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farmers & farming

Economy

This corporate merger threatens food supplies worldwide. Who’ll stop it?

29th August 2017

From The Guardian: Chemicals and agribusiness giant Bayer has approached the European Union to approve its $65bn takeover of Monsanto, eliminating direct competition between two of the biggest players in the industry. If approved, the merger would be an extremely risky consolidation of corporate power, and a serious threat to food supplies and farmers worldwide….

Conserve/Resist

Are farmer movements in India changing course?

26th August 2017

From Live Mint: The protesting farmers demanded a waiver of loans and better prices for their harvest. They want a say in trade policy which they think have a pro-consumer bias. They’re aware of the bad debts of the industries. They also ask why farmers should bear the burden of keeping food inflation in check….

ALTERNATIVES

How to grow a food forest that will feed you everyday

22nd August 2017

From Down to Earth Magazine: What does it take to design a permaculture kitchen garden? In this video, permaculture practitioners Rosie and Peter Fernandes, based in Assagaon, Goa, recount their experience of growing a food forest designed to meet their cooking needs round the year. They are now taking their model to the wider community….

A village council meeting being held in Barkheda village to discuss community issues

Ishan Agrawal

ALTERNATIVES

How one village’s successful tryst with self-governance inspired others

13th August 2017

From The Wire: With a predominantly tribal population, Barkheda is a typical central Indian village. A few years ago, the villagers took charge of their natural resources and established a village executive committee. The committee governs all the water bodies of Barkheda, which now has rules on water usage, based on the principles of equity….

ALTERNATIVES

Module 4: Soil Fertility & Food Security

11th August 2017

Ecologise has consistently driven home that humanity needs to prepare for unprecedented environmental, economic and socio-political upheaval and uncertainty in the 21st century. In this new series, we showcase free short-duration online courses that focus on these various emerging crises and possible responses. Created by the world’s leading universities, they offer a good starting point to explore these complex challenges….

ALTERNATIVES

Microbes will feed the world, or why real farmers grow soil, not crops

From Modern Farmer: On the horizon of agriculture’s future, a 40,000-strong army is marching towards a shimmering goal. They see the potential for a global food system where pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers are but relics of a faded age. A peek into a treasure trove of latest research released by The American Society of Microbiologists….

Subhash Palekar in his farm

ALTERNATIVES

Interview: Subhash Palekar and the holy cows of natural farming

6th August 2017

From The Wire: Spurred by his firsthand observation of the havoc wrought by chemical fertilisers and pesticides, Subhash Palekar developed his own alternative method of farming, dubbed ‘Zero Budget Natural Farming’. The widely influential Padma Shri awardee tells Manas Roshan about his methods and the agrarian crisis, also expressing his controversial views on cow slaughter….

The Hindu

Conserve/Resist

How a holy hill got its groves back

24th July 2017

From The Hindu: An afforestation initiative led by naturalists and locals, with support from forest and revenue department officials, has resulted in the Arunachala hill in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, shedding its barren, brown visage. Lalitha Sridhar reports on the decade-plus-long turnaround of a damaged fragile, semi-arid ecosystem by successfully harnessing scientific expertise and local knowledge….

Economy

Spotlight: Rs 1,402,680,000,000 – India’s agrarian import bill for 2015-16

20th July 2017

Down to Earth reports: Despite bumper production, volume of import of cereals like wheat and maize increased by 110 times between 2014 and 2017. Traders now find it cheaper to import from Australia than to procure locally. India’s already distressed farmers are the hardest hit by the fall in the prices caused by the rising imports….

Conflict/Dispossession

A grain of truth: RCEP and the corporate hijack of Indian agriculture

13th July 2017

Colin Todhunter writes in Countercurrents.org: A combination of debt, economic liberalisation, subsidised imports, rising input costs and a shift to cash crops (including GM-cotton) has caused massive financial distress to small farmers in India. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a trade deal now being negotiated by 16 countries across Asia-Pacific, could accelerate this process….

Conserve/Resist

Branding the farmer agitations ‘political’ betrays a lack of understanding

10th July 2017

From The Indian Express: It’s a dark satire to tell a farmer that the Minimum Support Price (MSP), CPI and WPI changes reflect farmer incomes are doubling and farmer suicides are declining. The trigger for the recent farm agitation remains the depressed farm gate price compared to previous years —that’s what matters on the ground….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Why meat eaters should think much more about soil

3rd July 2017

John Sauven writes in The Guardian: Farm animals that are raised intensively require a staggering amount of animal feed and water. Livestock production occupies the vast majority of agricultural land and is the main reason why nearly 50% of the wildlife we share our planet with has disappeared since the start of the industrial revolution….

Conflict/Dispossession

Only a unified Kisan identity will make politicians take notice of the agrarian crisis

25th June 2017

Devinder Sharma writes: In the past 21 years, over 3.18 lakh farmers have committed suicide; that’s one farmer ending his life every 41 minutes. Every death on the farm infuriated the farmers, their families. But political leaders have always ignored the warning. Not realising that the day farmers wake up, Indian politics will change forever….

Economy

How India is killing the country’s largest economy of the poor

24th June 2017

From Down To Earth: About 70 per cent of India’s livestock is owned by 67 per cent of the small and marginal farmers and the landless, who shifted to livestock in face of uncertain rain and dwindling income. New restrictions on cattle slaughter will severely cripple the livestock economy which is now bigger than crop economy….

Conserve/Resist

GMOs: It’s your food stupid, its your fight!

From Eartha Mag: The game of migrating farmers to GM seeds has a familiar marketing line: We cannot feed the millions without GMOs – the exact line they fed us in the 50s during the Green Revolution. With the government’s adamant attempts to introduce them without public consultation or scientific debate, Sandeep Anirudhan raises some basic questions….

ALTERNATIVES

Vinchurni: A story of rejuvenated land, water and wilderness

21st June 2017

From Vikalp Sangam: Located in the village Vinchurni, in Maharashtra’s Satara district, the 100-acre Maganlal Gandhi Smrutivan was originally a rocky grassland, that has since been transformed into a fertile estate that now teems with various interdependent lives. Behind this makeover is the 89-year-old former ‘Bhoodan’ activist Babulal Gandhi, aka Babu Kaka, and his family….

ALTERNATIVES

Former Planning Commission member Mihir Shah on the farm crisis

20th June 2017

From The Hindu: For long, we’ve said that the solution is to get people off farming. While we need more manufacturing jobs, latest projections show rural India will still have 800 million people in 2050. Moving people to the cities could deepen the urban imbroglio. So solutions have to be found for agriculture, and fast….

Conflict/Dispossession

Demonetisation has failed: Farmers’ anger is the final piece of evidence

18th June 2017

R. Jagannathan, Editor, Swarajya Magazine, writes: It is time for a mea culpa on demonetisation. This writer has been largely positive on the medium-to-long-term benefits of notebandi, as opposed to its short-term downsides. Now, especially after the farmer agitations for loan waivers, I believe the negative side is larger than the positive. It has failed….

Conflict/Dispossession

P. Sainath: Why are our farmers angry?

17th June 2017

From People’s Archive of Rural India: From farmers being shot dead in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh, to those across Maharashtra out on the streets, to those from Tamil Nadu on hunger strike in New Delhi not so long ago, this has been a season of agrarian discontent. Why is this happening, which way will it go?…

Circle of Blue

Conflict/Dispossession

Forbes Magazine’s ‘Go bust’ prescription for Indian farmers is a death warrant

16th June 2017

A recent article by Tim Worstall on the Forbes website states that, in effect, India’s farmers should be allowed to go bust because that’s how economic development works. This response from Countercurrents.org traces the criminal role of neoliberal policies in undermining farmer’s independence and livelihoods to favour global agribusiness. The article has since gone viral….