My Experiences with the Leading Farmers of India

I attended the Mahindra Samridhi Awards function in New Delhi which was conducted on Feb 21, 2012. I was selected based on a question that I filled in an application form that Mahindra Company has provided me. I asked about the real meaning of sustainable agriculture and whether it is really possible to feed 9.2 billion people in this planet in 2050 by using sustainable agriculture.

The question may sound simple, but it is little complex than a common man perceives it. Agriculture was successful in India during the times of first green revolution; because they exploited the natural resources like land, water and genetic diversity of crop plants. Sustainable agriculture on the other hand means not “exploiting” any resources and increase the productivity as well as save the resources for the future generations. In fact the word sustainable agriculture itself is not well defined. There is a lot of confusion between organic agriculture and sustainable agriculture. Organic agriculture is something that looks like sustainable but it can never help in attaining the yields that India needs to produce to feed its booming population.

The 2012 Mahindra Samridhi Awards function started with a panel discussion with the so-called experts in agriculture. The panel contained Dr.Montek Singh Ahluwalia with the Vice chancellor of UAS, Dharwad and some other dignitaries. The panel discussion was simply a waste of time. No one answered the questions asked by farmers appropriately. The time duration for the discussion was also so less that so many students and farmers couldn’t even ask their questions.

But the thought of Mahindra of encouraging farmers in India by presenting them with an award for outstanding agriculture should be appreciated. Indian Agricultural Minister, Shard Pawar attended the award ceremony and presented the successful farmers with the awards.  I got the opportunity to meet and interact with so many successful farmers in India. Most of them were educated and could talk fluent English. I met with this particular farmer from Andhra Pradesh who said that he had a patent on a fertilizer that can improve the vitamin A and vitamin C content of rice in its embryo.  I was totally baffled by that because so many international institutions are trying their level best by investing millions of dollars to improve the beta carotene content in rice. A good example will be the transgenic golden rice which may be released in 2012.

Another progressive farmer from Gujarat told me about the tissue culture dates that he is growing in his farms which he imported from the Middle East. I was particularly impressed by their supply chain management. He grows different vegetables along with dates and then sends some of the vegetables to Mumbai and exports the dates to foreign countries.

A young farmer from Tamil Nadu named Silambarasan was awarded the best young farmer award for attaining the maximum productivity in rice. He followed SRI (Systemic Rice Intensification) method to attain the high yields. This is one of the examples of successful technology transfer from research institutes to farmer's fields.

The meeting lasted for only two days, but I took some important messages from it. Every farmer has his/her own perspective on agriculture. Some consider farming as a business activity while some consider it as a sacred occupation and the policy makers have “no idea” how farmers feel and what they really wanted. Farmers want profit for the hard work that they put in their fields. The Indian government is more concerned about the consumers than the farmers. A farmer puts in a lot of hard work to produce a kg of rice, however the government sells it for just Rs.2 in the market. A major advantage of Indian agriculture is the availability of cheap farm labors. However, this is not going to be there for a long time. The Indian government had provided the NREGA or the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in which the government provides a minimal salary for the workers every day. This had made the availability of labors very hard for the farmers.

 Even though a lot of research in going on in agricultural universities, most of them is irrelevant to farmers, they want crop plants with improved yield, low growth period and high quality product farm produce that can fetch them more price in the market. Need based research in agricultural institutions is vital for development in Indian Agriculture. However the policy makers in the conference did not even mention these points during their "panel discussion". This doesn't mean that they are not aware of these problems. I am still trying to find why they didn't bring up these points in the panel discussion.

God save Indian Agriculture. 

Will Monsanto play a role in poverty alleviation in developing countries like India?

Monsanto is a multinational company that was involved in seed and chemical business. It entered biotechnology later and started producing transgenic crops. These genetically modified crops are widely considered to have safety issues by NGOs like greenpeace with minimal scientific evidence. But, public institutions like FDA (Food and Drug Administration) , USDA(United States Department of Agriculture), EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) etc., support transgenic food crops like Bt corn, Bt eggplant, GM potato, GM tomato etc.,  with maximum scientific evidence possible. 

90% of the biotech crops grown world wide are are from Monsanto. Monsanto has a very bad reputation among the public after the release of the short film, "the world according to Monsanto". Monsanto had tried to improve their reputation through donating its Bt gene to public institutions in India. Now public institutions also produce Bt cotton seeds. It has also licensed its technology to a number of Indian seed companies which are its competitors. Milton Friedman, a famous economist says, " The main purpose of a company is to create profits". Why would a company like Monsanto DONATE and license its most money making technology to its competitors?!  

I believe Monsanto is using the Bt gene as bait to enter the Indian seed market. It is alleged that after the release of Bt eggplant in India about 23 transgenic crops are in the pipeline to be released. Most of them belong to Monsanto. I don't think  Monsanto will license or donate those technologies to Indian public institutions or Indian seed companies. So Monsanto is clearly on a track to monopolize the Indian seed market. 

 But, when we see Monsanto as a Indian farmer, it is a company that creates profits for affordable farmers. Poor farmers are not benefited by Monsanto directly as Monsanto's seeds are very expensive. India's cotton production had increased several folds after the adoption of Bt cotton in India. 88% of cotton planted in India is Bt cotton. This improvement in cotton production shows that, poor cotton farmers are  benefited from the technology that Monsanto donated to public institutions not from the expensive seeds or fertilizers of Monsanto that they can't afford.

Monsanto is not likely to donate it's technologies to public institutions other than the Bt gene, If Monsanto releases the other alleged 23 transgenic crops in India, I believe that Monsanto will have a monopoly in the Indian seed market .