[prakruti] To Save Rivers Help Farmers

[Guest guest]

At 08:52 PM 5/3/08, you wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

 

Continuous and increasing use of synthetic fertilisers

and hazardous pesticides necessisted under commercial

farming pactices has poisoned our perennial water sources.

 

Continuous use of chemicals in Punjab, (punj abs-land of

five rreivers) a state that embraqced thew Green Revolution

and became the India's granary now spews poisoned water.

Rivers that flow into the Sindhu river, the life line of India and

Pakistan have become poisoned so have Ganga and Yamuna

that met the thirst of North India. Now these rivers are

poisoned impacting hte health of living beings. .

..

The Chinese lady described in hte following article could trace the

reasons hence is promoting sustainable agriculture, of which

organic farming is an essential part. Can we not take a hint

from her for improving conditions in India.

 

We have dammed our major rivers for diverting water for

meet the wasteful practices of urbanites. Flowing water has

become additional problems.

 

Best wishes.

--

Kisan

Mehta

Priya Salvi

Save Bombay Committee and Prakruti

c/o Rajiv Mehta

1203, Kanchanjanga " A " Wing,

Plot 20, Sector 11, Koparkhairne,

Navi Mumbai 400709, India.

www.savebombaycommittee.org

Kisan Mehta: 0091 9223448857

Priya Salvi: 0091 9324027494

 

 

To Save Rivers, Help Farmers

By Christina

Larson, Christian Science

Monitor. Posted

April

30, 2008.

 

Chinese environmental activist Tian Jun found that in order to clean up

Chengdu's rivers, she needed to look upstream.

Tian Jun remembers when she could still drink the water from the rivers.

But that was long ago, before industrial and agricultural pollution

turned the water a fetid brown.

Now, she is working to turn things around.

Ms. Tian is a Chinese environmentalist from Chengdu, the capital of

western Sichuan Province. She lives in a small apartment in a city of 10

million people.

But she also makes regular trips to the surrounding countryside. One

sunny spring afternoon, Tian toured the family farm of Gao Shengdian, a

longtime farmer who, together with his wife, grows wheat, rice, corn, and

10 kinds of vegetables.

Like most farmers in China, Mr. Gao once used large quantities of

chemical fertilizer. He purchased this fertilizer from the wheelbarrow of

an unlicensed local vendor and he believes it was often impure, even

toxic.

Now Gao points proudly to a series of tidy tomato plots. They are labeled

with new signs that read, in neatly written Chinese characters,

" Green vegetable farmland. " He is converting these plots to

organic farming, a three-year process. For Tian and other residents

downstream, this means less agricultural pollution in their water

supply.

This farm is one of a dozen now enrolled in a sustainable-°©agriculture

program that Tian helped launch three years ago. An environmental group

that she heads splits the cost of equipment to produce

" biofertilizer " from compost and manure on the farms, provides

tips on what crops grow best, and connects farmers with nearby urban

consumers who want organically grown produce.

Many more families have requested to join the program. Gao says his

neighbors are jealous.

But Tian is growing the initiative slowly, taking time to perfect the

model. " When I think about how to make a project sustainable, I

don't just think about the land, " she says. " The human

relationships must be sustainable, too. We need to figure out how to make

everyone's interests meet. "

Tian didn't set out to save the countryside. She first embarked to clean

up the city. But, as she found, those two goals are intertwined.

Her hometown of Chengdu is an ancient city at the convergence of the Fu

and Nan rivers in southwest China. Like many Chinese cities, it began to

grow rapidly in the 1970s. Factories began to dump wastewater into the

rivers. Several thousand food vendors and small shopkeepers did the same.

Sewage pipes led directly into urban canals.

At the time, Tian was working as a journalist. There was little precedent

for environmental cleanup in China, but through her work she learned

about international discussions on the environment, including the 1992

United Nations' " Earth Summit " in Rio de Janeiro, which made

" sustainable development " a global buzzword.

In the early 1990s, Tian began to lobby the city government to clean up

the rivers. She helped convince local authorities that a cleaner

environment would improve the city's image with foreign investors and

tourists, and they hired her to establish a fledgling conservation

office. In the next decade, she says the city spent about 10 billion yuan

($1.4 billion), on river cleanup.

Today many factories have moved outside Chengdu city limits. Local air

and water quality have improved. The rivers are no longer brown. The

United Nations Environment Program in 2000 recognized Chengdu at a

conference on " Learning From Best Practices. " The city has even

built parkland and planted cherry trees along sections of the

rivers.

Tian worries about the potential for backsliding if public attention

doesn't remain focused on these issues. In 2003, she founded an

environmental nonprofit, Chengdu Urban Rivers Association and began to

work with local university students on a " Get More Green "

outreach campaign.

" If we don't have good environmental education after we improve the

rivers, " she says, " our progress could

disappear. "

Fertilizer overuse hurts rivers

 

Recently, Tian has turned her attention to another problem. Tests

revealed that 60 percent of the remaining pollution in the rivers, which

are still not fit for drinking or swimming, comes from the heavy usage of

fertilizers and pesticides on farmland upstream.

Three years ago, Tian began to visit farmers in the surrounding

countryside. Her purpose was to gather information. " I knew nothing

would change if I just said, 'Do this.' I had to figure out what they

needed, so we could work together. "

Gao's situation was typical. His family is Buddhist, so he tries to

respect natural balance. " I would rather not put all those chemicals

in the ground, " he says, " but I must make a living

somehow. " He also had a more worldly complaint: He knew he was being

overcharged by the fertilizer vendor, who sold him adulterated goods, and

by the businessman who bought his crops to sell to supermarkets at high

margins.

" But what choice did I have? " Gao wondered. Many farmers had

similar frustrations.

Tian designed a program to address many concerns at once, with financial

support from city ministries and the World Wildlife Fund China. The

farmers needed some kind of fertilizer to keep their yields relatively

high, so she equipped them to make their own. They also needed a way to

reach customers, so she connected them directly with a small network of

health-conscious consumers in Chengdu. They needed information and

support, which her group provides on its regular visits.

This time, Tian asks, " Is there anything else you

need? "

" Not now, " Gao replies. " I'll let you know if I find any

problems. "

" Please do, Uncle Gao. " (They are not related, but everyone

calls him " Uncle Gao. " )

Tian hopes to eventually expand the program, with further financial

support from the government and international nongovernmental

organizations.

Better methods help certification

 

This is not the only sustainable-agriculture project in China. Outside

Beijing, a husband and wife in 2002 started their own organic farm,

" Lovely Green Cow, " and sell produce directly to a

health-conscious Beijing restaurant. In Yunnan Province, a Chinese

nonprofit, Global Environmental Institute, operates a similar

biofertilizer program. The central environment ministry has also

established its own Organic Food Development Center.

Observers wonder to what extent such programs can grow, and how they may

one day affect consumers in China and abroad. According to the World

Trade Organization, China is the world's largest food exporter.

" The Chinese government understands it needs to shift to

higher-value and safer goods, " says Linden Ellis of the China

Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. However,

she adds, there is often a gap between intentions and

implementation.

" China has trouble with myriad health and safety certifications, and

food safety and organics are a subset of that, " says Mike Taylor, a

professor at the School of Public Health and Health Services at George

Washington Uni°©versity in Washington.

However, he thinks the situation can be improved if new incentives are

introduced. For example, he believes the US Food and Drug Administration

should enact " more stringent requirements on importers to work

directly with their suppliers to ensure product safety. "

In a country where regulatory enforcement is weak, the crux of Tian's

philosophy is finding common interests. She is starting small, but her

philosophy is scalable.

For his part, Gao hopes to one day open an organic and Buddhist

restaurant for villagers and day-trippers from Chengdu. " So many

people leave the countryside for the city, " he says. " There

should be ways to bring people back to the countryside. "

Tian smiled. She knew he was talking about someone in particular. His son

left the village to find work many years ago, but says he may return home

if business is good.

 

 

 

 

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