CLIMATE CRISIS
This is the introductory article in Firstpost’s nine-part series of ground reports on the ongoing water crisis in south India. The series will cover various aspects of the near-calamitous situation in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, with the onset of blistering heat waves that are putting more pressure on existing water resources….
Read More about Drought in South India: A Firstpost special series
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CLIMATE CRISIS
Shoaib Daniyal reports: The theatrics of the recent protest by Tamil Nadu farmers in Delhi might seem odd, but it was driven by a disastrous situation in the state. This country-wide map of water reservoir levels shows just how bad things are: the state has 81% less water in its reservoirs than its 10-year average….
Read More about This is how alarming Tamil Nadu’s water crisis is
Monte Wolverton
Conflict/Dispossession
GRAIN.org reports: The world’s largest transnational food companies are rolling out a programme promising “market-based” solutions in agriculture. Vietnam’s highlands are the showcase for ‘GROW’, a global initiative under the World Economic Forum. A closer look reveals the programme’s real objective: to expand production of a handful of high-value commodities to profit a few corporations….
Read More about GROWing disaster: the Fortune 500 goes farming
Conflict/Dispossession
People living in villages, who are migrating in large numbers to cities, could be victims of our economic development or perhaps the dismal income growth of farm households is semi-deliberate to keep labour costs low… Are our rural brothers victims or collateral damage of economic development, of a deliberate though unstated strategy, asks Sanjiv Phansalkar….
Read More about Are farmers ‘collateral damage’ of India’s economic growth?
P. Sainath/People's Archive of Rural India
Education/Awareness
Hari Pulakkat writes: The country’s water data has been largely hidden from public view, and what was available was poor or untrustworthy. This brings up a question rarely asked by policymakers. If scientists find it difficult to analyse the country’s water resources at the moment, how valid are the reports that forecast India’s water future?…
Read More about The precarious situation of India’s water problem
Economy
The total outstanding loans of public sector banks stands at Rs 6.8 lakh crores. Of this, 70% belongs to the corporate sector, whereas only 1% of the defaulters are farmers. Why’s the banking system designed to favour the rich who already have many perks, while the poor pay a higher price to sustain their livelihoods?…
Read More about Devinder Sharma: Does the banking system really want to help farmers?
CLIMATE CRISIS
Global Environmentalist writes: Your blog post has given every urban Indian a free pass to continue to devour animals as it pleases their taste buds, all in the name of ‘saving the farmers’. The question is, will these people be able to save themselves when we don’t have enough clean water, air and good health?…
Read More about Meat-eating and the environment: An open letter to Sunita Narain
Extreme speculation in commodities trade can play havoc with food prices
Economy
In a major push to widen the scope of commodity derivatives market in India, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has recently allowed options trading on commodity exchanges. Kavaljit Singh argues that what’s good for financial investors and commodity speculators is not necessarily good for the already vulnerable Indian farmer and small entrepreneurs….
Read More about Commodity derivatives: Playground for speculators, graveyard for farmers?Conflict/Dispossession
Farmers need options to take care of animals that are not producing milk. Or they will be forced to let them stray, to eat the plastic cities throw away and die. By banning meat we are literally taking away half the potential income the livestock owner possesses. It is stealing from the poor, nothing less….
Read More about Sunita Narain: Why I would not advocate vegetarianism
P. Sainath/People's Archive of Rural India
Food/Farming
From Policy Forum: India is now facing a water situation that is significantly worse than anything previous generations ever faced. All water bodies near population centres are now grossly polluted. Interstate disputes over river water allocations are becoming increasingly intense. Surface water conditions in the country are bad. However, the groundwater situation is even worse….
Read More about Pumped dry: India’s accelerating and invisible groundwater crisis
The team from Safe Harvest interacts with Farmers in Niwali (Sendhwa)
YourStory
ALTERNATIVES
Safe Harvest is a conglomeration of eight civil society organisations that have been working towards and promoting non-pesticide management (NPM) practices among some of India’s poorest and most disenfranchised communities. Today, they work with a farmer base of close to 50,000 across 11 states, many of whom have seen a 20% rise in their income….
Read More about This company is helping 50,000 farmers across 11 states grow and sell pesticide-free foodALTERNATIVES
This 27-year-old documentary filmmaker from Hyderabad has won 104 national and international awards. Anshul Sinha has spent more than a year now, studying and understanding the agrarian crisis that has affected the country. “The vision of the film is to save farmers in India,” says Anshul. Despite his credentials, Anshul’s new film has no takers….
Read More about A documentary on India’s agrarian crisis, by an award-winning young filmmaker
Finance & Debt
Nikita Sattiraju writes: Farmer suicides in India have largely been attributed to debt, drought, crop failure or poor returns. However, farmers have been taking the drastic step regardless of a good rainfall year or bad, a good price year or a disappointing one. Why? Questions arise on the exact nature and reasons behind the deepening problem….
Read More about The terrible truth behind the wave of farmer suicides in India
Development/Growth
Kirankumar Vissa writes; Everyone in the media has been talking about the slew of pro-farmer measures included in Budget 2017, how it is a Budget for the ‘have nots’ and one that will give a big fillip to agriculture. It is time to call this Budget what it is–a big prank on India’s farming community….
Read More about Why the 2017 Union Budget is deceptively ‘pro-farmer’
Economy
Live Mint reports: Agriculture is likely to be the worst affected by the note ban, because 1) The policy coincided with harvest of kharif crops, and farmers are facing difficulty selling it. 2) Lack of cash must have posed difficulty in sowing of rabi crops. 3) Unlike other sectors, farm output is perishable in nature….
Read More about Demonetisation, farmer suicides, and the Union budget
Food/Farming
Milind Murugkar writes: ‘Why doesn’t the informal sector, supposedly badly hit by demonetisation, protest or scream in pain?’. Defenders of demonetisation often pose this question. If you want an answer to the question, please listen to Sachin Jadhav. His story takes us through the long chain of economic loss and suffering of the rural population….
Read More about Demonetisation and the silent suffering of Bharat
Food/Farming
Samar writes: Indebtedness was behind 38.7% of farmer suicides in 2015; the corresponding figure for the same head in overall suicides in India is a mere 3.3%. Nearly 80% of those who killed themselves because of indebtedness had taken loans from “Financial Institutions like Bank/Registered Micro Financial Institutions”, and a mere 302 from “Money Lenders”….
Read More about Report: Farmer suicides spiked by 42% in 2015; debt leading cause
Food/Farming
“Producing qualities that may give excellent results in the laboratory may be advantageous for some, but have ruinous effects for others. And the principle of caution is not enough, as very often it is limited to not allowing something to be done, whereas there is a need to act in a balanced and honest way.”…
Read More about Pope Francis slams biotech industry and GMOs on World Food Day
Food/Farming
Gopi Sankarasubramani writes: The issue at hand is the impending approval of GM mustard in India. GMOs introduce irreversible, long term changes in the ecosystem that cannot be contained – any farm will be contaminated, because the farm next door has GMOs. With it, we risk permanently losing our 10,000 year-old inheritance of sustainable agriculture….
Read More about Appeal: Why we must act now to stop GM mustard in India
ALTERNATIVES
Whitney Webb reports: Farmers in India’s poorest region are recording record rice yields by growing organically, debunking once and for all the myth that GMOs are necessary to feed the world’s growing population… In Bihar, Sumant Kumar and his family produced an astounding 22.4 tons of rice on only one hectare of land, in 2013….
Read More about India’s organic rice revolution proves GMOs are unnecessary
