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A pound of flesh to feed the poor: WTO and Indian Food Security Bill

Realising that New Delhi needs to clear its food security legislation at the WTO in time for the election, the West has sought increased market access in return for temporary relief
A few months ago, the most optimistic observers of international politics were not willing to hedge their bets on the Doha Development Round at the World Trade Organisation. The Doha Round negotiations have been stalled for more than a decade now — the West would like developing countries to remove import barriers while India, Brazil and China want the United States and the European Union to reduce the massive subsidies they provide to rich farmers.Neither side has conceded ground on its claims. But at the Bali Ministerial Conference this December, the U.S. will use a trump card to have its way with India and other emerging markets: our food security legislation. On the pretext of “allowing” India’s food security law to exist alongside its commitments to the WTO, the U.S. has wrested an in-principle agreement from New Delhi on the issue of “trade facilitation.” In other words, India has agreed to greater market access for western companies in order to ensure the survival of the Food Security Act.
‘Import facilitation’
Late last year, India’s Permanent Representative to the WTO in Geneva went on record to say “trade facilitation […] is nothing but import facilitation.” The overall gain for developing countries from such additional trade will be “next to nothing,” said Ambassador Jayant Dasgupta. He also acknowledged that the West had fallen back on its promise to help improve the export capability of emerging markets. The whole mantra of trade facilitation, Mr. Dasgupta went on to observe, was “[…] please open up [your markets]. Don’t ask for anything in return. It’s good for you.”
Yet, last week, Union Trade Minister Anand Sharma suggested “there should not be any confusion on trade facilitation because we are in favour (of the same).” What changed in the course of a year? The United Progressive Alliance, desperate to ensure that the Food Security Act does not fall foul of India’s commitments under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), has curried favour with the Obama administration. The U.S. — which runs one of the largest domestic food aid programmes in the world — has steadfastly opposed plans by developing countries to provide food security to their poor. Now it is using the AoA to push its objectives under the “trade facilitation” agenda at Bali. During his recent visit, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sought to extract an assurance from President Barack Obama that the U.S. would not oppose India’s food security scheme. Mr. Sharma’s remarks themselves came after WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo casually observed that the Food Security Act may run into trouble with our AoA commitments.
Room for concern
But the government’s piecemeal attempt to resolve this issue bilaterally (with the U.S.) leaves much room for concern. For starters, the Obama administration is driving a hard bargain: there is no reason why the UPA should trade food security for market access, because India has a legitimate case under the AoA. Second, without an amendment to the AoA, any ad hoc solution is subject to the whims of U.S. foreign policy. The UPA seems content to see the food security scheme just through to 2014, in time for the election. Third, abandoning the case of the developing world to shore up its own food security law will reflect poorly on Indian diplomacy.
The proposal to categorise higher-than-normal procurement prices — for the purpose of ensuring food security — as a permitted agri-subsidy was mooted by the G33 last year. The G33 proposal was based on a simple premise: food security schemes needed massive quantities of grain and farmers had to be offered attractive prices if they were to sell their produce to governments. But the WTO Agreement on Agriculture unfairly casts such procurement prices as “trade-distorting.”The WTO imposes a cap on the price support that countries can provide for an agricultural product, known as the “Aggregate Measurement of Support (AMS).” Mathematically, AMS is the difference between the procurement price and a “fixed, external reference price” for a product, say rice, multiplied by its total domestic production.
Unfair
The AMS rule is patently unfair because the “external reference price” is pegged to 1986-88 levels. There is abundant literature to conclude world food prices were low during the late 1980s on account of massive dumping of food grain by U.S. and European companies on foreign markets. It is farcical to expect developing countries — whose agricultural sectors were no doubt adversely affected by dumping — to base their support for farmers on such manipulated prices.
What’s more, market price support in itself is no effective marker of trade protectionism. Jacques Berthelot, a French agricultural economist, has highlighted how the U.S., the European Union and Japan simply slashed their procurement prices on paper during the 1990s without reducing any of the subsidies they grant to rich farmers. In defence, the West has facetiously argued that farm aid “decoupled” from production and instead contingent on a farmer’s maintaining her land in “good condition” is permitted under the AoA. India, on the other hand, has adhered to both the letter and spirit of the AoA, reducing its agri-tariffs progressively. In objecting to India’s food security legislation on account of higher procurement prices, the U.S. has made it clear needy citizens in the West are more equal than others.
Since the AMS rule has found its way to the AoA, however, there is no alternative for the G33 but to negotiate its amendment. For India and other developing countries, the de minimis AMS is capped at 10 per cent of the total value of production. For the most part of the last two decades, as economist Munisamy Gopinath observes, India’s support prices for farmers has been lower than the external reference price. But with the advent of the food security legislation and a general rise in food prices (after adjusting for inflation), there is little doubt that India will breach this ceiling in 2012-13.
‘Re-interpretation’ sought
To prevent this situation, our WTO representatives have sought a modest “re-interpretation” of the AoA annex to peg the “external reference price” from 1986-88 levels to current global prices. The other option, according to Ambassador Dasgupta, is “to have a deflator mechanism to compensate for excessive rates of inflation.” The G33’s original proposal still remains our best shot at ensuring food security. But the UPA government has instead opted for an “interim solution” —– an invocation of the AoA’s “Peace Clause” which entails requesting the West to desist from initiating legal proceedings against India. In other words, this politically tempered proposal is an admission that India’s food security law violates the WTO regulations.
It is unclear whether the ‘Peace Clause’ proposal is supported by all members of the G33. Since India has thrown its weight behind this rarely-invoked measure, the mood at the WTO, as one diplomat told Bridges Weekly, seems to be “that the only game in town for the G33 proposal is a peace clause.” New Delhi’s objective is clear: remove all hurdles that stand in the way of the Food Security Act for now. In its election rush, the government is sacrificing the sovereign right of India and the developing world to provide food to their needy on a sustainable basis. The U.S. has seized this vulnerability to extract concessions on the trade facilitation front. A Faustian bargain, if there ever was one.

The WTO is destroying Indian farming

http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/Columns/The-WTO-is-destroying-Indian-farming/Article1-1137811.aspx
Devinder Sharma
The double standards are clear. In 2012, the US provided $100 billion for domestic food aid, up from the $95 billion it spent on feeding its 67 million undernourished population in 2010 including spending on food coupons and other supplementary nutrition programmes. In India, the Food Bill is expected to cost $20 billion and will feed an estimated 850 million people. Against an average supply of 358kg/person of subsidised food aid (including cereals) in the US every year, India promises to make available 60 kg/person in food entitlement. And yet, while the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is quiet on the subsidy being doled out in America for feeding its poor, the US has launched an attack on India for “creating a massive new loophole for potentially unlimited trade-distorting subsidies.”
India’s subsidies for feeding its hungry are being blamed for distorting trade in agriculture while the US, which provides six times more subsidies than India for feeding its hungry, is seen as doing humanitarian service. The US subsidies are unquestionable, while India’s hungry are being conveniently traded at the WTO. Public posturing notwithstanding, India is believed to have given in to US pressure. Commerce minister Anand Sharma is believed to have assured the WTO director-general that India is committed to take the multilateral trading regime to its logical conclusion. That India is not willing to contest the unfair provisions, and has agreed to a compromise, becomes evident from what the WTO chief said: “What we have agreed in Geneva is we are going to be working on a Peace Clause.”
The US/EU is pushing for a Peace Clause lasting two-three years. India is willing to accept it since it allows the food security programme to continue without any hiccup till 2014. The Peace Clause is a temporary reprieve. Although it expired in 2003, it is being reinvented now to allow India to continue with its food subsidies for the specified period during which its subsidies cannot be challenged before the WTO dispute panel.
The main issue here is the increasing amount being spent on public stockholding of foodgrains and thereby the rise in administered prices for wheat and rice that is procured from small farmers. According to the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, the administered price cannot exceed the ‘de-minimis’ level of 10% of the total volume of production. This exemption is allowed under the Aggregate Measure of Support. India has already exceeded the limit in the case of rice where the procurement price has shot up to 24% from the base year 1986-88 that was agreed upon.
It is, therefore, not the food subsidy Bill that is under the radar, but the procurement price system in India which is now on the chopping block. If India is forced to limit the rice procurement price at 10% of the total production, and refrain from increasing the wheat procurement price in future, it will sound the death knell for agriculture. Agreeing to a Peace Clause only shows how India is trying to skirt the contentious issue and is ready to sacrifice the livelihood security of its 600 million farmers.
According to the US-based Environment Working Group, America had paid a quarter of a trillion dollars in subsidy support between 1995 and 2009. In the 2013 Farm Bill, these subsidies have been further increased. This results in the dumping of foodgrains, thereby dampening farm gate prices, and pushing farmers out of agriculture. In India, wheat and rice growers have merely received $9.4 billion as procurement price in 2012. Forcing India to freeze procurement prices means that the WTO is being used to destroy Indian agriculture.

Smallholders and sustainable wells: a retrospect – participatory groundwater management in Andhra Pradesh (India)

Central to the concept of Participatory  is community ownership and treatment of groundwater as a common property resource. The core principle is demystification of hydrological science for the benefit of rural communities, enabling them to blend their local hydrological knowledge for sustainable management of their groundwater resources. Great emphasis is put on reducing the agricultural water demand through a myriad of options such as changes in cropping pattern, water use efficiency and artificial groundwater recharge.

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How can we grow more rice – with less land, water and pollution?

http://www.edf.org/blog/2013/07/31/how-can-we-grow-more-rice-%E2%80%93-less-land-water-and-pollution

Kritee / Published July 31, 2013 in Economics

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(This post was co-authored by Richie Ahuja.)
Rice feeds the world. It provides more calories to humans than any other food, and more than a billion people depend on rice cultivation for their livelihoods.
In fact, rice is central to existence in many nations. For example, in 2008, when rice prices tripled, the World Bank estimated that an additional 100 million people were pushed into poverty. No wonder that changes in the price and availability of rice have caused social unrest in developing countries.
To keep rice prices affordable as populations increase, the International Rice Research Institute estimates that anadditional 8-10 million tons of rice will need to be produced worldwide every year. But a report from the International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that by 2050 rice prices will increase some 35% because of yield losses due to climate change. Some 90% of the world’s rice is grown in Asia, on more than 200 million small scale farms, most no larger than an acre.
These colliding trends mean that the world must learn to produce more rice – and to do it with less land, less water and less labor. That means devising more efficient and profitable production systems that are resilient to climate change and contribute less to it. This is exactly the challenge EDF and its partners have taken up in India, a country where roughly 500 million of the world’s 2.3 billion people in small-scale farming families live and earn $2 – $4 a day.

Rice farming releases greenhouse gasses more potent than carbon

When organic material decays without oxygen, as it does in water-logged rice paddies, soil microbes generate methane, a greenhouse gas with 25 times more warming potential than CO2. In India, rice methane emission account for about 10% of the nation’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Lately there is growing awareness that when rice is grown under dryer and aerated conditions, nitrous oxide emissions from rice can be as (or even more) significant as methane emissions. Nitrous oxide has about 300 times more warming potential than CO2. It has not yet been estimated what percentage of nitrous oxide emissions in India, or for that matter other rice growing regions in Asia, come from rice cultivation.

Partnering with NGOs in India yields a promising future

The rice farmers in South India are working with non-governmental organizations that are part of a broad coalition called the Fair Climate Network. EDF’s science team is working with these NGOs to develop an environmentally sustainable and economically profitable way to farm rice that will increase climate resilience and decrease GHG emissions.
With our partners, we are developing rice farming practices that change water, fertilizer and organic matter management such that GHG emissions go down as rice yield and farm profitability stay stable or go up. Our partners are working with thousands of rice farmers to record all the farm level data (methods of tilling and weeding, types of fertilizer used, amount of water used and harvest yields) necessary to understand the economic and environmental impacts of their work.
We have also developed protocols to quantify everything: yields, production costs, and emissions of nitrous oxide and methane from the rice fields. Our partners have even set up field laboratories in rural South India to constantly monitor GHG emissions. Our preliminary research work in fields “adopted” by EDF’s partners shows that there is potential to reduce GHG emissions by 2-5 metric tons per acre per year which is same as taking of an average American car off the road for a year.

Eventually, we expect to have enough data to make a case for low carbon farming of rice throughout all of South India. If low carbon rice farming becomes the standard just in all rice growing farms in South Indian states where we are currently active, we can decrease GHG emissions by 40-100 million tons of CO2e per year while saving water, improving farm incomes and protecting rice yields. This reduction is roughly equal to taking 10 million American cars off the road or taking 10-20 coal power plants off the grid. To make this possible, we will have to raise resources for outreach and the transactions costs of monitoring and verifying the GHG reductions.
The potential for this kind of research to support development, food and political security, while mitigating climate change is enormous. That’s something to think about the next time you have a bowl of rice.

Governments Renew Commitment to Implement Farmers’ Rights!

Last week, the Governing Body of the International Seed Treaty (IT PGRFA) met for the fifth time (GB5) in the exclusive, chilled environment of the Al Bustan Palace Hotel, Muscat in the Sultanate of Oman. The results were promising, however, and Civil Society and Farmers’ Organisations helped stimulate commitment to essential changes in how the Treaty operates.
Attached is a brief report (GB5-CSOreflection_PatrickMulvany.pdf) including the near final text of the Farmers’ Rights resolution; also our Civil Society statements at the opening and closing sessions, presented by NGOs from Asia, Iran and by Via Campesina.
The degree of unanimity of the African, Asian and Latin American blocs, with significant support from some European countries, and with united advocacy from farmers ‘organisations and CSOs present, all contributed to better outcomes than some had predicted.
These outcomes included:
·         a good resolution on Farmers’ Rights (FRs), which renewed the commitment of governments to implement Farmers’ Rights

·         a coded call to UPOV and WIPO to report on their impacts on Farmers’ Rights
·         warm acceptance of the offer by a Farmers’ Organisations to produce a report for GB6 on the state of implementation of Farmers’ Rights
·         actions designed to improve the sustainable use of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, linked to commitments to realise Farmers’ Rights
·         commitments to review and change the multi-lateral Access and Benefit Sharing mechanism (MLS), to prevent pillaging of the System by patents on native traits
·         significant new voluntary financial contributions from Norway for the Global Crop Diversity Trust and for the benefit sharing fund to support on-farm conservation
·         acceptance of the distinction between NGOs and Farmers’ Organisations and the need to include us, especially representatives of farmers’ social movements, in negotiations
·         a request to the Secretary to report on relevant discussions that relate to Farmers’ Rights within other UN fora including the Committee on World Food Security .
African, Asian and Latin American regions were the most united on Farmers’ Rights that they have been since 1998/9 at the height of the negotiations on the Farmers’ Rights article (Article 9). This solidarity forced through a good resolution on Farmers’ Rights which commits governments, with the engagement of farmers’ organisations and CSOs: to develop national action plans; review and adjust laws that will allow farmers to save, use, exchange and sell seeds; and improve access to genetic resources.

As we said in our Final Statement:
Our Treaty should be at the heart of securing future food through establishing effective governance of PGRFA that will enable farmers to continue to conserve, develop and sustainably use a wide range of crop biodiversity on-farm, at a time of increasing social, economic, environmental and political threats. The Treaty will be judged on whether it can stop the losses and improve access to existing PGRFA which have been developed by small-scale farmers in situ and on-farm.

The Treaty must change in direction and process if it is to realise its objectives. And to do so it must provide facilitated inclusion of the organisations and social movements of biodiversity-conserving farmers, and support CSOs, in the deliberations and work of the Treaty.
The Treaty has the responsibility to ensure support for small-scale farmers in their task; the Treaty’s future depends on this. We urge the GB to assume this responsibility; we look forward to collaborating with the Secretariat and Bureau, inter-sessionally, and to purposeful mutual engagement in the next Governing Body meeting.

CSOs and farmers organisations, will continue, in the face of many challenges, to take our responsibilities: we will resist, we will organise and we will transform the seed and food system so that our Farmers’ Rights and food sovereignty are realised.
In addition to the main lobbying activities, the IPC presented a Side Event on Friday 27 September. The title of the event was Farmers’ Rights to their seeds and knowledge: a challenge for global governance of the ‘sustainable’ use of PGRFA. The presentations by CENESTA and MPA at the IPC Side Event are available. CSOs were also involved in many other Side Events including one celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA), at which Patrick Mulvany presented a CSO perspective on the work of the Commission including its preparation of the State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture, an assessment, using the ecosystem approach, of all agricultural biodiversity. Presentation is available with the title: “Agricultural Biodiversity feeds the world when sustained in the framework of Food Sovereignty.”
If anyone wants more information or is interested in involvement in the inter-sessional process up to GB6, please get in touch.
A summary of proceedings at GB5 has been published by ENB www.iisd.ca/biodiv/itpgrgb5
Patrick Mulvany

Chair: UK Food Group; Adviser: Practical Action; Observer: IPC for food sovereignty
Mobile: +44 7949 575711 (UK)
Email: patrickmulvany@clara.co.uk
Skype: pmulvany
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The whole paradigm of the genetic engineering technology is based on a misunderstanding

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Genetically+modified+food+rapped/8308415/story.html

 Vancouver Sun April 29, 2013
Dr. Thierry Vrain Courtenay
 [ re:  Genetically modified food is welcome innovation by Lorne Hepworth President, CropLife Canada
I retired 10 years ago after a long career as a research scientist for Agriculture Canada. When I was on the payroll, I was the designated scientist of my institute to address public groups and reassure them that genetically engineered crops and foods were safe.
I don’t know if I was passionate about it but I was knowledgeable.  I defended the side of technological advance, of science and progress.
I have in the last 10 years changed my position.  I started paying attention to the flow of published studies coming from Europe, some from prestigious labs and published in prestigious scientific journals, that questioned the impact and safety of engineered food.
I refute the claims of the biotechnology companies that their engineered crops yield more, that they require less pesticide applications, that they have no impact on the environment and of course that they are safe to eat.
There are a number of scientific studies that have been done for Monsanto by universities in the U.S., Canada, and abroad.  Most of these studies are concerned with the field performance of the engineered crops, and of course they find GMOs safe for the environment and therefore safe to eat.
There is, however, a growing body of scientific research – done mostly in Europe, Russia, and other countries – showing that diets containing engineered corn or soya cause serious health problems in laboratory mice and rats.
We should all take these studies seriously and demand that government agencies replicate them rather than rely on studies paid for by the biotech companies.
The Bt corn and soya plants that are now everywhere in our environment are registered as insecticides. But are these insecticidal plants regulated and have their proteins been tested for safety?  Not by the federal departments in charge of food safety, not in Canada and not in the U.S.A.
There are no long-term feeding studies performed in these countries to demonstrate the claims that engineered corn and soya are safe.  All we have are scientific studies out of Europe and Russia, showing that rats fed engineered food die prematurely.
These studies show that proteins produced by engineered plants are different than what they should be. Inserting a gene in a genome using this technology can and does result in damaged proteins.  The scientific literature is full of studies showing that engineered corn and soya contain toxic or allergenic proteins.
Genetic engineering is 40 years old. It is based on the naive understanding of the genome based on the One Gene – one protein hypothesis of 70 years ago, that each gene codes for a single protein.  The Human Genome project completed in 2002 showed that this hypothesis is wrong.
The whole paradigm of the genetic engineering technology is based on a misunderstanding.  Every scientist now learns that any gene can give more than one protein and that inserting a gene anywhere in a plant eventually creates rogue proteins.  Some of these proteins are obviously allergenic or toxic.
Dr. Thierry Vrain Courtenay
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Collective Action to Reduce Goat Mortality – A Case Study of interventions supported by PRADAN in District Kandhamal, Odisha

http://sapplpp.org/goodpractices/smallruminants/collective-action-to-reduce-goat-mortality-a-case-study-of-PRADAN
This case study is the result of field visits undertaken by SA PPLPP in District Kandhamal, Odisha, where PRADAN (Professional Assistance for Development Action) has supported goat based livelihood interventions in five of the fourteen gram panchayats of the Balliguda block.

These interventions were designed with the twin objectives of increasing household income from goat rearing by reducing mortality and morbidity, improving management and rearing practices and facilitating the establishment of community institutions and processes to ensure sustainability of these interventions.
The case study details the implementation strategy of this innovative community-centric model, with SHGs as the foundation, to facilitate access to preventive health, vaccination services and knowledge sharing on improved rearing and husbandry practices. It also documents the major challenges and learning gained, which further contributed to modifying and strengthening the implementation approach.
Author – SA PPLPP Team
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GM Crops Won’t Solve India’s Food Crisis

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/09/22/gm-crops-wont-solve-indias-food-crisis/
By Shanoor Seervai

Adil Bharucha
Dilnavaz Variava.

Earlier this month, India’s Parliamentpassed a bill aimed at delivering subsidized food to around 800 million people. While well-intentioned, the law is expensive and has raised questions about whether India produces enough food to meet demand.
Proponents of genetically modified food say GM technology will boost production to meet India’s food requirements, but critics argue that it is unsustainable, and that the main challenge is not one of production but distribution.
Dilnavaz Variava doesn’t believe that GM food will address India’s food crisis. She is honorary convener for consumer issues for the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, an alliance of farmers, scientists, economists, non-governmental organizations and citizens who advocate for ecologically and economically sustainable agriculture.
Ms. Variava has worked for a range of organizations, including the World Wildlife Fund India, where she was chief executive, and the Bombay Natural History Society. She has also served on several federal government committees as well as one in Maharashtra for the development of agriculture.
Ms. Variava spoke with The Wall Street Journal’s India Real Time about GM food in India. Edited excerpts:
The Wall Street Journal: Parliament’s passage of the Food Security Bill reflects the urgency of addressing the food security challenge. Would genetically modified food do this?
Dilnavaz Variava: India has enough food grain — almost two-and-a-half times the required buffer stock — and yet 200 million Indians go hungry. The problem of sufficiency is not one of production, but of economic and physical access, which the Food Security Bill attempts to address. Poverty, mounds of rotting food grain, wastage and leakages in the Public Distribution System are the real causes of food insecurity. GM food cannot address this.
WSJ: Is there evidence from other countries that GM food improves food security?
Ms. Variava: Macroeconomic data for the largest adopters of GM food indicate the opposite. In the U.S., food insecurity has risen from 12% in pre-GM 1995 to 15% in 2011. In Paraguay, where nearly 65% of land is under , hunger increased from 12.6% in 2004-06 to 25.5% in 2010-12. In Brazil and Argentina, GM food has not reduced hunger. In any event, GM does not increase yields, as the Union of Concerned Scientists established through a review of 12 years of GM in the U.S.
WSJ: How does GM food differ in quality from non-GM food?
Ms. Variava: About 99% of all GM crops have either one or both of two traits that make food unsafe: a pesticide-producing toxin (Bt) present in every cell of the plant and a herbicide tolerant trait that enables the plant to withstand herbicides used to kill weeds. While food safety regulators have cleared GM foods as safe, many independent scientists disagree. Their studies point to health risks: allergies, cancer, reproductive, renal, pancreatic and hepatic disorders. They say regulators give safety assurances based on studies which the GM industry conducts for a maximum period of 90 days on lab rats. This corresponds to a human life span of less than 15 years, which is too short for long-term health effects such as organ damage or cancer to manifest.
WSJ: In India, why did the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee call for a moratorium on field trials of GM crops in July?
Ms. Variava: The TEC majority report by five scientists from the fields of molecular biology, toxicology, nutrition science and biodiversity called for an indefinite moratorium on field trials, stating that ‘the regulatory system has major gaps.’ They concluded that the quality of information in several GM applications was far below that necessary for rigorous evaluation. They recommended a moratorium on field trials for Bt in food crops until there was more definitive information on its long-term safety, and for crops for which India is a center of origin/diversity. They also recommended a ban on the release of ‘herbicide tolerant’ crops, which are inadvisable on socioeconomic grounds in a country where farms are small and weeding provides income to millions of people.
WSJ: Does the report take food security into account?
Ms. Variava: Yes, the report notes that although India has a food surplus in production terms, one-third of the world’s malnourished children live here. It does not see GM as the answer to this.
WSJ: Does it make sense to ban even field trials of GM food?
Ms. Variava: Field trials involve open-air releases of GM. Given that rice and wheat survived their supposed destruction after field trials in U.S. and caused import bans leading to losses of millions of dollars to U.S. farmers, field trials are not harmless scientific experiments. Banning field trials makes sense until a strong biosafety and liability regime is in place.
WSJ: Isn’t India taking regulatory steps to promote the safe use of modern biotechnology, for example with the proposed Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill?
Ms. Variava: The BRAI Bill appears to be promoting rather than regulating GM. It proposes a single window clearance, with power to clear GM crops dangerously concentrated in the hands of just five people. All its other committees are merely advisory. It will overrule the constitutional powers of state governments over agriculture and circumscribe the Right to Information and legal redressal. It does not mandate long-term studies, assure labeling and post-release health monitoring, or have adequate punitive provisions. There is no mandatory consideration of safer alternatives or preliminary need assessment based on socioeconomic factors. GM crops are input intensive, requiring adequate fertilizers and timely irrigation. With over 70% of India’s farmers being small and impoverished, and 65% dependent on the vagaries of the monsoon, GM is a high cost, high debt and high risk technology for India. The BRAI Bill does not ensure caution for this unpredictable and irreversible technology.
WSJ: What would economically and environmentally sustainable agriculture for India look like?
Ms. Variava: A World Bank commissioned study found that agro-ecological approaches and not GM provide the best solution to the world’s food crisis.In March 2011, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food also reported that small scale farmers could double food production within 5 to 10 years by agro-ecological farming.
An Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India study for West Bengal found that organic farming could increase net per capita income of a farmer in the state by 250%, lead to wealth accumulation of 120 billion rupees ($1.9 billion), generate exports worth 5.5 billion rupees ($87 million) and create nearly two million employment opportunities over five years.
In Andhra Pradesh, Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture was started in 2005-06. It promoted ecologically and economically sound agriculture with state government and World Bank support. About 10,000 villages with one million farmers practice non-pesticidal management on over 3.5 million acres. Pesticide use in the state has decreased by more than 45%. Net income increases were 3,000 to 15,000 rupees per acre, in addition to meeting a household’s food needs.

Shanoor Seervai is a freelance writer based in Bombay. Like India Real Time on Facebook here and follow us on Twitter @WSJIndia.

Local seeds best bet against climate change

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/local-seeds-best-bet-against-climate-change/article5149009.ece
S. POORVAJA

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A paddy field at Pannaikudi in Madurai district. Photo: S. James
The HinduA paddy field at Pannaikudi in Madurai district. Photo: S. James
They need less water, no fertilizer and hardly any care or attention
 has spawned debate as well as initiatives such as planting saplings, cultivating kitchen gardens, household energy conservation and so on.
At the grassroots level, a few farmers are doing their bit to preserve traditional and local varieties of seeds.
“These farmers are commonly called ‘Custodian farmers’. They preserve traditional seeds and make sure that they don’t disappear amongst the variety of hybrid seeds available in the market which farmers prefer because of the promise of high yield,” says M. Palanisamy, Programme Director, Rainfed Farming Development Programme at the Dhan Foundation in Madurai.
The need to preserve traditional and local varieties of seeds that are gradually disappearing is all the more because they do not need much water or chemical fertilizers and pesticides to grow. They can withstand the rigors of climate change and its harsh side effects.
True to the term ‘custodian farmer,’ R. Jeyaraman from Adhirangam in Tiruvarur has preserved 63 types of traditional paddy. “These traditional paddy varieties, unlike the ones used at present, do not need much water,” he explains.
Mr. Jeyaraman has distributed the paddy varieties to farmers from Kerala, Karnataka, Orissa and West Bengal. Among the paddy varieties he has preserved are seeds that need only 60 to 180 days to grow.
“Another factor that most farmers today struggle with is that their crops need constant care and attention, especially before harvest. What they don’t realize is that many of these  need only a short span of time to grow and can be harvested easily,” Mr. Jeyaraman says.
While hybrid varieties enjoy brisk demand, the promise of high yield often diverts attention from the side effects.
“When rainfall is extremely scanty, it is impossible to plant most new varieties of seeds,” A.P. Alagarsamy from Pallapatti in Dindigul district points out.
With climate change affecting the conditions under which these farmers are forced to work, the need for such traditional varieties which can withstand harsh climatic conditions is growing.
“Traditional varieties of paddy that can withstand floods for as long as a month and torrential rain are the kind of seeds we need to preserve,” said Syed Ghani Khan, a farmer from Mandya in Karnataka.
“With traditional paddy types from Thailand, Burma and Indonesia, I hope to preserve many more traditional seeds through cross pollination,” he adds.
Hybrid seeds and the other varieties that are distributed also have a shorter lifespan that results in the quantity of yield gradually decreasing as years go by.
“Seeds from the hybrid crops cannot be sown directly. The farmer is forced to go back to the centres after his crop is harvested to buy the seeds again and has no control over the price,” says Mr. Palanisamy.
Jegannath Raja from Rajapalayam district has preserved and aggressively marketed two varieties of mango — ‘Mohandas’ and ‘Potllama.’
“The two traditional varieties are fast disappearing and I managed to preserve them and spread awareness of how these varieties can be used to generate income in rain-starved areas since they do not need much water to grow,” says Mr. Jegannath.
He has preserved over 2,000 traditional varieties of fruit, though not all are income-generating.
“While I have preserved a number of seeds to safeguard them, I encourage farmers to buy only a few varieties that are traditional and promise high yield,” he says.
With the importance of preservation and conservation of these traditional and indigenous seeds, there is a need for live genetic resources or nurseries to facilitate studies and spread awareness among farmers.
“Farmers should set apart a portion of their land for cultivation of traditional seeds. With live genetic resources, or maintaining nurseries rather than seeds, it will be easier for farmers to choose varieties and see the benefits for themselves,” said R. Adinarayanan, a faculty member at the Tata Dhan Academy.
The farmers were recently honoured at the Madurai Symposium 2013, organized by the Dhan Academy, and given the ‘Custodian Farmer’ awards for their contribution to biodiversity conservation.
“God has given us the resources we are using now and it is our duty to conserve them and pass them on to posterity,” says Mr. Syed Ghani.

Payments for environmental services and market-based instruments: next of kin or false friends?

http://www.iddri.org/Publications/Collections/Idees-pour-le-debat/WP1413_RL%20RP_PES%20and%20MBIs-next%20of%20kin%20or%20false%20friends.pdf
The emergence of market-based instruments (MBIs) in the field of ecosystem services has been spectacular but still lacks a clear conceptualization. Terms are overused and abused in discourses, and contrasted policy instruments are referred to as market-oriented albeit with few characteristics in common. Realities on the ground differ substantially from attractive yet misleading propositions supported by public and private discourses. Both advocates and opponents to these approaches thus propose arguments poorly relying on facts and fueling confusion. Payments for environmental services (PES) have flourished and constitute the emblematic and perfect example of a policy instrument that proves more complex and polymorphous than usually acknowledged. Born from the promises of spontaneous agreements between beneficiaries and providers of services for their mutual interest, it has been viewed by most analysts as a popular MBI. We challenge this view by confronting 73 peer-reviewed articles to a typology of MBIs.

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