The “rights of nature” is a new concept: that nature possesses fundamental rights, just as humans do. It derives from an old concept rooted in traditional societies that saw themselves as part of nature, not distinct from it. Ancient India, including people who lived at the time of the Rig Veda, were nature worshippers. The Rig Veda is said to have been compiled in the Bronze Age, between 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. The Rig Vedic communities revered several deities: personifications of the elements of nature like fire, water, sky and earth, and they treated the environment as a sacred whole. The chief deity was Agni (fire), and others like Indra (lightning/rain), Varuna (water) and Prithvi (earth). India’s ancient seers believed the universe was governed by a moral law: living in harmony with nature and maintaining its ecological balance was essential for fulfilling one’s “dharma”

Like ancient Indians, many other primeval people were nature worshippers too. These included the Shinto community in Japan, Celtic and Germanic tribes, Mayans and Aztec people, Native Americans and ancient Greeks and Romans. Nature held primacy in these civilisations. This changed in later years and far from being worshipped, Nature became a resource to be exploited for financial gain, with little regard for its survival and sanctity. As humans degraded nature and systematically destroyed it, the unpleasant and threatening manifestations of this destruction became evident today.

A hallmark of our era is destruction of ecosystems, disruption of biospheres, polluted rivers, biodiversity loss and species extinction. Instead of conserving Nature, that has nurtured us for millennia, we appear hell-bent on destroying it. We have already breached seven of nine critical planetary boundaries and pushed the planet into uncharted territory: ecosystems are devastated and the weather has become completely unstable. Freshwater in all forms, like surface water, groundwater, even soil moisture, is being depleted at unsustainable rates due to overexploitation. In this backdrop of an utterly ravaged nature, the concept of the Rights of Nature took shape as an attempt to salvage what one could to ensure the continued survival of the human race. History There is a Rights of Nature movement in many nations seeking systemic change in how we treat nature. This movement is trying to develop fresh concepts in the legal system to make it work for the protection of the environment instead of enabling the rights of certain people to exploit the environment. Most Rights of Nature legal precedent is very recent, having emerged in just the last few years as a direct response to the failure of modern environmental law to adequately address the escalating ecological crisis.

The Rights of Nature approach attempts a transformation in the way the status of nature is upheld in society. It says Nature possesses its own rights and can’t be treated merely as human property. Nature’s rights include the right to exist and to thrive, and most important, the right to restoration. Since the Rights of Nature accords it legal standing, it can be directly defended in a court of law. Ultimately, for these rights to be successfully implemented, humans must act as guardians or stewards of the natural world. Rivers have understandably become a key focus in the Rights of Nature movement, since river systems are under extreme pressure everywhere. Many of the world’s rivers suffer from extreme over-exploitation, bringing about fundamental changes in riverine ecosystems, habitats and watersheds. With its established history of worshipping nature, especially its rivers, India could have led the global trend to demand the Rights of Nature by personal example and enlightened legislation. But it failed to do so because of a Supreme Court intervention in a pioneering attempt by the Uttarakhand high court. 

The Uttarakhand case: In 2014, a Haridwar resident, Mohammad Salim, filed a PIL on illegal construction, mining, and stone-crushing on the banks of the Ganga. In response, the Uttarakhand high court ruled in 2017 that rivers were in danger of losing their existence and extended to them “all corresponding rights, duties, and liabilities of a living person”. This led to declaring the Ganga and Yamuna rivers as “Living Legal Entities”. 

This historic legal breakthrough to establish that Nature had rights was, however, short-lived. In 2017 the Supreme Court stayed the high court order, in a sense saying that India’s two most important rivers, the Ganga and the Yamuna, cannot be viewed as “Living Entities”. The stay came in response to an appeal by the Uttarakhand government that making the state solely accountable for the upkeep of rivers spanning multiple states was impractical and required Central government intervention. This put paid to a far-sighted legal ruling that could have gone a long way to uphold the rights of rivers and to protect them from pollution and degradation. 

While the India case lies stalled, other countries have moved forward to provide legal protection to rivers by granting them legal personhood or inherent rights. Ecuador in 2008 became the first country to formally embed the Rights of Nature, including rivers and ecosystems, into its constitution, allowing citizens to legally defend the environment. New Zealand had enacted legislation in 2014 granting the Whanganui River legal personhood, giving it all the rights, duties, and liabilities of a legal person. In Colombia, the Atrato River was recognised as a legal entity in 2016, possessing rights to protection, conservation, maintenance and restoration. In a historic ruling in 2019, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh recognised all rivers in the country as legal persons and appointed the National River Conservation Commission as their legal guardian. Finally, in Canada, the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the regional municipality passed resolutions in 2021 giving the Magpie River legal personhood, granting it rights to flow and be free from pollution. 

https://www.asianage.com/opinion/columnists/it-might-be-time-to-grant-legal-rights-to-nature-1969115

Marred by faith

“It is the scientists who are asking for regulation and precaution” Suman Sahai What do you think of environmentalist Mark Lynas’ sudden change of heart – from being an anti-GM crusader to a pro-GM crusader? It is a renewed propaganda push to create goodwill around GM crop. This is a product that very large corporations are trying to sell. India is a very particular target because of large scale rejections (of GM crop) in Europe, many parts of Africa and Latin America. For these corporations, there are only two big potential markets – India and China. Everybody knows it is impossible to influence Chinese policy because they are very determined about what they want and what not. India is perceived as a soft target with a big market and therefore a huge amount of propaganda is directed towards India and Indian policy making. What is your stand on promoting GM crops in India? As a scientist, geneticist, this is my subject. It is the scientists who are asking for regulation and precaution right from the beginning. The (GM) industry is trying to cut corners on regulation because adequate bio-safety testing costs money. It is my firm belief that had this technology been purely in public sector it would still be in the laboratory. It would only come to market after it was sufficiently and properly tested. If you want to engage in science and technology that has a downside – any potential risk of the GM product having an allergenic component – but potential for benefits, then you have to be super careful to evaluate safety. ____________________________________ Sahai is a geneticist, Padma Shree awardee and winner of 2004 Borlaug Award for contribution to agriculture and environment
	GM debate: Contrary to Lynas’s simplistic views, India’s real concerns are ad-hoc regulatory body, self-defeating bio-safety norms and worthless scientific data

Knowledge Is Survival

Knowledge passed from generation to generation provides a guarantee for the next harvest.

Indian farmers are fighting for their intellectual property.

 

Large conglomerates take advantage of Indian farmers. The farmers forfeit their claim to their intellectual property and ultimately, to the knowledge that might allow them to resist climate change. The "Gene Campaign" has become their advocate.

Diversity is Nature's "Plan B": it provides a variety of possibilities. Let us suppose that a plant crop no longer grow once its native habitat has become flooded. However, some of its relatives are not afraid to get their feet wet and will take root even in mud. Or say the higher temperatures caused by climate change make it difficult for traditional crops. This is where Mother Nature plays her joker card called biodiversity. If one plant won't grow under these conditions, another will.

A pretty cool thing, this Nature. If only we could put it to use. Well, that's exactly what man has been doing since the beginning of agriculture. We not only know that a certain plant has medicinal properties; we also know that it can withstand drought or rain, or that the wind will easily knock it over. All of this knowledge; acquired by trial and error and passed on from generation to generation, helps to guarantee the next harvest and thus, the survival itself in a constantly changing environment.

"I want to help my country!"
People all over the world are struggling to preserve and protect this knowledge. Dr. Suman Sahai and the "Gene Campaign" NGO*, which she founded, are fighting for the rights of Indian farmers to their intellectual property. Trained in genetics, the scientist can look back on a long and successful career. She performed research and taught at universities in India, Canada, the USA and Germany. "It wasn't a professional mid-life crisis that brought me from research to the 'Gene Campaign'. I was a successful scientist and I really enjoyed my work," says Sahai. "It was my Indian identity. I want to help my country." And just what kind of service to the Indian people does Dr. Sahai find so rewarding?
"Gene Campaign" fights internationally for the fair treatment of indigenous intellectual property. Based on the premise that no one should have to be made to account for his property, Suman Sahai pillories scientists, pharmaceutical companies, and agricultural concerns as "biopirates" and accuses profit- hungry governments.The "exploiters" not only disregard the moral principles that Sahai stands for but also violate the objectives and duties prescribed by the CBD (Convention on Biodiversity), all under the mantle of the WTO (World Trade Organization). Benefit-sharing remains merely an ideal because there is money in knowing how to use plants. Lots of money. Suman Sahai has estimated what fair benefit-sharing would look like in her view. Pharmaceutical companies might invest a billion dollars from the time a plant is discovered until a product is launched on the market. Deducting the outlays needed for advertising and standardization in Western markets of around 400 million dollars, that would place a value of 600 million dollars on the plant itself. This would provide an equitable basis for negotiations. The only question is: What is fair? Five percent for the people who discovered the knowledge? Or fifty? "Plus a share of the profits, naturally," says Dr. Suman Sahai.

It's no surprise that the "biopirates" are anything but thrilled by this calculation. This is where Sahai's reputation as a scientist is helpful. "Governments listen to me, even though they don't like what I have to say. My career as a scientist confers authority on me." This authority, plus the conviction of doing the right thing are apparent in her entire manner, in the rapid, almost brusque way she counters arguments, or in the way she calls for people to rethink. They are towering demands, made by a towering personality.

Bringing science to the village
The "Gene Campaign", however, doesn't just perform international publicity and stand up for the rights of farmers. The organization also provides on- site assistance. The marketing of diversity by the industrial nations not only puts farmers at a disadvantage; their valuable know-how is slowly being lost. Optimized seeds dominate the market. Native low- performance varieties and alternative sources of food are slowly being forgotten. To put it drastically, farmers' survival is being pinned to one crop alone. In an effort to preserve indigenous knowledge, the NGO delivers "science where it's needed" — to the villages. Local communities assist in erecting simple seed banks. Villagers receive training in managing their seed supply and ultimately assume responsibility for them. The banks thus provide a guarantee of crop diversity and preserve the knowledge of their uses.

Educating for equity
Villagers are grateful for the attempts to secure their future by preserving diversity but many a battle against powerful adversaries needs to be fought before equitable benefit-sharing can proceed. Sahai hopes that future generations will learn to respect and deal fairly with resources — both intellectual and material — through education and publicity.

Verena Orth

Source : Correcting Images. Protecting and Using Biological Diversity - Preserving Cultural Diversity

 

 

Where is India headed ?

According to the Planning Commission, the body-mass index and height-by-weight ratio of Indians have remained unchanged over the last 25 years. This is a severe indictment of our policies on food production and food access. An India that ranks at the bottom of the world’s Hunger Index has not been able to better the lot of its poor in any significant way. Yet the number of dollar millionaires in the country has risen to over 153,000 and the fastest rate of growth of High Net Worth individuals is to be found in India. That means Indians are getting rich faster than any other people. Unfortunately, it is also the country where poverty and hunger is increasing alarmingly so that today India is home to the largest number of hungry people in the world.

How long will this situation last? How long will the hungry keep quiet? Not long by the looks of things. The rapid spread of armed violence, with or without ideological underpinnings, is threatening to rock the country’s boat. Several districts are ungovernable because the enraged masses who have been denied the basic needs have taken to the gun and routinely kill security forces who are sent to establish the authority of the state. In these parts, the state has no authority . Hunger and poverty have broken that authority into pieces and thrown the pieces away.

Fertile lands are being acquired by thugs in the name of industrial estates, allegedly for industrial growth but factories that would give employment cannot be spotted. As farmers abandon farming, the government looks on, finding ways to pamper the elite of this country even as farm families edge closer to the borders of survival. When there was story some years ago about hungry people in Odisha, eating mango kernels ( they are bitter, by the way), our sensitive lot argued that it was a culturally accepted food. People were not eating mango kernels because they had nothing else to eat , they said, but because they like to eat these kernels.

As rivers in Chhattisgarh are given to private companies and Coca Cola acquires priority access to the waters in Plachimada, the dispossessed fume and vow to take revenge for this neglect. The sounds of guns and grenades can be heard in the Hindi heartland where the silence of the plough tilling the land should be or the songs of women threshing the grain.

Where is India headed ?

According to the Planning Commission, the body-mass index and height-by-weight ratio of Indians have remained unchanged over the last 25 years. This is a severe indictment of our policies on food production and food access. An India that ranks at the bottom of the world’s Hunger Index has not been able to better the lot of its poor in any significant way. Yet the number of dollar millionaires in the country has risen to over 153,000 and the fastest rate of growth of High Net Worth individuals is to be found in India. That means Indians are getting rich faster than any other people. Unfortunately, it is also the country where poverty and hunger is increasing alarmingly so that today India is home to the largest number of hungry people in the world.

How long will this situation last? How long will the hungry keep quiet? Not long by the looks of things. The rapid spread of armed violence, with or without ideological underpinnings, is threatening to rock the country’s boat. Several districts are ungovernable because the enraged masses who have been denied the basic needs have taken to the gun and routinely kill security forces who are sent to establish the authority of the state. In these parts, the state has no authority . Hunger and poverty have broken that authority into pieces and thrown the pieces away.

Fertile lands are being acquired by thugs in the name of industrial estates, allegedly for industrial growth but factories that would give employment cannot be spotted. As farmers abandon farming, the government looks on, finding ways to pamper the elite of this country even as farm families edge closer to the borders of survival. When there was story some years ago about hungry people in Odisha, eating mango kernels ( they are bitter, by the way), our sensitive lot argued that it was a culturally accepted food. People were not eating mango kernels because they had nothing else to eat , they said, but because they like to eat these kernels.

As rivers in Chhattisgarh are given to private companies and Coca Cola acquires priority access to the waters in Plachimada, the dispossessed fume and vow to take revenge for this neglect. The sounds of guns and grenades can be heard in the Hindi heartland where the silence of the plough tilling the land should be or the songs of women threshing the grain.

LAUNCH A WAR ON HUNGER

India today boasts of 153,000 millionaires and 57 billionaires along with the largest number of hungry people in the world.

According to the FAO, India has made no progress in reducing hunger and malnutrition in the 15 years from 1992-2007. Yet in 2010 we saw the highest rate of growth of high-net worth individuals while we had 42 % of the world’s underweight children. Almost 70 out of every 1000 children in our country die before their fifth birthday, because they do not have enough to eat and no clean water to drink.

Nelson Mandela said about poverty, “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity; it is an act of justice. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. He exhorted the youth of his country ‘YOU can be that great generation.” It’s the same with hunger.

Can we come together to fight this biggest enemy of our nation? Which holds back entire generations from reaping the benefits of independence and claiming their right as equal citizens of this country?

We wouldn’t want to be remembered as the generation that created unprecedented wealth but did not have the conscience to create an environment from which hunger was banished.

Can we come together to launch a war on hunger ? Can our generation be the one that changed the paradigm and started the effort to banish hunger? Can we be Mandela’s great generation?

Team Gene Campaign

Better Food Storage?

Suman Sahai

It is estimated that around 20 percent to 25 percent of India’s food grain production is lost due to improper or inadequate storage. That amounts to approximately 60 million tonnes of food grains each year, almost as much as what India actually stores in its official godowns. Almost 120 million tonnes of fruits , vegetables and other perishable commodities, twice the volume of grains, are similarly wasted due to delayed and inadequate transportation, lack of cold chains as well as treatment and storage facilities.

The absence of a supply chain is seen to be the major bottleneck. Responding to this line of thinking , the government has set up a new . The aim is to improve the storage capacity in the country and also help producers and consumers get a better deal by cutting out intermediaries and wastages. The 2011-12 budget made cold chains and post-harvest storage a part of infrastructure and made them eligible for income tax relief.

The initial focus for the WDRA has been on the agricultural sector and the central government has announced the Rural Godown Scheme to promote the construction of warehouses in rural areas. At present the WDRA scheme includes 40 agricultural commodities like cereals, pulses and spices.

If the WDRA scheme is implemented properly and corruption is contained, it will give farmers a concrete advantage and some control over their produce. In the absence of available storage, farmers are unable to hold their harvest and have to resort to distress sales immediately as the harvest comes in. This provides middle men and traders with the opportunity to drive down prices and buy up the agricultural produce of the season at rock bottom prices. They can store the grain and sell at high prices later but the farmer cannot do this in the absence of affordable and accessible storage.
Today most food warehouses in rural India are for captive use, very few are business models. To remedy this, the WDRA has recently registered 50 warehouses across the country, which will now be able to issue negotiable warehouse receipts. Negotiable Warehouse Receipts have been devised by the WDRA to enable farmers to get the best price for their produce and help bring down prices of commodities by cutting out the arbitrage earned by middlemen which they do by setting different prices for the same commodity.
Warehouses who want to participate in the Negotiable Warehouse Receipts scheme must get themselves registered by an accredited agency. Eight such agencies, four each in the public and private sector, have been recognised by the WDRA. Accredited warehouses and the Warehouse Receipt scheme are designed to ensure that the concerned warehouses have the facilities for safe and effective storage. They will also be required to do grading and sorting according to quality of the produce and fix expiry dates for the commodities so they can be moved out of storage for use. To give the stored products financial and transactional value, the WDRA has formed linkages with the Indian Banks Association to ensure that banks honor the receipts from registered warehouses.

Beginning with 50, the WDRA has made plans to accredit another 300 warehouses in the months ahead. But before this scheme is made fully operational, farmers will have to be trained in the procedures of storing their produce and the rights and obligations that they will have with such storage. Costs of such storage(including transportation to site from their fields ) will need to be worked out to see how feasible such storage facilities will be and how suited to small farmers.

Small farmers create small but critical surpluses which will have to be accommodated to make storage meaningful. Otherwise, big farmers and traders will be the only ones to benefit from the government’s scheme of better storage. Vigilance will be required in this scheme to ensure that it does not get hijacked by the big players to facilitate their commodity trading by having secure and subsidized storage. With agricultural decisions being the jurisdiction of state governments, it will have to be seen how the states intervene in the execution of issues like negotiable receipts and ownership of the produce.

A note of caution must be sounded on any plans to take a step by step approach in this matter. The argument of economic viability must not lead us into the trap of creating a national facility that first accommodates big account holders and pushes small farmers
away, to be accommodated later.

G20 PRESSURE ON INDIA TO EXPORT FOOD

Suman Sahai

The agriculture ministers of the twenty most powerful nations in the world, the G 20, to which India now belongs, met for the first time in June 2011. This high powered meeting held in the back drop of the global food crisis tried to hammer out a strategy for the farm sector that would help to alleviate the world food situation. Prime amongst the strategies proposed was for countries like India and Russia to export their grain reserves. Whereas Russia has traditionally been an exporter of certain grains , specially wheat, India is a net importer especially when faced with a monsoon that is less than adequate.

What quite takes my breath away is the gall of the Americans who pushed for India to lift its ban on exports to meet global demand for food. After the food crisis of 2008, India had imposed a ban on rice exports so as to meet domestic food requirements and avert a crisis that could result from high food prices. This ban, according to the Americans should be lifted. In addition, India should share with the Americans information on the amount of grains stocked and their location so that they can intervene more directly.

Quite apart from the brazen interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, the Americans in typical fashion, hold one set of standards for themselves and another for the rest of the world. American corn is burnt to produce biofuel , creating a shortage in the international availability of corn. The biofuel fad leads nowhere since without the unnatural subsidies it receives, it is not a viable product. Nor apparently is it good for the environment it attempts purpotedly to save. The Obama administration’s review of the American biofuel program found that more conventional energy was required to transform corn into biofuel than the energy it would save. Why doesn’t America stop its biofuel program and let the corn and wheat that it destroys , re enter the food chain ?

If the American heart bleeds for the hungry and if it wants to help the global food crisis, let it begin to implement its sermons at home. Instead of telling other nations to release buffer stocks of grain meant for the poor and hungry, let America first release all the food stocks it destroys to produce biofuels. Then let it stop the enormous wastage of food . According to the most recent report of the FAO, the US and Europe together waste about a third of the food that is produced in their countries. Once they have cleaned up their own act, may be they will acquire some legitimacy and be able to offer suggestions to others about what they should be doing to resolve the global food crisis.

Cancun gone, now look to South Africa

Suman Sahai

Before the run up to Cancun, world leaders have begun to articulate what everyone knew all along, that the climate talks in Mexico will not progress any on climate change than what happened at Copenhagen. The Cancun talks were expected only to be a halt en route

to arriving at something more. That ‘something more’, everyone agrees must be a globally binding deal like the Kyoto Protocol but nobody seems to want to take concrete

steps in that direction. To add another twist to the reigning despondency, Japan threw in its spanner, saying it had no interest in furthering the Kyoto Protocol.

Following the failure of Copenhagen, representatives of 192 met in the Mexican resort city of Cancun from November 29 to December 10 for another attempt to strike a deal to curb greenhouse gases after 2012. According to most world leaders, one of the major challenges of Cancun and indeed all climate talks is to get the American government and the Chinese government to agree to emission cuts and accept that it is actually in their interest to enter into a proper legally binding agreement.

For their part , Chinese leaders say they want a binding climate change treaty by late 2011 but blame US politics for impeding talks and making a deal on global warming impossible at Cancun. The Chinese also assert that they have little expectations from Cancun but hope that the final outcome of Cancun will allow progress on forging a legally binding document by the time of the next climate meeting, slated to be held in South Africa. Whereas China does not make clear cut commitments on emission cuts, it vows to keep pressurizing rich countries to commit to deeper cuts in the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are causing global warming.

With its 1.3 billion people, China is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from human activity, but is also a developing country with average emissions per capita well below those of wealthy economies. China will be a crucial player in post Cancun talks, so it is important that it takes the South Africa meeting seriously enough to put its weight behind achieving a firm and legally binding agreement on climate change and moving towards concrete implementation. The Beijing strategy is to press for certain principles in the climate talks, for instance that developing countries like China should not be made toaccept the same absolute caps on emissions that rich countries must take on.

Mr Jairam Ramesh said in Cancun that the Indian position would be guided first and foremost by the country’s economic interests ( read going slow on reducing emissions). This is clearly the government position, rather than Mr Ramesh’s. The environment minister has been known to express another view in private, that it was in India’s enlightened self interest to reduce its emissions.

As a matter of fact, India is extremely vulnerable to climate change impacts and can only benefit if temperature rise is checked. According to the IPCC climate report, agriculture in South Asia will be most severely affected by climate change and the rainfed areas of the region will suffer the worst depredations from the uncertainties that climate change will bring. India is vulnerable on several fronts. It has a coastline of about 7500 km ( including the islands ), much of it vulnerable to inundation when seal levels rise. A 40 C rise in temperature is predicted to cause a sea level rise of up to 6.6 feet, causing devastation in urban centers and destroying agriculture along and inland from the coast. Indian rivers, many dependent on the Himalayan glaciers are facing a crisis as the glaciers show evidence of melting with global warming. Less water in the rivers will mean less water for agricultural, domestic and industrial use.

And finally, the monsoons which are the mainstay of India’s economy. Given this dependence, any change in the pattern of the monsoon arising due to climate change, does not bode well for the country. For all these reasons, India must be at the vanguard of forging an international agreement that will lead to concrete reductions in green house gases. Its domestic agenda must be of a piece with this position. The consequences of not being able to halt temperature rise, will be catastrophic for developing countries, particularly in South Asia. It is crucial that India take leadership in determining the outcome at South Africa.

Starve the people and feed the rats

Suman Sahai

The Supreme Court has had to step in once again and tell the government to do its job and feed the poor. In this case, the Court’s injunction was with respect to the food grains rotting in government godowns over which there has been a public hue and cry. The Court has directed the government to make the food that is stored and on the verge of rotting, to be made available to the poor.

The government acknowledges that food worth crores is destroyed every year due to poor and insufficient storage facilities. Yet it has done little about increasing the storage capacity for food. Mountains of grain, collected over years, are rotting in the open, in states like Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. In Punjab alone, this grain could feed three lakh people. When state governments appeal to the centre to release the food stocks so that the poor have food, the government’s economists stop them from doing so on the ground that it would be bad economics. So the central government holds the grain, allowing it to rot; the people get hungrier, the youth in villages after years of deprivation get enraged and take to the gun. The Indian heartland is exploding to the sound of grenades as the economists do their calculations and discuss inflationary pressures.

In government warehouses where construction is shoddy there is seepage from the ground below and leaks from above. The bags get wet, fungus destroys the grain , making it inedible, even as animal feed. In addition rats make holes in the bags and eat up large quantities of grain, leaving behind their excreta to further poison the food. The food lost during storage is keeping millions of Indian hungry.

Even as it watches this destruction of precious food, the government has failed to take any action to fix responsibility and punish those responsible for such criminal actions. Business as usual continues , callous neglect and corruption being par for course, food is

destroyed season after season as malnutrition ravages the countryside and India’s hunger and malnutrition figures slip below Sub Saharan Africa. When this came to light in 2009, the Agriculture Minister told Parliament that he would examine the matter. A year down not a single cubic foot of additional storage space has been built.

Warehouses and godowns are actually bad forms of storage. The bags that are stored first, lie at the bottom, rotting because they cannot be taken out first. It is the bags on top , the most recent ones, that get taken out when food has to be sent out. The cardinal principle of storage, ‘first in - first out’ is violated by the warehouse method of grain storage. The answer is grain silos. These vertical structures of steel allow grain to be poured in from the top and taken out from below. First in- first out, no damp since the structure is off the

ground, easy to keep waterproof since the metal does not allow seepage and damp, so no fungus. No rats or rodents either, nor their excreta. Just clean dry grain, ready to be taken out and trucked wherever it is needed. Is the government taking steps to introduce this straightforward solution to rotting food grains? No it is not. Plans have been made instead to send a delegation to China (one more junket with all hands on board) to study how the Chinese tackle their grain storage issues. Many helpings of chowmein later we will have an analysis of how the Chinese manage their business but we may not get even one grain silo.

The odd thing about the silo is that it is not a new concept for India. In many parts of eastern India, especially places like Jharkhand and Bihar, the traditional grain gola, a small silo like structure is used to store grain at the local level, perhaps for a cluster of villages or even at the block or taluka level. In the British period, grain golas were used to stock food grains during the famines and food shortages created by colonial policies. These structures were made of galvanized iron and had a fairly long life. They are still around. There is no reason why a network of large grain silos and smaller grain golas can not be erected across the country to store food grain cleanly and reach it efficiently and quickly when the need arises. Let this government’s ambitions of nine percent economic growth begin with feeding the hungry in this land with the food that has already been roduced.

Food corruption in India and China

Suman Sahai

The list of food scares in China just over the past one year includes drug-tainted fish, industrial dye in egg yolks to colour them red, pork tainted with a banned feed additive and melamine laced milk powder. The melamine scandal which is the most recent, involved the adulterating of infant formula with the industrial chemical melamine, which can cause kidney stones and kidney failure. Melamine, used in the manufacture of plastics, was mixed with milk powder to show higher protein levels on measurement, in order to get higher prices for the allegedly ‘rich’ milk.

The melamine milk powder was discovered just before the Beijing Olympics, but the Chinese government buried the story so as not to create a scandal ahead of the Olympics when China was showcasing its prowess to the world. But soon after, legal proceedings were instituted and just a few days ago, two people were executed for their involvement in the melamine scandal that killed six and sickened over 300,000 people, some critically. Most of those taken ill were babies and children. The two accused received the death penalty for producing and selling toxic food and for endangering public safety. Apart from them, 19 other people have been jailed in this connection.

In another instance a few months ago, China executed a former director of the food and drug agency for approving fake medicine in exchange for cash. During the tenure of the disgraced drug controller, the state food and drug administration had from 1997 to 2006, approved six untested drugs that turned out to be fake. It was also found that some drug-makers had used falsified documents to apply for approvals, with the knowledge of the drug controller, in order to by pass safety tests.

Compare this with the situation in India where it is common knowledge that milk is adulterated with urea and industrial chemicals and made into a lethal brew risking the health and safety of consumers ranging from children to convalescents and pregnant mothers. Spurious drugs are so prevalent that according to newspaper reports it is impossible to ascertain the authenticity of drugs, even life saving drugs, in smaller towns and cities.

Not just this, people die routinely after drinking adulterated alcohol, or go blind or are paralysed. Pictures of wailing women seated next to corpses, victims of ‘hooch tragedies’

are commonplace. Children are periodically taken ill with food poisoning after eating their mid day meal in school, supplied free by the government. Guests at temple feasts ,

weddings and religious ceremonies are regularly found to have been taken violently ill or poisoned because of some adulterant. The adulteration of food in India is on a scale that can only be described as epic.

This is despite the fact that we have a law on food safety which prescribes food standards and heavy penalties for violators. The Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006 spells out in great detail the standards and permissible and banned additives. But all this might as well exist in the ether for all the difference it makes to ensure the safety of food on the market. Contractors and suppliers of food are the worst culprits of breaking the law in ways which are criminal. Government agencies that place such orders are complicit but this malpractice is raging in the private sector as well. Nobody is ever punished.

When talk turns to corruption, there is a large section of the Indian middle class that switches off, saying it is tired of hearing this ‘corruption talk’. Every society is corrupt, so we need not flagellate ourselves. Wasn’t the Prime Minister of this European state charged with corruption, and did not the British MPs inflate their bills? The Chinese are as bad as us they claim, if not worse. This may all be true but the difference is that we in India do not punish our guilty, We condone corruption and let it happen repeatedly and in the case of food adulteration, we over look the fact that innocent lives are lost because of greedy people. The difference between us and them is that when the guilty in other countries pay a severe pricefor their crimes. In the case of China, corrupt people who harm others are executed. In India they wear gold rings on their fingers and go scot free.

What is Causing the Global Food Crisis?

Suman Sahai

Just because news of the food crisis has gone off the front pages and prime time television, does not mean the crisis has gone away. The crisis of food availability (not necessarily that of food production) remains and inexcusably large numbers of the poor across the world remain hungry. The Millennium Development Goals (MDG), far from showing signs of relief for the poor, are actually in a decline and a larger number of poor people are now below the poverty line than before. So, is food scarce? Not if you look at the statistics of global food production. At the height of the food crisis, farmers produced 2.3 billion tonnes of food grain worldwide. This was more than the production the year before. So shortfall in grain production was not a limiting factor. Neither was there a surge in population increase as compared to the growth in food production . Whereas cereal production has gone up three times after the Green Revolution, the population has only doubled.

Despite the ill-informed comments of George W Bush, food consumption by the Chinese, the Indians or anyone else, did not exceed food production. Rice consumption remained below the total production, as did the consumption of meat, oils and fats and dairy. Wheat consumption matched the production. At no time was there a shortage in the food production, nor did consumption exceed production. So why was there a food crisis? Here is what happened, it all began in America, that land of plenty.

When the sub-prime housing crisis opened up in the US and its full impact was felt, the US stock market collapsed. ‘Hot’ , speculative money invested in the stock market fled to seek new places to park itself. Temporarily, this parking space was the oil market which saw a surge back to back and running parallel to the food crisis. But hot money very quickly moved into food commodities and grain futures, sending the prices spinning. The price of wheat increased by 130 per cent in this period and the price of rice doubled. The price of all other food items like fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy increased tremendously. This is what happens when cartels control a commodity. They hoard it, manipulate the market and send the prices soaring, to make huge profits on their investments.

Did the big grain and food traders make profits during the food crisis? They certainly did. In April 2008, Cargill announced that its profits from commodity trading in the first quarter of 2008 were 86 per cent higher than the profits it made in the first quarter of 2007. The Syngenta Corporation saw profits increase by 28 per cent in the first quarter of 2008 and Thailand’s largest food trader, Charoen Pokphand Foods is expecting a revenue growth of 237 per cent for 2008. So, every corporation in the global food chain is making a killing as developing countries struggle to battle the food crisis. The table says what there is to say.

Globalisation and its iniquitous policies and unbridled capitalism unbridled capitalism of the kind that smashed Wall Street and led to the collapse of America’s flagship banks , is the root cause of several catastrophes, including the global food crisis. US policies of diverting corn and soybean to agro-fuel production has exacerbated the situation. It has also set off a wave of perverse “Ape the US” national policies on biofuels. India leads from the front on this. Still insecure on food security, it has framed an ambitious biofuel policy that will compete with food crops for land and water. The consequences of following such a policy are going to be grim. To guard itself against a food crisis at home, India must rededicate itself to solving age-old problems like land reform, food sovereignty, income generation and supportive policies for agriculture. It must also rise to the challenge of new problems like climate change and global warming.

India Silent on Biosafety in International Negotiations

Suman Sahai

Gene Campaign was the only Indian organisation to attend the fourth Meeting of Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (MOP 4),held in Bonn from 12 to 16 May 2008.This was disappointing since the MOP presents an opportunity to not just follow the global negotiations but also to intervene with suggestions. Unlike the closed WTO process, negotiations of the Biosafety Protocol allow accredited NGOs to play a role. This could have been an opportunity for the many Indian groups involved with genetically engineered (GE)crops and products,to learn and to help influence the outcome in favour of developing country interests.

What was really scandalous though was the non- performance of the Indian delegation.They were not prepared, had nothing to contribute and did not open their mouths during the four-day,heftily contested negotiations, which focussed on developing a legally binding,international regime for Liability and Redress. India's silence during the entire debate, disappointed many that had hoped to see it in a leadership role, fighting for the environmental and health safety of people in all countries where GEOs are being produced.

As it was, Malaysia led the developing country efforts supported by the Philippines,Colombia and other Latin American countries and very decisively the African countries who were vocal, with firm arguments. To add strength to their case, the developing countries formed a block of 80 countries called the Like Minded Group of which India was a member.

The opposition to the international liability regime was consistent and led by Japan, Peru and Brazil. A strong liability regime is of crucial relevance to developing countries because it could provide them a means to protect their farmers and consumers from any damage caused by GE crops and foods. It is vehemently opposed by the biotechnology industry and countries like the US (which is a non-party),Canada, Australia and their friends like Brazil and Japan.

At a point it appeared as though the talks would break down. It was again the Malaysian delegation that fought hard to keep the talks going and asked for several closed-door meetings with allies to thrash out a counter strategy to the Japan-Brazil-Peru led opposition. Ultimately, the talks could be saved with an agreement to continue discussions in early 2009.However, after four days of negotiations at the Fourth Meeting of Parties it was not possible to get an agreement on liability. For now, the biotech industry and the developed countries have succeeded in blocking the emergence of a legally binding international liability regime.

Gene Campaign,which has been working on developing components of a liability law for India,had organized a panel discussion on developing components for a liability regime,on the sides of the MOP4 meeting in Bonn.Some key consensus recommendations to emerge from that discussion are:

i)the adoption of a strict liability regime for damage from GEOs, where liability could be imposed, without the necessity to prove fault or negligence on the part of the defendant,(barring usual exceptions such as Act of God etc.);

ii)the term "damage" to be given the widest possible interpretation and to include environmental damage, damage/risks to human and animal

health as well as socio-economic damage including loss of income, damage to food security and livelihood,and to culture and livelihoods of indigenous and local communities;

iii) the liability for damage caused as a result of introduction of GEOs to be channeled to the agencies producing and approving the technology. This will include public and private sector research agencies and the regulatory bodies of the state granting approval;

iv) absolute liability to operate in the case of genetic contamination in areas that are crop centers of origin and where maximum genetic diversity is found. This stringent provision is in accordance with the principles of natural justice and inter-generational equity, which invokes safeguarding the environment and resources for coming generations;v)in the case

of damage caused by GEOs, the time limit should take into consideration the fact that damage in biology may only appear after several generations. As such, an absolute time limit of 50 years (a period during which effects on two generations could be manifest)should be considered and vi)Civil Society Organisations (CSO)acting in the public interest should have the right to bring a claim for damages on behalf of those directly or indirectly affected.

These recommendations have been submitted to the secretariat of the Meeting of Parties as inputs from civil society.

INDIA'S GE FREE SOYA CAN CAPTURE WORLD MARKET

Suman Sahai

A shortage of products that are not genetically engineered (GE free), especially soybean and corn, is forcing countries that are averse to GE produce to change their stand. Countries in Asia like Japan and South Korea, that are traditional soybean users have rejected GE soybean so far but may now be forced to buy genetically engineered soybean, not just for animal feed but also for soy based food products.

Most of Europe demonstrates a near phobic rejection of foods that are genetically engineered. In Asia, affluent sections of society are averse to consuming gene-spliced foods. In the case of soybean, countries like Japan and South Korea have expressed a clear preference for soy products made from GE free soybean. This has raised the demand for non GE soya and increased its price premium. The net result is a situation where the supply of non GE soya is unable to keep pace with the demand. The shortage of GE free soya is created largely due to the fact that China, the largest producer of non GE soy is faced with growing inflation in the food sector and has decided to hold on to its produce for domestic use.

The short supply and the rising price premium on non-GE crops is now forcing food processors in South Korea to buy American GE corn for the first time for their starch and sweetener industry. This is the first ever use of a GE product in the food chain in this region. Following S Korea, Japan is likely to allow the import of GE soybean too. Both countries are reluctant buyers of GE soybean, forced to do it in order to make up the shortfall in domes-tic requirement because not enough GE free soya is available.

This is a golden opportunity for India to step up its production of non GE soybean and enter the international premium niche market. India as the only country after China to produce certified non GE soybean, can position itself as the new source of GE free soya for countries in Europe which seek bulk soya for animal feed and Asia, particularly China, Japan and South Korea which are looking for quality non GE soya for food.

Stepping up production of GE free soybean immediately should not be difficult. India has been cultivating it for some years in places like Uttaranchal, Madhya Pradesh and some parts of Maharashtra. The transition to soybean in Madhya Pradesh came from the Black Toor, a legume similar to soybean which is eaten as a daal. In the hills varieties of soybean are also eaten as daal. This is to say that the cultivation of soybean is not unknown in India so it will not be an alien crop that farmers are not knowledgeable about. The introduction of soybean will have another advantage, that of replenishing the soil. The nitrogen fixing legume will improve soil nutrition, enabling better second crops. A kind of win - win situation for the farmer.

In Vidarbha particularly, soybean could become the alternative to cotton, which has proved to be such a risky crop. A farmer rehabilitation package could be based on promoting soybean cultivation. This will be better suited to the water deficient situation in Vidarbha and will be less risky than the water guzzling cotton, particularly Bt cotton, which demands even more water than other cotton varieties. Soybean has already begun to replace cotton in Vidarbha as farmers move away from the Bt cotton that has brought disaster.

If India is to exploit the market vacancy successfully, the soya package must be carefully organized, with top class planting material and marketing channels stream-lined and tied up from the farmers' fields to the international buyer. Farm training in sanitary and phy-tosanitary measures will be necessary, so that farmers are careful about maintaining the health and purity standards of their produce. Where necessary, government should negotiate markets in other countries, much in the same way as Malaysia negotiates advantageous market condi-tions and low tariffs for its palm oil.

Policy aspects will also have to cover research programs on soybean. There will have to be a clear and explicit ban on any research on genetically engineering soya. The government must be very clear that it cannot dabble in research on GE soya, risk contamination and expect to capture growing international markets for GE free soybean.

It will need just one single instance of contamination with GE soy to bring the GE free niche market crashing down. We saw what happened to US rice exports after the detection of traces of a GE rice from Bayer, called LL 601 in rice consignments. Overnight there were no takers for American rice. Vietnam and Thailand entered with GE free rice and captured the rice market.

The directionless, largely copycat agenda for research on GE crops that is being supported by the DBT (Department of Biotechnology) and the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) must be brought under a stringent review to conform with India's food as well as trading interests.

GE Crops and India's Trade Interests

Suman Sahai

A somewhat garbled invitation was sent out by the Department of Biotechnology calling for a Consultation on Guidelines for Regulation of Genetic Modification in Crop Plants and Farm Animals with Reference to Trade Security. Had I not earlier known the purpose of this meeting, I would never have figured out what the consultation intended to achieve.

The purpose as it happened, was to discuss a policy for genetically engineering crops that India was exporting. The immediate impetus for the meeting was the understandable nervousness of the Indian Rice Exporters Association after contamination of US rice stocks with an unapproved genetically engineered herbicide tolerant rice led to the total rejection of US rice and entailed huge costs to recall stocks from the UK, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and Japan where US rice had been exported.

The rice exporters wanted the Indian government to have a policy and safeguards in place to protect rice exports from the country from contamination with GE rice, since as one representative rather imaginatively suggested, "anything to do with GM would be the kiss of death "for India's rice exports.

The gentleman had a point. India exports not just Basmati, but non-Basmati rice as well, largely to Europe and West Asia but also to Africa, both regions that have rejected GE crops and foods. The total annual value of India's rice export is approximately Rs.6000 crores. The importers of Indian rice are countries where there is mounting opposition to GE foods. Producing GE rice in India or even researching and testing it in the fields is bound to result in the escape of GE rice.

The irresponsible and clumsy manner in which the Bt rice field trials were conducted by the Mahyco Seed Company indicate that given the shoddy implementation of GE technology in our country and the lack of accountability on the parts of agencies and regulators, contamination from trial plots and field sites is a certainty. The presence of GE rice in India, will undoubtedly lead to contamination, jeopardizing rice exports to countries that will not accept GE foods.

Soybean is the other crop which India exports which qualifies as a special case for consideration. India is the only country in the world now that is producing GE free soybean. Because of this status it has an assured export market in countries like Japan and South Korea that are sensitive about soybean as food and expressly seek GE free soya. In addition, companies that use soybean meal in food, particularly baby foods and food for convalescents, and which have given undertakings to produce GE free foods, are buyers of GE free soybean. This is a captive market available only to India and it can be expanded several times, creating a growing market for India's soybean farmers many of who are to be found in the distress areas of Vidarbha. Instead of offering inadequate doles, a proper policy introducing GE free, organic soybean may help Vidarbha farmers find their feet and rebuild their agriculture with self respect and dignity.

It is understood that the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM) in the Department of Biotechnology has given permission to conduct research on GE herbicide tolerant soybean. This is extremely undesirable and should be stopped immediately. If India were to allow the cultivation of GE soybean ,or even its research and field trials, it would at once lose its assured export market. Becoming a GE soya producing nation, it would have to compete for markets with gigantic producers like Brazil, USA and Argentina, who are sitting on huge surpluses, unable to sell their produce easily on the world market.

I have no idea whether there was any policy outcome on GE crops and Indian trade interests from the DBT meeting. Both the soybean people and the rice exporters present there held the same view, that genetic engineering of crops in which India had trading interests, was undesirable. The MS Swaminathan led Task Force on Agbiotechnology has made the recommendation that the national policy on GE crops should seek the "economic well-being of farm families, food security of the nation, health security of the consumer, protection of the environment and the security of our national and international trade". Seeing the trend of sharply declining global markets for GE crops and foods, and the rapidly burgeoning market for organic food (currently valued at US $50 billion), it would be wise for India to recognize its USP in agriculture and develop the organic food sector, specially for exports.