The definitions of food and nutrition security vary with crops grown over (a) developed versus developing counties; (b) regions within the country; (c) rainfed versus irrigated agriculture; (d) polluted water versus non-polluted water; (e) chemical fertilizers versus non-chemical fertilizers; (f) adulterated food versus wastage of food versus using chemicals-preservatives for the preservation/ripening of fruits, etc. For example in Ethiopia around the capital city Addis Ababa [moderate rainfall zone] “tef” is the major staple food crop grown; but when you move to northwest [moderate to high rainfall zones] barley, wheat, tef, etc. are staple food crops grown; and in the southeast [low rainfall zones] millets + pulses are staple food crops grown, mostly under rainfed condition.
In India the staple food crops have changed with the green revolution technology: millets + pulses + oilseeds under rainfed + farmyard/green manure conditions have changed to rice + wheat under irrigation + chemical inputs. Crops/cropping systems were replaced by monocrop system. Thus, the fodder produced is of poor quality. As this is not suitable for as an animal feed, they are burnt in the crop field. In the northern parts of India they are burnt in winter. This is the major contributor of Air pollution and thus causing health hazards. The capital city of India, Delhi is the classic example for this disaster. Government is encouraging rice + wheat under heavily subsidized public distribution system [PDS]. Also, these crops are grown under subsidized chemical inputs. These are contributing to air, water, soil & food pollution and thus causing health hazards and it in turn causing pollution through drug manufacturing industry and hospitals, a vicious circle of pollution.
State governments are encouraging polluted food production under irrigation. However on 7th December 2018 FAO approved Indian proposal to observe 2023 as an International Year of Millets. Millets consists of sorghum, pearl millet, finger millet and minor millets. They are termed as nutri-cereals. However, the Indian scenario is to counter any such move, multinational companies (MNCs) are ready with new ideas such as “free kits – chemical fertilizers + hybrid rice-maize/corn” that generate polluted food. On our proposal government included in Food Security Bill of 2013 sorghum, pearl millet and finger millets at Rs. 1 per kg [rice Rs. 3/kg & wheat Rs. 2/kg]. But, the state governments are not providing them to PDS outlets. The state governments must encourage production of millets and procurement by paying minimum support price and supply them to PDS outlets.
CIAT published in “PLOS ONE” on November 19, 2018 on Climate-smart agriculture adding too many adjectives based on fiction. We call it “kichadi” agriculture. They claim that climate-smart agriculture boosts yields, mitigates extreme weather impact and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. They point to profitable opportunities for farmers and the environment. They state that “The two-punch combination of climate change and poor agricultural land management can be combined with simple measures that keep farms productive and profitable. CIAT study was funded by International Fund for Agricultural Development [IFAD]. One of the so-called climate-smart agriculture practices is crop rotation. By digging mountain they catch a rat. In fact this was an age-old practice but this was masqued by the introduction of chemical input mono crop technology. Two decades back I wrote a series of articles in daily newspapers to educate farmers on the importance of crop rotation. Tobacco farmers follow the crop rotation in India. However, with other crops only few farmers follow this voluntarily. In climate-smart agriculture, like all eminent groups in agriculture sector, CIAT also using climate change as an adjective.
In all the countries, climate, more particularly rainfall and temperature are different and thus cropping seasons are different. In colder regions single crop is grown per year and in the tropical warm countries, if water is available up to three crops are grown in a year. The extreme weather conditions have been attributed to global warming. Also, UN agencies are attributing recent prevailing drought conditions in southern Africa and Brazil to global warming. This is false propaganda only. In fact droughts & floods are part of natural rhythm [cyclic variations] in precipitation and heat & cold waves are part of general circulation pattern existing in a given countries, like Western disturbances in India. Add to this, the quality of production is highly variable with pollution [air, water, soil & food]. Under this scenario, to achieve sustainability in quality production we must quantify those variables [climate & pollution] per region, per country.
To achieve nutritious food, farming must include animal husbandry. Sea food-meat-fruits are different entity. Governments must plan to reduce the food wastage and agriculture system that provides socio-economic security to farmers. As per 2015, In India total population is 125.6 crores and rural population is 86.82 crores. The rural population constitutes 68.86% of total population. The total farmers population is 12.313 crores [14.24% of total population] and agriculture labour force is 14.969 crores [17.31% of total population]. Both jointly account 31.55% of rural population and 21.72% of total population. However, people are not only directly associated with agriculture, there are several entities that have been associated indirectly with agriculture sector, like services providers. Also the farm size is coming down drastically with the progression of the time on an average from 2.28 ha in 1970-71 to 1.08 ha in 2015-16 with the population growth. Also, diversion of agriculture land for non-agriculture purposes is increasing with the time, though governments’ statistics are not truly reflecting these. In such scenarios, the best system is traditional agriculture, with organic manure until animal husbandry form part of it, under cooperative farming mechanism. This system helps better utilization of resources, including natural resources.
With regional political parties’ entry in a big way in to Indian political arena, agriculture became the scapegoat of vote bank politics. These institutions destroyed well established practices and in its place providing financial incentives over above the central governments subsidies. Let me present a case of Telangana state wherein the government implemented (1) under Rhythu Bhandu scheme paid Rs. 8,000 per acre for 140.47 lakh acres; (2) though announced life insurance cover to farmers, it is applicable to only few farmers; (3) implemented loan waiver scheme but it is applicable to few farmers who took loans from banks. Central government implementing input subsidy and providing few other benefits including insurance under different names. The main beneficiaries with insurance associated with agriculture sector are the insurance companies.
In Telangana state, nearly 50% of the cultivated area is under cotton and chilies. Major share of subsidized chemical pesticides/insecticides have been used for these crops only. There is high year to year variation in cultivated area & yield. In the case of cotton, during 2016-17 the area under cotton cultivation was 30.2 lakh acres, in 2017-18 it was 47.5 lakh acres and in 2018-19 it is 42.3 lakh acres of the 162 lakh acres of cultivable land. A report states that during 2018-19 farmers’ spent Rs. 25,000-30,000 on inputs per acre. During 2017-18 the yield per acre was 10-15 quintals and price was low. During 2018-19 the yield per acre was low, 3 to 5 quintals. The price was reasonable (Rs. 5450 per quintal) but CCI putting too many queries for procuring on the quality and thus the farmers were compelled to sell it to middlemen at lower price.
The low cotton yields during 2018-19 were due to (a) drought condition, (b) adulterated seed/GM seed and (c) pink bollworm infestation with GM seed. Government did little on such hazards that push the farmers in to debt trap. In fact, this is what the farmers need. Before Telangana became separate state, it was a seed capital of India. Now the government claims the same but it is not so. The state government could not stop the sale of adulterated seed; illegal GM seeds production and commercial cultivation – they include BG-III cotton & several GM food crops. Illegal means that the central government has not cleared for cultivation in India. UN agencies should have played a crucial role to stop such activities of MNCs in developing countries. With GM crops the silent sufferers are the neighbouring farmers with infestation.
The government makes statement every other day that they will give water to one crore acres. At present 50% of the area is under well irrigation wherein groundwater is depleting with the time very fast. Agriculture has been carried out with toxic water [ground and surface]. That means not achieved sustainability in water availability in quantity & quality. Irrigation projects were put in cold storage for decades and thus still around 60% of the cultivated area is at the mercy of “Rain God”. In 7th and 8th Five Year Plan periods instead of irrigation projects implemented Watershed Programme in India. In Andhra Pradesh [undivided] it was implemented in 94 watersheds in 19 districts [except Guntur, Krishna and West Godavari – Rice bowl belt]. During Yerracheruvu watershed near Anantapur, in the base year 1983-84 the groundnut yields were 8.90 q/ha and the lowest yield of 3.23 q/ha was recorded during 1989-90 and the highest yield of 18.40 q/ha was recorded during 1986-87. This is due to erratic rainfall, characteristic of this zone with the drought proneness of 50-60% of the years. The farmers and politicians countered the crop rotation by saying if crop fails let the government compensate the farmer. Similar argument was put forth by sugarcane societies in Maharashtra. If crop fails let the government compensate it.
One of the constantly repeated, sympathy-seeking messages by politicians, by UN & UN Agencies, agencies such as World Bank, alarmists, by the mainstream media, and by brainwashed good-intentioned people, is that “the world’s poorest countries have been hit hardest by human-induced global warming”. The other word linked to this is the human health. A false alarm created by vested interest groups. The classic example to this is the subsidized food provided by Indian government wherein around 58% of it entered the “black market” accounting to thousands of crores of 1.6 lakh crores spent on food subsidy per year.
A recent report by World Health Organization of United Nations (WHO) at the UNFCCC Conference (COP24) in Katowice on December 5, 2018 noted that “A million lives in the world can be saved if countries cut air pollution levels as per the Paris Agreement by 2050”. Here they are misusing the word pollution. The WHO Director General states that “The Paris Agreement is potentially the strongest health agreement of the century”. Also he states that “The evidence is clear that climate change is already having a serious impact on human lives and health. It threatens the basic elements we all need for good health – clean air, safe drinking water, nutritious food supply and safe shelter”. Here he is trying to mix Paris agreement with general issues. All these form part of constant stream of global warming/climate change disinformation? Carbon dioxide is not a pollution.
Unfortunately, UN agencies such as FAO, WHO; agencies like World Bank, CGIAR, etc. haven’t raised the danger signals on food produced under chemical inputs [GM is also works under chemical inputs] and pollution [soil & water]. Naturally, when such products are sold through food market chains, people buy them. Thus, nobody takes blame on consequent health hazards. The impact of on earnings was highlighted by Stan Cox in his book “Sick Plant: Corporate Food and Medicine” – I contributed to pollution section chapter. Production of medicine and hospitals generate more pollution [water & air]. Unknowingly people eat and buy health problems. Corporate and contract farming outputs are vulnerable to such hazards.
Climate is dynamic. Climate change was there in the past; it is there at present; and will be there in the future. However with preconceived notions, scientific groups mislead the community. Often scientific community (?) uses truncated data series of a rhythmic variation series and present sensational inferences that mislead the agriculture scientists in specific and in general readers. A data series that present cyclic variation, present increasing trend in one arm and decreasing trend in the other arm of a sine curve. In agriculture the main component of climate change that is of importance is natural variability in rainfall. The so-called global warming is insignificant when compared to seasonal and annual variations in temperature. Global level is important for collection and spending of billions of dollars under green fund – this is clearly evident at COP24. Health is wealth but money makes many things!!! In the “global warming”, the word “global” is a misnomer. In addition to the Sun, Climate System plays the main role on local weather and thus climate. They only play the important role in agriculture and not the so-called global warming.
Ecological changes include both heat-island and cold-island effects. The surface data was not adjusted for cold island effect. So we get warmer condition. The so-called heat island effect correction is highly bogus as in the urban areas, the heat-island effect may not affect the met station but it changes the atmospheric lapse rate. This is also true with cold island effect. Under heat-island affects the temperature increases over the standard atmospheric lapse rate with height and decreases with cold-island effect. Thus, the balance must reduce the temperature on land surface. This was clearly reflected in satellite data [original]. But this was replaced with warmer pattern [current satellite data] to cooperative with warmist’s propaganda. In this there is no role of carbon dioxide. In urban areas air pollution is short lived [one day] affect the health directly unlike carbon dioxide with long life and accumulates with the time.
- in Knee Technologies were invented recently that (a) global warming is causing severe droughts and floods by WMO/UN Secretary General in 2013, (b) organic farming is contributing global warming by Stefan Wirsenius from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden [published in Journal Nature], etc.
Forefathers developed, based on their hundreds of years of experience, agriculture and horticultural systems that fit in to the soil and climate systems including cyclonic activity. With new technologies, developed with few years’ experience, increased the risk with the soil and climate system. Thus, it created “technology drought” over traditional weather based drought. The inefficiency in water use under irrigated agriculture added another “inefficiency drought”.
Now people of developing countries are severely affected by the adulterated food including milk. Fruits are treated with chemicals. Chemicals are used to ripening of mango fruits. Oil is extracted from dead animals and mixed with others. Bt-cotton seed oil is produced illegally. Even though this is a major hazard the people of India are facing, the rulers are looking at real estate business at the cost of destruction of environment. Poor ethics and poor governance is ruling the roots of the nation. UN agencies can do something on such issues???
In conclusion,
· As long as soil and water pollution play the role in agriculture, we may achieve production in quantity but not in quality;
· As long as we follow chemical input-mono crop agriculture system we rarely achieve the nutrition security;
· The foods supplied through market chain are unhealthy food excluding organic foods, whatever may be claims of the suppliers;
· UN agencies and agencies like World Bank must work and help in the eradication of role of pollution in agriculture instead of wasting money on issues like “global warming and carbon credits”;
· However, under vote bank politics the chances of implementation of agricultural technology that provides socio-economic, food-nutrition security and that is environment friendly are bleak; particularly with changing guard frequently. However there is an urgent need for improving the quality of life of farming community and to achieve this goal:
o Rulers must keep vote bank agenda aside and develop national policy on agriculture technology and financial assistance programmes to agriculture sector, more particularly to farming community;
o To achieve this goal states and central agriculture ministries must come together; and as well at state level both ruling and opposition leaders must come together to evaluate the policy and give concrete suggestions;
o By taking into account such suggestions from the states, the centre must bring out the policy document and implement the same. This will also save the wasteful expenditure.
· The governments must think seriously to eradicate the production and sale of adulterated food stuff; treating fruits with chemicals; etc.
· Instead of harping on global warming and wasting billions of dollars on them,
o UN agencies must plan to help the nations by encouraging studies related natural variability in rainfall and thus adapting agriculture to such variations;
o UN agencies must plan to help the nations by building agriculture systems like organic farming + animal husbandry under cooperative agriculture structure;
From: Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Formerly Chief Technical Advisor – WMO/UN & Expert-FAO/UN
Fellow, Telangana Academy of Sciences
Convenor, Forum for a Sustainable Environment
[email protected]; (040) 23550480
S. Jeevananda Reddy