Comments on the Technical Expert Committee’s report on GMOs

Suman Sahai

1.A Technical Expert Committee (TEC) was appointed by the Supreme Court to go into issues raised in the two PILs filed on GMOs. The first by Gene Campaign in 2004, the second a year later by Aruna Rodrigues and friends, in 2005. The Supreme Court had appointed a five member TEC to give recommendations on two specific issues:  i) whether a ban should be imposed on conducting field trials of GM crops , in open fields and i) if such trials were to be conducted, then what scientific protocols should be followed and what conditions imposed for such trials.

 The TEC has submitted its interim report and has pointed out the serious lacunae in the regulatory framework for GMOs  and recommended a moratorium for 10 years on any open field trials  till the shortcomings in regulatory procedures  have been sorted out and additional safety data generated through proper studies. It may be recalled that a similar injunction by the then Environment Minister , to generate additional biosafety data on Bt brinjal led to an embarassing cut and paste rehash of old data by senior scientists of the ICAR system.

In upholding the Precautionary Principle in its approach, the TEC members have played a responsible role in protecting the public interest and safeguarding the health of humans and animals, as well as the environment. It is heartening  to find mention in the TEC report of several important points that Gene Campaign has been raising over the years, like banning genetic transformation of crops for which India is a Center of Origin (like  rice) and a moratorium on trials of GM crops with  the Herbicide Tolerance trait, which is labour displacing and destroys valuable biodiversity used by rural communities as food, fodder and health and veterinary care.

TEC has also emphasized the importance of considering the socioeconomic aspects of introducing GMOs , before taking any decisions.  Socioeconomic aspects are  an important issue raised in the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to which India is a signatory and the conditions of which it usually fails to take on board. In failing to consider the impact of a GM crop , for instance on organic farming, the Indian regulatory system completely ignores the interest  of such farmers who would lose their markets if contamination with the GM product were to take place. In addition to this, in failing to pay attention to socio economic aspects, India is in violation of its commitment under the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety.

The TEC report’s emphasis on the extremely limited, often compromised nature of biosafety testing is correct. The current practice of conducting dangerously  inadequate feeding  studies to assess the food safety and toxicity of the transgenic plant has been strongly  criticised , as has been the practice of allowing applicants of GM crops  to sub contract their biosafety  studies to other agencies. This abdication of responsibility and failure of accountability by agencies engaged in developing GM crops and foods, in such a crucial area  is a recipe for disaster and almost certain to include violation of even the weak biosafety guidelines that are in place. 

Civil society groups have over the years uncovered several instances of  field trails of GM crops being conducted in flagrant violation of all biosafety procedures, in the middle of farmers fields, thus ensuring transgenic contamination of neighbouring crops. In many cases these untested GM  food crops from open field trials have found their way to the markets and been consumed by local farm families, putting at risk the health of those who have unwittingly consumed these possibly toxic foods.  The TEC recommendation to stop such shoddy , unregulated field trials  immediately , even in cases where permission has already been given, is a much needed intervention in the right direction.

Gene Campaign’s original prayer in its 2004 PIL and an oft repeated subsequent demand for  more  technically competent people in regulatory bodies , specially in the apex GEAC, has found mention in the TEC report. It has said an immediate rectification of this  serious lapse is warranted because the current members were not capable of assessing scientific data to assess safety. The TEC critique should help to fundamentally overhaul the unsatisfactory and inadequate regulatory system and force a reality check on regulators who  have never tired of calling themselves the best in the world.

The TEC report should also put the GM industry on guard which for too long has succeeded, by using all sorts of methods to get its way with half tested GMOs . With the complicity of pliable regulators, violations by powerful companies are covered up by the  regulators themselves and nobody is brought to book.

The TEC recommendations for a ten year moratorium on field trials of all Bt transgenic food crops is a correct step but needs to go further. Several transgenic food crops are being developed with non Bt genes and these must also be brought into the ambit of the 10 year moratorium. The impacts of these genes ( like the ama gene used in potato and the genes being used in mustard etc)  are even less understood than the Bt gene and bringing them under the moratorium for further assessment is crucial. Perhaps the final TEC report that is yet to come,  will deal with these issues. 

 

2. I fully agree with the interim report submitted by the Committee to the Hon’ble Supreme Court.

The Precautionary Principle has been rightly invoked by the Committee in giving its recommendations. The Precautionary Principle says that if there is a reasonable suspicion that an action will result in damage to the environment, human and animal health, such action should not be allowed. In case of GM Technology there is concrete evidence about its potential for harm to health and environment safety. All recommendations made by the TEC have scientific and legal support and therefore, ought to be reiterated and re-emphasized.

The Supreme Court in its order dated 10 May, 2012 had given three months time to the Expert Committee to submit its final report. The interim report was required to be submitted only in the event that the Committee was unable to submit its final report within the three month period. The Supreme Court has not accepted the recommendations of the Technical Expert Committee appointed by it and has opened up their report for comments from the government and the GM industry. The government council has said explicitly that they will not accept the report. The GM industry, not surprisingly, has taken an aggressive line against the Supreme Court appointed expert committee’s recommendations.

The most logical action for the Technical Expert Committee would now be to respond to all the objections and suggestions that have been raised on their report by the government and the biotechnology industry and submit one final report. This report should include what still remains to be submitted as well as  the responses to the new objections and suggestions. There does not seem to be any reason for the TEC to file another interim report incorporating responses to the objections and then to submit a final report after that. In the interest of rational decision making, the TEC should collate everything and submit its one time final report. 

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

Spiralling food prices? Blame speculators

 Suman Sahai

 

India must not pursue reckless high-growth policies at the cost of diverting attention and investment from agriculture and food production

2012 looks like a repeat of 2008. Food prices are soaring in India and the world. For food-importing countries to which India sometimes belongs, when the monsoons have been sub-optimal, as they have been this year, this brings a special burden.

Prices of agricultural commodities in the international market have risen from 20 to 30 per cent for corn and wheat. For soybean they have gone up by 40 per cent. All this means food imports will be even more expensive. This kind of food inflation is debilitating for the poor who can spend from 70 to 80 per cent of the total household income on food.

Global warming and climate change are part of the problem. Climate turbulence brings extreme weather conditions, like unprecedented drought conditions, as in the US this year, which has decimated the corn crop. In addition, drought conditions these last two years in major wheat-producing countries, like Australia, Russia and Ukraine, have led to short supply and spiralling prices for this staple.

Another major reason for food shortage and spiralling prices is the diversion of food grains to biofuel production and high-blending mandates in both Europe and the US. A 20 per cent blending mandate means a mix of 20 per cent biofuel and 80 per cent fossil fuel. This is resulting in increasing amounts of corn, canola and soybean being diverted for ethanol and bio-diesel production. Increasing ethanol production, especially in surplus-producing countries, hikes the demand for corn. This sets off a chain reaction, drawing in other foods, as substitution effects kick in, thus resulting in food shortages.

When corn is diverted to ethanol production, corn consumers shift to wheat and rice, increasing demand for these cereals and causing their prices to rise. Similarly, the diversion of corn to bioethanol causes shortages of animal and poultry feed; so these producers take wheat to feed their livestock, sending up the prices of wheat. In a related development, wheat and rice farmers see an assured market for corn, with attractive prices and shift to growing corn instead of rice and wheat, causing a shortage of rice and wheat stocks and, therefore, escalating prices of these cereals. A World Bank report of 2008 categorically states that the crop-derived fuels have been the major triggering factor of the food price crisis.

There is a third factor, which was beginning to be mentioned at the time of the 2008 food crisis but is acknowledged more openly now, and this is financial speculation. Financial speculation is now probably the most influential factor that is pushing food prices north in the short term. So who is investing ? A range of players, and not just the rich “high net worth individuals”, but also agencies as diverse as pension funds, public and private foundations

and university endowments, in addition to corporate investors, are all chasing the honey trail.

Looking at price rise this year, there is no question that the drought in the American Midwest played a role in the dramatic rise, but that is not the whole story. It is true that wheat prices in the international market began climbing this summer as soon as news of the US drought started circulating, but the hike is not explained by panic buying fearing shortages due to the drought. Analysts found that physical stocks of wheat were not so low as to be any cause for alarm and that the sharp rise in wheat prices was because of speculation by non-commercial investors, like hedge funds and pension funds.

This is a trend that has been consistent these past few years. Spiralling food prices appear to be influenced by heavy speculation rather than physical shortages. After oil and real estate, the commodities markets seem to be the new target of global speculators. When the commodities in question are food, the consequences are spiralling food prices, shortages in food-importing countries and increased hunger.

In addition to the usual reasons for food shortages, rising prices and hunger, exacerbated by climate change, the poor are now the victims of financial speculators. Global financial players are pouring their dollars into food (and other) commodities on the expectation that emerging economies will have to buy increasingly from the international market to satisfy their demand. By jacking up prices in this manner, they are causing unimaginable hunger and human distress across the vulnerable regions of the world.

The only way for us to counter this immoral and pervasive manipulation is to ensure that we strive to achieve food security at the national and household level. India must not pursue reckless high-growth policies at the cost of diverting attention and investment from agriculture and food production. Not just food security but food sovereignty (however much the economists try to rationalise it away) has to be upheld as a prime national goal. We need to keep in mind the old truism — a nation that is not food secure cannot be considered secure in any other sense.

The writer, chairperson of Gene Campaign, is a scientist and development activist.

Source: Asian Age, New Delhi, December 15, 2012 

Climate of threat to food security

Suman Sahai

Despite the fact that independent India has not had large-scale famines, widespread hunger prevails and is growing. According to official data, almost 87 per cent of rural India gets less than the minimum calorie requirement.

The decline in agricultural productivity, the diversion of foodgrains to feed poultry and livestock, policies that focus on export products and cash crops, as also inflationary food prices are contributing to a growing food crisis in the country. In addition, there is the proposed diversion of land and water to the production of Jatropha-based biofuels, the rapidly changing land use policy and the government’s support for special economic zones even when they encroach on prime agricultural land.

Economic reforms in India have led to disinvestment in the agriculture sector. This has adversely affected more than two-thirds of the population that is dependent on agriculture for its livelihood. Farmers themselves face hunger due to rising input costs and non-remunerative prices of farm products. There is no effective crop and livestock insurance to cover damage and credit is not available at reasonable rates.

Food availability has declined. Immediately after Independence, from the 1950s to 1964, it ranged between 140 and 170 kg per capita per annum. Between 1979 and 1994, it went up to 180 kg per capita per annum. After the reform period, foodgrain availability declined sharply to 150 kg per annum. There is a considerable shortfall in the actual requirement and availability of foodgrains. In the context of the current agrarian crisis, this trend poses a grave danger to communities already afflicted with hunger.

Adding to this already grim scenario is the new challenge of climate change. This year’s see-saw with the monsoon is a pre-runner of what awaits us ahead. According to climate estimates, agriculture in the productive areas of South Asia will be among the most adversely affected. As temperatures rise, the growing season is expected to shorten with decreases in agricultural productivity of up to 40 per cent. The worst brunt of climate change on food production will be borne by farmers in rain-fed areas.

Coping with the impact of climate change on agriculture will require careful management of resources like land, water and biodiversity. A large-scale public education and training programme is necessary to help farmers cope with the changes coming from global warming. Nothing in their experience has prepared them for the rapidly evolving, anthropogenic climate turbulence.

The disbanded extension service in the agriculture sector must be resumed urgently. Training and capacity building programmes must help to increase sensitivity to the problems that agriculture will face and understand its causes. At present, there is little understanding among rural communities about global warming and they are facing difficulties adjusting to the unpredictable changes that are throwing their long-held cropping patterns out of gear. The new extension service must be geared to teaching farmers how to adapt their agriculture to the new weather conditions that will negatively impact their food and livelihood security.

Not just farmers, it will be necessary to provide education and training to a range of actors. This would include policymakers, Panchayati Raj institutions, the banking sector, civil society groups, corporate executives and others, in the theory and practice of adapting agriculture to climate turbulence. Such capacity building will enable the successful adoption of adaptation strategies at policy and implementation levels.

There will have to be a fundamental strategy change in food production. Practices in agriculture will need to shift from intensive, mechanised, water-demanding agriculture to a more sustainable, conservative agriculture that grows crops using less water. “More crop per drop of water” is a strategy recommended to tackle drought. The same approach is applicable in a wider sense when addressing the challenges posed by global warming.

The first step in adapting agriculture to cope with climate change will be to diversify the farm production model to minimise risk and obtain the most benefits from available resources. Such sustainable models will have to include crops, livestock, poultry and where possible, fisheries and agro forestry.

As the monsoon rainfall gets reduced and more uncertain and receding glaciers reduce water flows in rivers, farmers must learn to make maximum use of available water. Rainwater harvesting and traditional water storage structures such as farm ponds, wells and tanks will have to be revived. Watershed development and catchment area recharge treatments to allow for aquifer replenishment will have to be undertaken on priority basis in all ecosystems. As rainfall becomes less reliable, water conserved in tanks, ponds and wells will provide life-saving irrigation to crops.

Soil management will need to focus on increasing organic matter to improve soil nutrition and water retention capacity, thus increasing crop productivity. The eco-system approach to agricultural production using crop rotation, maintaining an appropriate balance of soil nutrients and using an integrative and bio-organic approach to pest management will be effective in coping with rapidly changing farm conditions.

Contour bunding will be useful, especially in the hill areas, to increase water retention in terraced fields and improve crop productivity. It was a central component in regenerating degraded soils in Burkina Faso in West Africa and is credited with as much as a 40 per cent increase in agricultural production the first year after its implementation. Planting hedgerows of leguminous plants, especially in poor soils, which constitute the bulk of the soil in India, is important to fix nitrogen, prevent soil erosion and conserve soil moisture.

Mulching and other types of soil cover is helpful in arresting soil erosion and extending the availability of soil moisture. Mulching has the added benefit of reducing weed populations by up to 60 per cent, saving on weeding costs. None of these are rocket science but they are neglected in our policy and implementation plans. India’s strategy to deal with climate change, encapsulated in the National Action Plan on Climate Change lacks vision and offers no realistic solutions. We need urgently to come up with a policy and framework to protect our agriculture and food production from the onslaught of global warming.

The writer, chairperson of Gene Campaign, is a scientist and development activist. She can be reached at mail@genecampaign.org

Source : Deccan Chronicle, October 15, 2012

THE BORLAUG DILEMMA

By FRED PEARCE

Will agricultural intensification save our natural ecosystems from farmer invasion?

He is the most revered figure in agricultural research – the father of the green revolution.  But the late Norman Borlaug’s influence extends further even than delivering the seeds that have fed the world.  He also established in agricultural and environmental orthodoxy what is known today as the Borlaug hypothesis — the idea that intensifying agriculture is also the key to saving forests and other natural ecosystems from invasion by farmers.

The idea underpins research priorities in agriculture, for which increased yield is to holy grail.  More surprisingly perhaps, it sustains conservationists who want to abandon green notions of low-intensity organic agriculture in favour of giving agriculture its head.

Now the argument is being deployed in the debate over a future global climate change deal.  Some advocates of REDD, which would provide finance for protecting forests as carbon stores, say carbon offsetters should be encouraged to fund intensified farming too.  It is one facet of the push for “climate-smart” agriculture that we will heard again at the next climate talks in Doha later this year.

Lord Nicholas Stern, the British economist behind the highly influential Stern Review on the economics of climate change, puts the Borlaug hypothesis this way: “Cattle pasture in Brazil has only one animal per hectare.  Raise that to two animals and you can save the Amazon rainforest.”

But is it true?  If farming were a zero-sum game, with a simple aim of growing enough food to feed the world, then clearly intensification should spare land for nature.  But market forces may have perverse effects.

The Contrarian View

The counter-argument is that farmers don’t clear forests to feed the world; they clear forests to make money.  So helping farmers become more efficient and productive won’t reduce the threat.  It will increase it, by encouraging them to expand, and increasing their resources to do it.

As Tony Simons, deputy director of the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi, put it to me a year or so back: “Borlaug thought that if you addressed poverty in the forest border, they’d stop taking their machetes into the forest.  Actually, they get enough money to buy a chainsaw and do much more damage.”

Recent studies give weight to this contrarian view.  Thomas Rudel of Rutgers University, New Jersey, compared national trends in agricultural yields and how much land is under crops.  If Borlaug was right, then countries with fast-rising yields should see less increase in croplands, perhaps even a decrease.  Sadly, he found no such link.

Robert Ewers of the Zoological Society of London reported that increased yields of staple food crops do not spare the land, but stimulated increased planting of other crops, including non-food crops like cotton, rubber and biofuels.  As a result, he concluded, “land sparing is a weak process that only occurs under a limited set of circumstances.”

Economists are not surprised

That’s how markets work, they say.  Arild Angelsen, of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and senior associate at CIFOR, modelled the competing influences and concluded that, contrary to the Borlaug hypothesis, “local yield increases tend to stimulate agricultural encroachment”.

Globalization increases the stimulus.  After all, Brazil’s assault on the Amazon in the late 20th century was driven not by an imperative to feed its own population, but by its successful drive to become the world’s biggest agricultural exporter.  Similarly only a fraction of the palm oil grown on Indonesia’s former forests is for domestic use.

Rudel has suggested that the Borlaug hypothesis is confounded by a modern version of the Jevons paradox.  The 19th century British economist William Jevons pointed out that during the industrial revolution, increased efficiency in coal burning led to more coal being burned, rather than less. Similarly today, more intensive agriculture may stimulate rather than defuse the clearance of land for new farms.

Can the Borlaug hypothesis help tackle climate change?

There are other reasons to question Stern’s suggestion that the Borlaug hypothesis could help tackle climate change.  Even if agriculture did spare forests, it also massively increases farming’s carbon footprint.  Might those emissions swamp any gains from protecting forests?

A study by Jennifer Burney and others at Stanford in 2010 suggested not.  After balancing both influences, she estimated a net benefit to the atmosphere from agricultural intensification of 590 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in the past 50 years.

But surely that depends on the timescale you use.  A mature forest is can only sequester so much carbon, while agricultural emissions continue for as long as the land is cultivated.  Run the clock forward and the balance may be reversed.

None of this is to say that intensification won’t be needed.  The world has to be fed, after all. But the simple belief that deploying agribusiness to drive up farm yields will deliver forest protection seems economically illiterate.  And the even simpler notion that investment in the intensification of agriculture can have a direct carbon payback seems dangerous folly.

About the Author:

Fred Pearce is a journalist and author based in London, UK.  He writes regularly for New Scientist magazine, the Guardian newspaper and Yale e360 web site.  His books include Peoplequake, When the Rivers Run Dry and, mostly recently, The Land Grabbers.

Let’s be civil, please

Suman Sahai

On July 18, the Russian Parliament passed a law by overwhelming majority according to which those NGOs that receive funds from abroad would be branded “foreign agents”. This will sound disconcertingly familiar to many civil society groups in India since they too were branded “foreign agents” by no less than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself during the agitation against the Koodankulam nuclear plant. Thankfully, India manages to demonstrate democratic norms in some important issues, so this dangerous slander against the people by its own government has not yet passed into law. The people in Russia are not so lucky. But truth be told, there has been talk that such a law is being seriously considered in India, too.

The fact is that the Indian government, particularly its bureaucrats, are almost unanimous in their implacable opposition to NGOs. And why wouldn’t they be? It is the NGOs that show up their inefficiencies, their malpractices and their nepotism, when not directly their corruption. It is the babus who most vehemently opposed the Right to Information Act because it gave civil society the power by law to uncover their misdeeds. This is not to say that all babus are cussed and all NGOs are as pure as the driven snow. There are outliers on both sides but these are exceptions rather than the rule. There are bureaucrats who are immensely appreciative of civil society and seek their partnership in implementing important projects and there are NGOs who, if not foreign agents, are less than above board. One will have to concede nevertheless that a corrupt babu does far more damage than a corrupt NGO.

Individual political parties on the other hand have been far more willing to work with NGOs, recognising their value as providers of intellectual inputs and their ability to identify and bring to the fore people’s grievances, particularly the poor and disadvantaged. Dr Singh’s shocker of branding the protesters at the Koodankulam nuclear power plant site as foreign agents was, therefore, extremely surprising. Not only because Dr Singh is not inclined to extreme statements, but because as head of a democratic government, his statement sounded ominous, a threat to free speech and democratic rights.

The government has been taking steps to choke off civil society for some time now, though in more subtle ways than in Russia. There was the substantial revision in the Income Tax Act some years ago which made it illegal for NGOs to generate funds for their work through the sale of their publications or by providing training. This avenue of reducing dependence on external funding and enabling NGOs to become more self-reliant was a deliberate move to curtail the activities of the NGO sector. The revisions in the FCRA (Foreign Contributions Regulation Act), under which NGOs get permission to receive funding support for developmental work from foreign donors, are designed to restrict the flow of such funds and bring them under the government’s control. The proposed modifications would require the district magistrate to decide whether an NGO could take a foreign grant.

This is not only high-handed but fraught with danger, given the appalling levels of corruption in the bureaucracy. Let me give you two examples from Jharkhand. The Gene Campaign had to seek clearance from the district magistrate in one instance to receive a grant from a government fund. The concerned official wanted a “cut” and when we refused, he buried the file so deep that it could not be found even months after he had been sent to jail, along with the then chief minister, Madhu Koda. In another instance, when we competed successfully for an international grant and required the state government’s permission to receive the money, the concerned official again wanted to know what his share would be. On being told “nothing”, he refused permission for us to receive the grant that we had competed globally for and we lost the money.
No one sector is the repository of all wisdom, not the bureaucrats and not the NGOs either. It is in the interest of enlightened public action that the two sectors work together. It is distressing to see at international negotiations that in foreign delegations government officials work closely with their NGOs and put forward their best case. In the case of India, this is never seen and we have often found some level of government functionary marking India’s presence but not being able to make any coherent contribution. I was witness to this at meetings of the Biosafety Protocol where the Indian team had not one single thing to say on the crucial issue of the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

It is self-defeating on the part of government agencies not to take on board civil society groups. They are often much better informed about current happenings than government officials are. Many civil society actors have advanced domain knowledge (which most bureaucrats don’t) and because of their linkages with international civil society groups, they are usually very current in their information about international developments. Instead of working as a team, bringing different kinds of expertise together, the Indian government chooses to put all its eggs into a solitary babu basket. We have seen time and again but especially during the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations how this has worked to the detriment of the final outcome for India, where the country repeatedly conceded positions it should not have.

Instead of seeing the jholawalas as adversaries and finding novel ways of clipping their wings, the government and its administrators must recognise that the two sectors have complementing skills and knowledge. An advantage that the jholawalas bring is their direct connection with communities and their first-hand knowledge of what is happening to real people on the ground. For a government that is concerned about the welfare of its people, this would be crucial input. Look at what Brazil did to conquer hunger through its now iconic Zero Hunger programme. It was the decision of President Lula that all actors, government and non-
government, would pull together to make the programme a success. Each group had its own responsibilities and together they made it happen. Brazil has managed to make a serious dent in hunger. Let us learn some lessons from others.

The writer is convenor of the Gene Campaign

Source : Asian Age, August 20, 2012

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO WEANING FOODS ?

 

Suman Sahai

In this tumble down world of  fast foods and junk foods, childhood obesity and the rising spectre of childhood diabetes and heart disease, should we not be stepping back as a society to question what on earth our children (and we  ) are eating, or for that matter when we are eating it. For one thing, there is almost no discipline anymore in what children are fed or at what time. Many of us at late-night dinners have seen five-year-olds and seven-year-olds eating dinner with their parents at 12 o'clock at night. And like their parents, usually their food is rich in trans fats and other unhealthy avoidables.

There was a time not so long ago when children would be in bed by nine clock after a healthy dinner of fresh foods fed to them by eight in the evening. In most families great attention was paid to what babies and children were given to eat. They were not for instance given everything that the adults ate. Chocolates and fizzy drinks, especially colas were forbidden for young children, as were most heavy, deep-fried foods.

Perhaps the greatest casualty of foods that children used to be fed, is the category of weaning foods. This was the in-between food fed to babies as they were being weaned off mother's milk. Usually after 6 to 8 months of being fed solely on breast milk,  and before they graduated to solid foods, babies were started on foods that had the consistency of gruel or thin paste. They graduated from liquid paste to semi-solids and finally to solid foods like rice, roti, vegetables  and dal.

Traditionally weaning food, especially in rural areas, used to be a milky gruel made of finger millet, called Madua  in the North and Ragi in the south. Upmarket urban women, often chose the empty calories of processed cereals, usually rice, that came out of boxes. Rural women clearly had better sense when it came to feeding their babies. Finger millet or Madua is high in protein and micronutrients especially calcium, vital for strengthening growing bones. Rural mothers knew this long before nutritional analysis uncovered the content of these wonder foods.

Tragically the practice of madua based weaning foods  is lost even in areas whereas Ragi and Madua are cultivated and still eaten. In a survey done in Uttaranchal by Gene Campaign in the summer of 2012, not one single mother was feeding her children millet gruel as a weaning food. Older women in the household spoke of giving their children millet gruel but said nobody does that any more and the young people don't listen anyway ! When asked what children were given as they grew out of breast milk, the answer most mothers gave was rice and dal. Now here is a tragedy. The easily digested high-protein millet, rich in calcium and micronutrients has been abandoned in favour of rice which is nutritionally the poorest of all cereals.

Why have we allowed this to happen? Part of the reason is in the public perception of millets which are thought to be the food of  rural hicks and associated with being the food of the poor and backward. Rural India aspires to eat the polished white rice because that is what the city slickers eat. The public distribution system (PDS) , the government's largest food support scheme, has fulfilled this aspiration because it supplies only polished white rice and wheat to poor households. So rural (and urban) babies are weaned on the impoverished calories of rice, when they could so easily build sturdy bones and healthy bodies on a diet of  ragi.

There was a feeble revival of interest in fingermillet when Japanese agencies sent people to Uttaranchal to enquire about the potential for organic millets being supplied to Japan. This was about six to seven years ago. The Japanese had interest in millets precisely to use them as weaning foods, a tradition that had existed in old Japan, and which they were trying to  revive so they could reintroduce this healthy practice and make available millets as weaning food for Japanese babies. The initial enquiries were not followed up nor was the matter pursued actively by Indian agencies and the whole episode passed into oblivion. Which is such a pity.

India is home not only to the largest number of hungry people in the world but also to the largest number of children suffering from malnutrition and under nutrition. What a difference this wonder cereal could make to the nutritional status of both children and adults. Common sense would dictate that people switch or at least include millets in their diet. But in a nation where the rural poor have chosen to raise their children on Maggi noodles and dangerously unhealthy snacks packed in foil packets, who is looking for common sense?