GMW: Technology Has Its Pitfalls

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Wed, 24 Aug 2005 09:15:22 +0100

 

 

 

 

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Technology Has Its Pitfalls

 

By Devinder Sharma

ZNet Commentaries, August 18, 2005

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-08/18sharma.cfm

 

In a desperate effort to seek a permanent seat in the UN Security

Council, Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has signed a deal

with the

United States. Addressing recently a joint session of the US Congress,

he said: " The Green Revolution lifted countless millions above

poverty.... I am very happy to say that U.S. President George Bush and

I have

decided to launch second generation of India-US collaboration in

agriculture. "

 

Voted to power by an angry rural protest vote in May 2004, Dr Manmohan

Singh leads the UPA Coalition. Reiterating time and again that his

government's top most priority is to increase the growth rate in

agriculture, he follows the same technology prescription that led to

the collapse

of the green revolution. Without first ascertaining the reasons behind

the terrible agrarian crisis, much of it the result of imposing

environmentally-unfriendly alien technology, the prime minister

embarks on the

faulty promise of a 'second' green revolution.

 

Technology too has its pitfalls. Much of the crisis today that afflicts

every nook and corner of rural India is the result of an unsustainable

technology that did not integrate well with the social milieu. Nor is

any effort being made to see through the dirty politics of technology,

whether these new technologies are relevant given the farm size, varying

agro-climatic conditions, environment and above all the needs of the

farming community. Let us try to examine a few of the known technologies

and the trail of woes it left behind. While the companies that marketed

these technologies have made their profits, millions of farmers are

paying the price for such unwanted technologies, all backed by government

support.

 

The controversial Seed Bill 2004 introduced in India, which has now

been referred to a Parliamentary select committee, lays emphasis on

ensuring quality of improved seed being supplied to farmers. It seeks

to make

it mandatory for farmers to grow seed that is registered, a proposal

that has come under severe criticism from the farmers as well as the

civil society.

 

Seed quality is an important aspect of crop production. For ages,

farmers had traditionally been selecting and maintaining good quality

seed.

They knew and understood the importance of quality seed in production.

With the advent of green revolution technology, based primarily on the

high-yielding dwarf varieties of wheat and rice, the mainline thinking

changed. Agricultural scientists, for reasons that remain unexplained,

began to doubt the ability of farmers to maintain seed quality.

 

Aided by the World Bank, the Ministry of Agriculture launched a

National Seeds Project in 1967. Under the project, spread into three

phases,

seed processing plants were set up in the states of Punjab, Haryana,

Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar

and Orissa. Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya and

Arunachal Pradesh were covered under phase III. All that the huge

processing plants were supposed to do was to provide 'certified' seeds

of food

crops, mainly self-pollinating crops, to farmers.

 

A majority of these plants have since emerged as white elephants. It

was primarily for the lack of demand for certified seeds of

self-pollinating crops that a majority of these seed processing plants

slid deep

into red and often remained burdened with carryover stocks. Farmers

refrained from buying the 'certified' seeds, and if the seed replacement

ratio is any indication, they preferred to save and clean a part of the

grain harvest for sowing in the next season.

 

Studies have subsequently shown that there is hardly any difference in

the quality and productivity of processed 'certified' seed and the

normal seed of self-pollinating crops like wheat and rice. In fact, what

remains relatively unknown is that the 18,000 tonnes of dwarf wheat seed

that was imported in 1966 from Mexico, which ushered in the wheat

revolution, was not 'certified' processed seed. It was cleaned wheat

grain

collected from Mexican farmers. If the cleaned grain could bring about a

record production, what was the need to push expensive 'certified' seed

to the farmers?

 

Not only the quality of seeds, even the traditional method of sowing

paddy was dubbed as inefficient and thereby considered to be the cause

for low yields. Agricultural scientists urged farmers to discard the

traditional way - through broadcasting -- of sowing paddy. Farm extension

machinery was mobilised to disseminate the improved technology of

transplanting from a paddy nursery. Within a few years of the advent

of the

high-yielding varieties of rice, paddy transplantation changed the rural

landscape.

 

Transplanting paddy required additional farm labour and therefore

increased the cost of production. The crop was transplanted in rows which

made it easier for the tractors and other mechanised instruments to

operate in the rice paddies. It also forced farmers to go in for more

irrigation thereby resulting in the increased withdrawal of groundwater.

 

In mid-1980s, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the

Philippines concluded in a study that there was hardly any difference in

the crop yields from transplanted rice and from the crop sown by

broadcasted seeds. Puzzled, I asked a distinguished rice breeder: " If

this is

true, then why in the first instance were the farmers asked to switch

over to transplanting paddy? " He thought for sometime, and then replied:

" We were probably helping the mechanical industry grow. Since rice is

the staple food in Asia, tractor sales could only grow if there was a

way to move the machine in the rice fields. "

 

No wonder, the sales of tractors, puddlers, reapers and other

associated equipment soared in the rice growing areas. Tractors became

a symbol

of a proud farmer. With the banks manipulating the loans lucratively,

tractors have now turned into a symbol of distress and suicides.

 

Farmers spraying insecticides on crops have also been a usual feature

of modern farming. Pesticides on rice (and others crops) were deemed

necessary since the fertiliser-responsive dwarf varieties would attract

horde of insects. To make the pesticides reach the target pest, farmers

were advised to use 'knap-sack sprayers' mounted on their backs. These

sprayers came with varying kinds of nozzles - different sizes for

different crops. Tractor driven sprayers were also promoted for various

crops.

 

Although David Pimental of the University of Cornell had concluded in

early 1980s that only 0.01 per cent of the pesticides reached the target

pest, whereas 99.9 per cent escapes into the environment, yet farmers

were asked to go in for more sprays. International Rice Research

Institute (IRRI) also came out with a study on the efficiency of

pesticides

application. The study concluded that there was no difference in

pesticides efficiency from 'knap-sack sprayers' and if the chemical

was kept at

the source of the irrigation flow in a crop field.

 

But even then, pesticides were promoted blindly. It has now been

accepted by IRRI that pesticides on rice were a 'waste of time and

effort'.

Farmers in central Luzon province of the Philippines, and in Vietman and

Bangladesh, have clearly established that what agricultural scientists

were telling them all these years was simply wrong. Rice yields are

higher in areas where pesticides are not sprayed.

 

Now let us take a look at the emergence of the cutting-edge technology.

First of all, let us be clear that those who promoted and gained from

the unwanted use and abuse of chemicals in agriculture have moved onto

life sciences. One of the genetically engineered products being pushed

with impunity is Bt cotton. Scientists and economists have joined the

industry bandwagon in the sole quest to perform well in the Stock market.

As of this is not enough, governments are rolling the red carpet for

the biotechnology industry. And you guessed it right. Politicians and

bureaucrats are bending backwards hoping to have a finger in the profit

pie of the so-called sunrise industry!

 

Bt cotton occupies only 1.3 million acres in India in 2004. This is

only a fraction of the over 22.5 million acres being planted with cotton.

In China, Bt cotton now occupies some 1.25 million acres, which again

is a fraction of the total acreage. Incidentally, Bt cotton does not

increase the crop yield. All it does is to reduce the dependence on

pesticides in some areas.

 

One thing is clear, both pesticides and Bt only reduce crop losses. If

Bt cotton increased yield, then how come the use of pesticides on the

remaining acreage under cotton is not considered as also responsible for

increasing crop yields? After all, roughly 55 per cent of the total

pesticides used in India (like elsewhere) are applied on cotton alone.

Why don't scientists say that pesticides also increase yields? Further

what is little known is that in the past 40 years or so and despite the

use of chemicals, number of cotton pests multiplied. In 1960s, there

were hardly seven pests on cotton that were a matter of concern, today

the

number of pests that worry the farmers have increased to nearly 70.

 

Interestingly, Bt cotton had failed miserably in large parts of India.

Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka, which cultivated nearly 70

per cent of the crop in the first three years of commercialisation have

already informed the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) of

its failure.

 

In China too, Bt cotton sowing had initially saved farmers some 28 kg

of pesticides per hectare. Within two years, pesticides use had

increased to 14 kg. This was the figure available till 2002. In the

next two

years -- 2003 and 2004 -- going by the same yardstick (since no official

studies are available), pesticides use is almost back to the earlier

figure of 28 kg per hectare.

 

Why are the farmers then buying Bt cotton? Well, why did the farmers

earlier buy all kinds of chemical pesticides? Isn't it surprising that

even though farmers knew that pesticides were harmful, they went on

purchasing and applying still more potent chemicals. They even used

them in

all kinds of combinations and cocktails.

 

Why blame the farmers? Didn't the educated and the elite continue to

smoke cigarettes even though they knew that smoking was harmful. Wasn't

it prescribed in bold letters on the cigarette packs that smoking is

harmful for health? And yet, cigarette smoking was on an upswing. If it

were not for the state intervention in clamping bans on smoking in public

places, cigarette sales would have still multiplied.

 

Bt cotton sales are picking up the same way. It is the market, stupid.

This is how the markets can lure you to sure death. Millions have been

attracted to the propaganda of the markets in the past and millions

will be driven by it in future. What is not being realised is that the

same pesticides that were promoted by the US Department of Agriculture

and

the agricultural scientists during the past three decades, has taken a

human toll of at least 600,000 people from pesticides poisoning.

 

How? Well, the World Health Organisation (WHO) tells us that some

20,000 people die every year from pesticide poisoning. Multiply that

figure

with 30 years (this is on a conservative scale, green revolution began

around 1966-67), and you get the staggering death toll. Isn't that mass

murder? How could the USDA promote a technology all these

years that killed 600,000 people worldwide? Much of these

pesticides were applied on cotton. Bt technology too is primarily

commercialised

for cotton. But by the time the world realises the grave mistake in

promoting Bt cotton (for the sake of commercial profits of a handful of

private companies), the farmers would have paid a price, as they did

earlier with chemicals.

 

What is the way out?

 

Ask the farmers. The USDA needs to look closely at a remarkable

turnaround brought about by a tiny village in the heart of the killing

fields

of Andhra Pradesh in India. This village has stopped using chemical

pesticides and has therefore no need for Bt cotton, and therefore is not

worried about pests. Isn't that the way forward? Isn't sustainable

farming the best way forward? Haven't farmers all over the world

proved that

low external input agriculture is the best option to have a bountiful

harvest without leaving a scr on environment?

 

Much of the agrarian crisis therefore is the result of such 'unwanted'

and 'cost-intensive' technologies that have been forced on the farmers.

Isn't it obvious that scientists were unknowingly trying to promote the

commercial interests of the seed, tractor and the pesticides industry?

Blindly introducing alien farm technologies without ascertaining its

utility under the Indian farm conditions has cost the farmers dearly. In

fact, the lure of such unwanted and expensive technologies, has fleeced

the farming community. The savings from crop harvests have actually

gone towards the cost of purchasing and maintenance of these irrelevant

technologies. This has compounded the plight of the farming community

thereby aggravating the farm crisis.

 

Politics of technology is no less tricky. It is time the politics

behind the new agriculture technologies, including biotechnology and

nano-technology, and farming systems like like 'contract farming' and

corporate agriculture are first examined and analysed in depth before

pushing

it on to unsuspecting farmers. #

 

(The writer is a New Delhi-based food policy analyst)

 

 

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