Corporate driven
way of living versus Organic way of living
Behind door policies
of the rich nations for promoting chemical farming and growing population of
the poorer nations changed the way of living for millions of farmers
cultivating in so called poor countries. Gradually technology associated with
chemical farming transferred swiftly to those 3rd world nations for
the purpose of making profit by 1st world nations. It was not only
changed their cultivation practices but also our sustainable way of living. Witten
by Rishita Bhattacharya1 and Purnabha
Dasgupta2
Introduction: In India, even before the Vedic Age people cultivated only with sustainable means or in organic way. Thus it is rooted in their way of living which is not just a mere method of cultivation. Still Norman Borlaug’s method of productivity oriented cultivation or so called Green Revolution technologies were able to replace that earlier way of cultivation or what we know as a way of living. Our enquiry in this article is - how it did so? Literature survey and empirical evidences from History gave us a picture of the same, from that we can perceive that Green revolution technologies were well-fitted over the existing system as a resultant of many factors e.g. - restructuring of economy after 2nd World War throughout the world, Growing population in Middle East Asia- South East Asia- Latin America and African nations, Corporate thrust for post war resource mobilization from 1st World countries to relatively economically weak nations, weak policy measures which created import friendly atmosphere and replaced our own technology, indigenous knowledge etc. To push it further, rich nations started open trade regime through the inception of GATT and WTO which gave chemical farming some special attentions for introducing in other developing nations.
Corporate lobby
found that agriculture produces particularly petro driven inputs had large
markets inside and outside the rich nations as those technologies were new and
productive at that time (diminishing return was not an issue at that point of
time). Moreover, agri-produce surplus has positive impact on industrialization.
It lowers the food prices and in return people can save more with their
existing income and buy other products according to their household needs with
that savings. These combined economic interests and the special thrust from war
weapon manufacturers, as they had plenty of unused raw materials in their
warehouses for war weapons like naphthalene which got its alternative
production possibility in Urea production pushed chemical farming a way forward.
Urea now a day became an indispensable chemical fertilizer for most of the
farmers in India and abroad for vegetative crop growth. In this regard it is
worth mentioning that, steel and various other metal producers promoted
agri-implements production suitable for commercial mono-cropping practices
supported by petroleum product driven chemical farming. Therefore, the behind
door policies of the rich nations for promoting chemical farming and growing
population of the poorer nations changed the way of living for millions of farmers
cultivating in so called poor countries. Gradually technology associated with
chemical farming transferred swiftly to those 3rd world nations for
the purpose of making profit by 1st world nations. It was not only
changed their cultivation practices but also our sustainable way of living. Importantly,
materialistic outlook for living was absent in India from centuries and
cultivation was considered by the Indians as most sacred job for them. However,
that situation changed rapidly with the advent of chemical farming and within half
of a century, as a consequence, people’ behavior was changed so much that they
are now reluctant to cultivate with organic methods.
Aesthetic values and cultivation: We often forget the aesthetic value of
our activities, for example, cultivation or craftsmanship is associated with
beauty and cleanliness which repeatedly strikes our mind rather than hard day
to day work and climatic factors which is more coupled with the harvest from
agriculture. Nevertheless, cultivation is also linked with nature or ecology.
Therefore, maintaining ecological balance is also very essential in this
regard. However, organic farming by nature is a sustainable process of cultivating
but chemical farming by nature is resource puller and exhaustive process which
is gradually degrading the natural resource base. More importantly,
technological advancement took chemical farming one step further to exploit the
Mother Nature by promoting mono-cropping. Bio-diversity loss which is rapid now
days is considered mainly due to this chemical farming. Though, Indian way of
organic or tribal people’ natural farming are more receptive to protect or
conserve nature by retaining biodiversity.
WHO, WHY and HOW?
From the first
two paragraphs it is clear that market forces controlled by corporate bosses
with their monopolistic power are the main brains behind commercial mono-cropping
using technological innovations developed by scientists. However, it is still
not clear from the previous section why scientists like Norman Borlaug and his
team (in India it was led by M. S.
Swaminathan) promoted this cultivation practices throughout the world. It
is actually a reaction of policy failure by the policy makers of different
developing nations in particular. For example, in India or in China or in
Pakistan population control was never considered as a serious issue for the
fear of losing people’ support. Moreover, medical support increases the
longevity of the average population. So, by 1960’s many nations in the world
started facing famine like situation and policy makers got the solution through
chemical farming where productivity of cereal crops increases 2-3 times in
comparison to the organic way of cultivation if proper inputs are provided. In
this way chemical farming enters into our cultivation practice. Later when huge
profits were sensed by the corporate they started playing their old game
through lobbying to the government for giving subsidy to the farmers for
procuring chemical fertilizer, pesticides or implements.
Other issues that were raised by chemical farming
are the issues of gender sensitive cultivation and encroachment of decision
making power from women. In countries like India, chemical mono-copping fits
smoothly with the ideology of paternalistic control (started gaining popularity
from Mughal Era) over agri-produces and other assets generated by the surplus
production of it. Once find its way corporate
culture slowly but surely started destroying our own cultivation practices. For
example, it destroyed and still destroying our large gene pool for various
crops that was susceptible to either salinity or inundation or draught like
situation or other climatic variations as main motto behind chemical
cultivation is mono-cropping. Thus, like virus once corporate mindset fits into
a system it grabs all the positive synergies and outcomes developed by earlier
systems. This is the case for replacing organic cultivation also and as an end
result- Self-dependent, well fed, bio-diverse, gender neutral Indian society is
becoming- dependent, malnutrition affected, ecologically imbalanced,
paternalistic society driven by market driven chemical farming.
1Health and Nutrition
Expert in EU-Governance Project, Pravah, Bompas Town, Jharkhand
2PhD
Scholar, IRDM Faculty Centre, Narendrapur, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda
University, West Bengal
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