Homestead gardens for food security

Suman Sahai

On my recent visit to Kochi, I looked out of my hotel window and saw that adjoining the hotel boundary was a modest house with a yard, the way traditional houses in villages have and small towns used to have till the real estate mania began to destroy the ecology and beauty of such spaces.

My neighbours in the middle of Kochi city were obviously a traditional family with sound values. Their yard had one jackfruit tree in the corner, near the boundary wall, two breadfruit trees (breadfruits are similar to jackfruits although the trees look very different), three areca nut palms with pepper vines climbing up their trunks, two coconut palms, one guava tree, one drumstick tree, two hibiscus bushes, the flowers of which are used to make chutney, a couple of yam bushes and about 10 dwarf banana plants. There was chilli and tomato planted in the space between the trees and one or two other plants I could not identify. The total area of the yard would have been about 300 square yards.

I was thrilled to see this working model of what was a sophisticated homestead garden which obviously gave the family food (including condiments and spices) and incomes (areca nut, surplus banana) throughout the year. Breadfruit is a prolific bearer and yields fruits over several months. It is eaten as a vegetable in much the same way as jackfruit but also as a staple like yam. Tubers continue to be a staple in Kerala cuisine and one can spot tempos (no hand carts here, this is Kerala!) parked in the city selling a variety of tubers.

Such gardens, they may be of differing complexities, are one of the key strategies for household food security as well as nutritional enhancement. Some or the other food comes to the household all year round to supplement the standard rice-based diets that come either from the farmer’s field or from the market. Kochi is the constituency of minister of state for agriculture K.V. Thomas, who is aggressively promoting the Food Security Bill, which is a high profile priority legislation since it is backed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

The bill has been widely criticised for its superficial approach to food security, merely rehashing the existing public distribution system and Integrated Child Development Services programmes. Not surprisingly, it has been termed a political gimmick by some. Mr Thomas could have brought in excellent initiatives, like the homestead garden from his home state to enrich the Food Security Bill, introducing elements of dietary diversity and self-reliance in a bill that has received adverse comments for its “dole” approach. The homestead garden described here is something Mr Thomas must know about.

The composition of a homestead garden will obviously vary from location to location, depending on what grows in the area and what the food preferences of the local people are. In many parts of north India, for instance, such a homestead garden could contain drumstick, the pods and leaves of which are highly nutritious and available all year round, bananas, papaya, lemon, sweet potato and other tubers, pumpkins, which are rich in Vitamin A, some legumes like cowpea, beans and mung, perhaps a mulberry tree and one of jackfruit. Availability of space and food preferences will determine what is planted in the garden but whatever is in it will enrich the family’s food basket and improve its nutritional intake. The great advantage of homestead gardens is that the food comes directly to the woman of the house since it is she who would normally tend such gardens. This food is likely to be used optimally in her kitchen to the benefit of the entire family.

Another excellent initiative promoted by the horticulture department of the state government in Kerala is the Terrace Garden programme, locally known as the Harita Nagari (Green City) programme. In this programme, largely undertaken by housewives, the government encourages cultivation of vegetables in pots using terraces, verandahs and other spaces available in flats and housing in densely populated urban centres where there are no yards or spaces around the dwelling area. The horticulture department provides (and does this without making you run around 20 times) seed, fertiliser, pots and even implements to start the terrace or verandah garden. This is backed up by information and know-how on how to get the best results from such potted gardens.

The result of this initiative, which is wildly popular, is a steady supply of some or the other vegetable for the cooking pot year round. The vegetables are clean, often organic and easily available on demand. The lady of the house cooks whatever happens to be available in her pots that day. The nutrition of the family is ensured as is its dietary diversity. When there is a surplus, the housewife can sell this to outlets established by the horticulture department. During festivals, like Onam when there is a big demand for vegetables, a not insignificant supply of vegetables is contributed from within the city by such terrace gardens. Everyone is a winner, the supply of fresh vegetables in the city is augmented and the housewife makes a little profit.

This interesting enterprise can be replicated across the country in dense urban and semi-urban centres. Not every state is blessed with Kerala’s balmy weather which is supportive of easy cultivation year round but state specific packages can be worked to accommodate local weather conditions. Here is another idea Mr Thomas should carry from his constituency into the Food Security Bill.

The writer, a genetic scientist who has served on the faculty of the Universities of Chicago and Heidelberg, is convenor of the Gene Campaign

Source : Asian Age, New Delhi

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.

Red Rice to Chinese Restaurants

The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London has a Center for Food Studies which invites a Distinguished Lecture every year. I had given the Distinguished Lecture in 2009 on ‘Challenges to Food Security’ . This year James L. Watson ,Emeritus Professor of Chinese Society and Anthropology, Harvard University, will deliver a lecture on an unusual and interesting subject: How the farmers in the fertile and productive Pearl river delta in China grew red rice in the mudflats and when the situation turned adverse for them, moved to Europe and Canada to dominate the business of Chinese restaurants. Watson’s talk, as the note from SOAS describes, will explain how in the chaotic aftermath of the Manchu conquests from 1644-1672, pioneers from central China settled on the fringe of the delta, near salt-water marshes that no one else wanted. Over the next two centuries they and their descendants reclaimed over a thousand acres of mudflats and built brackish-water enclosures that grew a special variety of red rice. The single crop was sold entirely to distilleries that produced medicinal wines and livestock feed. Unlike neighboring communities that had access to fresh-water and could take two crops a year of white rice, the Man community always lived a difficult life , dependent on their single crop from brackish water. Watson’s lecture will trace the social history of the Man community from the rice fields in the early 20th century, to the European restaurant trade in the 1950s and 1960s, to remarkable affluence and global enterprises in the 21st century. The heart of the story is red rice and the long-term consequences of life in a marginal ecosystem.

For nearly six hundred years, the Man survived by growing a specialized crop of red rice on brackish-water paddies along the Shenzhen River, a muddy creek that became the Anglo-Chinese border in 1898. This border was closed abruptly in 1949, following the Communist conquest of China . The Man farmers faced a crisis when their agricultural system collapsed during the early 1950s since the markets for their specialized rice were located on the Communist side of the river. Unlike other communities in other Territories that were based on fresh-water ecosystems, the Man could not convert to vegetables or white rice (which will not grow in saline fields). So they moved out to various places and successfully established and controlled the trade in Chinese restaurants !

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

Water, Asia’s New Battleground by Brahma Chellaney

Reviewed by Suman Sahai

In a recent James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, the villain hatches diabolical plots to corner a certain South American country's fresh water resources. The Bond war is not over deposits of oil and gold but water. The conflict potential of water has clearly arrived even in the public’s imagination. In the backdrop of growing tensions over the sharing of water resources across the world and specially so in Asia , Brahma Chellaney’s new book titled Water, Asia’s New Battleground ( Harper Collins, 2011) is both timely and relevant.

In its seven chapters the book deals with diverse aspects of water in Asia , the conflicts and disputes that exist already and those likely to exacerbate as the economic boom in this region drives demand for scarce water resources. Many of these water resources will become further points of dispute as climate change melts glaciers , diminishes rainfall and reduces the over all availability of water in shared rivers. The unique role of the Tibetan plateau and China’s control of the headwaters of several rivers crucial to Asia constitutes an important part of the book’s analysis of the growing potential for discord. The book also deals with shared water resources on India’s western side, with Pakistan and the growing conflict over that sharing under the Indus Treaty. At the time of partition, the British gave the three western rivers of the Indus river system ( Indus, Jhelum and Chenab) to Pakistan and the three eastern rivers ( Ravi, Beas and Sutlej) to India. According to Mr Chellaney, India has failed to address this source of tension.

Mr. Chellaney describes the impact of the destructive use of natural resources, including water, in Asia’s rapid quest for double digit economic growth and how this is laying the ground for strategic shifts in Asia’s water politics, creating even greater potential for water wars between countries. The increasing demand for water to grow more food for the population dense countries of Asia, particularly China and India, is already causing upheavals in water sharing agreements. Both China and India are shown to be the victims of their earlier legacies of water use. Mao made grandiose plans for mega projects to divert water from the water rich south of China to its arid north and make huge dams on its rivers so that today China has the largest number of dams in the world. This includes the highly contentious Three Gorges dam which has wrought environmental destruction on an unprecedented scale. The over damming of rivers has interfered in their flows leading farmers to turn to groundwater, causing its overexploitation and pollution of aquifers.

In a different way, Mr Chellaney says that India’s negligent and disjointed approach to water management has also created a water crisis. Constitutionally water was made a state subject (rather than a central one, which would allow easier regulation) so that today states that share rivers are perpetually entangled in water disputes. Similarly, the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan ( 1960) according to which India committed to indefinitely reserve 80 percent of the Indus waters for Pakistan, reflects a lack of foresight and understanding of the role of water , especially for an agriculture dependent, food insecure country.

The book’s most fascinating part is where it lays out the position and politics of Tibet as an enormously rich source of natural resources, especially minerals, water and biodiversity. China’s annexation of Tibet and the brutal measures it takes to subjugate this rich land and its gentle people, is to be seen in the context of its determination to exploit Tibet’s vast mineral resources and its water for hydropower and irrigation, even as it destroys it unique, often unparalleled biodiversity . Having brought its own water resources under severe stress and caused irreversible contamination in many parts, China is now seeking to conquer the waters of Tibet. It is pursuing major water projects like inter river transfers in the fragile ecosystem of the Tibetan plateau. Tibet qualifies as a world heritage site on account of any one of its many aspects, its irreplaceable biodiversity, its landscape with deep gorges and canyons, its unique systems of agriculture and the culture of its people. Mr Chellaney’s description of the desecration of Tibet by China is heartbreaking .

This is a comprehensive and interesting book but it could have paid greater attention to suggesting what India could propose to mitigate the potential water conflict with China; what negotiating positions could it put on the table ? What counter measures could it take to protect its interests ? How for instance, could the two countries take advantage of each other’s strengths so that there is more to be gained from cooperation than conflict? Both countries, but especially China, have experience with micro hydropower projects. Local communities in the Himalayas and in Tibet have a tremendous knowledge of biodiversity, hydrology and efficient water use, as well as water conservation. Sharing this knowledge could build bridges of mutual benefit and provide a stake in collaborating. So far, collaboration and coordination between the two countries in dealing with environmental challenges has been limited, despite several signed agreements. In 1993, China and India signed a collaboration agreement on the environment and more recently they have signed an agreement to jointly monitor glaciers work and together in the areas of energy and afforestation. Suggestions on taking such beginnings forward would have added value to this book.

Asian Age, Dec 11, 2011

WE NEED A BETTER FOOD SECURITY LAW

Suman Sahai

Despite the proposition that independent India has not had large scale famines, widespread hunger prevails and by all accounts, is growing. As we now know from official data, the majority of the population does not attain the minimum calorie levels for rural and urban areas. According to one estimate almost 87 per cent of the rural population gets less than the rural cut-off of 2400 calories/day, and 64.5 per cent of the urban population gets less than the urban cut-off of 2100 calories/day. India finds itself at the bottom in terms of the HDI rankings. According to the multiple poverty index the levels of poverty in the country are alarming, in the range of 645 million, or 55.4 per cent of the population.

The Indian State Hunger Index (ISHI) found that 12 of 17 states surveyed had ‘alarming’ levels of hunger, with one state having an ‘extremely alarming’ level. Not a single state had ‘low’ or ‘moderate’ hunger levels. Despite this commonality, the ISHI demonstrated high variability in hunger between states. The ISHI enabled global comparisons which showed that several of India’s worst performing states have higher levels of hunger than countries such as Zimbabwe and Haiti. Madhya Pradesh, the worst performing state, ranked just above Ethiopia.

The agrarian crisis
The output of food grains in 2003–04 was still 14 million tonnes below the high level reached in 2000–01. Admittedly the food grain production did go up in the last two years yet the shortfall is still massive. In 2011 there was the announcement of so-called record food grain production which prompted the lifting of the Supreme Court ban on wheat exports. Nevertheless, this increase in production has been limited to the surplus states such as Punjab, Haryana, and Andhra Pradesh whereas the rainfed states suffering from the highest levels of hunger, such as Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand, have not shared in these increases. On the contrary, the extent of fallow lands is increasing as farmers are unable to farm due to the paucity of productive resources. Given these growth rates and the regional disparities in hunger and agricultural production, it is not surprising that hunger and malnutrition have reached unprecedented levels.
Malnutrition

Today, nearly half of India’s children below the age of three are malnourished and stunted, and 40 per cent of rural India eats only as much food as sub-Saharan Africa. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), India is one among 17 countries where the number of the undernourished decreased in the first half of the 1990s, before increasing in the second half, thus almost completely offsetting the gains made during the earlier part of the decade. The per capita availability of food has declined for the first time since the 1960s. The official National Sample Survey (NSS) of 2000 revealed that three-fourths of India’s rural population and half the urban population did not get the minimum recommended calories. This is confirmed by nutritional and health surveys, which show: more than two-fifths of the adult population suffers from chronic energy deficiency, and a large percentage are at the border of this condition; half of India’s women are anaemic; and half of India’s children can be clinically defined as malnourished (stunted, wasting, or both). It is estimated that half of the Indian rural population, over 350 million people, are below the average food energy intake of sub-Saharan African countries.

Economic reforms in India have led to disinvestment in the agriculture sector. This has adversely affected more than 60 percent of the population which relies on agriculture for its livelihood. Many of the farmers responsible for making India self-sufficient in grain production are themselves facing hunger due to non-remunerative prices and rising input costs, among other factors. The following graphs show how the new agriculture policies have diminished the food availability gains made in the 1980s, resulting in a food availability situation not much better than the early 1950’s.

Fig 1: Food Grain Availability

Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Delhi 2005.
Fig. 1 shows that the 1950s, and up to 1964, the per capita availability of food grains ranged between 140 and 170 kg per annum. The availability dropped drastically in 1967, when it touched 143 kg, and then it increased again. What is noteworthy is the trend between 1979 and 1994, when the per capita availability of food grains ranged between 155 and 180 kg per annum. After 1994, availability declined to 150 kg per annum.

This picture becomes clearer if we mark out the per day availability of food grains as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 : Per Day Food Availability

Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Delhi, 2005.
Fig. 2 shows that the net per day availability of food grains in India has dipped alarmingly. It is now touching almost the same levels that it had reached in the early 1950s, at less than 450 grams per day per capita. There is a considerable shortfall in the actual requirement and availability of food grains. In the context of the current agrarian crisis, this trend poses a grave danger to communities already afflicted with hunger.

The Food Security Bill
In the backdrop of declining food availability, there have been diverse efforts to tackle hunger. There has been the Public Distribution System (PDS) providing subsidized grain, the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and the mid-day meal scheme for school children.

The most recent in this line of efforts to improve the hunger situation, is the National Food Security Bill (NFSB) proposed by the powerful National Advisory Council (NAC). The NFSB is being considered seriously by the government where reception to its contents is mixed at best. Elements in government and out of it have not been unanimously supportive of the Bill. An expert committee headed by C Rangarajan, stated that the entitlements outlined under the NAC draft (90 percent coverage of the rural population and 50 percent of the urban) were not feasible due to unavailability of sufficient food grains. They recommended that the entitlements which were guaranteed for above poverty line (APL) households be discarded and that only below poverty line (BPL) households (as measured by the Tendulkar estimate plus a ten percent margin) be included in the scheme. This would mean a drastic reduction in coverage with only 46 percent of the rural population and 28 percent of the urban included under the ambit of the legislation.

The Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has expressed doubt over the large quantity of grain procurement that would be required by the NAC draft and said that the issues raised by the Rangarajan Committee remained ‘pertinent’. Adding to this, the Food Ministry submitted their revised draft legislation days later which was substantially different from NAC’s proposal and decreased both the scope and size of the entitlements. Civil society groups appear divided on the NAC Bill, with some terming it merely a revised form of the PDS.

There are grave problems with the government draft that patterns itself on the draft provided by the National Advisory Council. Primary is its extremely restricted scope. This is not a Bill that attempts to bring about food security, it is only a Bill that offers a different plan to the existing PDS system, to distribute grain. No attention is paid to the most important components of food security, the production of food, its distribution and its absorption by the poor and hungry. Of the three major pillars of food security, food production, food distribution and food absorption, the NAC draft addresses just one. It is actually more a welfare Bill, a ‘dole’ as it were than an effort to tackle the complex problem of food security per se.

Tackling food security will certainly mean treading on influential toes. The 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 get it for their cultivation? Will small farmers in the dry lands get massive investments in creating water bodies to enable them to have a second crop in the winter? The conflicts will be over such things like fertiliser subsidies. Will Punjab, Haryana, Western UP, 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 rainfed areas that most need intervention, finally get their due? 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.

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 which are conveniently designated as ‘wasteland’. The biofuel produced in the name of clean energy will take away the grazing lands of herders and pastoralists , the place where they can park their livestock because they have no other land. It will take away the source of leafy green vegetables and medicinal plants that the poor rely on.

Just as it will have to tackle the Coca Colas , the Food Security Bill must also take a position against the Adanis, the Reliance lot and all the other conglomerates who are grabbing agricultural lands in the name of SEZs to set up industrial estates ( or just to corner real estate ) India’s most productive lands, the two crop and three crop zones are being snapped up to build urban estates. Where will we grow our food?

The food production part of the Food Security Bill will also have to deal with putting into place our response to ensure food security when faced with climate change. According to the IPCC report, the impact of climate change will be most severe in Africa and South Asia, especially its rainfed areas. We cannot continue behaving as though this is someone else’s problem and even as we debate the finer points of universal versus targeted distribution of food grains , that someone will step in and make the problem go away.

The neglect of rural India continues . There is no technical or financial obstruction to providing sanitation and clean drinking water in mission mode but it still has not been done. Children continue to die of diarrhoea and adults continue to sicken with it , unable to retain the little nutrition they get. There is no reason why this simple intervention has still not been done….
The fact is that to draft a truly comprehensive Food Security Bill and accommodate the logical aspects that belong there, a lot of people will have to be asked to give up some of what is in their bag of goodies. The Food Security Bill clearly fights shy of that .

Questions have also been raised about the manner of drafting this Bill. What kinds of consultations were undertaken? How did the principal stakeholders engage in the process of providing inputs? In what manner were experts and other actors brought on board ? How were the public’s views sought? Has this Bill attempted to be pluralistic representative of other views?

Redrafting a Food Security Legislation
It seems clear that to draft a food security bill, more than just the distribution aspects will have to be addressed. The Bill must include all relevant aspects related to the three major pillars of food security :
• the production (availability) of food,
• the distribution of food
• the absorption of food and nutrition. For this clean drinking water and sanitation are minimum requirements to prevent diarrhoea.