Organic farming, certification and the Poor Indian Farmer
In my 1 week vacation at Thanjavur, I basked in the glory of so many birds and insects and night-sky stars, walked distances, talked to a lot of people besides catching the typical cold that I tend to catch everytime I go to the country side.
I met one Mr.Meenakshi Sundaram of the Tamil Nadu Organic Certification Department (TNOCD) in Thanjavur. In my interaction I got to know about the process of obtaining "Organic food" certification. "TN is India's first state to come up with a government body for Organic certification", claimed Mr.MS.
I also had long discussions with poor farmers. The simplicity with which they narrated stories of exploitation during the past flood in Thanjavur set me out to wonder how these poor farmers can be liberated from the clutches of the oppressing mindsets of the 'upper classes'. It is somehow a matter-of-fact to the upper-classes to shun the lower classes inspite of knowing very well deep inside that their 'owned lands' will be wasted without their toiling in the scorching sun.
I also have been talking to some organic farmers. I've read a lot of success stories of organic farmers in Tamil Nadu on Pasumai Vikatan and the likes. Organic farming in principle is noble and is important for a food producing nation like India to adopt. Afterall, India inspite of being the world's second largest producer of rice, trades very little and consumes most of what it produces. So if feeding oneself is vital, doing so in an independent, sustainable way should play a large role in the food production strategy of India. A democracy is by the people and for the people. When the government is going after the poor farmer's votes, it is important that we understand whether the poor farmer benefits from the TNOCD.
Before we get into the regulations put forth by TNOCD, let me explain Organic Farming.
Organic farming
Simply put, organic farming is all about using naturally available plant and animal resources (and hence the term 'organic') to grow food. Chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides are not used. Instead, what's termed "Farm manure" is used. To facilitate production and recycling of farm wastes into farm manure, cattle is a thumb-rule device of converting the waste into manure quickly. Pesticides are in the form of natural, bio-degradable materials (ex: typically involving garlic and/or neem oil and/or green chillies) - requires more effort and more time for the pests to be repelled (or sometimes, 'killed') but it works as effectively. That said, the term 'organic farming' is quite hazy. Especially given the "coolness" factor of Organic produce, especially in the west, Its kinda like how some (important) people came to term all the religious / philosophical ideas of a given region as "Hinduism" (including buddhism, jainism and even the Atheistic, Materialistic Carvaka philosophy). Many people I know of took to Organic farming having been inspired by Masanobu Fukuoka's "Zero farming" philosophy (which has to do more with Zen than anything else). I'm not blaming those who take to Organic farming... I'm just warning the reader about the confusion that prevails around terminology. So... watch out :)
All said... It is a matter of fact that today's Industrial farming practices involve heavy fertilizer and pesticide use. This has made the soil a mere substrate where plants grow only using periodically added essential nutrients. Let's not even talk about whether we fully understand all the complex interactions in nature and whether a mere spraying of chemicals can substitute everything that is missing in this labour intensive yet biodiversity depleted method of food production. Continuous layering of chemicals alters the chemical composition so badly that the earth worms and the zillion other macro and micro-organisms are no longer around in these soils.
Such a soil devoid of the eco system needs revival and revival isn't an easy process. So it is a common notion amongst practitioners of organic farming to give a 'recovery period' during which time certain practices allow the soil to regain its fertility.
During the recovery period, the obtained yield is always lesser. Even after recovery, nothing beats, for example, IR8 rice (a HYV rice from the IRRI produced during the Green Revolution). The story is the same with industrial variety anything (Wheat, Corn, etc.,). That said, native varieties have other practical advantages like resilience to floods, better yield without chemical inputs (IR8 will yield much lesser without chemical inputs) and so on. But typically, once the recovery period is over, the quality of the yield speaks for itself. Also, since chemical inputs are not used, the input costs per harvest is highly reduced besides the input supplies becoming self-sustainable.
The TNOCD seems to have pretty much done a good job in coming up with a framework to ensure Organic farming can be done. It has also come up with a set of apparently stringent testing methodologies to reject unsafe foods and thereby revoke the certification. "The rules are based on the ISO 65 standard", says Mr.MS.
That is all good... but the point of this post is this: Who is TNOCD trying to serve? Corporations disguised as farmers? Small scale, Rich farmers? (like me and the hazaar other techie wannabe-farmers of today) or the real masses of poor farmers who are fleeing their lands to urban slums? ...and ultimately, do they want the citizens of their nation consuming safe foods or is this yet another product reserved for the elites who can afford to buy from the market?
The poor farmer's plight
TNOCD is just a Certifying authority. There is no tutoring whatsoever... and having witnessed the treatment of the 'low caste', I can imagine how approachable the bulk of the authorities will turn out to be. Also, there is no incentive to the farmer besides the certificate. These two issues of Education and Incentives are very important if they want to make India's food production sustainable by using organic means.
The poor indian farmer needs an immediate yield. The rules specified by TNOCD are so impractical for a poor farmer that he will not even think about going the organic way. The impracticality of these rules will be shortly exposed by stating a few basic widely prevailing conditions of poor farmers:
1. Poor farmers rely on their land for atleast 2/3rds of the year for sustenance.
- The mandatory 3 year recovery period is impractical here.
- Not certifying / incentivizing the farmer for this 3 year "loss" period is a big hurdle to adoption by the poor farmer.
- Poor farmers typically have borrowed loans from local lenders at insanely high interest rates. Its a completely different thing that banks are unapproachable for the poor farmer and that will pull us into analysing the roots of the caste system and such. Too off-topic, i guess.
- If the farmer, consciously or unconsciously ends up doing something that fails the test (ex: huge pest infestation and ends up reacting with pesticides OR water logged from a neighbour's non-organic farm drains into one's farm)
2. Poor farmers rely on the rain and the river for water.
- The water will be tested. Mr.MS says this as a sad fact: "Cauvery is polluted and it will definitely fail the test. so you better get a pump". Pumps cost Rs.1,50,000/- far beyond the reach of the poor farmer (I'm not even talking about the 'hidden' bribery charges around getting power supply from the grid).
- Open wells are multiple times expensive than bore pumps though won't require electricity (which is anyway free to the farmer). In a world where everybody uses a bore-pump drilled to 300 ft, keeping water in the open well will require a lot of rain water harvesting efforts - again, requires a lot of tutoring / aid from the government.
- To prevent water from enter one's farm, TNOCD recommends building a 'bund'
3. Too little land
- The programme recommends using one's land for a lot more than just growing the actual organic produce
- A buffer zone to isolate organic produce from being affected by a neighbouring non-organic farm's pesticide/herbicide/fertilizer's effects
- Cattle is recommended to be placed _in_ the farm. There are specifications about how much sun-light can and should be incident on the cattle, etc., Besides the needed protection from wild farm animals (mongooses, foxes, wild cats, etc.,), someone will have to stay around in hte farm to just take care of the cattle. During the heavy rains of the previous season, the so-called "S.C.Street" (yes, S.C. == Scheduled Caste) people had to flee since the mud walls of their houses were not withstanding the rain... that is in a liveable, non-low-lying area of the village. The land they own might be pretty far away and might be so low-lying that protection from such flooding will mean raising the land level and building a more solid house - both of which means a lot more cost.
- Manure processing + growing some stuff for cows needs land
I can only guess the unwritten goals of TNOCD: To enable AgriBusinesses and 'Rich' farmers to foray into the niche segment of 'Organic' farming. To further the class and economic divide that has already caused much suffering in this region since time immemorial.
Consider the possibility of using these 'stringent rules' for authority, control and as means of forcing the farmer to pay up bribes to 'pass' TNOCD's tests.
Ultimately, the only selling point of this certification programme is the high profits obtainable per unit yield _after_ the recovery period, as measured today based on today's open market conditions, one can make due to (today's) demand from the open market per unit yield of organic produce. A 11th standard student will tell you what happens to price as supply increases. If the government wants people to adopt organic farming and does not take steps to protect the poor farmer who has lost his 3 year yield, the programme has lost the farmer who would probably never return to Organic farming simply because it was a bad experience to him.
From the time I got to hear about "Organic Farming" I have been of the opinion that the whole approach is short-sighted and wrongly motivated (higher price yield). This also goes to reinforce that permaculture principles will be the most practical and sustainable way for poor farmers to liberate themselves from the clutches of those in power... from those who want the poor to stay poor so they can keep making promises to get the only thing they need from these poor people - their votes.
The Deccan Development Society's successful use of permaculture in Andhra Pradesh not only liberated the oppressed classes of farmers but also enabled them to switch to cost-effective, incremental and sustainable method of food production using permaculture principles. There is nothing stopping governments from not adopting practical solution like permaculture. It is so easy to see that the poor can adapt from the success stories of community permaculture efforts in Rajasthan and Andhra.
If the politicians and society don't help the poor and oppressed amongst us, permaculture can show us how we can help ourselves.
If this post got you significantly interested in Permaculture... or if you're even marginally curious to understand how permaculture saved the people of Andhra, do watch the "Global Gardener" documentaries ("In the tropics"). Further tid-bits and stories can be found on the Deccan Development Society website.
I met one Mr.Meenakshi Sundaram of the Tamil Nadu Organic Certification Department (TNOCD) in Thanjavur. In my interaction I got to know about the process of obtaining "Organic food" certification. "TN is India's first state to come up with a government body for Organic certification", claimed Mr.MS.
I also had long discussions with poor farmers. The simplicity with which they narrated stories of exploitation during the past flood in Thanjavur set me out to wonder how these poor farmers can be liberated from the clutches of the oppressing mindsets of the 'upper classes'. It is somehow a matter-of-fact to the upper-classes to shun the lower classes inspite of knowing very well deep inside that their 'owned lands' will be wasted without their toiling in the scorching sun.
I also have been talking to some organic farmers. I've read a lot of success stories of organic farmers in Tamil Nadu on Pasumai Vikatan and the likes. Organic farming in principle is noble and is important for a food producing nation like India to adopt. Afterall, India inspite of being the world's second largest producer of rice, trades very little and consumes most of what it produces. So if feeding oneself is vital, doing so in an independent, sustainable way should play a large role in the food production strategy of India. A democracy is by the people and for the people. When the government is going after the poor farmer's votes, it is important that we understand whether the poor farmer benefits from the TNOCD.
Before we get into the regulations put forth by TNOCD, let me explain Organic Farming.
Organic farming
Simply put, organic farming is all about using naturally available plant and animal resources (and hence the term 'organic') to grow food. Chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides are not used. Instead, what's termed "Farm manure" is used. To facilitate production and recycling of farm wastes into farm manure, cattle is a thumb-rule device of converting the waste into manure quickly. Pesticides are in the form of natural, bio-degradable materials (ex: typically involving garlic and/or neem oil and/or green chillies) - requires more effort and more time for the pests to be repelled (or sometimes, 'killed') but it works as effectively. That said, the term 'organic farming' is quite hazy. Especially given the "coolness" factor of Organic produce, especially in the west, Its kinda like how some (important) people came to term all the religious / philosophical ideas of a given region as "Hinduism" (including buddhism, jainism and even the Atheistic, Materialistic Carvaka philosophy). Many people I know of took to Organic farming having been inspired by Masanobu Fukuoka's "Zero farming" philosophy (which has to do more with Zen than anything else). I'm not blaming those who take to Organic farming... I'm just warning the reader about the confusion that prevails around terminology. So... watch out :)
All said... It is a matter of fact that today's Industrial farming practices involve heavy fertilizer and pesticide use. This has made the soil a mere substrate where plants grow only using periodically added essential nutrients. Let's not even talk about whether we fully understand all the complex interactions in nature and whether a mere spraying of chemicals can substitute everything that is missing in this labour intensive yet biodiversity depleted method of food production. Continuous layering of chemicals alters the chemical composition so badly that the earth worms and the zillion other macro and micro-organisms are no longer around in these soils.
Such a soil devoid of the eco system needs revival and revival isn't an easy process. So it is a common notion amongst practitioners of organic farming to give a 'recovery period' during which time certain practices allow the soil to regain its fertility.
During the recovery period, the obtained yield is always lesser. Even after recovery, nothing beats, for example, IR8 rice (a HYV rice from the IRRI produced during the Green Revolution). The story is the same with industrial variety anything (Wheat, Corn, etc.,). That said, native varieties have other practical advantages like resilience to floods, better yield without chemical inputs (IR8 will yield much lesser without chemical inputs) and so on. But typically, once the recovery period is over, the quality of the yield speaks for itself. Also, since chemical inputs are not used, the input costs per harvest is highly reduced besides the input supplies becoming self-sustainable.
The TNOCD seems to have pretty much done a good job in coming up with a framework to ensure Organic farming can be done. It has also come up with a set of apparently stringent testing methodologies to reject unsafe foods and thereby revoke the certification. "The rules are based on the ISO 65 standard", says Mr.MS.
That is all good... but the point of this post is this: Who is TNOCD trying to serve? Corporations disguised as farmers? Small scale, Rich farmers? (like me and the hazaar other techie wannabe-farmers of today) or the real masses of poor farmers who are fleeing their lands to urban slums? ...and ultimately, do they want the citizens of their nation consuming safe foods or is this yet another product reserved for the elites who can afford to buy from the market?
The poor farmer's plight
TNOCD is just a Certifying authority. There is no tutoring whatsoever... and having witnessed the treatment of the 'low caste', I can imagine how approachable the bulk of the authorities will turn out to be. Also, there is no incentive to the farmer besides the certificate. These two issues of Education and Incentives are very important if they want to make India's food production sustainable by using organic means.
The poor indian farmer needs an immediate yield. The rules specified by TNOCD are so impractical for a poor farmer that he will not even think about going the organic way. The impracticality of these rules will be shortly exposed by stating a few basic widely prevailing conditions of poor farmers:
1. Poor farmers rely on their land for atleast 2/3rds of the year for sustenance.
- The mandatory 3 year recovery period is impractical here.
- Not certifying / incentivizing the farmer for this 3 year "loss" period is a big hurdle to adoption by the poor farmer.
- Poor farmers typically have borrowed loans from local lenders at insanely high interest rates. Its a completely different thing that banks are unapproachable for the poor farmer and that will pull us into analysing the roots of the caste system and such. Too off-topic, i guess.
- If the farmer, consciously or unconsciously ends up doing something that fails the test (ex: huge pest infestation and ends up reacting with pesticides OR water logged from a neighbour's non-organic farm drains into one's farm)
2. Poor farmers rely on the rain and the river for water.
- The water will be tested. Mr.MS says this as a sad fact: "Cauvery is polluted and it will definitely fail the test. so you better get a pump". Pumps cost Rs.1,50,000/- far beyond the reach of the poor farmer (I'm not even talking about the 'hidden' bribery charges around getting power supply from the grid).
- Open wells are multiple times expensive than bore pumps though won't require electricity (which is anyway free to the farmer). In a world where everybody uses a bore-pump drilled to 300 ft, keeping water in the open well will require a lot of rain water harvesting efforts - again, requires a lot of tutoring / aid from the government.
- To prevent water from enter one's farm, TNOCD recommends building a 'bund'
3. Too little land
- The programme recommends using one's land for a lot more than just growing the actual organic produce
- A buffer zone to isolate organic produce from being affected by a neighbouring non-organic farm's pesticide/herbicide/fertilizer's effects
- Cattle is recommended to be placed _in_ the farm. There are specifications about how much sun-light can and should be incident on the cattle, etc., Besides the needed protection from wild farm animals (mongooses, foxes, wild cats, etc.,), someone will have to stay around in hte farm to just take care of the cattle. During the heavy rains of the previous season, the so-called "S.C.Street" (yes, S.C. == Scheduled Caste) people had to flee since the mud walls of their houses were not withstanding the rain... that is in a liveable, non-low-lying area of the village. The land they own might be pretty far away and might be so low-lying that protection from such flooding will mean raising the land level and building a more solid house - both of which means a lot more cost.
- Manure processing + growing some stuff for cows needs land
I can only guess the unwritten goals of TNOCD: To enable AgriBusinesses and 'Rich' farmers to foray into the niche segment of 'Organic' farming. To further the class and economic divide that has already caused much suffering in this region since time immemorial.
Consider the possibility of using these 'stringent rules' for authority, control and as means of forcing the farmer to pay up bribes to 'pass' TNOCD's tests.
Ultimately, the only selling point of this certification programme is the high profits obtainable per unit yield _after_ the recovery period, as measured today based on today's open market conditions, one can make due to (today's) demand from the open market per unit yield of organic produce. A 11th standard student will tell you what happens to price as supply increases. If the government wants people to adopt organic farming and does not take steps to protect the poor farmer who has lost his 3 year yield, the programme has lost the farmer who would probably never return to Organic farming simply because it was a bad experience to him.
From the time I got to hear about "Organic Farming" I have been of the opinion that the whole approach is short-sighted and wrongly motivated (higher price yield). This also goes to reinforce that permaculture principles will be the most practical and sustainable way for poor farmers to liberate themselves from the clutches of those in power... from those who want the poor to stay poor so they can keep making promises to get the only thing they need from these poor people - their votes.
The Deccan Development Society's successful use of permaculture in Andhra Pradesh not only liberated the oppressed classes of farmers but also enabled them to switch to cost-effective, incremental and sustainable method of food production using permaculture principles. There is nothing stopping governments from not adopting practical solution like permaculture. It is so easy to see that the poor can adapt from the success stories of community permaculture efforts in Rajasthan and Andhra.
If the politicians and society don't help the poor and oppressed amongst us, permaculture can show us how we can help ourselves.
If this post got you significantly interested in Permaculture... or if you're even marginally curious to understand how permaculture saved the people of Andhra, do watch the "Global Gardener" documentaries ("In the tropics"). Further tid-bits and stories can be found on the Deccan Development Society website.