree to pay for damages.
As anyone with an understanding of organic practices
knows, even a small bit of contamination can result in
having to plow under that season's crops, forget
profits, and even lose the ability to grow organic crops
in the same field for at least a couple years.
conventional farms can seek damages for lost crops,
as well as lost profits, caused by the illegal trespassing
of pesticides and herbicides on its property.
The Johnson's let the first incident slide. But after the
second, third, and fourth times, they decided that
enough was enough.
Oluf and Debra Johnson's 1,500-acre organic farm in
Stearns County, Minn., has repeatedly been
contaminated by nearby conventional and GMO
farms since the couple started it in the 1990s.
Following the second pesticide drift in 2002, the
Johnson's filed a complaint with the Minnesota
Agriculture Department, which eventually ruled that
PFU had illegally sprayed chemicals on windy days,
which led to contamination of the Johnson's organic
crops.
A local pesticide cooperative known as Paynesville
Farmers Union (PFU), which is near the farm, has
been cited at least four times for violating pesticide
laws, and inadvertently causing damage to the
Johnson's farm.
The first time it was realized that pesticides had
August - 2011
PFU settled with the Johnson's out of court, and the
Johnson's agreed to sell their tainted products as nonorganics for a lower price, and pull the fields from
production for three years in order to bring them back
up to organic standards.
Kisan Ki Awaaz
9
But PFU's inconsiderate spraying habits continued,
with numerous additional incidents occurring in
2005, 2007, and 2008, according to the Star Tribune.
After enduring much hardship, the Johnson's finally
ended up suing PFU in 2009 for negligence and
trespass, only to receive denial from the district court
that received the case.
But after appealing, the Johnson's received favor from
the Appeals Court, which ruled that particulate matter,
including pesticides, herbicides, and even GM
particulates, that contaminates nearby fields is, in
fact, considered illegal trespass, and is subject to the
same laws concerning other forms of trespass.
In a similar case, a California-based organic farm
recently won a $1 million lawsuit filed against a
conventional farm whose pesticides spread through
fog from several miles away, and contaminated its
fields.
Jacobs Farm / Del Cobo's entire season's herb crop
had to be discarded as a result, and the court that
presided over the case acknowledged and agreed that
the polluters must be held responsible
Precedent has now been set for organic farmers to sue
biotechnology companies whose GMOs contaminate
their crops
The stunning victories of both the Johnson's and
Jacob's Farm / Del Cobo against their chemicalpolluting neighbors is huge, in that it represents a new
set legal precedent for holding conventional, factory
farming operations responsible for the damage their
systems cause to other farms.
And with this new precedent set, many more organic
farmers, for instance, can now begin suing GMO
farmers for both chemical and genetic pollution that
drifts onto their farms.
Monsanto's patented materials were the trespassers at
fault.
Be sure to check out the extensive and very
informative report compiled by the Center for Food
Safety (CFS) entitled Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers for a
complete history of Monsanto's war against
traditional American agriculture:
But it appears that the tables are now turning. Instead
of Monsanto winning against organic farmers, organic
farmers can now achieve victory against Monsanto.
In other words, farmers being infringed upon by the
drifting of GM material into their fields now have a
legal leg to stand on in the pursuit of justice against
Monsanto and the other biotechnology giants whose
"frankencrops" are responsible for causing
widespread contamination of the American food
supply.
Genetic traits are highly transmissible, whether it be
through pollen transfer or seed spread, and organic
and non-GMO farmers have every right to seek
damages for illegal trespassing when such
transmission takes place.
It is expected that many more organic farms will step
up and begin seeking justice and compensation for
damage caused by crop chemicals, GM materials, and
other harmful invaders.
For too long, Monsanto has been getting away with
suing farmers whose crops have become
contaminated by Monsanto's patented genetic traits
and chemical materials, and winning.
Thankfully, the justice system seems to now recognize
the severe error in this, and is now beginning to
rightfully hold polluters and trespassers responsible.
Monsanto, your days are numbered.
Many NaturalNews readers will recall the numerous
incidents involving lawsuits filed by Monsanto
against non-GMO farms whose crops were
inadvertently contaminated by GM material.
In many of these cases, the defendants ended up
becoming bankrupted by Monsanto, even though
10
http://www.startribune.com/local/126151483.htm
l
Kisan Ki Awaaz
August - 2011
Mobile Phones Damage the Brain
Laboratory experiments show that electromagnetic fields from mobile phones destroy
the blood brain barrier and damage neurons even 50 days after a single exposure in rats
* Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Leif Salford at Lund University, Sweden, is head of an
interdisciplinary team that has been studying the
effects of EMFs on rat brain since 1988, with a major
interest in the blood-brain barrier (BBB).
Furthermore, damaging effects on neurons have been
found even at 28 and 50 days after the
single exposure. The human BBB is very similar to
that of rats.
In mammals including humans, the BBB protects the
brain from potentially harmful compounds
circulating in the blood, so normally, very little passes
from the blood to the brain.
We have described these studies in 2004, and this is an
updated, more in-depth report.
Their studies revealed that EMFs emitted by mobile
phones at extremely low 'non-thermal' levels leads to
increased permeability of the BBB both immediately
after 2 hour of exposure, and also at 7, 14 and 50 days
afterwards.
August - 2011
Mobile phone EMFs up to 1018 times over natural
background
The power density of the microwave background in
space is about 0.4 mW/m2. On earth, the natural MW
background is much lower, estimated to be in the order
of 10-15 to 10-8 mW/m2.
Kisan Ki Awaaz
11
Artificial MWs were not produced until 1886, when
German physicist Heinrich Hertz first broadcast and
received radio waves.
Since then, MWs have been the carriers of telegraphic
data between stations on earth and between earth and
the satellites. In the 1950s, the high frequency radio
waves (RFs) were used in FM radio and television.
Later, MWs were increasing used by many in mobile
phones, and a far greater population became exposed
to MWs through passive mobile phoning and MWemitting base stations sited everywhere. As a result,
the artificially produced general MW background in
our environment is some 1011 to 1018 times the
natural MW background from space.
Blood brain barrier prevents harmful compounds
getting to the brain
The BBB was discovered by German bacteriologist
Paul Ehrlich and his student Edwin Goldman.
They found that when dyes were injected into the
blood, the brain tissue was not stained, and only
became stained when trypan blue was injected
directly into the brain ventricles.
A barrier between blood and brain at the site of the
brain micro blood vessels appeared to be a logical
explanation.
In fact, a BBB exists not only in mammals, but in all
vertebrates and many invertebrates including insects,
crustaceans, cephalopod molluscs such as the
cuttlefish, and in land snails.
Surrounding the endothelial cells and the pericytes is a
bilayer basal membrane that supports the outside
surface of the endothelium and may also act as a
barrier to macromolecules.
The outer surface of the basal membrane is
surrounded by brain cells called protoplasmic
astrocytes, which are thought to be involved in
regulation and repair of the BBB.
Their protrusions, called end feet, cover the basal
membrane and form a second barrier to hydrophilic
molecules, but also connect the endothelium to the
neurons.
The BBB is not just a physical barrier, but also an
enzymatic barrier with the special capability of
metabolizing solutes such as drugs and nutrients.
http://www.isis.org.uk/Mobile_Phones_Damage_t
h e _ B r a i n . p h p
Be Technically
Eco-friendly.............
Use Technology
To Save Earth
The BBB is formed by the endothelial cells lining the
inside of the capillaries (fine blood vessels of the
brain), which are sealed together with tight junctions
composed of the proteins occluding, claudin, and
zonula occludens. No gaps are left between the
endothelial cells.
Outside the blood vessel, 25 percent of the surface is
covered with pericytes, a kind of blood cells capable
of phagocytosis (engulfing bacteria and viruses), and
contribute significantly to the immune response of the
central nervous system, as well as to maintaining the
stability of the blood vessels.
12
From Global Warming.
Chirag Chaudhary
VIII-C
D.P.S. Vasundhara, Ghaziabad
Kisan Ki Awaaz
August - 2011
Hkkjr dk fdlku
eSa ,d egku~ jk"Vª dk NksVk lk d`"kd gwWa ] ij Hkkjrh;
d`"kd gksus dk xoZ gS eq>s A
Hkkjr dh xjhc vkRekvksa dk okl gS eq> esa ] xzkeh.k
Hkkjr ds y?kq jkstxkj dk L=ksr gwWa eSa A
feVh] vfgalk dk jke jkt fQj ls vk;k A
esjk lEeku c<+k nqgkbZ tu tu us dh] ns'kokfl;ksa us dh] t;
toku] t; fdlku t; foKku] vkSj t; vUunkrk dkA
Hkkjrh; d`f"k dh vkfFkZd fLFkfr dk iSekuk gwWa eSa ] Hkkjr
dh [kq“kgkyh esjs )kj ls gh xqtjrh gS A
f[krkc+ feyk eq>s ] t; Hkkjr ] Hkkjr dh t; gks ] eSa
[kq'k Fkk ] esjk Hkkjr [kq'k vkSj [kq'kgkyh Fkh esjs lekt
esa A
d`"kd gwWa] xzkeh.k Hkkjr gwWa ] gkWa eSa gh xka/kh th dk Hkkjr gwWa
] ns[kks eq>s ] igpkuks ] viukvks eq>s Hkkjr dY;k.k ds
fy,A
bldh ppkZ Fkh ] vUrjkZ"Vªh; Lrj ij ppkZ Fkh esjs Hkkjr
dh ] ge cp x;s Hkq[kejh ls ] ukft+;ksa ls ]
uDlyokfn;ksa lsA
eSus gfjr ] ihyh ] uhyh ] lQsn dzkfUr ls ] d`f"k
oSKkfudksa dh vUrjkZ"Vªh; igpku djkbZ ] LokHkheku
c<+k;k A
;g Hkh gqvk gS ] eSa jktuhfrd nyksa dh fopkj/kkjk rd cu x;k ]
mudh lQyrk o t;iqj fnYyh rd igaqpus dh lh<+h cu x;k
eSa A
vukt vk;kfrr Hkkjr dks fu;kZrd jk"Vªksa dh lwph esa
'kkfey djk;k ] ns'k esa jksVh diM+k dh miyC/krk ls A
esjh xwat xyh] xfy;kjksa] xkaoksa ls ysdj fo/kkulHkk rd
Fkh] esjk uke ysuk ]ckr djuk ] vkn'kZ cuk jktfufrKksa
dkA
veu ] peu ] le`f) dh ygj NkbZ ] [kq'kgkyh c<+h ]
'kkfUr vkbZ ] psgjs f[kys gekjs A
Hkkjrh;ksa dh tokuh c<+h ] e`R;q nj dks >Vdk yxk ]
gfj;kyh QSyh ] Fkkj moZjd gq, ] chgM+ esa xqykc f[kysA
esjk uke mNyk] dkWyst cu] fo'ofo|ky; cus] d`"kd )kjk
cus] d`"kd eap cus] iaFk cus] laxBu cus] jktuhfrd ny Hkh
cusA
d`"kd ykWch cuh ] d`"kd iz/kkuea=h cus ] fdlku ?kkV
cus ] d`"kd vkSj d`f"k uhfr Fkh le; dh iqdkj rc A
lc dqN gqvk ] Hkkjr esa iztkra= dh uhao xgjkbZ ] fgalk
August - 2011
Kisan Ki Awaaz
13
ns'k ds rjDdh dh uko c<+rh pyh ] lapkj dzkfUr vkbZ ] dEI;wVj
dk ;qx vk;k ] nwjlaosnu o ifjogu {ks=ksa esa dzkfUr;ka vkbZ A
gtkjksa us vkRe gR;k dk jkLrk viuk fy;k gS ] ckdh
rS;kj gks jgs gSa ] dqN Hkh dj xqtjus ds fy, A
esjs Hkkjr dh uS;k 21oha lnh esa izos'k dj xbZ ] ijUrq
le; ds lkFk d`f"k dzkfUr dh e”kky /kheh gksus yxh A
nsf[k, ] D;wa yx jgk vkRe gR;k djus okys d`"kdksa dk ]
nqfu;k dk vtw+ck lR; tks u ns[kk dgha ] esjs Hkkjr esa
ns[ksa A
gfjr dzkfUr dh ykS vc fVe fVek jgh Fkh ]bl e'kky esa
rsy ugha ] bls idM+us okys gkFk gh ugha jgs A
yxrk gS izdk'k dh fdlh dks vc vko';drk gh ugha
]rwQkuksa ds jgeks djeksa ij igaqp xbZ ;g ewY;oku gfjr
ykS A
eSa nq[kh ] esjs Hkkjr dk xkSjo ladV esa ] vkt ]o"kkZ ugha ]
ty Lrj ?kV jgk gS ] Hkwfe catj cu jgh gS A
nky]lfCt;ka [kjhnrk gWwa Loiuksa es] cM+s vk;kstuksa esa gh
miyC/k gS]phuh] vkVk] I;kt esjh [kjhn igqap ls fdyksehVj
nwj gS A
esjk mRikn lLrk gS cktkj esa] ;gh mRikn esjh [kjhn dh {kerk esa
nksckjk ugha]ifjokj dh galh xbZ] fpUrk dh ydhjsa gSa] cPpksa dh
f'k{kk Hkh xbZ A
Hkkjh dtkZ gS] tehu dh uhykeh gks jgh gS esjs
lkeus]ns[kks esjs gh lkeus esjh ekr` Hkwfe gh fcd jgh gS A
vc t; fdlku ugha] t; toku Hkh Hkwys] t; foKku rks dkslksa
nwj]t; vkt Hkh gS] gj dksus dksus esa gS] psgjs cnys] vankt
cnys A
t; jktuhfr] t; fons'k ] t; lst+ o t; Åaph bekjrsa]d`"kd
[ksrh NksM+ lM+dksa ij] 'kgj dh rjQ] ,slh nkSM+ tks dHkh uk
ns[kh A
ge >kj[kaM] NRrhlx<+] cqansy[kaM] fonHkZ] vUuriqj ds
d`"kd gSa]ifjokj dk nq[k ns[kk u tk;]jkr va/ksjh gS] yEch
gS A
vc rks fnu esa Hkh va/ksjk ] thou dk izdk'k cSadksa esa j[k
gS ]gekjs cPps gh d`"kd ifjokj esa 'kknh dks rS;kj ugha A
gn gks pqdh gS ] lhek vc fcydqy yka/kh tk pqdh gS ]
dqN esjs HkkbZ ] d`"kd HkkbZ uDlyh cu pqds gSa A
14
eSa nksjkgs ij gwWa ] eq>s Hkh ,d Mxj vkt idM+uh gS ];g
esjk egku~ Hkkjr gS ] d`"kd fcds ugha ij VwV jgs gSa A
gfjr dzkfUr ls py e`r dzkfUr ij igaqps gS fdlku ]eSa
bruk VwVk gWwa fd ] dy ns[k uk ikaÅ ] nq[k >sy uk
ikÅa A
cPpksa us Hkw[k dks gh vc [kkuk gh NksM+ fn;k gS ] eS a Hkh
vkt 'kghn gks jgk gwWa ] lhek ij ugha cfYd [kfygku
esa A
dqN ugha feyk 'kk;n isij esa Hkh txg u fey lds ]
eSa egku~ jk"Vª dk VwV fc[kj pqdk fdlku gWw A
t; Hkkjr ] D;w esa [kM+s d`"kdksa dh t; ] 21 oha lnh ds
Hkkjr dh t; ] d`"kdksa dh dczxkg dh t; A
,d 'okl ckdh gS ] vHkh iz'uksa dk mÙkj tkuus dks %
dgkWa xbZ esjs ns'kokfl;ksa dh laosnu'khyrk ]
dgkWa gS loksZn;h ] dgkWa gS Hkw&nku okys egkRek ]
dgkWa gS ns'k ds f'k{kkfon~ ] dgkWa gS lekt lsod ]
dgkWa gS iwohZ lakLd`fr ] D;k nc xbZ if'peh dh ped ds
lkeus \
mÙkj feys ] ns nsuk ftank d`"kd HkkbZ;ksa dks ]ys vk;saxsa
mÙkj ] ns nsaxsa eq>s 2&4 fnu ckn gh lgh mij gh lghA
t; Hkkjr ] t; gfjr dzkfUr
Dr. D. Kumar
Emeritus Scientist, CAZRI, Jodhpur (Raj.)
Kisan Ki Awaaz
August - 2011
The debate on Land Acquisition Act
* Arun Shrivastava CMC
n a rough and ready basis, it has been
estimated that about 60 million people in
India have been displaced from land
alienation since 1947. In the North-East, the
acquisition of 1.4 million acres has affected 1.9
million persons on account of various projects [oil
industry, defense and security installations, dams,
O
downstream and upstream of the project sites have
shown extensive damage to farms, orchards,
availability of water, access to forests and grazing
lands, erosion, threats to safety and security of women
and children, in all 17 different types of adverse
impacts.
highways, and urban expansion]. In Ranchi district,
an estimated 25% of the population had been
displaced by 1994.
Destruction of social cohesiveness, psychological
safety net and cultural fabric mostly beyond monetary
compensation was also found to be widespread. The
indirect impacts take place when availability of 27
ecosystem goods and services is disrupted. Some of
these are: growing food, fodder, fuel wood, timber,
water, herbs, cattle population, seed biodiversity and
dispersal, pollination, prevention of erosion and
protection from natural disasters.
In a series of studies conducted recently in
ecologically fragile Himachal Pradesh, revenue
records show that 3.4% of the state population has
been displaced from hydro-electric projects alone.
These studies show that the indirect adverse impact
has affected twice as many, as compared to the
number of displaced households; people living miles
August - 2011
These goods and services directly support rural
economy and livelihoods. It is the disruption of
Kisan Ki Awaaz
19
ecosystems on a large scale worldwide especially in
the third world countries that has led a group of
enviro-economists to give it a name: “environmentpoverty nexus.” As ecosystems decline, so poverty
spreads and intensifies.
The global value of ecosystem goods and services has
been valued at about US$ 72 trillion which is more
than the sum of world's Gross Domestic Product.
India has barely crossed 1 trillion dollar GDP mark
and we don't even know the contribution of our
ecosystems in our GDP. And worldwide, all
ecosystems are in decline, some in extremely
precarious state.
A far bigger problem, therefore, appears to be the
indirect adverse impacts. Preliminary studies show
that these impacts have vast spatial and temporal
dimensions, far more pervasive than has ever been
acknowledged in any Environment Impact
Assessment [EIA] or any Initial Social Assessment
[ISA].
The lack of understanding of indirect impacts is
essentially because project authorities focus mainly
on project areas and they brief the consultants
accordingly, essentially to minimize their preoperative costs and push ahead with the project; so
does the Government.
The Ministry of Commerce has given formal approval
to 585 SEZs, in principal to 42, and notified 381.
These SEZ's will sequester best agricultural lands
and displace millions of rural households. How many
more will be indirectly affected is not known apart
from direct and indirect revenue loss because SEZ are
tax-free and conceived as lawless zones.
In many places people want to opt out of farming
because their holding is either too small or there is no
one to tend the farm lands; if they get good price, they
leave the land as in Haryana and in certain project
areas of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
At other places, even if farmers are offered good
price, they fear loss of traditional livelihoods, social
capital, extinguished traditional rights, and alienation
from their socio-cultural setting, and then refuse to
part with their lands [Singur, Nandigram, Dhenkia
20
(Posco project), Kalahandi (Vedanta), and Jaitapur, to
cite some recent examples].
Few cases:
Large projects affect not merely the project area but
miles all around, depending upon the lie of land and
how severely local ecosystems are affected.

The Korba Alumina plant killed villagers 5060 kilometres away from the plant and destroyed their
agriculture. The undergorund aquifers were poisoned.

Thousands of open cast coal mines in Ranchi
and Bokaro are death traps, remain unrehabilitated;
displaced persons uncompensated.

The HEC [Ranchi] case shows that while 800
acres were required, 8000 were acquired; the original
1300 odd tribal household list became 4500
household list by dubious means adopted by illegal
North Bihari claimants.
As many as 100,000 mango trees were destroyed in
what was known as "Lakh Bageecha" in 1960. A lady
who once owned 150 acres of land here [evidence
from revenue record], received 27 rupees per acre, lost
her mind, her husband died of TB; her two sons were
shot dead in police "encounter." She was collecting
plastic rags in the streets of Ranchi and begged to feed
herself.
The HEC story is one of the most horrific I have
documented since 1977. Our report was submitted to
the Department of Tribal Development in 1996.

In Moradabad district, 1100 acres of prime
land was acquired for NEPA's aper plant 26 years ago.
I spent a few days with the villagers [all CPIML
supporters and members] andwrote the case study.
The project has not come up yet even after the pomp of
Rajiv Gandhi laying the foundation stone in 1988 or
89. Instead, the UP Government tried to sell the land to
a Bombay based form for five times the cost of
acquisition.
The district court Judge had this to say: "Has the
Government become property dealer?" How many
examples you want to see? That is happening all over
India.
Kisan Ki Awaaz
August - 2011
A sizeable chunk lives below the poverty line. 15-30%

POSCO: Enough information on this
from the SC communities; in Scheduled Areas the
company is available to say that (a) POSCO is a can of
majority is from the tribal communities where PESA
worms and (b) the Orissa project just might rescue this
is operational.
criminal corporation and all the banksters who are
investors.
There is no provision for restitution for past losses, for
continued deprivation of access and benefit sharing to
The Korean members of the Board of Directors are
natural resource base, and no inter-generational
mere Asian faces. If government approved this project
equity.
without going into the antecedents of this
multinational corporation then he has a lot of
The issues are common across India.
explaining to do.
The Land Acquisition Act of 1894 has been modified

In NCR
Noida, Greator Noida(Bhatta
from time to time by various state governments.
Parsaul,Tappal,Ghodi Bachera) , Gurgaon, Sonepat,
Jhajjar are the worst examples of land grabing in the
Similarly, Resettlement and Rehabilitation provisions
world.
have been made by various state governments. While
it has been consistently shown that the protective
Issues of equity
provisions are inadequate under conditions of forcible
sequestration of land, the protective provisions
There are 11 issues of equity. When developmental
essentially focus on directly displaced from the land.
projects violate and regulatory authorities ignore any
of these, there is usually intense opposition.
Indirect adverse impacts and eleven issues of equity,
as described below, have never been considered as
These eleven issues are: acceptability of project,
part of compensation package over time and space.
distribution of costs versus benefits, balancing of the
Moreover, these issues have not been considered in
doctrine of eminent domain by recognition of other
the Draft R&R Bill either.
rights [like right to use of resources, customary and
community use of natural resources and ecosystem
That does not mean that industrial development must
goods and services], consideration of equity at all
stop. Since hard evidences of direct and indirect
spatial and temporal scales and not only limited to the
impacts on rural livelihoods and inequities, i.e.
project area, equity across all social groups including
iniquitous access and benefit sharing of ecosystem
the landless and migrant workers, restitution of past
goods and services, are emerging from new and old
losses, eschewing from use of violence, intimidation,
project areas, these issues need to be scientifically
allurement or undue force, maximization of positive
studied and factored in macro planning for
impacts and minimization of negative ones,
development.
participation of interested parties and affected
communities as part of the initial socio-economic
So long as these issues remain outside debate,
assessment and the planning process, interopposition to industrialization and infrastructure
generational equity, and long term monitoring, redevelopment will grow, and further intensify, forcing
appraisals, reviews and impact assessment.
people to adopt anomalous extremist route to 'justice'
and governments to adopt measures that are often
These eleven issues of equity should be part of the
violations of human rights and many other rights,
initial planning even before land acquisition
including community rights under PESA in tribal
proceedings start.
areas.
And these issues should be addressed first because
The LARR-2011 does not address majority of the
India is densely populated with 70% population
issues of long term damage to ecosystems and it's
dependent upon ecosystem goods and services. Many
totally silent on the issues of equity.
of these people are small and medium farmers, many
more landless.
August - 2011
Kisan Ki Awaaz
21
Prime Minister Keeps Environment Ministry and the Minister Structurally Weak
Jayanthi Natarajan Appointed a Junior Minister, like her Predecessor
New Delhi:12 July, 2011- The fact that Jayanthi
Natarajan has been appointed a junior minister like
her predecessor underlines that Prime Minister does
not accord the priority, environmental issues deserve.
Once again the minister has been kept structurally
weak so that whenever there is conflict between blind
economic growth and ecology, the former is given
precedence at the cost of the latter.
The Ministry has been designed to be structurally
weaker than all the other ministries, which adversely
impact the environment and poison our food chain.
It is that the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs
(from which the Environment Ministry draws its
mandate) and the Prime Minister are not yet alive to
the collapsing ecosystem.
On World Environment Day (June 5th) Jayanthi
Natarajan knew that she was going to be the Union
Environment Minister.
She recollected on that day that in the 1970s the
environment activists were looked at patronisingly.
Now she wonders about "pesticides are ruining our
agriculture". She remembers "environmental safety"
in the aftermath of "Chernobyl, Bhopal, now
Fukushima" that "induce terror in the world of
environment and citizen safety".
She wonders about "How do we prevent another
Bhopal tragedy and still keep our economy growing?"
and "How many use car pools or bicycles?".
She calls for everyone to be "environment warriors"
but begin from our own homes. While all this reveals
that our new Environment Minister is ecologically
sensitive but the regressive influence of Cabinet
Committee on Economic Affairs will not provide her
adequate space to act as it did so in the case of Jairam
Ramesh. Natarajan is not unfamiliar with
environmental governace issues.
22
She was a member of Committee of both the Houses
of Parliament on Environment and Forest during
1992-97.
What is sad is that the Prime Minister has failed to
realize that the threat to the integrity of the natural
systems is a threat to human heath, and such threats
have become routine because of myopic
industrial agriculture, blind urban development,
regressive transport systems and criminal neglect of
non-human species.
While legislative safeguards for environmental
protection do seem to exist on paper, the role of the
political class which is funded by corporations (under
Companies Act, 1956 companies can pay up to 5 % of
their annual profits to political parties) illustrates that
homicidal ecological lawlessness that has led to
rampant industrial pollution, soil erosion, agricultural
pollution, and genetic erosion of plant resources are
quite crucial and merit more acknowledgment.
There is a proposal from Shri Yashwant Sinha headed
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance to
enhance corporate contribution to political parties
from 5 % to 7.5 % of the annual profits of the
companies in the Companies Bill, 2009.
This is an anti- environment proposition because the
donors are bound to seek lax environmental laws in
return of their contribution to political parties.
Unless there is state funding for political parties to
fight elections, it is unlikely that the structural
weakness in the environmental governance can be
rectified.
In such a context, a structurally weak ministry and
minister can do little to prevent ongoing of our
contamination of blood, congenital disorders,
preventable but incurable cancer or extinction of
known and unknown living species on our planet.
The Prime Minister and the Chairperson of Indian
National Congress led United Progressive Alliance
Kisan Ki Awaaz
August - 2011
has failed to recognize the compelling logic to reexamine the premises of Industrial Growth and design
a new one.
In the developed world the model of development is
under interrogation because of environmental
problems.
Indian National Congress led United Progressive
Alliance must brainstorm on how between 1975 and
1995 the Indian economy grew 2.5 times but the
industrial pollution went up four-fold, and vehicular
pollution went up eight-fold.
Such growth trends have ended up internalising the
pollution and externalising the human cost of
pollution.
It was expected that the UPA government would take
cognizance of the health indicators of the
deteriorating environment in terms of a double burden
of disease but it seems to have been rendered spineless
by the corporate contribution to its constituent parties.
The appointment Jairam Ramesh had raised hopes but
manifest Prime Ministerial interference does not
leave much space for even somewhat sincere
ministers to respond to the environmental crisis in our
country.
It is hoped that as a Union Cabinet Minister for Rural
Development, he will address rural India's concerns
with environmental sensitivity, which he could not
display as Environment Minister because of structural
constraints.
Ramesh stopped the end-of-life toxic US ship from
being beached but due to non-cooperation from
Shipping Ministry, he could not get the ship sent back.
Although he knows about ongoing contamination of
Alang beach by multinational shipping companies,
acknowledged it but could not do anything for its
remediation.
He stopped Bt brinjal but did not disapprove Bt cotton
unmindful of the fact that the same soil would be used
for both and cause same ecological crisis.
August - 2011
He visited the Delhi's Okhla Waste to energy
incinerator of O P Jindal Group, acknowledged that
rampant violation of environmental laws but did not
cancel its environmental clearance.
The appointment of Jayanthi Natarajan as
Environment Minister is welcome but the Ministry
and Indian ecosystem merits more than cosmetic
interventions.
As an Environment Minister, Natarajan must act to
disassociate India from the carbon trade path because
benefits from it are starkly suspect.
She would ensure that land-water binary that has been
created to deal with land resources and water
resources separately as part of colonial legacy must be
done away with and a genuine river basin approach is
adopted which would also require rewriting of the
industrial policy.
Although she is from Tamil Nadu, she must adopt
Ramesh's sensitivity in disassociating herself from
Tamil Nadu's irrational demand for interlinking of
rivers to undo the unhealthy legacy of bulldozing
rivers, flood plains, forests, biodiversity, natural
drainage etc in manner as if citizens, forests and
wildlife are irrelevant.
She has rightly referred to melting of Himalayan
glaciers as a concern because 'Glaciers in the
Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of
the world”.
She must make it quite transparent when
ecologically disastrous industrial projects are cleared
by Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA),
what role can an effete body of the environment
ministry play to undo the wrongs committed by the
CCEA.
Her predecessor failed to publish a database of
environmental criminals and fugitives with their
photographs and profiles with the name of the
companies which fall under the 64 heavily polluting
industries under the Red category (highly polluting
industries), 34 moderately polluting industries
('Orange' category) and 54 'marginally' polluting units
('Green' category) and to publish a list
of India's Most Wanted Environmental Criminals with
Kisan Ki Awaaz
23
wanted posters. It is hoped that she would be able to
do so.
Natrajan can act to stop transboundary movement of
polluting technologies, hazardous wastes, creating an
inventory of hazardous chemicals and wastes besides
conducting an environmental health audit
along with the ministry of health to ascertain the body
burden through investigation of industrial chemicals,
pollutants and pesticides in umbilical cord blood.
In one such study in the US, of the 287
chemicals detected in umbilical cord blood, 180 were
known to cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are
toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause
birth defects or abnormal development in animal
tests.
Absence of such studies in India does not mean that a
similar situation does not exist in India.
Until and unless we diagnose the current
unacknowledged crisis, how will he regulatory bodies
predict, prevent and provide remedy.
Jairam Ramesh failed to do anything in this regard.
She should revisit Indian position on the UN's Basel
Convention, Kyoto Protocol, and the recently adopted
UN's IMO Convention the same way as Government
of India did in the UN's Rotterdam Convention
meeting on hazardous chemicals with regard to
chrysotile asbestos.
It merits reiteration that the 141-page report of the
steering committee on the environment and forests
sector for the eleventh five-year plan prepared by
Planning Commission deals with environment
and development.
It is high time environmental regulation keeps pace
with environmental crimes. Even Interpol has an
INTERPOL Environmental Crime Committee which
along with its Working Groups on Wildlife Crime and
Pollution Crime; India too needs one, only dealing
with civil cases through National Green Tribunal is
hardly sufficient.
In 1995, in one of its landmark judgments the
Supreme Court in the matter of Indian Council for
Enviro-Legal Action v. Union of India observed,
"Environmental Courts having civil and criminal
jurisdiction must be established to deal with the
environmental issues in a speedy manner.
Further, it must be manned by legally-trained
persons/judicial officers." The Tribunal violates the
court order by excluding criminal jurisdiction.
Will she act to regulate Pollution & Environment
Crime? This will be the litmus test for her competence
as an Environment Minister.
E-mail: [email protected], toxicswatch.
blogpsot.com ,
Greener the ideas,
secure the Earth is .....
Light up the lamp
It refers to 'the regulatory challenge' and states: ''The
number of polluting activities -- and the quantum of
pollution generated -- has increased in the last several
years.
Furthermore, newer and newer environmental
challenges are thrown up -- from solid waste disposal,
to disposal and recycling of hazardous waste, to
toxins like mercury, dioxins and activities like shipbreaking to management of vehicular pollution.'
24
of awareness.
- Aastha Chaudhary -
Kisan Ki Awaaz
August - 2011
Subsidy for the poor is bad; subsidy for the
rich is good and always welcome
* Dr. Devinder Sharma
S
ubsidy has become a bad word. The moment the
word 'subsidy' is mentioned one thinks of another
crumb being thrown at the poor; as if tax-payers
money is once again being wasted in the name of social
security for reasons that are purely political. Over the
years, neoliberal economists have successfully
managed to create an impression in public perception
that all subsides are wrong and need to be phased out.
World Bank/IMF have in fact been forcing
governments to remove subsidies as part of the fiscal
prudence exercises needed to prop up the sagging
economy. Let us face it, an average educated person
finds subsidy despicable.
I wasn't therefore surprised to read New York Times
commentary: "Politics gives some US subsidy program
s t a y i n g p o w e r " ( N Y T, J u l y 1 4 , 2 0 1 1 ,
http://nyti.ms/qDXRo4). Pitching for removal of
wasteful subsidies, and most of these obviously fall in
the agriculture sector, the writer tells us how these
programs operate more or less like vampires, always
coming back when you thought they were dead and
gone.
Illustrating his argument with some telling examples,
like Washington's Essential Air Service programme that
results in an annual burden of $ 1.6 million for just three
flights, he adds: "A close look at two programs
highlights the age-old politics protecting government
spending. The peanut and cotton storage program,
which costs $1 million a year, has repeatedly survived
cuts thanks to bipartisan support. Under the program,
the government picks up storage costs for cotton and
peanut farmers when they defer selling crops until
prices rise. The peanut storage credits have been around
since 2002. The cotton subsidy dates to the 1990s."
Talking about agricultural subsidies I am reminded of
another report "Government's Continued Bailout for
Corporate Agriculture," published by the Environment
Working Group in 2010 that listed the massive US farm
subsidy support over the years. Accordingly, the US had
paid a quarter of trillion dollars in farm subsidy support
between 1995 and 2009. What makes the farm subsidy
conundrum more complicated is the role the highly
August - 2011
subsidised commodities play in international trade.
Take cotton for example. US cotton subsidy have been
known to be killing small cotton growers in western
Africa, Asia and Latin America who cannot compete
against the heavily subsidised cotton being imported
from America.
I am not in favour of wasteful subsidies. These must be
curbed.
But why is that no economist, and for that matter no
policy maker, is ever willing to point a finger at the
massive subsidies that are being doled to the industry,
services and banking sectors in the name of improving
efficiency? If subsidies are bad, these are bad for the
industry too. Take the case of India where a similar
debate has been raging for quite sometime now. Since
2004, the government has waived taxes, including
income tax reductions, for the business and industry to
the tune of Rs 22 lakh crore. These tax exemptions are
clubbed under the category of 'revenue foregone' and
presented in every annual budget. I haven't yet seen any
economist or a TV anchor ever pointing a finger to these
'wasteful' subsidies. Perhaps the reason is simple. In
some way or the other we all are beneficiaries of the
same subsidised system.
I was surprised to read another report the other day. The
government has decided to provide a subsidy (you can
call it an investment) of Rs 100,000 crore in the next 10
years for the opulent IT industry. I thought the IT sector
has already been one of the major recipients of
government subsidies all these years, and is now a cash
rich sector. On the other hand, the government finds it
unable to take anymore the burden of cooking gas
cylinders for the average households. Well, the reason is
simple. The outgo on LPG falls under the category of
subsidy whereas the subsidy for IT sector is an
investment for improving efficiency and thereby add to
job creation.
This is what is called 'tough love'. Tough for you and me,
and love for the rich.
http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com/
Kisan Ki Awaaz
25
International farmers' “speak out” warned Aquino
against foreign landgrabbers in Philippines
M
ANILA, Philippines- About 300 global
leaders and farmer activists from India,
Nepal, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia,
Pakistan, Argentina, Kenya, Cambodia, Senegal,
Cameroon,Burundi, and the Philippines led the “First
International Speak Out Against Global
Landgrabbing” in Manila and warned Philippine
Diliman to Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)
national office to convey their collective message to
Aquino that his government should refrain from
striking deals with foreign buyers of agricultural lands
at the expense of farmers' land rights and food
sovereignty.
President Benigno Simeon Aquino on the very
damaging impact it would generate in the country
unless stopped with strong political will by the current
occupant in Malacanang Palace.
“The foreign landgrabbers coming from the world's
most powerful economies are coming in and out of
Manila like cherished land and real estate clients of the
Philippine government.
The “speak out' sponsored by the People's Coalition
on Food Sovereignty (PCFS), IBON International and
Asian Peasant Coalition (APC), in cooperation with
the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas
(KMP) and left-leaning fisherfolk alliance
Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng
Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) marched from UP campus in
They are buying and acquiring lands of Filipino
farmers like shopaholics looking for bargain items,”
the PCFS and APC said in a press statement.
26
The international rally held in front of DAR office was
part of two international activities-- the International
Festival for Peoples' Rights and Struggles and the 4th
Kisan Ki Awaaz
August - 2011
Assembly of the International League of Peoples'
Struggle (ILPS) to be held on July 5-6 and July 7-9 in
Manila respectively.
to identify six million hectares of “idle lands” for the
production of sugar cane, coconut, cassava, jathropa,
oil palm and other high value export crops.
APC secretary general Danilo Ramos said the global
landgrabbing offensive of powerful economies like
the United States, Europe, China and Japan had
reached Philippine shores since the time of former
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
It also said the Philippine government is just waiting
for the final say of the Saudi government on the
proposed $ 238.6 million fresh investment for cash
crop plantations like banana, mango and pineapple,
aquaculture and halal food processing.
Ramos, also the secretary general of KMP said the
Philippine government under the Aquino
administration continues to honor the blanket
commitment of his predecessor in disposing
agricultural lands for foreign ownership and use.
In 2009, a World Bank report suggests that up to 111
million acres of agricultural lands were acquired by
global investors, 75 percent of which are found in
Africa.
Citing the recent joint fact-finding mission of the
PCFS and APC, Ramos said a total of 11,000 hectares
of agricultural lands in San Mariano, Isabela, which
were used for food crops like rice, corn and vegetables
are now being explored for bio-ethanol projects
courtesy of the Japanese-owned Green Futures
Innovations Inc. (GFI) which is presently pursuing
mass production of bio-ethanol products for Japanese
industries use.
“The phenomena known as global landgrabbing has
facilitated, accelerated and exacerbated the perennial
problem of landlessness and wholesale attack on
peasant land rights.
This neo-liberal globalization pattern and policy is
now major menace to farmers asserting their rights to
land,” the Philippine peasant leader noted.
The PCFS noted that the Philippines has been
increasingly opening up its agricultural lands to
foreign buyers since 2008 and such foreign policy has
displaced and continue to threaten peasant
communities across the country.
The group noted that aside from Japan, other
countries which expressed willingness to buy or lease
agricultural lands in the Philippines include China,
Saudi Arabia, South Korea, the United States and
European Union.
In the United States, more than 25 percent of its grain
production or 119 million tons out of 416 million tons
went to ethanol distilleries for auto fuel.
The PCFS also noted that Sime Darby, the world's
biggest company in palm oil production, has leased
220,000 has. of land in Liberia, and is targeting
300,000 has. For palm oil plantations in Cameroon.
The Food First institute for Food and Development
Policy reported that in Ghana, one million hectares of
farms planted to sorghum and maize were converted
to the production of jatropha and palm oil.
According to the same WB report, there are 7.2
million hectares of lands in Brazil devoted to jatropha
in the past 25 years.
Moreno said that Brazil now imports much of its food
crops, including patented seeds.
The people's food habits also changed, turning more to
fast food, junk food and other cheap but unhealthy
food items. #
E-mail: [email protected] or
[email protected]
During the Arroyo administration, the Philippine
government through the Philippine Agribusiness
Development Cooperation Center (PADCC) was able
August - 2011
Kisan Ki Awaaz
27
Three distress vidarbha farmer commits suicides reported in a day
Prime Minister urged to intervene to solve cotton farmer's crisis
Nagpur- 21st July 2011 - The delayed erratic rain and
frequent re-sowing, economic losses due to cotton
price rescission and NBARD action to Stall the Agri.
Credit to under section 11 to District Coop Banks
(DCB) through ill-fated and bankrupt MS co-op Bank
has resulted in three more distressed debt-trapped
cotton farmers suicides
'It was July 2006 when indian prime minister visited
agrarian crisis prone western vidarbha and announced
special relief package of Rs.3750 crore in which the
interest waiver of Rs.1080 crore and gave extended
Agri. Credit of Rs.2500 crore promising to make it
double in next three years but all promises were kept on
paper and bankers reduced Agri.
Credit for short crop loan has been further reduced to
50% forcing Indianto announce complete loan waiver
of Rs.71,000 crore in march 2008 but vidarbha farmers
were intentionally kept out this loan waiver and farmers
suicides in the cotton cultivating region till continued as
non-professional attitude and non-cooperation of
bankers the complete exercise of loan waiver has been
failed and crop loan amount in last five year reduced to
50% whereas cultivation cost has increased in
multifold thanks to skyrocketing prices of Bt.Cotton
Seed ,Fertilizer and pesticides and labor .
1.Kisan Mane of Village Chatari in Yavatmal
2.Pushottam Galaskar of Chavsala in Amaravati
3.Tukaram Ingale of Alegoan in Akola , earlier in
this week 4 four more farmers suicides were
reported v.i.z.
4.Anil Tandilkar of village Ukapati in Amaravatit
5.Subhash Kasdekar of village Ranamalur in
Amaravati
6.Ramesh Jumade of Achalpur in Amaravati
7.Anandrao Khande of viallge Tawashi In
Bhandara
taking official toll 443 in year 2011 alone.
28
As per district administration now it's official crop loan
disbursement is less than 50% in comparison to last
year disbursement .there is huge cry in vidarbha for
fresh crop loan to all illegible farmers but bankers are
facing liquidity crunch due to insufficient fund
sanctioned by apex bank NABARD even after
Dr.Sudhir Goyal promised as credit flow in Rs.510
crore in first week of July and another installment of
Rs.500 crore since 12th July but nothing has happened
and crop loan is till standstill due technical issues after
RBI twisted the irregularities and scam of existing
directors of MSC Bank .
Kishore Tiwari of Vidarbha Janandolan Samiti said that
farmers suffering due default of western Maharashtra
sugar lobby this is most unfortunate hence we demand
intervention of central Govt. arrange crop loan
disbursement to dying vidarbha farmers.
“We have urged Indian prime minister to revist the
vidarbha and look at the integrated agrarian problems
of cotton grower which is related to credit, minimum
support price(MSP) and stringent export restrictions
which is accumulating the distress and despair
resulting in farmers suicides .
Kisan Ki Awaaz
August - 2011
Monsanto-spawned superweeds growing
three inches daily, destroying farm equipment
* Ethan A. Huff
01 August 2011 - (NaturalNews) The proliferation of
superweeds -- weeds that have mutated to develop
resistance to popular herbicides like Monsanto's
Roundup formula -- continues to rise. But the individual
plants' overall size and strength is also increasing.
According to a series of new studies published in the
journal Weed Science, farmers are having more trouble
than ever dealing with out-of-control superweeds in
their fields, some of which grow up to three inches a day
in size, and are so strong and thick that they are
destroying farm equipment.
The studies reveal that there are currently at least 21
different weed species known to be resistant to
Roundup, also known generically as glyphosate.
These species include ragweed, pigweed, horseweed,
waterhemp, and ryegrass. Since 2007, the total acreage
of farmland known to be infested with superweeds has
also jumped more than 450 percent, from 2.4 million
August - 2011
acres to 11 million acres, which means that the problem
is only going to get exponentially worse.
"Super-strains of plants like pigweed -- which grows
three inches a day and is tough enough to damage farm
machinery -- have emerged, which may dramatically
reduce the options for farmers to control them," writes
Fast Company in a recent piece on the issue.
"The alternatives are usually more dangerous chemicals
or plowing and mulching fields, undermining many of
the environmental benefits biotech crops are supposed
to offer.
It's 'the single largest threat to production agriculture
that we have ever seen,' claims Andrew Wargo III,
president of the Arkansas Association of Conservation
Districts."
Kisan Ki Awaaz
29
And yet for years Monsanto has denied, at least in part,
that Roundup is the cause of superweeds, alleging also
that widespread concern about the issue is overblown.
Though it now admits that Roundup may actually be
culprit in spawning superweeds (you think?), Monsanto
is trying to somehow spin the situation in a positive
light. Back in 2010, for instance, a writer for Monsanto's
public relations blog actually claimed that using too
little Roundup might be a cause of superweeds.
Herbicide resistance is not limited to just
Roundup
Genetically-modified (GM) crops, which are the
primary target of herbicide applications like Roundup,
are currently planted in roughly 200,000 square miles of
American farmland.
Their very existence requires repeated applications of
herbicides and pesticides, including Roundup. But some
of the same superweeds that have developed resistance
to Roundup -- but that used to at least respond to other
herbicides, or combinations of herbicides -- have now
developed resistance to these alternative eradication
methods as well.
Superweeds are spreading their traits to
plants everywhere
Shuffling around pesticides and herbicides, and
manually chopping down weeds, however, will not
ultimately solve the superweed problem.
No matter how many chemical applications
conventional and GM crop farmers apply, superweeds
just continue to get stronger and more pervasive.
And they are becoming so strong that not only are they
squelching all non-resistant weeds from existence, but
they are also spreading resistant genes to other plants.
"Pollen can transfer the resistant trait; that's the
problem," said Kevin Bradley, a weed scientists from the
University of Missouri, to SLPD.
"There's not much we can do about pollen flying through
the air, and that's why we see such rapid spread of
resistance."
The USDA, of course, continues to allow the
introduction of new GMOs like alfalfa, sugar beets, and
now even Kentucky bluegrass, because it does not view
GMOs any differently than normal crops.
A recent report in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (SLPD)
explains that farmers are quickly running out of options
for controlling the superweed problem, as many
superweeds are now resistant to three or four other
herbicides, and counting, besides Roundup.
The agency has refused to hold GMOs to a higher
standard as it should, and instead has reneged any
responsibility for properly regulating "frankencrops" -and thus the world is being overrun by superweeds.
Superweeds with massive stems up to four inches thick
are devastating fields, and farmers are becoming
desperate for solutions.
The only way it is possible to get rid of superweeds, if
such a task is even still possible, is to end the cultivation
of GM crops for good.
"It's rather ironic that we were sold glyphosate as an
alternative to these older pesticides, and now farmers
are using them again," said Brett Lorenzen, a legal
analyst with the Environmental Working Group (EWG),
to SLPD concerning farmers trying anything and
everything to get rid of superweeds. "But that's part of
the pattern of the pesticide industry."
In order to accomplish this, every GM field would have
to be uprooted, tilled, and burned, and the whole of
mainstream agriculture would have to embrace a system
of chemical-free polyculture that naturally encourages
proper soil health and microbial diversity, two factors
that eliminate the need for using the herbicides and
pesticides that have played a major factor in the
superweed problem.
The same report explains that, in order to get rid of the
monstrous superweeds, farmers are having to hire
laborers to hack down the behemoth plants by hand,
which together with trying all sorts of other pesticides
and herbicides, is costing farmers more time and money
than if they had never planted GM crops in the first
place.
30
http://www.naturalnews.com/033195_superweeds_f
arm_equipment.html#ixzz1TwqHZsCd
Kisan Ki Awaaz
August - 2011
BioFach and Vivaness 2012:
Presenting India's eco pioneers to the organic world
I
ndia: 1.2 billion inhabitants, the largest democracy in
the world, a country of contrasts, and heading for world
economic leadership. The organic sector has a lot to
offer too. The details are presented by the subcontinent at
the World Organic Trade Fair and its daughter Vivaness, the
Trade Fair for Natural Personal Care and Wellness, from
1518 February 2012, when international attention focuses
on India as Country of the Year. 2,544 manufacturers and
44,591 buyers travelled to Nürnberg in 2011 for their
annual sector highlight BioFach and Vivaness.
Preparations for the grand appearance of the Indian organic
market at the next edition of the BioFach and Vivaness duo
have been in progress since the contract was signed
between APEDA, the official Indian export promotion
organization, and NürnbergMesse in February. But the
course for the sustainable success of India's organic sector
was set much earlier, with impetus from the official side
and private industry commitment as key conditions.
Some 50 exhibitors from India presented their company
and delicious organic products to the professional
international audience in February. The fascinating
country has been a permanent feature at the world's leading
exhibition for ten years. Asit Tripathy, Managing Director
of APEDA: “We feel very honoured and are delighted that
India will be the focus of attention at the world-leading
exhibition in February 2012.”
Claus Rättich, Member of the Management Board,
NürnbergMesse: “We have valued the Indian organic
stakeholders as key business partners for many years and
are pleased we have been able to continuously intensify our
cooperation over the past years.
This applies to both APEDA and ICCOA (International
Competence Centre for Organic Agriculture), our partners
for BioFach India.
India's appearance as Country of the Year at BioFach 2012
highlights and enhances the world-leading exhibition in a
very special way.”
The common interest of all players is to develop trade in
organic products and expand the domestic organic market
in India. The rapid expansion of the future-orientated
organic sector is strongly supported by the Indian
government.
August - 2011
Using the large potential for organic agriculture
“In five years, we should reach export sales of one billion
US dollars for organic food, organic cotton and other nonfood products,” explained Trade Minister Rahul Kullar in
2011 on the tenth anniversary of the introduction of the
National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP). The
medium-term target is two million hectares of certified
organic land by 2012 and strong sales growth by 2015. The
state has created good conditions for the organic sector.
The major modules are the NPOP, organic standards, an
official organic label and the Tracenet system recently
launched by APEDA for tracing products from shop to
field. With the aid of grants and training courses for farmers
willing to convert, it has been possible to double the
organically farmed area to 1.2 million hectares alone
between 2007 and 2009. Especially small family farms are
still very interested, because they can only profit from
farming their land organically.
They do not need to take out any loans for expensive
supplies such as high-tech seeds, artificial fertilizers and
pesticides, but can raise their income using improved
traditional methods. The farmers also get better prices for
their products after conversion, plus free protection of their
own health and the environment.
Mukesh Gupta, Director of the Morarka Foundation:
“Organic agriculture works in harmony with nature and not
contrary to it.” This aspect of organic farming very much
accommodates the traditional Indian affinity with nature, as
clearly indicated by the farmers' great interest. The Morarka
Foundation has intensively supported organic farming for
many years and meanwhile cooperates with around
100,000 small farmers.
India's federal states strongly support organic
The advantages of organic farming have also convinced the
governments of many federal states, which have invested in
the development of organic agriculture for over twenty
years. For example, Sikkim in the Southern Himalaya is
aiming to change its agricultural land completely to organic
agriculture by 2015. This was announced by Minister of
Agriculture Takarpa at the beginning of 2011. The initiative
is to be supported by an active government programme
covering training, an investment-friendly policy and the
provision of marketing instruments.
Kisan Ki Awaaz
31
ICCOA, based in Bangalore/Kerala, also offers training
measures to serve the increasing demand for qualified
personnel for both organic farming and processing
companies. The Certificate Program in Organic
Agriculture (CPOA) starts with an initial six-month course
in July 2011. The organic sector also creates a not
insignificant number of jobs. For example, more than
700,000 farmers are currently working in organic
agriculture in India.
Marketing: domestic and export markets growing
The visions of organic stakeholders in India are
exceptionally ambitious. The aim is to raise domestic sales
by 120 % to an amount equivalent to 330 million US dollars
and export sales to over 550 million US dollars by 2012.
These earned some 120 million US dollars in 2010,
according to ICCOA. About 230 companies were involved
in export business at that time, and just under 54,000 tons of
organic products were exported in 2009. Organic cotton
holds first place, followed by fruit and vegetables, oilseeds,
tea and coffee. To achieve the targets, an organic trade
association was set up in December 2010. The Indian
Ministry of Commerce and Industry, organic companies
and a delegation of the US Organic Trade Association
(OTA) have jointly launched the Organic Trade
Association of India, whose aim is to boost organic
marketing with political support.
Retail trade reacts to rising domestic demand
They have names like Down to Earth, Dubden India, 24
Letter Mantra,Green Channel or Navdanya the Indian
shops that sell organic and health products. The demand is
growing rapidly. Trading entrepreneur Raj Seelam
considers organic sales of 58 billion US dollars are possible
in the Indian market in the next 15 years. The urban middle
class currently comprises 150 to 200 million people,
according to experts. These educated, often nutritionconscious citizens are potential organic customers. Seelam,
founder of the organic manufacturer Sresta and operator of
the retail concept 24 Letter Mantra, forecasts that organic
consumption will expand many times over. The still small
domestic market is currently growing by 70 % and more
annually. Seelam himself wants to expand the number of
shop-in-shop outlets to 800 by the end of 2011. The
company's brand products are also obtainable abroad.
Another active stakeholder in the organic market is the
versatile company Morarka Organic. In cooperation with
independently operating “agripreneurs”, Morarka provides
the raw material and product basis for marketing, which is
created in the form of an Indian-wide network of
wholesalers and retail shops. The Down to Earth brand is
available in separate shops of the same name. Morarka is
32
also active in the export business, however. Other sales
channels for organic products in India are conventional
supermarkets, online shops and weekly markets. Mumbai
now even has a weekly farmers market for organic produce.
India: world export champion for organic cotton
India with an 80 % share of the market is the world's biggest
supplier of organic cotton, followed by Syria and Turkey.
This is shown by the current Organic Cotton Farm and Fibre
Report from Textile Exchange. India has now held this
position for three years in succession. The organic share
was only 1.4 % of total Indian production in 2009, but
Dhiren Sheth, President of the Cotton Association of India
(CAI), emphasizes the importance of the market segment
and its huge potential.
The amount of organic cotton produced increased six-fold
within only four years, and 220,000 small farmers farm and
maintain approx. 260,000 hectares. About another 90,000
hectares are in the process of conversion, because the
demand for the environment-friendly raw material is
booming. Besides the pioneers of the eco-textile sector,
who have developed the sector for over 20 years, it is now
mainly large fashion chains and a variety of small designer
labels and start-ups that use the natural raw material.
Experts forecast a market share of 5 % for India's organic
textile sector in the coming five years.
The more the better, because the environmental
benefit is enormous.
Conventional cotton is one of the most heavily polluted
cultures in terms of pesticides. Social and cultural aspects
and the positive impact on the employment market should
not be neglected either. One example is the Bhu:sattva
brand, which has its collections made largely in the cottage
industry, with around 10,000 women involved in
production. This has a nice secondary effect of cultivating
textile craftsmanship and preserving this ancient Indian
tradition.
At BioFach India together with India Organic in Bangalore,
the Indian daughter of BioFach Nürnberg, eco-textiles play
a major role as well as organic food. For the first time, the
exhibition from 1012 November 2011 will offer a special
Textile Street for this booming market segment, which
promises to be a real highlight.
Exhibitors and visitors at BioFach Nürnberg can look
forward to a brilliant and inspiring Indian presentation from
1518 February 2012. Namaste!
[email protected], www.biofach.com
Kisan Ki Awaaz
August - 2011
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dkaxzsl egklfpo vkWLdj us dgk] lalnh; lfefr ds lkeus j[k nsaxs lq>ko
d`f"k Hkwfe dk vf/kxzg.k rRdky can gks- gfj;k.kk ljdkj dh eqvkotk uhfr ij Hkh lk/ks x, fu'kkus
Hkkjrh; d`"kd lekt ds vf/kos'ku esa ljdkj dh uh;r ij mBs loky
ubZ fnYyh 2 vxLr 2011 A laln dk eulwu l= 'kq: gks x;k gS A blds igys gh fnu fdlkuksa us vius rsoj fn[kk fn, gS A
Hkkjrh; d`"kd lekt us ,d lEesyu vk;ksftr djds fdlkuksa ds i{k esa vkokt mBk;h A blesa laln esa is'k gksus okys Hkwfe
vf/kxzg.k vf/kfu;e ds fy, dbZ lq>ko j[ks x,] tks fd fdlkuksa ds lh/ks fgr ls tqMs gq, Fks A dgk x;k fd izLrkfor
vf/kfu;e esa lkoZtfud fgr dh ifjHkk"kk esa i;ZVu dks 'kkfey ugha fd;k tkuk pkfg, A lekt ds lEesyu esa fofHkUu izkarksa
ds fdlkuksa ds izfrfuf/k;ksa ds lkFk gh eap ij dkaxzsl ds dbZ ofj"B lkaln vkSj egklfpo vkWLdj QukZfMl Hkh ekStwn Fks A
vkWLdj QukZfMl us fdlkuksa ds lq>koksa ij lgefr O;Dr djrs gq, dgk fd ;g fo/ks;d laln esa is'k gksus ds ckn LFkk;h
lfefr esa tk;sxk A ogka foe'kZ ds nkSjku fdlkuksa ds izfrfuf/k;ksa ds lq>koksa dks xkSj ls lquk tk;sxk A mUgksaus vk'oLr fd;k
fd LFkk;h lfefr] Hkkjrh; d`"kd lekt dks foe'kZ ds fy, cqyk;sxh vkSj muds lq>koksa ij xaHkhjrk ls xkSj fd;k tk;sxk A
lEesyu esa vk;s QukZfMl us dgk fd Hkwfe vf/kxzg.k vf/kfu;e dks ikfjr djrs le; fdlkuksa ds fgrkssa dk ljdkj iwjk [;ky
j[ksxh A
dkaxzsl lkaln ,oa jk"Vªh; vuqlwfpr tkfr vk;ksx ds v/;{k MkW- ih ,y iqfu;k us dgk fd Hkwfe vf/kxzg.k vf/kfu;e esa
lkoZtfud fgrksa dks fQj ls ifjHkkf"kr djus dh t:jr gS A mUgksaus dgk fd fdlkuksa dh tehu dk vf/kxzg.k lkoZtfud fgr
ds uke ij djds] tehu fcYMjksa dks ugha feyuh pkfg, A lkoZtfud fgr ds rgr vLirky] jsyos vkSj lkeqknf;d fodkl
vkfn ds fy, fdlkuksa ls tehu yh tkuh pkfg, A
iqfu;k us dgk fd Hkwfe vf/kxzg.k vf/kfu;e esa fdlkuksa dks eqvkots ds lkFk gh etnwjksa dks Hkh eqvkotk feyuk pkfg, A
fdlkuksa dh tehu ds cnys ljdkj eqvkotk ns nsrh gS A ysfdu vf/kxzg.k ds ckn etnwj ds lkeus jksth&jksVh dk loky
[kM+k gks tkrk gS A bl vf/kfu;e esa csxkjh djus okys etnwjksa dk [;ky ugha j[kk x;k gS A blfy, eSaus Hkwfe vf/kxzg.k
vf/kfu;e esa etnwjksa dks eqvkotk nsus ds fy, xzkeh.k fodkl ea=h dks i= fy[kk gS A
ef.kiqj ls lkaln Vh- esfu;k us dgk fd fdlkuksa dh tehu vf/kxzg.k djrs le; ljdkj dks lko/kkuh cjruh pkfg, A ;g
mldh jksth&jksVh ds lkFk gh thou&ej.k dk Hkh iz'u gksrk gS A Hkwfe vf/kxzg.k es tehu dk eqvkotk rks fey tkrk gS] og
[kpZ Hkh gks tkrk gS A ysfdu tehu jgus ij ih<+h nj ih<+h yksxksa dk Hkj.k iks"k.k gksrk gS A mUgksaus dgk fd yksdlHkk esa
cgl ds nkSjku os lekt ds izfrfuf/k;ksa ds lq>koksa dks 'kkfey djus ds fy, ljdkj ls vkxzg djsaxs A
tEew ls dkaxszl lkaln enu yky 'kekZ us Hkh fdlkuksa ds lq>koksa dks ewY;oku crkrs gq, Hkwfe vf/kxzg.k vf/kfu;e esa 'kkfey
djus ds fy, laln esa vkokt mBkus dk vk'oklu fn;k A mUgksaus dgk fd fdlkukssa ds fy, Hkwfe vf/kxzg.k ds lkFk gh cht
vf/kfu;e esa la'kks/ku Hkh t:jh gS A mUgksaus dgk fd Hkkjrh; d`"kd lekt fdlkuksa ds fgrksa dh vkokt mBkrk jgk gS A
fdlkuksa dks tkx:d djus esa egrh Hkwfedk fuHkk;h gS A Hkwfe vf/kxzg.k vf/kfu;e ds fy, fdlkuksa ds izfrfuf/k;ksa us tehu
iV~Vs ij fn, tkus dk tks lq>ko fn;k gS] og ljkguh; gS A laln esa bu lc lq>koksa dks 'kfey djus ds fy, ljdkj ls
vkxzg fd;k tk;sxk A
lekt ds v/;{k d`".kchj pkS/kjh us dgk fd izLrkfor Hkwfe vf/kxzg.k vf/kfu;e esa lkoZtfud fgr ds rgr i;ZVu dks
'kkfey fd;k x;k gS A ;g mfpr ugha gS A d`"kd lekt ljdkj ls ekax djrk gS fd lkoZtfud fgr esa i;ZVu dks blesa
'kkfey ugha djuk pkfg, A lEesyu esa dkaxzsl ds ofj"B usrk ,oa iwoZ lkaln gfjds'k cgknqj ekStwn Fks A lEesyu es fdlkuksa
us [kqy dj leL;kvksa ij ppkZ dh A
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