Need green and not yellowish- blue-green green revolution, says Dr S Jeevananda Reddy

Need “green” and not “yellowish- blue-green” green revolution

There are two important clauses of interests in the present context In the National Food Security Bill, 2011, namely:

• Under Right to food security - Right to access of food security -- 4. Every person shall have physical, economic and social access, at all times, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate, sufficient and safe food, which ensures an active and healthy life.
• Rate for priority households -- 24. The state government shall provide priority households whether rural or urban a minimum of 7kg of food grains per person per month, at a price not exceeding Rs. 3 per kg for rice, Rs. 2 per kg of wheat and Rs. 1 per kg for millet at 2010-11 rates ---.

The two clauses are rarely achieved under the present agriculture scenario but serve as superlative words to catch the eye of the readers.  In the first clause, firstly, food produced under chemical inputs and/or under genetically modified seeds is not “safe food”. They are highly health hazard foods as discussed in the above section. Secondly, with a fixed quota per person, we cannot call it as “adequate”. Thus, thirdly, there is no way to achieve "active and healthy life". In the second clause, there was no criterion to limit the purchase of rice or wheat or millets.  Unless it is specified like two kg of millet, two kg of wheat and two kg of rice minimum, no body go for healthy millets but everybody choose unhealthy wheat or/and rice produced under chemical input technology. The recent UN report coincidently the Dr. Manmohan Sigh’s speech indicates future is in this direction. These are given in brief below:

UN Report:  UN World Economic Social Survey chapter on sustainable agriculture under small farm holders present: “Evidence has shown that, for most crops, the optimal farm is small in scale and it is at this level that most gains in terms of both sustainable productivity increases and rural poverty reduction can be achieved. It also agrees that water quality has been degraded partly owing to intensive agriculture, which has become the main source of water pollution in many developed and developing countries, rendering it unsustainable and a source of risks to human health. Intensive livestock production is probably the largest sector-specific source of water pollution. The productivity of some lands has declined by 50 per cent owing to soil erosion and desertification. Globally, the annual loss of 75 billion tons of soil and thus soil nutrients loss effected production severely.

To the extent that most food is locally produced and consumed, small farm holders are at the heart of the food security challenge. The majority of the extremely poor and about half of the undernourished people in the world live in a total of 500 million farms in developing countries (almost 90 per cent of farms worldwide), each comprising less than two hectares (ha). Small-scale and diversified farming continues to have significant advantages over large scale monoculture systems in terms of productivity (20-60 per cent higher yields), food production and environmental protection (including climate change mitigation).

An appropriate institutional setting is also crucial in respect of supporting small-scale farming so as to increase agricultural investment and productivity and preserve natural resources. We propose to utilize the concept of a sustainable agricultural innovation system (SAIS) to focus on developing a comprehensive policy framework for innovation which can respond to the double challenge of increasing productivity in food production and environmental sustainability.

Biotechnology has the potential to improve crop varieties grown by the poor, by making them herbicide-resistant, less dependent on chemical pesticides and more resilient to water stress and by conferring on them a greater nutritional value. Biotechnology may therefore be able to respond to the variety of agro-ecological conditions in poor and food-insecure regions, provided the current research agenda can be expanded to reflect the challenges faced by small-scale farm holders. Going forward, better understanding of the consequences of transgenic based on full disclosure of information, including rigorous assessments on a case-by-case basis, will be critical to informing decisions about the deployment of this technology on a larger scale in developing countries. One legitimate concern in exploring the potential of biotechnology to contribute to food security and sustainable agriculture is the concentration of research and products in two large firms: DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto, which account for the largest. The cost of seeds and inputs may discourage use of this technology by small farm holders, especially if the market continues to be dominated by a few large companies which exert influence over prices. Yet, biotechnology can still be an effective instrument for facilitating the transformation of agriculture in poor agro-ecological regions with low productive capacity under current technology (namely, in parts of Africa, Central America and Asia with degraded natural resources.

Finally UN bogged down to supporting GM crops use in developing countries, on one side saying the GM seed is in the hands of few powerful MNCs and on the other side saying need clean and green, which do not fit.  GM use the same green revolution technology and UN says such technology is unsustainable but support the MNCs interests, it says it is good.

PM’s speech: The same is reflected in the Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, speech on the occasion of the ICAR’s 83rd Foundation Day wherein he stated that large yield gaps in the dry-land agriculture that contributing about 60 per cent of the cropped area and 45 per cent of the total agricultural produce and that contribute more than 80% of the pulses and oilseeds as well as a substantial part of horticulture and animal husbandry produce. And finally emphasized the need for the second green revolution wherein it embraces the dry-land agriculture -- that is more broad-based, more inclusive and more sustainable; we need to produce more without depleting our natural resources any further, and we look towards our agricultural scientists for ushering this green revolution. He also emphasized that irrigation efficiency is estimated to be around 30% which needs to be raised to at least 50%. This could contribute considerably to increase in agricultural production. Resource conservation technologies that improve input use efficiency, and conserve and protect our natural resources need to be aggressively promoted. Also, there is an urgent necessity for us to speed up our efforts to evolve climate-resilient crop varieties, cropping patterns and management practices. He also pointed out careful application of biotechnology to improve productivity, enable better resilience to stress and also enhance the incomes of our farmers.

Uttarkhand is officially organic state.  To change this scenario under the pretext of augmenting production the state agriculture department is supplying “mini kits” of chemical fertilizers and micro-nutrients free to small farmers secretly.  The whole objective is to replace organic farming with chemical inputs and hybrid seeds.  On the name of free the government is addicting the lands with chemical fertilizers and then once this is withdrawn the farmer has to pay for it.  Thus soil degradation and increased cost of production break the back of farmers. Also, this changes the healthy millets to unhealthy millets. 

Though the first part of these two reports follow what I submitted to planning commission regarding approach paper to the 12th 5-year plan (see Appendix – IV) and later my talk on All India Radio in March 2011 that follow “green” green technology that is environment friendly and sustainable technology. On the contrarily, the later part of the two reports follow “yellowish-blue-green” green revolution technology, which is environment  unfriendly and unsustainable technology. Thus, we don’t need 2nd green revolution as proposed by the above two reports but we need a “green” green revolution technology as I was advocating, as presented in Appendix – IV. The so called 2ndgreen revolution is aimed at monopolizing seed industry including paddy seed by Western MNCs under the disguise of hybridization and genetically modification that put farmers under great risk. India does not need such a technology.

Appendix-IV is not included here, as it was circulated in 2010.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
jeevanandareddy@yahoo.com