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TITLE: Report of the People's Science Congress on Food and Agriculture (India) |
AUTHOR: |
ORG: Research Foundation |
DATE: January 3, 2001 |
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Kheti Bachao - Desh Bachao People's Science Congress On Food & Agriculture 1st & 2nd January 1 -2, 2001 Co-Organisers: Agricultural Renewal in India for Sustainable Environment, Azadi Bachao Andolan, Bihar Kisan Andolan Abhiyan Samiti, Bhartiya Cattle Resource Development Foundation, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies, Deccan Development Society, Diverse Women for Diversity, Indian Social Institute, Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, Karnataka Rajya Ryot Sangha, Kisan Vigyan Kendra, Lok Shakti Abhiyan, Lokayan, Nagarika Seva Trust, Navdanya, National Fishworkers Forum, National Working Group on Patent Laws, Navjawan Bharat Sabha, Nayi Azadi Andolan, Odisha Khadya Adhikar Abhiyan, Orissa Krushak Mahasangh, Parisarasaktha Krishikara Vedike, Peoples' Food Rights Campaign, PEACE, People's Institute for Development and Training, PPBSA, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, Rupantar, Trust for Community Development and Research, Vidhya Sagar Samajik Suraksha Seva and Shodh Sansthan, Samanvaya, Sanhati, Various Farmer Unions, And many others. Venue: Speaker Hall, Constitution Club, Rafi Marg, New Delhi January 3rd, 2001 REPORT The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology and several other groups working in agriculture, food, nutrition and environment took up the challenge of organising the People's Science Congress, immediately prior to the 88th Session of Indian Science Congress, supported by Monsanto and Syngenta, in January 2001 at New Delhi, to address both, the radical shift in our scientific tradition and civilization as well as the devastating crisis of survival faced by Indian farmers Indian agriculture. The real agenda of the official Indian Science Congress is for an aggressive launch of the corporate takeover of Indian agriculture and agricultural research as well as a push for introduction of genetically engineered seeds and crops. This commitment has already been made in the New Agricultural Policy of the Government, which supports corporatisation of agriculture and introduction of transgenic seeds. Instead of strengthening and building self-reliant traditions of agriculture and food security, the Indian Science Congress is becoming a marketing forum for launching an untested, unsafe, capital intensive technology controlled by global life science corporations. This is a betrayal of the legacy of the Indian Science Congress, which was to counter colonial science and colonisation of our minds. One of the founders of Indian Science Congress, Sir Albert Howard came to India as the imperial economic botanist to educate the Indian peasants in chemical agriculture. Instead, he learnt organic agriculture from Indian peasants whom he treated as his professors. The global spread of the organic movement today can be traced to the science Indian peasants taught the founder of the Indian Science Congress. To celebrate the indigenous and self reliant tradition of sustainable agriculture and to resist the imposition of ecologically hazardous and economically non-viable genetic engineering technologies on Indian farming and Indian farmers a People's Science Congress on Food and Agriculture was organised on 1st and 2nd January 2001 at the Speaker Hall, Constitution Club, New Delhi. It was also organised to strengthen and reaffirm the inspirations behind the Science Congress as a co component of the anti-colonial freedom movement. Besides the testimonies of farmers, from different states, on the impact of globalisation in their area, the People's Science Congress deliberated on the following issues: 1. Myths and Reality of Globalisation & Agriculture: False Promises - Disastrous Impacts
2. Impacts of Globalisation on Livelihood and Food Security 3. The New Agricultural Policy: A recipe for Corporate Control of Food and Agriculture 4. Myth of Productivity of Industrial Agriculture and Genetic Engineering 6. People's Science for Peoples' Agriculture: Sustainable & Just Alternatives 7. Statement from the leaders of Mass Based Organisations The movements and groups who jointly organised the People's Science Congress were: Agricultural Renewal in India for Sustainable Environment: Azadi Bachao Andolan; Bihar Kisan Andolan Abhiyan Samiti; Bhartiya Cattle Resource Development Foundation; Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies; Deccan Development Society; Diverse Women for Diversity; Indian Social Institute; Kisan Sangharsh Samiti; Karnataka Rajya Ryot Sangha; Kisan Vigyan Kendra; Lok Shakti Abhiyan; Lokayan; Nagarika Seva Trust; Navdanya; National Fishworkers Forum; National Working Group on Patent Laws; Navjawan Bharat Sabha; Nayi Azadi Andolan; Odisha Khadya Adhikar Abhiyan; Orissa Krushak Mahasangh; Parisarasaktha Krishikara Vedike; Peoples' Food Rights Campaign; PEACE; People's Institute for Development and Training; PPBSA; Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE); Rupantar; Trust for Community Development and Research; Vidhya Sagar Samajik Suraksha Seva and Shodh Sansthan; Samanvaya; Sanhati; Various Farmer Unions; and many others. Shri V. P. Singh (Ex-Prime Minister), Prof. Madhu Dandawate (Ex-Finance Minister and Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission), Shri Amar Singh of Samajwadi Party, Shri Balram Jhakhar (Ex- Agriculture Minister and Chairman of the Congress (I) Farmers Cell), Shri Dipankar Bhattacharya of Communist Party of India (ML), Shri Trilok Tyagi of Rashtriya Lok Dal, Shri Harish Mahapatra of Rashtriya Janta Dal (Orissa), Shri Surendra Mohan (Ex-Member of Parliament), Dr. Sunilam (MLA, and President, Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, Madhya Pradesh) among others attended the People's Science Congress and committed themselves and their parties to the defense of farmers livelihoods and peoples food security as the highest political agenda for the country. They promised to take the fight for farmers rights and peoples food rights to Parliament and to the streets. Declaration of the People's Science Congress on Food and Agriculture Growing stocks and growing hunger India's food system is in deep crisis. 50 million tonnes of food grains are rotting in the godowns while 300 million people go hungry and lakhs face starvation in Orissa, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Chattisgarh. Even in spite of the crisis of hunger, the government has announced that it would dump two million tonnes of food grain into the sea to prevent spoilage and maintain high prices. The growing food stocks do not represent either over production or lack of storage capacity, but the lack of justice and the political will to defend the food rights of millions of Indians. Systematic dismantling of food security and farmers' livelihoods The polarisation of wasted plenty while millions starve is a result of the deliberate and systematic dismantling of the national food security system and people's food rights by the government's implementation of the World Bank/IMF Structural adjustment and the WTO's free trade policies. Cost of production are rising as globalisation of the input sector increases costs of seeds and agrochemical, privatisation increases the cost of power and irrigation, and subsidies related to agriculture are withdrawn, forcing farmers into suicide, land alienation and sale of body parts. Commodity prices are falling under the dual impact of the withdrawal of the government from procurement and failure to guarantee minimum support prices, as well as the dumping of artificially cheap and subsidised agricultural commodities through imports and the removal of quantitative restrictions. The prices of soyabean have collapsed from Rs.1300/qtl to 700/qtl. Mustard prices have dropped from Rs.1600/qtl to Rs.1000/qtl and coconut prices have collapsed from Rs.10 to Rs.2 per coconut. Rising food prices The government's attempt to cut food subsidies by increasing food prices in fair price shops has led to declining off-take and declining consumption. Instead of lowering food prices for Indian consumers, the government now wants to hand over this food cheaply and increase their profit. While the price of wheat in the fair price shop is Rs.9.60, and Rs.4.60 for people below the poverty line, the government is to hand over wheat for exports at Rs.4.10. The government has also announced that to handle the crisis of growing stocks it will allow 100% FDI in storage and distribution. Science and Technology India's food security has been based on the innovations, ingenuity and the wisdom of the small farmers. This sustainable indigenous scientific tradition was the inspiration for the founding of the Indian Science Congress. The Green Revolution ignored the needs of small farmers and the imperative of sustainable development and its only thrust was short-term high monoculture yield at the cost of the destruction of soil, water and biodiversity. At the beginning of the revolution the narrow goal may have been achieved, but after a span of two decades the farm productivity reached a plateau and is now showing a decline. Without learning the lesson that non-sustainable models of farming cannot ensure food security, the government is blindly promoting genetic engineering on the false ground that this will increase food production and nutrition availability. The new agricultural policy has exclusive focus on transgenics. The Bt cotton trials were undertaken violating all concern for environmental laws and biosafety. Genetically engineered "golden rice" is being promoted as a cure for vitamin 'A' deficiency and blindness even though it is inadequate in meeting the vitamin A needs. Meantime, easily available, cheap and rich sources of vitamin A in our indigenous fruits and vegetables are being destroyed through the use of agrochemical, such as Monsanto's Roundup and the spread of commercial monocultures. The introduction of herbicide resistant Roundup Ready crops will make the situation worse. Resource alienation and commodification of common resources The incomplete agenda of land reforms is being reversed through introduction of land leasing and Corporate take over of land, as well as amendments in land acquisition laws. Indebtedness is also leading to large-scale land alienation and dispossession. The Ministry of Mines is seeking to remove all restrictions on the transfer of tribal and government lands in the schedule areas. Further Land Acquisition Act of the 1894 (amended in 1984) is further proposed to be amended for faster and smoother acquisition of land by private companies without properly resettling and rehabilitating the affected population. The privatisation of water resources and power is also transferring water rights from farmers to corporations. New intellectual property rights regimes are threatening to turn seed into corporate property and farmers into bioserfs. Globalisation and the marginalisation of the farmer The globalisation policies being blindly rushed into by government are part of a perverted paradigm that sees India only as a market for MNC products, and Indians only as consumers, and is blind to the millions of efficient small producers who have maintained India's food security. These policies of trade liberalisation are creating massive rural unemployment leading to poverty and a total collapse of purchasing power. There has been a drastic decline in the number of cultivators while there has been a corresponding increase in the number of agricultural labourers. The marginal and displaced farmers and farm workers are thus being denied their fundamental right to food and livelihood guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. Our Demands Farmers are the best agricultural scientists especially for their own farm. Scientist make their best contributions when the support farmers and build the farmers knowledge. Instead anti farmer science/ technology is being thrust upon the farmers of India. Science should be developed for the people and not vice-versa. Further science developed over the years by the farmers need to be honoured. The science that need to be developed should be aimed at more efficient resource use and not on farmers displacement. This resource depleting and livelihood-destroying paradigm of technology will and is resulting in mass unemployment, growing poverty and hunger. People's Science Congress therefore demands: Food and agriculture must be squarely excluded from the WTO agenda. The present Agriculture Policy, which is aimed at corporate takeover of Indian agriculture, reversing of land reforms and introduction of hazardous technologies like GMOs, must be scrapped, and must be replaced with a small and marginal farmer-centred agricultural policy. Government must take the responsibility to guarantee procurement at minimum support price. Adequate budgetary provisions must be made for intervention in unjust and unfair markets to ensure minimum support price to farmers. The government must stop unregulated imports, reintroduce QRs in farm commodities, and maintain them in others, in-act anti-dumping law and use both tariff and non-tariff protection for maintaining domestic food security and farmers' livelihood. Wherever farmers are subjected to payment of compound interest rates that practice must be strongly opposed. The government must ensure social security systems for tribals, farmers and farm workers. Disaster relief entitlements have to be identified and managed directly by Gram Sabha. This must be statutorily guaranteed. The government should immediately lower the price of food in fair price shops. No exports of food grain should be subsidised to prices lower than its cost to the Indian consumer. The PDS system must be strengthened through transparency and public accountability as well as public participation in procurement and distribution of all commodities. The PDS system must reflect the food diversity and crop diversity of the country. The government should promote and strengthen cooperative and community storage systems in rural areas to ensure local food security. The government should institute systems implementation to ensure people's food rights through schemes such as food-for-work employment guarantee schemes, which also build infrastructure that enhances ecological security and food security and provides public services. The food and agriculture policy must be based on the efficiency and collective and cumulative wisdom of the Indian farmers. The untested and inefficient genetic engineering technologies should not be rushed to the market place, either as seed or as food. The violent and forcible collection of debts, which is forcing farmers into suicides and land alienation through auction and distress sale of land and property, must be immediately stopped. The privatisation of water should be immediately stopped and all agreements related to this should be immediately nullified. Seed business is farmers' business. Farmers' rights to seeds must be defended at all costs. There should be no monopoly in seed sector either through patents or plant breeders' rights. Indian farmers cannot be criminalised for seed saving and seed exchange. Action Programme The People's Science Congress will prepare a draft agriculture policy centred on small and marginal farmers and agricultural workers. Farmers will oppose and not cooperate with Intellectual Property Rights regimes that establish seed monopolies and cripple farming communities. Farmers' organisations and citizens' groups will blockade ports and warehouses where imported agricultural commodities are entering the country. Farmers' organisations and citizens' groups will compel the government to implement food-for-work programmes and distribute stockpiled grains to the hungry. Farmers' organisations and citizens' groups will totally oppose all attempts to privatise and corporatise common resources including land, water, seeds, and biodiversity including forests. Farmers' organisations and citizens' groups will organise boycotts against unjust measures like high input costs that lead to deepening debt, depeasantisation and suicides. Farmers' organisations and citizens' groups will compel government to ensure that farmers get the minimum support price for their produce. Farmers' organisations and citizens' groups will block corporate takeover of land and oppose reversal of land reforms. Farmers' organisations and citizens' groups will prevent the planting of GMOs for trials or commercial seed production. Farmers' organisations and citizens' groups will agitate for the adoption by the Parliament of the Agricultural Worker's Bill tabled with certain amendments, and its notification by the state Governments. Farmers' organisations and citizens' groups will agitate on various issues related to tribals of the country. Oppose deletion of Vth schedule of the Constitution and will agitate for implementing recommendation of the Bhuria Committee's recommendations suggested by the NGOs. The Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill will include measures for adequate compensation and other measures as suggested by the NGOs. Persons being displaced by the creation of sanctuaries should be fully compensated and rehabilitated. Any effort to revert the tribal land for commercial activity will be met with resistance. For more information about the People's Science Congress: Secretariat of the People's Science Congress, Vandana Shiva A - 60, Hauz Khas, New Delhi - 16; Tel: 011 - 656 1868, 696 8077, 685 3772 Fax: 011-685 6795; Email: rfste@ndf.vsnl.net.in; END |