THE ROLE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN OUR LIVES

Talk delivered at the INDIA TODAY CONCLAVE , March 13, 2010, New Delhi

Suman Sahai

It's a pleasure to be here especially since it is not very often that you get an opportunity to discuss science and technology at a gathering like this. I particularly appreciate that INDlA TODAY has put together this agenda. Michael Specter of the New Yorker has just laid before you very comprehensively, and in great detail all the classical arguments that are put out in defence of genetic engineering and genetically-engineered crops. There are some things that I agree with and there are many I don't. As a practicing laboratory scientist trained in genetics  myself, there are a  few things I would like to clarify.

The oft-repeated phrase that genetic engineering is very precise is not true. Genetic engineering as we use it today is actually a very imprecise technology. We can neither guide the gene to where we want it go nor can we get the number of copies of genes that we want. If I want to put in two genes I can't. I shoot in genes into a cell and I wait for something to happen. So there is great randomness to this technology.

This is all right provided you take on that randomness on board and then work with the fact that it is not a precise technology. Therefore, you have to work with the fact that you will have to deal with safety testing. On the question that there are the starving millions, hungry hordes, the growing population and that genetic engineering is necessary to address this problem, there is no evidence so far. 

Whether genetic engineering will also play a role in solving the problem of hunger will be seen in the future. Today, the technology is very restricted, its application is wide but its offer is very restricted. Unfortunately though, the mythology of genetic engineering is replete with claims that are not substantiated by fact and reality. If we talk about hunger, we need to look at the number of things that are happening to cause it and all the solutions that may be available. 

“Genetic engineering is a regulated technology and it has to be regulated cautiously.-

Hunger happens when a person does not have access to productive assets like land or water to grow food or does not have a job and enough money in his pocket to buy food. Today, in this country and in many other countries in Asia, we have many potential solutions for hunger. There is a tremendous amount of genetic potential locked up in the crop varieties  that we are unable to translate into big harvests,  because farmers can't afford enough fertilisers, soil health is poor and potential yield is not translated into real yield. 

Again on the question of hunger, look at India and see how much of India is irrigated. Sixty to seventy   per cent of Indian arable land (where crops can grow) is not irrigated but dependent only on the monsoon. So, before you get into a technology fix, all that you need to do to double and triple food production, in the country is bring water to these un irrigated areas. When you bring water to the areas which are growing only one crop a year today, you can grow two or three crops in a year. You will not just double food production, you will probably triple it.

Technology can play a role in improving the situation but to give credence to a technology beyond what the technology has so far shown is perhaps misguided.

On Mr. Specter’s contention that to ban Bt brinjal was a misguided decision, I differ. I think the government should have banned Bt brinjal, because of all the things that had gone wrong with developing and regulating it. Violations cannot be condoned.

Genetic engineering  is a regulated technology and it has to be regulated cautiously. It is scientists who have acknowledged that there are safety concerns. Regulation was asked for not by political leaders, not by civil society, not by NGOS, but by scientists. We must take the matter of safety of these products very seriously. Bt brinjal went through a series of processes. There were grave and outstanding questions about the way it had been regulated. This country has a policy on mandatory labelling of GM foods. This is the policy we represent in all of the meetings at Codex Alimentarius.

The Regulators wanted to give permission for the release of Bt brinjal, but the country has not yet got the labelling, infrastructure or mechanism in place. We are in violation of our own rules. We don't have a law on Liability and Redress nor is there a law nor mechanism to grant compensation if something goes wrong. Many questions have been raised about the nature of the safety tests and the careless and inadequate manner in which they were done.

This is not to attack the technology, it is to attack the atrocious regulatory systems that governs it. To say that the decision on Bt brinjal can't be defended is incorrect. It's a decision that should have been taken at least on account  of the failure of regulation and the paucity of evidence on safely of the product. People ask how much testing is needed. Testing has to be done till it is clear that the product is safe or otherwise.

The golden rice issue was raised but I want to put before you the fact that India and countries like India have a huge genetic variability in the crops that they grow. There are rice varieties rich in iron , zinc, vitamins and so on.

Golden Rice may or may not pan out finally but we don’t need it.  We have golden millets, golden sweet potatoes, and other Vitamin A rich foods. If you really want a Vitamin A fix, you don't have to genetically engineer rice, you have many kinds of rice that are nutritious and also other kinds of staple foods that will deliver vitamin A ( and many other nutrients ) and deliver it in much more cost effective ways. I am not shutting the doors on technology but to say that GM technology is central or even exclusive to solving our problems of hunger and malnutrition, is frankly ridiculous.  -

“Just as science can do a lot of good, its application can also do a lot of bad. “-

GM technology may play a role one day but today there are just two genes on offer: the Bt gene and the HT (herbicide tolerance) gene. Neither of them has any connection to hunger, nutrition or improving livelihoods.

You must think after all this that despite being a geneticist, I am firmly anti-science or anti-technology. I am not and I can't be. I have been trained in science and it has been the best part of my life, but I have to put before you the fact that neither science nor technology operates in a vacuum. Just as science can do a lot of good, its application can also do a lot of bad.

You have heard about Einstein's theory of relativity, but how many people know that the GPS in your car and in your phone is actually derived from the Theory of Relativity. That's how easily you can adopt sophisticated science for human applications and derive benefit from it. That's the same GPS that's used in drone airplanes that bomb the hell out of places. When Enrico Fermi did  his experiments on nuclear fission on the sports field in Chicago and started understanding the nature of fission, it led to the nuclear reactor, to the Manhattan Project, to the bomb and then to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There is a purity about science that I am for but there may not be a purity in the application of science, when science turns into technology. When you look at genetic engineering, it comes from very straight forward work by an Austrian priest called Gregor Mendel. In 1860, when we were roughly wrapping up our first War of Independence against British rule, an Austrian priest was working on the principles of heredity and this Austrian priest laid the foundation of genetics, of understanding heredity which has been of crucial importance in understanding human disease.

We have understood how to make family pedigrees to see the transmission of disease. We have understood how to tackle disease but we have also understood genes and heredity and have developed amniocentesis, sex determination and the killing of girl foetuses. Atrocious gender ratios, like 750 females per 1,000 males, exist in many parts of our country and outside. -

“We can create new life forms in the laboratories using synthetic biology. “-

Therefore, science and technology do not operate in a vacuum. The onus  is on us to take science and technology and to make them work for the betterment of humankind. You think we have a seen a lot of genetic engineering? How many of you are aware of the new science, synthetic biology, which is just five or six years old? What happens with synthetic biology? You can actually construct new life forms with synthetic biology. You can take the DNA which is essentially a chemical. You can buy it off the shelf and paste it together in the lab and create a new life form. In fact, Craig Venter, who is a brilliant scientist, has created an artificial bug called Mycoplasma laboratorium and what Venter's group did was to strip a bacterium called Mycoplasma genetelium and pack it with completely new DNA and he created an artificial organism called Mycoplasma laboratorium. Before that the Centre for Disease Control in the US had reconstructed the virus that causes Spanish flu which incidentally killed 100 million people in 1918 after the World War-I. This is the brave new world of science.

“The precautionary principle is an important cornerstone of all negotiations in the world of science.”-

As a practicing laboratory scientist, let me tell you, accidents will happen. Test tubes will break, petri-dishes will break, solutions will spill and, however, technically well organised your laboratory is for safety, accidents will happen. Murphy’s Law operates and therefore it is important to realise that not all risks can be contained. So what does this mean?

When you have an artificial organism like the one created out of synthetic biology what can you get? Think of bio-warfare. If you have an anthrax attack what will happen? It will kill some people and then you will quickly deploy an antidote. But you don't know what Mycoplasma laboratorium can do because it has no pedigree. It comes from nowhere. This is novel genetic material that you have put together, but you don't know how it will interact with the environment. You don't know what damage it can do to human health. You have no idea how to control it or destroy if it turns out to be dangerous.If you have bio-warfare with anthrax, you know what to do with it. But should you have a bio-warfare with an organism like that, you are completely at sea as to how to control this organism.

And - as against physics and chemistry, the brave new world of biology replicates. Bugs have babies, humans have babies, genes have babies, they all replicate.

If you put a transformer out here or a glass out there, it will sit there for the next 3,000 years and it will not have babies. But if you put out a dish with a cell culture, the cells will proliferate, spill out and go places. Therefore, when you are tinkering with biology, then you must step back a bit. It is famously said that the 21st century will be the century of biology. It will be. All the breakthroughs are going to happen in this field. This field is already giving us transformative technologies like genetic engineering, nanotechnology,  synthetic biology etc. Transformative because they are going to transform the way we live, the way we eat our food, the way drugs are delivered to us and also the way environment will be. So what do we do when we confront this situation? Do we step back and say no science, no technology? No, of course not. Rather we ask ourselves which science, which technology? 

After destroying the planet to the extent that we have, I think we should have learnt some lessons. And we need to make a distinction between science and its application in the form of technology. The crucial and deciding factor is human greed. Today, as we look and see the potential of science and what it has to offer, let us step back with a little modesty. Let us agree that it is sufficient to optimize profits not necessarily to maximise them. Nature has a very tolerant and benign presence, you lean on her, you hurt her a bit, she takes it. You cut down some trees, the forest will come back. But if you push her, if you knock off entire forests, if you release fiddled bugs, if you destroy the climate, if you ravage bio-diversity, then nature will hit back. We need to remember this. Nature will give you  leeway but will hit back if you go too far.

“Nature has a very tolerant presence. It gives you much leeway, but it will hit back if you hurt it.”

So what are the lessons for the application of science? We should certainly forge ahead it but with three words I will leave you with - Ethics, Regulation and Precaution. There is a whole field of bio-ethics that is developing, not as fast as it should but it is there. And it is scientists who have laid some restraints on themselves. When genetic engineering started, scientists converged at Asilomar for a conference in 1975. They got together and said this technology can go places,  also where we don't want it to go, so we must exercise control and have regulation. We have self-imposed bans on human cloning, on human germ-line therapy, on human embryonic stem cell, so it is not that scientists don't think about it but when science leaves the laboratory  and goes into the field of technology and application, other factors, most notably money, come into play.

You have probably heard of the maverick scientist trying to clone the human embryo then having it implanted in a women and about people trying to fool around with germ line therapy in humans which is extremely dangerous since you don't know what the outcome will be. As we confront the brave new world of science, we need to look at the Ethics, Regulation and Precautionary Principles.

The precautionary principle is now becoming a very important cornerstone of all negotiations and transactions in the world of science. If there is insufficient evidence and you are uncertain, step back and exercise caution. Don't rush in where fools fear to tread. I think the way ahead is progress but with intelligence, maturity and responsibility. We must work with the approach that we hold this Earth only in custody for our children. In legal terms, this is defined as the principle of “Inter-Generational Equity”.  We are bound by a moral responsibility to hold the Earth and pass it on to our children in as intact a form as possible. I submit before you that the sentiment alone should guide the pursuit to science and technology.

Questions & Answers

Ms Sahai raised the issue of ethics, regulation and precaution. But Mr Specter, you didn't seem to agree with it. Is it really right to give science a free hand without caring too much about?

Michael Specter- I like ethics and regulations but there are a couple of things which I disagree with. For instance, the idea of making 1918 flu virus from scratch is a bad thing. It is extremely dangerous. Do you know how we make vaccines in the world? We make them today the way we made them in 1930s. When we grow vaccines in the 19th century traditions, we will die the 19th century way as well. After the precautionary principles, here are a couple of things we wouldn't have if there was too much regulation. We wouldn't have airplanes, x-rays, antibiotics, vaccines, televisions or radios and we wouldn't have nuclear power which I think is a great solution to one of the Earth's most pressing problems. So, precaution. Yes, apt but let's not confuse the greed of a company with the ability of science to accomplish things because I should say synthetic biology to me is not only a brave new world, it is the most exciting thing to happen in human history so I guess, we disagree on it.

Q. Ms Sahai, you mentioned that if water is provided then land, where only one crop is cultivated, two or three crops can be grown but Mr Specter mentioned that on a daily-basis 10,000 people are becoming middle-class right now. How do we cope up with it? The percentage of farmers is getting lower by the day. What do you suggest?

Suman Sahai- You have to grow crops because you need food. We can't say the middle-class is increasing and we can't say there is growing hunger. If we have growing hunger and if we have growing population as well, and we need to feed them, then we need to grow crops and an important input to grow crops is to get water for irrigation. If you have a GM crop in an area that doesn't have water, then it will not grow. The defining lacuna is water. Water is important for growing food.

Q: Mr Specter, you spoke of the ban on Bt brinjal. As a layman what I understood is that the minister after public hearing found that out of some 22 tests that were supposed to be done, only eight had been completed. What was more appalling was the fact that most of these tests were done not by independent bodies but entirely by the manufacturers. Therefore, they have now asked to complete the tests and then do a review.

Specter- I dispute those facts. Thousands of independent tests were done and there were thousands of independent studies elsewhere too. There is a clear safety profile in the question. It is legitimate to ask if the benefit is good enough to let the risks exist. I don't think those are always clear answers but in this case, I think it is pretty clear. As I said, it is something like soyabean or corn. It is not to improve the quality of life for people but there are dozens of new products about to come in the market that will help with drought resistance environments. I couldn't agree more about water but getting water to the places where we need it is really tough. It could be done but it can't be done easily and I think we need to look at other solutions and this is one of those solutions.

Q. The points raised by you Mr Specter are political and fair, sometime the arguments are not rational, they are more emotional. Ms Sahai, if we buy seeds from Monsanto, we would then be submitting ourselves to a new form of colonialism. The fact that all farmers will have to buy from a single source and then they would have monopolies, I mean these are issues that need to be addressed and Ms Sahai, would you like to speak on this matter?

Sahai- Sure, I think that as the debate progressed on genetically engineered crops, there was a lot of incorrect information going around. When you are taking a serious view, you are sifting the wheat from the chaff. On the question of control over seeds, I would say that it is a socio-political aspect not an emotional one. Who ever controls the seeds, will control to a very large extent the kind of agriculture and the kind of cash crop that will be cultivated.

Let me tell you something else-who is entitled to a patent, who is entitled to that control? Here is a new variety of seed that has been created, how many steps does it take to make this new variety? Let us say 100  steps , of which 80 to 90 steps have been contributed by farmers and later by a number of  scientists. It is only the last 5 or 10  steps of sticking in genes or taking out a genes that the molecular biologist does . The patent on the entire 100 steps is claimed by those who have contributed the last 5 to 10 steps! That is what a patent on seed is all about and that is why it is essentially incorrect, unethical and unjust. Patents cannot be granted to the corporates because they are not the real inventors. They have added just the tail end.   I would want to put things in perspective and say that there is a question of control on seed if you have a weak legal framework, if you do not have sufficient training in filing for intellectual property and your scientists and lawyers are not trained to play that game, then the playing field is not level and it is not fair. It is not really possible to grant patents on biology. Biological materials derive from nature and are constantly changing. The patent game is about using words and playing politics. Give me a patent on biology and I will tell you how to crack it.  

“There cannot be patents on seeds because there are several contributors to a seed, a variety. “

Q. Would you have accepted Bt brinjal if we did not have a patent issue associated with it and like the Internet, the technology and the processes were thrown open to public use.

-

“We neither have laws for labelling and liability nor any verification of the test protocols.”

-

Sahai- It is not about patents but about biosafety. There are a few things that we need to know. Was the Bt approach to control the so-called pest of brinjal necessary? The answer is no. The Bt gene controls a pest called caterpillar borer. That's all it does. The main pest of brinjal and the brinjal family to which tomatoes, and chillies also belong, is not caterpillar borer, it's a disease called bacterial wilt. If you really wanted to control the brinjal pest, you should have found a solution to bacterial wilt not the caterpillar.  You don't have a law for labelling, you don't have a law on liability, you don't have any independent verification of the tests, biosafety protocols are still fairly Neanderthal, test protocols for food safety are very elementary.  These are the things that  are going wrong. Pointing this out does not make you an opponent of science.

I think science and technology must go back to the lab when there are open questions and  research must continue till you find answers, till you come to the situation where you can confidently say, yes, this will work or no, we can't get the wrinkles out it will not work. The CSIRO in Australia worked for years on peas trying to make a transgenic pea to control a pest. They were not able to make a safe transgenic pea. When they  tested it for food safety, there were health issues like serious  inflammation in test animals. Finally, CSIRO decided this is not going to work so they shut the door on it and that is what honest science should do. Test till you are fairly confident that your product is safe and if you can't get the wrinkles out, shut the door.

Session Science and Health: Does Science Work Against Nature?
Suman Sahai - India Today Conclave 2010

Suman Sahai - India Today Conclave 2010
Suman Sahai - India Today Conclave 2010

Need for a different food security law

S U M A N  S A H A I 

THE Union cabinet has recently approved a flawed and inadequate food security bill (FSB) that is, at least in part, driven by the Sonia Gandhi led National Advisory Council. It was widely reported that Gandhi’s determination to push the bill at all costs was to make good a Congress Party poll promise. To achieve food security, the FSB proposes to revise the Public Distribution System (PDS) and provide 7 kilograms of rice and wheat at Rs 3 and Rs 2 per kg respectively, per person, to people below the poverty line. For a family of five, this will amount to 35 kg of grain per month.[2] To people above the poverty line, the bill proposes to provide three kilograms of cereal per person at half the minimum support price that the government pays at the time of procurement.

This allotment is as yet only proposed and the 15 kg cereal per above poverty line (APL) family is not planned in the first phase.[3] For those who so desire, there is a provision to include millets in lieu of wheat and rice at one rupee per kilogram.

Given the prevalence and persistence of hunger, the country certainly requires a legislation on food security, but a comprehensive one; not one that deals with just a part of the picture.

In order to achieve genuine food security, a legislation must cover all aspects related to it, first and foremost ensuring that sufficient food is produced so that enough is available for everyone. Second, an effective distribution system must be in place so that people can access the food easily, and finally, ensure that food that is eaten is absorbed by the body to provide nutrition. The last can only be achieved by providing clean drinking water and sanitation to slash the incidence of diarrheal disease that prevents nutrition from being absorbed. These then are the three pillars of food security: the production, distribution and absorption of food.

The National Food Security Bill presented by the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government addresses only the distribution of food and should correctly be called the Revised PDS Bill rather than the overly ambitious food security bill. It neither addressesthe production of food nor does it include any features to improve the appalling state of sanitation and clean drinking water that robs the body of nutrition.

Ignoring the aspect of food production in a food security legislation underlines the inadequacy of the bill, especially given that India is in the throes of a severe agrarian crisis. In part, at least, agriculture productivity is declining and fields lie fallow as farmers in distress may prefer to abandon the profession because of its failure to provide either food or a livelihood.

Growth in food grain production has fallen to 1.7 per cent, below the population growth rate of 1.9 per cent. This translated to a decline in per capita availability of food grains by3.5 kg in the period from 1995 to 2001. Concurrently, there has been an unprecedented decline in the availability of cereals and pulses in the 15 years from 1991 to 2004 – from 510 grams per capita per day to 463 gms per capita per day because of a decline in production.[4]

There is a high level of indebtedness in the farming community which is eroding their ability to continue cultivation. According to the finance ministry’s 2007 report, about half of India’s farmers are indebted and the inability to repay loans has in part led to some farmers preferring to end their lives.[5] The debt burden is crushing farm productivity, most of all in the surplus food producing states of Punjab, Kerala, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, which feed the country’s buffer stocks and the government’s food support schemes like the Public Distribution System (PDS), the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), the Mid Day Meal Scheme, Annapoorna for the elderly and Antyodaya for the extremely poor.

The production of food is declining for a number of reasons like stagnation in agriculture, increasing production risks exacerbated by the uncertainties of climate change, unfavourable  prices and a callous neglect by formal institutions, specially those relating to credit and insurance. Agriculture credit has been squeezed and since banks do not lend to farmers, they are forced to seek loans at usurious rates from private lenders. The finance ministry report referred to earlier says that only four per cent of farm households had ever insured their crops and 57 per cent did not even know that crops could be insured.[6] All these factors are making agriculture and food production uncertain and risky and farmers are getting increasingly disenchanted. A food security bill that does not address such central problems cannot be taken seriously.

Farmers are abandoning agriculture because it is unprofitable and risky. The National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) in its 2005 report says that 40 per cent of Indian farmers want to forsake farming if they can find another means of livelihood.[7]  Not only is farming the riskiest business in the world, in India it is also a loss making enterprise. Input costs have gone through the roof, even as the government ‘controls’ the price of farm produce. The Minimum Support Price (MSP) in most states does not coverthe cost of production for the crops which are procured by the government. This applies to all the major food crops – paddy, wheat, jowar, bajra, maize, ragi, arhar, moong, urad, chana (gram) and barley.


Neither policy responses nor the food security bill reflect the enormous disaster in the making as the agrarian crisis worsens. In the kharif season of 2011, farmers in Andhra Pradesh declared a crop holiday and refused to plant their fields since, under the present conditions, they end up losing money.[8] In rain fed regions like Jharkhand, farmers have been leaving their upland fields fallow for the last several years.[9] Now the extent of fallow fields has increased; it extends even to the more productive lowland fields which are not cultivated primarily because the economics simply does not add up. The crisis on the farm can be gauged from the fact that in rain fed regions, where only one crop is cultivated in the year, farmers are electing to not even plant this crop. They prefer to abandon their fields and migrate to the cities in search of manual labour which at least brings in some income.

If we do not watch out the production of food will continue to decline at a dangerous rate, making the country food deficient and our people food insecure. For those who assume that any shortfall in food production can be made up by imports and our granaries filled with foreign grain, should study the situation of food availability in the international market. To state it sharply, there is insufficient food on the international market that can be bought to overcome a crisis.

Unlike the old days when India could go out and buy (expensive) food from the international market to plug a shortfall, it may find it difficult do so today since there is almost no food to buy. There are two principal reasons for this. One is the speculation in food grains that has led to high prices and hoarding. The other, more pervasive one, is the American policy on biofuels (now copied by other countries, including India ) because of which American corn is being diverted to produce ethanol to run cars. With corn, the staple of animal and poultry feed, going to biofuel production, there is a shortage of feed in the livestock sector which in turn is buying wheat and rice for animal feed, causing their prices to shoot up and stocks to vanish.

American farmers now find it more profitable to plant corn than wheat and rice because of the demand from the biofuel sector as a result of which cultivation of wheat and rice has declined. Natural calamities like the fires in Ukraine and floods in Australia, both food exporting nations, have also created a huge dent in assured grain supplies on the international market. Climate change will continue to take its toll on food production and supply as uncertainties rise. Availability of grain in the international market in the years to come is likely to take a further beating when countries hold back supplies to fulfil domestic needs due to climate turbulence caused upheavals in production. This happened in 2008 when countries like Thailand, Vietnam and India banned rice exports fearing shortages. This led to a shrinking of global rice supply and rice became unavailable for food imports and crisis relief.[10] Such developments have led to severely diminished food stocks on the global market, further adding to expense and unreliability. In addition to all these reasons, there is the most basic one – food security is only possible with food sovereignty. It is only when we are self-reliant in food production that we can be truly food secure.

Despite all these developments and food production getting pushed into an increasingly difficult place, the advocates of the food security bill wander around in wonderland  hoping that someone will hand them a large pot of grain from somewhere, which they can

then disburse in their preferred way.

Whatever little debate there is only skirts around the nitty gritty of distribution – whether it should be universal or targeted, and around the dangerous and highly undesirable concept of cash transfers. The proposed legislation largely bypasses both the larger picture and the crucial features that need to be addressed to achieve food security for all citizens. The one aspect that all agree on is that a component of food aid is essential for our legislation and that certain categories of people must be specially looked after.  Possibly, a universal system with self-exclusion, as in Tamil Nadu, should be our approach to food access.

The framers of this truncated draft law should realize that by shifting focus on increasing food production in a sustainable manner, many farmers who produce food would become either fully or partially food secure themselves. They would, thus, become either partially or completely independent of the government’s food support schemes, thus diminishing the burden on food stocks and reducing the numbers in need of food aid. Currently impoverished because agriculture is devastated, they swell the ranks of the BPL lists and have been reduced to seeking dole when they should actually be sovereign producers of food, able to feed their families and the rest of the nation.


Tackling food security will certainly mean treading on influential toes. Conflicts will arise over who will have preferential access to productive resources like land and water. Will Coca Cola get the water for its bottling plant or will farmers be given preference for cultivation? Will small farmers in the drylands get the required investments to create water bodies to enable them to take a second crop in the winter? The conflicts will be over such issues like fertilizer subsidies. Will Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu continue as the principal beneficiaries of the government’s subsidies or will nutrient based subsidy be directed at poor quality soils in rain fed areas that most need  intervention? The smallest, most marginal farmers have the worst soils and the least access to water. A food security bill will have meaning only if it tries to swing things in their favour for them to become more productive.


The food security bill must tackle the fundamental question of common property resources and the right of access to them. It must be able to speak out against jatropha plantations on common lands that are  conveniently designated as ‘wasteland’. The biofuel produced in the name of clean energy takes away key grazing lands of herders and pastoralists, the place where they can park their livestock because they have no other land. It will also take away the source of leafy green vegetables and medicinal plants that the poor rely on only to grow fuel for the cars of the rich. Just as it will have to tackle the Coca Colas, the food security bill must also take a position against the conglomerates who are grabbing agricultural land in the name of special economic zones (SEZs) to set up industrial estates (or just corner real estate).

India’s most productive lands, the two crop and three crop zones, must be reserved for food production but these are being snapped up to build urban estates. If this is not stopped, where will we grow our food?

The food production part of the food security bill will have to focus on rain fed farming because that is where the big crisis has unfolded. It will have to define our adaptation priorities to ensure food security when faced with climate change. According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report, the impact of climate change on food production will be most severe in Africa and South Asia, especially their rain fed areas.[11] We cannot continue to behave as though this is someone else’s problem even as we debate the finer points of universal versus targeted distribution of food grains, and believe that someone will step in and make the climate problem go away. security legislation and incentives provided to improve the lagging coverage. The emphasis on motivating the communities is well intended but not enough. It must be accompanied by financial support to achieve targets.

According to UNICEF, the combined effect of inadequate sanitation and unsafe drinking water is responsible for 88 per cent of childhood deaths from diarrhoea; out of every thousand children born, about seventy die before they reach five years of age.[12] Poor sanitation and unsafe drinking water also cause intestinal worm infections, which lead to malnutrition, anaemia and retarded growth among children, condemning them to  inadequacy for the rest of their lives.

The fact is that to draft a truly comprehensive food security bill, a lot of people will have to be asked to give up some of what they have cornered. The bill under consideration clearly fights shy of that. Instead of fiddling with the easiest of the three broad sectors that constitute food security, the government must demonstrate commitment and take on the challenge of drafting a sound, inclusive legislation, focusing on the tough areas of food production and clean water and sanitation, along with distribution.

If the government is serious about achieving zero hunger, it must commit 20 per cent of the national GDP to the agriculture sector until hunger has been banished and bring in a law that lays out a road map to comprehensively tackle the food and nutrition question. Short of that, the food security bill will likely be seen as a political gimmick rather than an effort at governance that is just and equitable.

Source: SEMINAR 6 3 4 – J u n e 2 0 1 2

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* Suman Sahai has several years of research and teaching experience in genetics. She works with Gene Campaign, a research and advocacy organization working on food and livelihood security and can be reached at mail@genecampaign.org and  www.genecampaign.org

[2] Sunil Prabhu, ‘Cabinet Clears Food Security Bill; to be Introduced in Parliament in this Session’, NDTV. Com, 18 December 2011. http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/cabinetclears-food-security-bill-to-be-introduced-inparliament-in-this-session-158968. Accessed on 10 May 2012.

[3] ‘Government to Take States on Board Over Food Security Bill’, The Economic Times, 10 January 2012. http://articles.economic times.indiatimes.com/2012-01-10/news/30611961_1_food-security-bill-kg-forcoarse-grains-subsidised-grains. Accessed on 10 May 2012.

[4] Nationl Commission on Farmers (NCF), ‘Saving Farmers and Saving Farming’, in Towards Faster and  More Inclusive Growth of Farmers’ Welfare. Fifth and Final Report (2006), Government of India, Ministry of Agriculture, p. 42. http://agricoop.nic.in/NCF/NCF%20Report%20-%205%20Vol.-1.pdf. Accessed on 10 May 2012.

[5] Report of the Expert Group on Agricultural Indebtedness. Ministry of Finance (MOF), Government of India, July 2007. www.igidr.ac.in/pdf/publication/PP-059.pdf. Accessed on 10 May 2011.

[6] NSS 59th Round (January-December 2003), Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers: Some Aspects of Farming, p. 11. Report No 496(59/33/3). http://mospi.nic. in/mospi_ new/upload/496_final.pdf. Accessed

on 10 May 2012.

[7] Ibid., p. i.

[8]  M. Suchitra, ‘Farmers on Holiday’, Down to Earth, 15 July 2011. http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/farmers-holiday. Accessed on 10 May 2012.

[9] Suman Sahai, M. Gautam, U. Sajjad, A. Kumar and J. Hill, ‘Impact on Farm Economics of Changing Seed Use. A Study in Jharkhand. Genecampaign. http://www.genecampaign. org/Sub%20pages/Seed%

20Study.pdf. Accesssed on 10 May 2012.

[10] M. Raja, ‘Asia Faces Growing Rice Crisis’, Asia Times Online, 14 February 2008. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JB14Df02.html. Accessed on 10 February

2012.

[11] Findings of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2007), ‘Climate Change Impacts’. http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/ucs-ipcc-wg2-72pi-2007.pdf. Accessed on 10 May 2012.

[12] UNICEF, A Report Card on Water and Sanitation (2006), ‘Progress for Children’. http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/Progress_for_Children_No._5_-_English.pdf. Accessed on 10 May 2012.

WHY FARMERS DON’T FARM

Suman Sahai

Some years ago the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) reported after its study on agriculture that roughly half the farmers in the country did not wish to continue with farming. They would quit if they had an alternative . This shameful fact reflects the despair that farmers feel and is based on the fact that agriculture is a loss making enterprise and the farmers are unable to either feed themselves or turn a profit. In addition to this, rural India is looked down upon by the well to do urban India , including the policy makers who are seen as part of the urban elite. Whether or not they are, they certainly behave like that. This discrimination strips farming and the farmer of his ( and even more so , her) dignity and does anything but provide an incentive to the younger generation to want to take up farming. Raised on a diet of unreal aspirations beamed out through our surfeit of television soap operas and bollywood films, the rural youth sees neither glamour, money nor dignity in farming. Why would he want to adopt it if there is nothing there for him ?

The tenuous situation with farming is not helped by electoral politics playing with rice and wheat as gimmicks to get votes. In this election the Congress-led United Democratic Front in Kerala joined the rice politics of the state and promised 35 kg rice at Re 1 per kg in a month for BPL ( Below Poverty Line) families and at Rs 2 per kg for APL (Above Poverty Line) families in its election manifesto. Before this, the LDF manifesto had guaranteed rice at Rs 2 per kg for all BPL and APL families. The poor must certainly get the help of the state to overcome hunger and poverty but the way to do this should be empowerment and fostering self reliance , not creating dependency through doles. When such support is enmeshed in politics, nobody is fooled and it creates a culture of cynicism and dependence. This has undesirable consequences at several levels.

In the last few months during my visits to the Gene Campaign field station in Jharkhand, I have been encountering a dangerous pulling away from agriculture. In addition to the other work we do on food , nutrition and livelihoods, we also provide training in adapting the fragile agriculture of the dryland to the growing uncertainty of global warming and climate change. These trainings are hands on, with several practical demonstrations and we usually have enthusiastic farmers coming for training programs which they have found useful. Although the youth have sometimes been less keen to continue with agriculture , or to invest too much physical labour in it, it is now all farmers who are reluctant to practice farming and are reluctant to come for trainings. If their agriculture has become unattractive, why would they come for training programs to improve agriculture?

The uncertain rainfall and drought of the last three years has made farming even more risky than before. In Jharkhand farmers can take only one crop in the year during the monsoon when it rains. Because there is no irrigation, they are unable to plant a second crop in the winter as farmers in the irrigated regions of Punjab and UP can.

When the monsoon has become uncertain because of global warming and farming remains non remunerative , the farmers have no incentive to continue farming. Farm losses become even higher if the single rice crop too fails, creating a crisis of hunger for farm families. The coping mechanism for such a situation is to abandon farming and seek work as manual labour since that brings assured income, which farming does not.

Abandoning farming now makes economic sense to the farmer. In Jharkhand, here is how it works for them. In a family with five members, if four go out to seek manual work in mines or at construction sites, they collectively earn about Rs 300 per day at an average wage rate of Rs 75 per person which is below the minimum wage but it is money that comes into their hands at the end of the day. This makes the average monthly income of the family Rs 9000 rupees per month, or Rs 1 lakh eight thousand per year. This is several times what they can ever dream of earning from farming from the un irrigated land holdings they possess. In the farmer’s calculation, agriculture is expensive, risky and requires back breaking work which does not even bring enough to eat, let alone any surplus. On top of all this, it carries the near certain burden of debt since in order to coax his single crop out of the ground, the farmer needs to take credit to procure inputs like seed and fertilizer, sometimes even water .

In another scenario, the BPL card holder gets 35 kg of rice at Rs 1 per kg and 3 liters of kerosene oil per month for cooking. This subsidized grain lasts his family for fifteen days in the month, for the other fifteen days he purchases food from the market with the money the family has earned from manual labour. On the other hand , here is what many farmers recounted about their experience with hybrid rice cultivation. Hybrid rice is promoted aggressively by government agencies although all the hybrid rice seed is being sold by private companies and there is not a single public sector hybrid rice available on the market. ! Farmers bought hybrid rice seed at about Rs 250 per kg, planted the nursery and at the time of transplantation, the rains failed. Since there is no investment in rainwater conservation, there are no water bodies and life saving irrigation is not available to save the crop. So, after investing between 3000 to 4000 rupees , the farmers got about 50 to 60 kg of rice from the entire kharif crop. Compare this with the 35 kg rice that they get for Rs 35, every month. Why would the farmer farm ?

The failed agriculture sector combined with wage labor opportunities in the market and subsidized grain schemes like those for Below Poverty Line and Antodaya card holders, has made agriculture and food production the least attractive option for the rural community, especially the youth. Food is more easily ( and less painfully ) obtained by a combination of activities which does not include farming. There is another danger in this set up, the deskilling of agriculturists. Many in the younger generation are forgetting how to farm. They have increasingly little facility with the hoe and plough, do not know how to turn the soil and make the field ready. The younger lot are unable already to read the weather to time the planting of their crop; they do not know which seeds to choose for the particular situation that is currently obtaining. Slipping away too is the knowledge of agricultural practices in special land types, keeping the soil alive, problem solving, seed and grain storage, adding value to local produce and a host of other things. Two more generations of this kind of youth and we may not have enough people who can grow food in this country. And then ?

On Record: 'Crux of food security lies in rainfed farming'

by Vibha Sharma

Founder of Gene Campaign Suman Sahai, recipient of the Padma Shri in the category of science and engineering, is an active voice on food security for the past many years. She is opposed to the UPA government’s Food Security Bill in the current form. Which is why, the announcement of the top government honour came as an "unexpected, but pleasant surprise" to her.

She speaks to The Tribune on the Padma Shri and about the food security legislation.

Excerpts:

Q: Were you expecting the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour of India?
A: It is an unexpected but a pleasant surprise. Gene Campaign has been critical of government policies but whenever we have done we have also tried to provide an alternative. Ours has not been a vicious, meaningless criticism. We disagreed only because we wanted a better situation for farmers and food security. It is a wonderful feeling to know that the government has the capacity to recognise constructive criticism. The award is in recognition of our contribution to agriculture and farmers’ and community rights.

Q: Your views on the Food Security Bill being considered by the Government and the National Advisory Council are hardly charitable. What are your objections and what is the alternative?
A: The problem with the Bill is that it has skipped the first nine steps and jumped to the last one. A whole lot of people who have no idea about food security have taken over the agenda. Welfare is one part but if you do not ensure a proper atmosphere for farmers to grow more, how will you get that extra food for distribution?
Right now there is something drastically wrong with the farming sector. Half of the farming community wants to get out of it specifically because it is not remunerative. If farmers are not making enough money to be encouraged to stay in the business, it would be a ridiculously simple approach to come up with a binding legislation on food security.How will you get that extra food from? There is no surplus grain in the international market. Food security equals food sovereignty. Otherwise you will always be vulnerable to external forces. You have to come up with a bigger vision and start from step number one, growing enough food. Solutions are not exactly rocket from step number one, growing enough food. Solutions are not exactly rocket science. They are fairly obvious.

Q: What should be the plan of action before the government makes the final commitment?
A: First, agriculture has to be made sustainable for the farmer. Then there has to be a well-defined water policy, including one groundwater extraction. There is also no need to give free water or electricity to farmers who are not looking for freebies. They are more than willing to pay for conveniences you provide if they are making money.
If the farmer does find farming remunerative he will give up the production. If you want to make the country food secure, bring the water to rainfed area. The crux of food security lies in rainfed agriculture.
I strongly recommend shifting subsidy in urea to sustainable agriculture in rainfed areas. Solutions are neither complex nor cost-intensive. They are very simple, practical solutions, something that should have been implemented yesterday. The food security legislation currently is more like propaganda: it does not reflect the genuine desire to solve food problem. It is not a sustainable legislation.

Q: Punjab and Haryana farmers have been complaining of lowering of yields. What is your advice to them to increase productivity?
A: Move away from the current model of agriculture which has sucked out micronutrients of the soil without giving anything back in return. `A0As it is, the area is fairly arid and cultivating rice has just left a layer of concrete in places. Farmers should step back from this crazily intensive production system they have been following and improve the soil health.
Secondly, diversification does not mean growing kinnow. Rice and wheat have been taking away the same kind of nutrients. So, go back to oilseeds, pulses and other cereals. The soil has to be given an opportunity to recuperate. Pulses will put back some nutrients rice and wheat have been extracting. Also, reduce mechanisation.Farmers must realise that while they are building the soil health their rates of profit will go down but agriculture in this region has to take rest and then start off differently.

Source :The Tribune, 6 Feb, 2011