SCA demands
interest-free loan package
October 31, 2016
The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) has demanded of the Sindh Government to announce an interest-free loan package for the farmers of Sindh similar to the one being offered in Punjab.A meeting of the SCA at its secretariat here on Sunday chaired by its President Dr Syed Nadeem Qamar urged the government to set aside Rs50 billion for three years for the interest-free loan scheme.
The meeting also asked the
government to increase the amount of subsidy given to the growers for purchase
of the tractors to Rs800,000.The participants expressed dismay over what they
described as the exploitation of the rice farmers."The price of Belarus
Tractors has risen considerably. Without adequate government subsidy the
farmers will not be able to afford the purchase," said Shah.According to
him, the Sindh government used to subsidised Rs600,000 tractor by contributing
Rs300,000 in the buying.But, presently the price had soared to Rs1.6 million
for which at least Rs800,000 which was half the original price should be
contributed by the provincial government, he added.
The meeting called upon the
government to take action under the law against the rice mills involved in the
exploitation and to seal those mills for violating the law.The participants
said that during their meeting with Sindh Agriculture Minister Suhail Anwar
Siyal on October 17 the rice mill owners had been agreed to pay the support
price for the rice crop which had been fixed by the government.However, the
farmers lamented that the millers reneged their assurance by continuing to pay
a lower rate.The meeting expressed condolence on the demise of the SCA's
founding member Syed Qamar Zaman Shah.
The SCA's General Secretary Nabi Bux Sathio, members Mir Imdad
Talpur, Mohammad Khan Sarejo, Mir Abdul Karim Talpur, Haji Nisar Memon, Agha
Syed Khadim Hussain Shah and Ghulam Mujtaba Unar and others were present. The
farmers' representatives from Karachi, Sanghar, Sukkur and Ghotki districts
attended the meeting through the video link
http://www.brecorder.com/agriculture-a-allied/183/98191/
Solon opposes lifting of quota on rice imports
posted October 31, 2016 at 12:01 am by Rio N.
Araja
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Ray Villafuerte on
Sunday raised concern over a governmentt plan to lift the quantitative
restrictions or quotas on rice imports and allow importation of private
traders.If such a plan pushes through, “palay farmers will be at the losing end,”
Villafuerte said, adding the local rice producers do not have the capability to
compete with the prices of imported rice.
“Is there any guarantee that the entry of cheap
rice imports would lower the price of rice in the market? The government must
provide safety nets to our farmer by helping them cut production and
distribution costs, and other post-harvest expenses,” he said.The Samahang
Industriya ng Agrikultura, an umbrella organization of farmers, agri-business
operators and party-list groups, also expressed alarm over the abolition of
quantitative restrictions, he said.
Villafuerte was reacting to reports that the
government supports the quota removal starting in 2017 in line with the
country’s commitment as a member of the World Trade Organization.WTO had
allowed the country to extend its quantitative restrictions on rice several
times since 1995. The latest extension will expire on June 30, 2017.
http://www.thestandard.com.ph/news/-main-stories/top-stories/220210/solon-opposes-lifting-of-quota-on-rice-imports.html
Jute packaging
must for nine more agro products
Farmers and traders will soon have
to pack chilli, turmeric, onion, ginger, garlic, pulse, coriander, potato and
rice bran in jute sacks. At present, the use of jute sacks for packaging some
of these produces is optional.“A decision has been taken in this regard. We
expect a notice to be issued by the end of this year,” said Mosleh Uddin,
director general of the Department of Jute.
The move comes as businesses have
started packaging rice in jute bags in recent times in the face of heightened
enforcement of the law, framed in 2010 to protect the interest of 40 lakh
farmers and increase the use of environment-friendly fibre.The government has
made the use of jute sacks mandatory for packaging six commodities -- rice,
wheat, maize, fertiliser and sugar -- based on the law of compulsory packaging
of goods.
In 2013, rules were framed to
implement a law stipulating that all traders as well as government
organisations must use jute bags to pack the commodities.It also asked all rice
millers and traders to clear their stock of plastic bags by December 31 of the
same year.However, private companies remained non-compliant, citing reasons
such as higher cost of jute sacks compared to plastic bags and problems in
branding.The market has ample supply of jute sacks to meet the demand for packaging,
Mosleh Uddin said.
Jute millers will be able to meet
the additional demand that will be generated for the inclusion of new products,
he said.About 50 crore more pieces of sacks may be needed for inclusion of new
items in the rule for compulsory packaging, according to Mosleh Uddin.Public
and private jute mills will increase production, he said, citing that 125 jute
millers, including public sector mills, are in operation.
A study conducted jointly by the
Centre for Policy Dialogue and Bangladesh University of Engineering and
Technology in 2012 estimated that the annual demand for jute sacks would rise
to 84 crore pieces from 90,000 pieces.It will require 539,200 tonnes of raw
jute a year, equivalent to about 77 percent of the total production of the
fibre, according to the study.Industry insiders said the enforcement of the
mandatory packaging law has increased the demand for jute, allowing farmers to
get better prices for the fibre. As a result, the acreage of jute began
recovering from fiscal 2014-15, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of
Statistics.Bangladesh produced 75 lakh bales of jute in fiscal 2015-16, up 0.7
percent from a year earlier, according to BBS.Mills process two-thirds of the
raw jute mainly for shipment abroad. Jute yarn and twine account for 65 percent
of the sector's annual export receipts of over $850 million, according to data
from the Export Promotion Bureau and Bangladesh Jute Spinners Association.
Consumer board assures farmers can
sell rice directly to consumers online
The Office of the Consumer Protection Board assures farmers that
they can sell rice directly to consumers using the online channel.
Assurance by the state agency in
charge of protecting consumers came after farmers have planned to group
together to sell their rice directly to consumers after rice millers offered
very low prices for their paddy claiming various reasons to suppress the paddy
prices.The office said on its Facebook page that direct selling of rice by
farmers via the social media networks does not breach the Direct Selling and
Direct Marketing Act.It said the intent of the law is aimed at supervising
e-commerce operators doing business professionally and not at farmers using
e-commerce channel to sell rice occasionally, not professionally.
It said although farmers will
post their products on the webpage, but the deal and details have yet to be
negotiated between the seller and the buyer.Therefore actual rice deal has not
yet happened instantly on the webpage, meaning what they offer to sell does not
violate the law.Earlier the deputy permanent secretary Tawatchai Thaikiew has
assured farmers that selling rice using social media network did not violate
any laws.
His assurances dismissed earlier
comment by a lawyer who said farmers could face legal action under the Direct
Selling and Direct Marketing Law.Mt Tawatchai reasoned that the law is used to
regulate direct sellers with a network of independent distributors to reach out
to consumers.The law does not relate to farmers’ efforts to sell their rice to
end-consumers at all, he said.
http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/consumer-board-assures-farmers-can-sell-rice-directly-to-consumers-online/
AfricaRice
moves to power rice farm mechanisation in Kano
By
Murtala Muhammed, Kano | 30 October 2016 | 3:52 am
As part of measures to accelerate
Federal Government’s sustainable growth policies on Rice production in the
country, AfricaRice, pan African intergovernmental agricultural research center
has provided 50 Rice Farmers with modern mechanised technology training.28 of
the benefiting youths were trained with the use of locally fabricated Rice
threshers, while others specialised in the maintenance of the threshers.
Besides, the centre empowered
another set of youths drawn from rural areas in Kano, under Rice innovation
platform, to furnish Rice farmers with relevant information on fertilizer
application and improved seeds to enhance efficient rice production in the
country.
Though Kano is one of the few
states in the country endowed with potential in commercial rice production,
however, rice farmers are still engaging in subsisting farming with heavy loss
es during post-harvest period.
Hence, the AfricaRice intervention targeted at young farmers would reduce losses and check the level of poverty in the land.Speaking during farmer field day in Kura, about 40 kilometers away from Kano, the team leader, AfricaRice Dr. Sidi Sanyang posited that the organisation is committed to enhancing value chain in Rice production through farm mechanisation and improved technology for young farmers in the state.
He explained that the project,
which covers productivity and profitability for the beneficiaries, would reduce
time cost and post-harvest losses through the use of thresher.
According to Sidi: “the farmers
field day enable us the opportunity to showcase successes recorded in the last
three months of the training of youths and empowerment of the Rice farmers in
Kano. We have equipped the youths with requisite knowledge to render advice to
rice farmers on right input and fertilizer application.
“AfricaRice is giving the supports
under the Support to Agricultural Research for Development on Strategic
Commodities in Africa and the intervention designed to enhance food and
nutrition security as well as contributing to poverty reduction covers 11
countries.
“SARD-SC specifically has priority
value chain for Cassava, Maize, Rice and Wheat, on sustainable basis being
managed by three centers. AfricaRice manage Rice as value chain. We have
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) that takes care of
cassava and maize, while International Center for Agricultural Research in the
Day Areas (ICARDA) manages wheat. The five years SARD-SC projects are being
funded by African Development Bank (ADB), to the tune of $86.9 million”. Dr.
Sidi explained.Country coordinator of AfricaRice Dr. Francis Nwilene urged
state government to support farmers with provision of sufficient threshers to
encourage massive rice production.
He allayed farmers’ fears on the
circulation of adulterated seeds, noting that AfricaRice has trained seed
companies with necessary technology to produce recommended improved seeds
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Feed your
brain... and boost your memory and mood:
Our life-changing series by a psychologist who’s studied the effect of
diet on mental powers for 20 years
·
Health expert Delia McCabe
talks you through the big brain dos and dont's
·
Leafy greens and cold
water oily fish among the good foods to eat
·
Alcohol, sweets and fried
food like chicken nuggets on the banned list
Have you ever
walked into a room and forgotten what it was you went in for, or been at a
party and completely forgotten someone’s name, even though you know them?
Perhaps you’ve found yourself standing
uselessly at a cashpoint, unable to remember your PIN. Or your search for
a specific word feels as if you are rummaging through empty drawers.The chances
are that if you have experienced any of those memory lapses — and most people
have — you’ll have blamed them on the fact that you’re getting older or have
had a stressful few days.Then again, you might be one of the millions suffering
from more serious conditions such as anxiety and depression, which have reached
epidemic levels.
Indeed, mental health costs the NHS a
staggering £77 billion a year — more than heart disease and cancer combined.Whatever
your problems, the chances are that no matter what remedies you’ve tried —from
a holiday to antidepressants or just a stoical acceptance that this is the way
things are — you won’t have thought of what is perhaps the easiest treatment of
all: to change what you eat.With my background in clinical psychology, I’ve
lost count of the people who have told me they suffer from all of the problems
mentioned above. But when I ask if they’ve ever considered improving their
mental function by altering their diet, they look at me with astonishment.
·
SHARE PICTURE
·
+1
Yet the simple
fact is this: when you feed your brain, you can change your life
Yet the simple fact is this: when you feed
your brain, you can change your life.
When you give your brain the nutrients it
needs to function optimally, it can work efficiently, improving learning
potential, focus and memory. You become lighter in mood and weight, and
brighter in outlook and cognitive capacity.
15 BRAIN-BOOSTING FOODS
Pack your diet with my top 15 and banish the bad five and you’ll be on your way to optimum brain health.
LEAFY GREENS
(kale, rocket,
watercress and spinach)
Full of
vitamins (C, K and the Bs) as well as minerals (calcium, potassium, copper,
magnesium, folate, manganese and zinc) plus fibre and many plant nutrients.
OILY COLD
WATER FISH
(salmon,
mackerel, herring)
These are all
the best possible direct source of healthy brain fats called omega 3 essential
fats.
GRASS-FED
BEEF, MUTTON AND LAMB
Another great
source of brain fats when eaten in moderation.
NUTS
(pecans,
walnuts, macadamias, almonds, cashews, Brazil nuts)
A great source
of good fats plus protein and brain nutrients such as selenium, in Brazil nuts
specifically.
OLIVE
OIL
(organic
and cold pressed)
Contains
antioxidants and brain healthy plant chemicals.
SEEDS
(flaxseed,
sunflower and sesame seeds, chia seeds)
A rich source
of plant essential fatty acid (EFA), containing omega 3 oils and lignans,
phytochemicals that act as good hormone imitators and antioxidants.
COCONUT
OIL
Contains a
beneficial saturated fat plus anti-microbial and anti-fungal and anti-viral
function.
AVOCADOS
Packed with
vitamins, fibre, minerals and mostly mono-unsaturated fats.
COLOURFUL
VEGETABLES
(sweet potato,
pepper, carrot, tomato)
Their rich
colour indicates high anti-oxidant content, and they are also sources of fibre,
minerals, enzymes and plant nutrients.
BRASSICAS
(broccoli,
cauliflower and cabbage)
Have
phyto-chemicals that stimulate our enzyme defences against cancer, plus
minerals and vitamins.
ARTICHOKE
Great for a
big punch of fibre and detox nutrients. Also acts as a prebiotic (provides food
for bacteria in our gut).
LEGUMES
(lentils, peas
and beans)
In addition to
vitamins and minerals, they contain lignins, also known as phyto-estrogens,
which protect against different forms of cancer, as well as balancing hormone
levels. Low in fat and high in fibre.
GLUTEN-FREE
GRAINS
(quinoa,
millet, amaranth, basmati rice)
Rich in
vitamins and minerals plus protein.
SPROUTED
GRAINS
Nutrient-dense
brain superfoods we should eat every day.
When a seed,
grain or pulse has germinated, its nutritional value rises so there is 60 per
cent more vitamin C and 30 per cent more B vitamins in a sprouted seed, grain
or pulse.
They also
contain large amounts of protein and vitamin E, as well as phosphorous and
potassium.
Sprouting
makes these nutrients highly digestible.
BERRIES
(blueberries,
raspberries, strawberries)
True brain superfoods, colourful berries
contain antioxidant power to protect the brain from ageing plus an anti-
inflammatory and ellagic acid, which is a unique compound that a number of
experts say could help to protect the body against cancer.
Because when your brain is satisfied it sets
off a wonderful domino effect, a cascade of improved health on every level.
All the most up-to-date brain research
indicates very clearly that cognitive decline is not inevitable with ageing.
We can take very practical and simple steps
to maintain our cognitive health throughout our lives — but if you want a brain
that’s going to work well into old age, you need to think about its welfare
before memory lapses strike.
Of course, it would be naive and simplistic
to suggest our modern, highly processed junk food diet is the only reason
people are suffering from increased mental health challenges.
We live in a sophisticated and complex world.
Navigating this complexity produces levels of
stress humans have never before encountered.
But with psychological distress so widespread
and on the rise, looking after your brain has never been more important.
And there is scientific proof to support the
fact that what you eat can and does influence your mood, behaviour,
concentration, learning and memory.
Most people do not associate what they eat
with how their brain is functioning.
If they are forgetful or moody or battling to
learn something new, they often look for other reasons to explain why they are
feeling that way.
But because thinking is a pattern of cellular
activity across a vast network of cells, chemicals, membranes and molecules, it
is possible to influence the brain’s functioning in the same way we influence
our body’s.
You can feed your brain to be happy or sad —
and help it to learn and remember things much more efficiently — simply by
changing the type of foods you eat.
In fact, every meal and snack you consume, or
feed your family, is supporting healthy brain function or undermining it.
After 20 years of being involved in research
into how nutrition influences brain function, I’ve learned a lot about food and
what it does to the brain.
If you know what various nutrients do in your
brain and why they are critical for optimal brain function, you’ll be better
equipped to choose the right foods.
You may believe that you have no control over
how your brain works and ages.
But actually only one third of the ageing
process is determined by your genetic make-up — the other two-thirds are under
your control.
The brain is made up of many billions of
neurons that can stay robust or shrink in size, and the connections between
those neurons can be strengthened or weakened — or new ones created.
These changes on the physical terrain of your
brain give instructions to the body, which manifest as new abilities and
skills.
When you forget someone’s name or why you
walked into a room, this is a sign of weakening connections to that
memory.
So you can focus on keeping the connections
strong and robust, and on forging news ones, or you can allow your brain to
shrink and become diminished as a person in the process.
Because nutrients go to work very fast, you
can quickly see a cognitive result after eating.
Coffee gives you a very obvious energy hit,
but a snack that provides good fats, protein and unrefined carbohydrates, such
as a handful of almonds and sundried tomatoes, will provide a much more
sustained energy boost.
Though your brain is so small you could fit
it in your cupped hands, it has a ferocious appetite.
This network of interconnecting cells works
together to control every single thought and movement, masterminding your
concentration, focus, memory and mood.
At any given moment, these cells are receiving
and processing 100 million pieces of information. Little wonder they have such
a hunger for nutrients.
Your brain consumes 25 per cent of the oxygen
you breathe, 20 per cent of the blood that pumps through your heart (sent along
100,000 miles of minuscule blood vessels in your head) and up to half the
glucose your body processes from food.
If your brain is not fed precisely the
nutritional cocktail it needs to work smoothly and efficiently, things will
swiftly go downhill — and that’s when anxiety, depression, lapses in memory and
wavering concentration can appear.
Using food to keep your brain working well,
once you know which are the best brain-supportive foods, is the simplest way to
stay sharp.
More than half your brain — 60 per cent — is
made up of fat.
After water, fat is the most abundant
substance found in the body and the brain.
Every single brain cell is surrounded by fat,
and good healthy fats should form a fundamental part of everyone’s diet.
But as fat has been the Number One enemy in
diets over the past 50 years, many of us have brains that are
fat-deprived.
If you’ve ever gone ‘low fat’ in the
interests of weight loss, there’s every chance you suffered from low mood,
possibly depression, as a consequence.
Stick to a low-fat diet long-term and I’m
convinced the impact on your brain will be so great you’ll be compromising your
ability to learn new things and to remember the skills you already have.
...AND WHAT TO
AVOID
FRIED FOODS
(chicken nuggets, fried chicken, chips and
crisps).
REFINED
CARBOHYDRATES
(sweets, pastries, biscuits, cakes and milk
chocolate).
FIZZY DRINKS
(full sugar or diet versions).
ALCOHOL
Excess has been linked to poor brain
function.
CHEMICALS
Meat, fruit and vegetables that have
been subject to a heavy chemical or pesticide load.
Pesticides accumulate in our fatty cell
membranes and, with a brain made up of 60 per cent fat, it’s best to avoid
these toxins.
In addition, you’ve probably got sore joints,
dry skin, dry eyes, a sluggish metabolism and low energy levels.
But a knee-jerk switch to crisps and cakes
isn’t going to cut it.
A quarter of the brain’s 60 per cent fat is
made up of specific types of fat called EFAs or essential fatty acids.
So even if you start your day with a full
English breakfast, there’s every chance your brain will still be woefully
lacking the EFAs it needs.
This is a serious concern: researchers know
that a lack of these specific types of fat is likely to predispose you to
memory decline and even, ultimately, Alzheimer’s disease.
The key lies in an emerging understanding
that not all fats are equal.
To function at its best, your brain needs
healthy forms of saturated, monounsaturated and polyun- saturated fats.
Your body can happily make the first
two.
But it can’t make the polyunsaturated fats
that are EFAs.
These have to be supplied through the diet.
The fatty composition of animal fats tends to
harden our cell membranes, leaving them inflexible and unable to respond
quickly to the various jobs they have to do.
Ultimately this leads to sluggish thinking
and forgetfulness, as well as general cognitive decline.
IS YOUR BRAIN
FIRING AT FULL CAPACITY?
Answer the
following questions honestly.
If your answer
to five or more is ‘Yes’, you could be unwittingly starving your brain.
Follow my plan
all next week in the Daily Mail and test yourself again next Saturday — you’ll
be amazed at how quickly your brain responds.
And the
benefits last for life!
1 My thinking is not as clear as it used to
be and sometimes I have trouble making decisions.
2 I seem to be forgetting things, such as
people’s names and places, more often than I used to.
3 Even after a good night’s sleep, I still
feel tired.
4 I sometimes have feelings of deep
depression, hopelessness and despair
5 Some days I drag myself around and
everything feels like a huge effort.
6 I ALWAYS need a cup of coffee to wake
myself up in the morning.
7 I need a cup of tea or a chocolate bar or
biscuit to give me an energy burst mid-afternoon.
8 I crave foods that are high in fat or
sugar, or both.
9 My skin is dry and I need lotions to keep
it moist.
10 I have found that I’m putting on weight
around my middle.
11 I battle to go to sleep at night and wake
during the night, too.
12 I drink alcohol three or more times during
the week.
13 I have a number of allergies and food
intolerances and they seem to be getting worse.
14 My joints are sore and sometimes they
ache.
15 I feel more anxious and stressed than I
used to.
16 I often feel hungry two or three hours
after eating a meal. Having something to eat gives me a quick burst of energy.
17 I feel that I’m more irritable and moody
than I used to be and sometimes have angry outbursts.
18 It’s hard for me to remember when I last
felt calm and at peace
19 Sometimes I feel that I’m just too old to
learn new things become I fear that my memory isn’t that good any more.
20 I rarely feel like eating any vegetables.
Rigid membranes impair the ability of brain
cells to have smooth conversations with each other, so messages between them
can become muddled.It’s like talking on a very bad phone line — the result is
sluggish thinking, difficulty in learning a new task or recalling an old one,
depression and anxiety, a lack of motivation, poor sleep and even a lowered
pain threshold.However, EFAs in the diet can swiftly make those membranes
flexible and elastic.
So, consuming saturated fats as well as EFAs
is the solution — not avoiding saturated fats!
This is where many people have become
confused — and why the ‘fat discussion’ leads to so many heated arguments among
people.
The speed of your thinking depends in part on
the health and flexibility of a special brain cell component called myelin, the
covering of the connections between neurons.
But a significant percentage of myelin is
made up of EFAs, so if we don’t eat enough of them, communication between brain
cells will significantly slow.
In addition to this, our thoughts travel
through brain cells via electrical currents carried by neurotransmitters.
The point at which the brain cell (the
neuron) and neurotransmitters connect is the synapse.
If the synapse isn’t packed with EFAs, it
will not be able to release the neurotransmitter optimally and its messages
become garbled.
If any part of this electrochemical current
is interrupted, the memory or thought becomes incomplete or is destroyed.
That’s partly what happens when you’ve walked
into a room and forgotten why you went there in the first place.
Luckily, consuming enough EFAs will naturally
lessen any negative effects of eating the wrong kinds of fats because EFAs are
very soft and flexible, so they balance out the hardness and inflexibility of
other fats.
So, how do you improve the fat in your brain?
By taking action to feed your brain properly.
And in Monday’s paper I will focus on
precisely what kind of food.
Then all next week I’ll be telling you
exactly what sort of protein, sugar, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins your
brain needs in each meal, with a recipe pullout each day packed with delicious
brain-food recipes that are tasty and easy to make.
And I’ll also explain how food intolerances
may be seriously affecting your brain — and how to tell which, if any, foods
you may need to cut out altogether
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Putting Wheat in Its Place, Or Why the Green Revolution Wasn’t Quite What It’s Made Out to Be
Narratives that present the Green Revolution as necessary and successful ignore the context that it was brought around in and the fact that it did not lead to a food-secure India.
Growing wheat. Credit: Nupur Das Gupta/Flickr CC BY 2.0
This article is in response to Gopi Rajagopal’s piece ‘The Stories of Ehrlich, Borlaug and the Green Revolution‘ published by The Wire on October 13, 2016.
The article by Gopi Rajagopal (‘The Stories of Ehrlich, Borlaug and the Green Revolution’, October 13, 2016) uses a selective narration of the history of how the Green Revolution came to pass, to uphold the popular narrative of why it was needed. The stark numbers that he presents – 10.4 million tonnes of wheat was “woefully inadequate to feed a population of over 500 million” in 1966 – shows the magnitude of the possible disaster that the coming of the Green Revolution seemed to have averted. The quotations from newspaper articles dating back to 1966 are used to add further authenticity to such claims.
It is not surprising that this is done. The Green Revolution only provided more wheat (later on high-yielding rice strains came from the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, but this article is concerned only with wheat), so it is convenient to compare the amount of wheat grown in 1966 with the amount grown in the following decades – 20 million tonnes in 1970, 32 million tonnes in 1980 and a whopping 90 million tonnes in 2016, making India the second largest wheat producer in the world. This is a triumphant tale of success, of conquering the vicissitudes of nature and of the celebration of the man who brought it all to pass.
The glorification of wheat
Let me begin this critique by stating a couple of historical facts about wheat. First, a majority of Indians were not consumers of wheat in the decades prior to and following independence. Instead, India was a nation of rice eaters with the so-called coarse cereals (maize, millets) and gram coming a close second. In 1951, we grew 20.6 million tonnes of rice, 19 million tonnes of coarse cereals and gram, and 6.5 million tonnes of wheat. In 1965, we grew 39.3 million tonnes of rice, 31.1 million tonnes of coarse cereals and gram and 12.3 million tonnes of wheat.
Second, much of the wheat grown in the country was exported to Britain and Europe under colonial rule as raw material for cheap bread. The canal colonies of Punjab had been settled and converted into wheat-growing tracts by the British, along with areas in the Central Provinces and Berar. In fact, there was an excess production of wheat in the late 1920s and with the crash of purchasing power due to the worldwide Great Depression in 1929, wheat exporting nations, including India, participated in a series of urgent meetings to figure out how to dispose of the surplus and work towards reducing production!
Given this background, it is obvious that there wasn’t enough ‘wheat’ to feed 500 million people – it was never supposed to be the only thing that Indians ate. In fact, most statistics of the time did not even capture large portions of the diets of coastal Indians who ate fish and rural Indians, especially tribal groups, who relied on forest produce, not to mention oilseeds, pulses, meat, milk and the like, apart from cereals.
The story of Mexico is used to suggest that there was an inherent problem in terms of wheat productivity globally. But it is even more selective in its choice of historical actors. The problem of rust that was devastating Mexican wheat in the late 1930s and early 1940s is portrayed as an agricultural crisis for the entire country. Yet, the majority of Mexican farmers grew corn, which formed the staple Mexican diet. The crisis was faced by Mexican farmers who had just started growing wheat on a large scale in the Sonoran desert in the north of the country, thanks to the newly built Yaqui River Valley irrigation project.
In fact, the Yaqui Valley research station had been built in the region to support the needs of Mexican wheat growers, so that wheat output could be increased, not only for domestic consumption due to changing food preference in urban areas but more so for export. The problem of rust that was solved by Norman Borlaug helped Mexican farmers become exporters of wheat by 1958. It is not clear what is meant by self-sufficiency here since wheat was not a major component of the diet of a majority of Mexicans.
The missing twists and turns
Coming back to the Indian case – the narrative becomes even more selective in the listing of events that prompted the adoption of the “new agricultural strategy”, which set the Green Revolution in motion. The “several twists and turns in the tale” are as follows: India had been importing wheat from the US under Public Law 480 (PL480) since 1954, which gave developing countries the opportunity to purchase wheat, soyabean, edible oils and milk powder using their own currency, instead of dollars. This allowed countries to save their precious foreign exchange to buy industrial equipment and also to supply cheap food to their industrial labourers, thus facilitating a Lewisian transition from an agrarian economy to an industrial one. It allowed countries to obtain cheap food without extracting huge surpluses from their agrarian sectors to facilitate the transition. The US benefitted because it found a marketing outlet for its farmers who were over-producing these commodities and could not find enough markets globally.
The situation mutually benefitted India and the US until the India-Pakistan war in the summer of 1965, and the subsequent condemnation of US actions in Vietnam by India, which led to an immediate threat of withdrawal of the PL480 programme by the US. By this time, India’s urban labouring class had become dependent on PL480 wheat supplied to them through the ration shop system. India might have been able to weather the situation using domestic supplies, but there was a monsoon failure in 1965. This caused consternation and gave rise to the “ship to mouth” crisis since the US had pledged only one-fourth of the grain requested for 1965-66. It is important to note that the food crisis was not experienced by the entire nation but would have affected urban labourers alone, had the imports stopped. However, it was in the US’s favour to have international reports suggest conditions of a nation-wide famine so that it could then show its magnanimity by generously restarting PL480 imports, but under certain conditions.
The logjam was broken in November 1965 when C. Subramaniam travelled to the US and worked out a deal on behalf of the Lal Bahadur Shastri government, allowing private foreign investment in fertiliser plants and the import of fertiliser in exchange for the continuation of PL480 imports. This formed the backbone of the “new agricultural strategy”, which was inspired in part by a World Bank report that called for providing cost and price incentives to individual farmers in the form of seeds, pesticides, power implements, chemical fertilisers and water (in contrast to the earlier approach of the government focusing on community development programmes and land reforms), effectively, “guaranteeing profitability to the farmer.”
As should be evident from the narrative so far, the so-called miracle seeds are nowhere in the picture yet. In fact, India faced a double whammy with monsoon failure for the second time in parts of the country in 1966. However, the production in this year was marginally better than 1965, clocking 74 million tonnes of food grains. India imported its highest ever amount of wheat under PL480 that year – 10 million tonnes.
In a series of conjunctures which led M.S. Swaminathan to become a wheat breeder, brought him and others at IARI in touch with Norman Borlaug’s work, and led to the planting of the imported Mexican seed varieties in C. Subramaniam’s garden in Lutyen’s Delhi, the government approved the dissemination of the new seed varieties through the Intensive Agricultural District Program (IADP) in December 1965. Districts with sufficient access to water had been chosen and farmers who were “progressive”, i.e. typically upper caste and class, were provided with seeds in the winter of 1966. It is crucial to note here that the new seeds did not express their potential yield unless given adequate doses of chemical fertilisers and water, which the government also began to subsidise.
The new seeds fit very well into the new agricultural strategy, which was about incentivising individual farmers, and early adopters in the IADP regions were typically large farmers who had enough capital to pay for irrigation and purchase chemical fertilisers. They also received a guarantee that the government would purchase all their wheat to stock the Food Corporation of India godowns, at a minimum support price. The World Bank report had recognised the consequences of this policy, which would aggravate the inequality between large farmers and others, and between irrigated and rain-fed areas in the country.
Coming back to our narrative full of twists and turns, the miracle year of 1968 saw a recovery of the monsoon and a growth in food grain production from 74.2 million tonnes to 95.1 million tonnes. The increase of 20.9 million tonnes came as follows: 7.2 million tonnes was contributed by rice, 7.1 million tonnes by coarse cereals including gram and 5.2 million tonnes by wheat. In fact, good weather the world over had made it a bumper year of production, leading many commentators to talk of over-production once again. Some of the growth in wheat can be attributed to the new seeds of Borlaug but in case of the other crops, it was still local seed varieties that were being used. This was also the year following which the area under cultivation of coarse cereals starting going down, just as the wheat area started increasing.
As farmers in irrigated tracts realised that the government was providing input subsidies including the seeds to grow wheat and was buying back the crop under a guaranteed price, they started switching area from coarse cereals and gram to wheat (and rice). From a high of 55.6 million hectares in 1968, coarse cereals and gram lost acreage steadily, falling to 28 million hectares in 2006. Wheat’s success was built on the loss of other crops. So what has this meant for self-sufficiency?
What is self-sufficiency?
This brings me to the last loop in this story. About defining self-sufficiency and food security. What does it mean to say that, “India became self-sufficient in cereals in 1974”? Total food grain production in 1970-71 was 108.4 million tonnes, which fell in 1974 to 99.8 million tonnes, which was, in fact, a drought year. 1971 was the year when PL480 wheat imports were stopped, only to be restarted in 1972 again, continuing till 1975. All this while wheat production had been increasing, doubling to 24.7 million tonnes in 1972 and 28.8 million tonnes in 1975, but PL480 imports had continued. So what was the meaning of self-sufficiency?
Ironically, the PL480 programme was wound up not because India did not need to import wheat anymore. It was due to other geopolitical considerations of the US, which now saw self-sufficient nations feeding their restive populations as more amenable allies in the Cold War, especially if the US had arranged for the “self-sufficiency” in the first place (by providing the miracle seeds to them through the Rockefeller Foundation which had employed Borlaug and which organised for the transfer of genetic material).
Even more ironically, India did not need PL480 imports to provide enough food for its people to begin with. They served only a small constituency, the urban labouring class, and that too, due to conscious policy choices made in the 1950s. They had been started despite India having enough production in the 1950s (and a robustly growing agrarian economy that had been freed from the fetters of British rule).
From 1950 to 1965, Indian agriculture witnessed a surge in productivity across all crops. After half a century of 0% growth in agriculture (1900-1947), freedom from the shackles of punitive land revenue demands, demolition of the zamindarisystem, modest land reforms and repeal of taxes on digging wells and making improvements to the land had given a new lease of life to farmers. The production of major crops (except wheat) increased as much in the 1950-1965 period (in 15 years) as it did between 1965 and 1990 (in 25 years).
Ehrlich and the Malthusian juggernaut
It is suggested that even if we accept that India had enough food to feed its population in the 1960s, there was expected to be runaway population growth and without the Green Revolution, all those new mouths would have gone hungry. This is the classical Malthusian argument which, in simplified terms, says that food production grows linearly while population grows exponentially, eventually reaching a state of collapse – hence the doomsday predictions. The popular narrative of the Green Revolution challenges this hypothesis by arguing that food production can grow faster than the population thanks to high-yielding variety seeds.
Sadly, however, it does not question the very premise that ultimately survival on this planet is basically a race between food and population growth rates. As Amartya Sen’s now famous work has shown, food and population growth rates cannot be compared directly. Food availability has to be refracted through the element of price. There may be a mountain of food available, but access to food is only based on the entitlements that people have, to be able to exchange for food. This is one of the reasons, among others, that explains the bitter irony that Indians have remained food insecure despite all this bumper wheat production. Malnutrition levels in 2005 continued to remain horrific – three out of five children under five, or nearly 60%, were found to be chronically malnourished (two standard deviations below normal) by the National Family Health Survey. Moreover, the per capita availability of coarse cereals, gram and pulses had fallen by 42 kg per person per year, while the gains from wheat were only 28 kg per person per year between 1961 and 2006. This has resulted in the skewing of the nutrition basket.
Furthermore, Malthus’s theory assumes that population growth is an independent variable. Nothing can influence it except a dire reduction in food availability and economic distress that would lead millions to perish. However, there is not a shred of evidence to support his hypothesis, whether one looks at the history of populations in Europe and the West or India and the South. Population growth rates are dependent on birth rates and death rates. As death rates, especially infant mortality, have reduced, birth rates have also dropped, but with a time lag. The resulting bulge in population growth, before the reduced birth rates have kicked in, has been used to malign specific populations as being afflicted by runaway fertility.
However, this has ignored research which has shown that birth rates are influenced not only by food availability (and accessibility/affordability) but more so by rising incomes, occupational shifts, the availability of contraceptives and most important, women’s education and empowerment to be able to exercise reproductive choice, among other reasons. More insidiously, Malthusian theory has been used to justify coercive population control of specific populations, with terrible consequences – both India and China have dark histories of this and the latter has recently repealed its one-child policy after realising the distorted demographic consequences of the same.
Writing history
Fear mongers would do well to study a little bit of history. But as they say, history is written by the conquerors, or in this case, the ones who had the power to define the course of its narrative. Those who present calculations of food security in India on the basis of wheat production alone are either doing so out of surprising naivety or, more insidiously, from a desire to defend a certain triumphant version of history, where actors like Borlaug and Swaminathan are said to have saved a million lives.
This narrative of victory has also buoyed the boats of a host of interest groups, including chemical and seed companies, makers of power implements and mechanised equipment and, not to mention, the better-off farmers from irrigated tracts in the country who are, unfortunately, now rueing their fate. Monoculture farming promoted Green Revolution-style has destroyed the long term fertility of soils, chemicals have caused health problems and the technological treadmill has led to growing debt. All this, but India still doesn’t have food security, if one looks at nutritional outcomes of the population.
No surprise, since the story of wheat has not been put in its place – where it belongs – within the larger context of food production and consumption in India.
Richa Kumar is an assistant professor of sociology and policy studies at the department of humanities and social sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. She is the author of Rethinking Revolutions: Soyabean, Choupals and the Changing Countryside in Central India (Oxford University Press 2016). She can be reached at richa@hss.iitd.ac.in
Rice exports rose
10% in September
- 31
Oct 2016 at 11:22 1,868 viewed0 comments
- WRITER: ONLINE
REPORTERS
- +
Thailand shipped 790,000 tonnes of rice overseas in
September, a growth of 9.9% year-on-year, lifting total exports of the grain
for the first nine months of 2016 to 6.85 million tonnes.
Charoen Laothamatas, president of Thai Rice Exporters Association, said
exports in September were worth 12 billion baht, up 3.4%. For the nine-month period, rice exports rose 3.7% in volume compared to the same period last year, but the value increased by only 1.6% to 108 billion baht.
He said September exports jumped from the delivery of both old and new-harvest rice to buyers in Africa, as African countries have resumed purchasing rice to add to their diminishing stocks.
Exports of parboiled rice to African markets totalled 255,000 tonnes in September, up 103% from August. Benin was the largest buyer, taking 177,000 tonnes of parboiled rice.
The export of white rice to African and Asian countries also rose by 22% in the month to 371,000 tonnes.
However, exports of Jasmine fragrant rice dropped by 13% to 158,000 tonnes.
Mr Charoen said he expected rice exports would total 700,000-800,000 tonnes for October, with deliveries to China and continuous sales to African buyers.
As of Oct 25, the export price of 5% white rice from Vietnam and India stood at US$350 a tonne and $345 from Pakistan. Thai rice of the same quality was quoted at $369 a tonne on Oct 26, according to the Thai Rice Exporters Association.
31 Oct 2016 at 04:30 5,931
NEWSPAPER SECTION: NEWS | WRITER: POST
REPORTERS
No way out: Just as the rice harvest begins,
farmers are caught in a trap, facing the lowest prices of the century, with
worldwide demand still falling. (File photo)
Kneeling and sobbing before a top commerce
ministry official, a Phichit farmer appealed to the government Sunday to help
growers suffering from the fall in rice prices to 5,000 baht a tonne, the
lowest level in decades.Sanit Kaho, a 63-year-old farmer, held the legs of
permanent secretary for commerce Wiboonlasana Ruamraksa, who visited Wangkrod
Tai Tambon Administration Organisation (TAO) in Muang district to meet local
authorities, farmers and rice millers to discuss ways to deal with the tumbling
price of paddy.The farmer said she wanted the prime minister to help. She can't
afford to sell her Hom Mali rice now due to current prices, adding that mills
are offering just 5,000 baht per tonne.
The crop will be ready to harvest this week,
though farmers will not be able to survive with this price, she said.
According to Commerce Minister Apiradi
Tantraporn, a new scheme will be proposed at a meeting today held by the
national rice policy committee.The scheme sets out a pledging price of no less
than 10,000 baht a tonne for Thai Hom Mali paddy.The measure is expected to be
forwarded to the cabinet tomorrow for approval and will take immediate effect
as one measure to help farmers.Ms Sanit said most of Phichit farmers do not
have their own barns and usually sell their rice immediately after harvesting
it.The government should come up with ways to address this problem, she said.Mana
Wuthiyakorn, head of the rice farmer network in Bang Mun Nak district, said the
government should buy Hom Mali rice directly from farmers at 10,000 baht per
tonne, insisting farmers would shoulder the cost of rice production.
He asked Ms Wiboonlasana to relay the concerns
to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.He said farmers in the province's three
districts are due to harvest their rice this week, but prices are still falling
due to manipulation by middlemen and millers.He said his group will close the
Bang Moon-Tapan Hin road if nothing is done to solve the problem.Mingkwan
Pook-eiam, head of an unofficial rice milling club in Phichit, said it is
impossible to force millers to buy rice from farmers at 10,000 baht per tonne
as exporters buy rice from the millers at lower prices, adding the government
should hold talks with exporters to find ways to deal with the issue.
Ms Wiboonlasana said falling global rice prices
are to blame for the problem, noting that many rice-growing countries are
undercutting Thailand.As part of the scheme up for approval, the government is
planning to set a quota of 50,000 tonnes at US$600 (about 21,000 baht) to
countries and exporters interested in buying Thai rice, a measure that should
shore up prices, says Ms Wiboonslasana.
The government will launch campaigns to boost
domestic demand in rice, such as holding farmers markets specialising in rice,
and seek more foreign markets, she said.Government spokesman Sansern
Kaewkamnerd insisted the government wants to solve the problem of falling rice
prices in a sustainable way, while educating farmers and the public that
domestic prices are determined by global pressures.
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