PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEMINAR ON SUSTAINING RURAL LIVELIHOODS
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- Title
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PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEMINAR
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SUSTAINING RURAL LIVELIHOODS - extracted text
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PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEMINAR
ON
S
SUSTAINING RURAL LIVELIHOODS
5th & 6th FEBRUARY 2002
BANGALORE
ORGANISED BY
GREEN FOUNDATION
&
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEMINAR
ON
SUSTAINING RURAL LIVELIHOODS
5th & 6th FEBRUARY 2002
BANGALORE
ORGANISED BY
GREEN FOUNDATION
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES
SUSTAINING RURAL LIVELIHOODS
CONCEPT NOTE:
Farmers committing suicide, ever-expanding groups of people migrating to the cit
ies, angry farmers destroying unsold fruits and vegetables, riots at the grain markets
as prices collapse, a public interest litigation to enforce the government to provide
rations, and the use of unregulated GM cotton seeds.
All these and more are testimony to the intense and widespread crises that are
gripping rural India. Yet, the crises are reflective of the larger structural changes that
are on-going and which in the longer term have implications not only for the
sustainability of agriculture as the bases of India’s economy but also for the viability
of agriculture as a form of livelihood and as the bases of culture.
In the context of such trends, it is imperative to understand the range of factors,
structures and processes that have produced such conditions. While the impact of
the Green Revolution model on local knowledge forms, the socio-economic struc
tures of rural India and on the biodiversity of regions are issues that are being raised,
other questions relate to the role of the market and the state in the development of
rural livelihoods. Under the prescriptions of the structural adjustment programmes,
the presence and role of the state, which is increasingly, withdrawing from the rural
and social sectors has implications for the links between people and the market. Such.
withdrawal of the state is laying grounds for the emergence of national and interna
tional agri-business agencies as key actors in the rural sector. In addition, the negli
gence of land reform policies and the broader development parameters has had a
negative impact on the functioning of intermediary institutions and the regulatory
agencies. A result, rural livelihoods are in a state of disarray with increasing
pauperization of people who have little or no access to land and capital.
Similarly, while there has been some debate about the possible effects of the new
global regimes (WTO, IPRs etc), inadequate attention has been placed on the forms
of risk, working conditions and class and gender relations that may emerge from
such restructuring of agriculture. The promise of new biotechnologies must be as
1
sessed with the problems that may result from them and questions relating to their
impact on the production and reproduction processes, the rights of farmers, and the
democratic processing of public policies must be raised.
In attempting to understand such issues, this seminar will seek to highlight and
address the following questions:
1.
What are the implications of the new international regime of structures and rules
(WTO, IPRs
2.
) etc on Indian agriculture and rural livelihoods?
What has been the impact of the decade-long economic reforms on the nation’s
development conditions and food security?
3.
How are the institutions and regulatory mechanisms complementary to agricul
tural development functioning?
What are the implications of the neglect of land reforms in the nation?
4.
How are non-agricultural classes and groups (artisans, service and labour)
affected by the new economy?
5.
What are the potentials and problems of the new biotechnologies?
6.
How can agricultural sustainability be linked to the sustainability of communities
and biodiversity?
2
SUSTAINING RURAL LIVELIHOODS
5th & 6th FEBRUARY 2002,
VENUE: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ADVANCE STUDIES
DAY 1
9.00 : 9.30
9.30 : 9.45
: Registration
: Welcome, Dr. Vanaja Ramprasad
> About the Workshop
> About Green Foundation and its Activities
9.45 • 9.55
: Release of book and a few words, Farmer represen
tative
9.55 : 10.00 : Announcement
10.00 : 10.15 : Coffee
10.15 : 13.30 : Session - I
Moderator : Dr. H C Sharatchandra
10.15 : 11.00 : Overview on “Indian Agriculture and Rural
Livelihoods in the context of Globalisation”,
Prof. Damodaran, IIPM
11.00 : 11.45 : Economic Reforms and Food Security,
Dr. Balakrishna Pulapre, Prof. IIM, Calicut
11.45 : 12.30 : Contract farming and implications,
Prof. K R Chowdry & Dr. Uma shankari
12.30 • 13.30 : Discussion
13.30 : 14.30 : Lunch
14.30 : 15.15 : Session II
Moderator : Dr. Vasavi
New Technologies — Implications for Food Secu
rity and Rural Livelihoods, Dr. Debasish Banerjee,
15.15 : 16.00 : Changing Land Reforms and Implications for
Rural Livelihoods, Dr. Ravi Varma Kumar
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16.00 : 16.15 : Tea
16.15
: Plenary Session
Moderator : Dr. Lawrence Surendra
DAY 2
9.00 : 9.30
9.30 : 10.00
: Registration
: About Community Seed Bank Network,
Dr. G N S Reddy, BAIF
10.00 : 10.30 : Brief on Proceedings of I31 day, Dr. Sharatchandra
10.30 : 11.00 : Coffee
Session I
Moderator • Prof. T N Prakash
11.00 : 11.45 • Implications of PVP Bill on Farmers Rights,
Prof. N S Gopalkrishnan, Cochin University of
Science and Technology
Rural
11.45 : 12.30 • Livestock as an important component of
Livelihoods, Dr. Nitya
12.30 : 13.15 : Implications of advanced techniques in Livestock
Breeding, Dr. Ramesh, NDRI
:
Lunch
13.15 : 14.00
14.00 : 15.30 : Open Session
15.30 : 16.00 : Coffee
: Chief Guest: Prof. Bisaliah, Chief,
16.00
Agriculture Prices Commission
Release of Biodiversity Register, Calendar
Honoring of innovator farmers
Presentation of Proceedings
Key note
Vote of Thanks
4
Economic Reforms and Food Security
Dr. Balakrishna Pulapre
Dr Balakrishna is a faculty member at IIM Calicut. Earlier he was at the Indian
Statistical Institute, Bangalore. His specialization is in inflationary processes in
the Indian economy; production growth in industries and his current interest is
on the agriculture transformation that is taking place in Kerala.
Most of the things that I will be presenting are from a paper about economic reforms
in agriculture that I wrote about a year and a half ago. Most surface manifestations of
the liberalization program point to urban India and there is a tendency to believe that
reforms are not targeted to agriculture. Reformers, however, felt that they were tar
geting agriculture indirectly and that what they were doing would be beneficial to
agriculture. In international development circles there is a view that when you protect
industry by having high tariff rates, you are discriminating against agriculture be
cause you are shifting the terms of trade in favor of industry. In 1950 we decided on
industrialization and that was possible only if industry was protected and that’s how
we got high tariff rates. The principle manifestation of liberalization since 1991, if you
ask any economist, would be that the tariff rate has been reduced for industry. The
argument is that if tariffs for industry were lowered, industrial goods prices would be
lowered and that prices of agriculture products would now be higher relative to in
dustrial goods. Let me read out an address by Manmohan Singh to the Indian Asso
ciation of agriculture economists in 1994. “The policy of excessive protection of In
dian industry hurt Indian agriculture in several ways. It raised the prices of industrial
products relative to agriculture products that hurt the rural sector of the economy as
consumers of industrial products. You also increased the profitability of industrial
production compared to agriculture production thus drawing away investable re
sources from agriculture. This shift takes place in various ways. Low returns in agri
culture activity reduced the ability to pay economic prices for many inputs such as
power, water and credit. Instead of continuing with the subsidies for these inputs it
would be much better to reduce the protectionist bias against agriculture by lowering
tariffs favoring industry and altering relative prices in favor of agriculture. This would
5
create potentially a more profitable agriculture which would be able to bear the eco
nomic costs of technological modernization and expansion". In some sense, this
argument of agriculture being worse off because of protection is not entirely correct
because inputs that Manmohan Singh speaks about are not traded on the interna
tional market and the prices of this are set by the government in a way that is reason
ably favorable to farmers or actually not priced at all such as in water. Let us take a
look at some data and see if what they say is borne out. Let us take a look at Table.
2
titled
protection
and
relative
prices.
Table 2: Protection and relative prices
Year
Tariff Rate
Price
1990-91
1991-92
1992-93
1993-94
1994-95
1995-96
1996-97
1997-98
1998-99
87
*
108.5
116.4
113.2
111.6
114.4
112.8
117.5
116.7
126.3
64
47
33
27.2
24.6
25.4
29.7
Notes: ‘Price’ is the ratio of the index of agricultural prices to the ratio of index of
manufacturing prices, base 1981-82=1 OO;the tariff rate is the import weighted aver
age percentage rate for the economy as a whole; the tariff rate for 1991-92 was not
computed in the source.
Source: Economic Survey 1998-99 and the World Bank: ‘India 1998: Macroeco
nomic update'
In a broad sense it is true but it comes about only after the second half of 90s, the
question to ask is, whether this bias has improved due to the process that the gov
ernment had in mind or due to some other process. I think that it is not because what
the government had in mind but due to the deliberate intervention by the govern
ment. Interestingly when we talk about reducing the government involvement as
part of liberalization, government intervention in some sectors has been increasing.
Let us now talk about reforms and growth - what has happened to growth? While we
all know that growth by itself is not enough, purchasing power is also important.
Table 1. shows the annual rate of growth before and after 1991.
6
Table 1: Growth, Before and After 1991
Period
Food grains
1949-50 to 1964-65
1967-68 to 1989-90
1970-71 to 1979-80
1980-81 to 1989-90
1990-91 to 1997-98
Non-Food Crops
2.93
2.74
2.08
3.54
1.66
3.54
2.72
1.66
4.84
2.36
Note: Annual Compound growth rate, except for non-food in the 1990s where it is
the average of the year-to-year change
Source: Rows 1-2 from ‘Area and Production of Principle Crops in India 1989-90'
Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Gol; the rest from Economic Survey 1998-
90, and author's estimates
The point is that in comparison to the 3 decades 70s, 80s and the 90s, the 1990s
performs worse than 80s both in the growth of food grains and nonfood grains. The
80s was a period that grew exceptionally well. The 80s was a period when poverty
declined at the fastest rate. Even casual empiricism shows that general levels of
prosperity in the economy rose quite rapidly. The point is that agriculture growth is
very important for overall growth. Table 4 shows the progress of selected agriculture
programs. It shows that the rate at which they all increased between 1970 and 1990
is faster than its increase in the 90s, the programs being, area under HYVs, irrigated
areas, fertilizer consumption, public investment.
Program
1970-71
Area under HYV
15.4
Irrigated area
38
Fertiliser consumption 2.2
Public Investment
2.1
1980-81
1990-91
1996-97
43.1
54.1
5.5
4
65
70.8
12.5
2
76.4
80.7
14.3
1.8
Note: Area is in million hectares, fertilizer consumption is in million tones and public
investment is as a share of sectoral GDP.
Source: Economic Survey 1998-99 and National Accounts Statistics’, Summary tables
7
It is quite worrying to note that public investment in the mid 1990s is lower than in
1970-71. One of the broad conclusions is that even though the relative price seems
to have moved in the favor of agriculture exactly as the finance minister predicted,
the rate of growth of agriculture has not improved. And as much as prices, develop
ment programs are a driver of growth of which public investment being one of them.
Table 5 shows gross private capital formation and you will find that in the private
sector there is a substantial increase in private investment as a share of total output
and by 1996-97, private capital formation is higher than before.
Table5:Gro ss Private Capital Formation____________________
GCF
1970-71 1980-81
1990-91
1996-97
Volume 1969
5.5
Rate
2840
6.7
3440
5.6
I 5867
8.1
Notes: ‘Volume’ is in rupee crore at 1980-81 prices, ‘rate’ is volume as a per
centage of sectoral GDP.
Source: Economic Survey 1998-99 and National Accounts Statistics', SO
There are 2 ways to interpret all this data. One is to say that the future is yet to come.
Or you could say that that is a matter of faith and that unless public investment really
improves, growth will not improve. Table 3 shows the intervention price.
Table 3: Intervention price
(Rs/quintai on a crop year basis)
Commodity
1980-81
Paddy
105
117
Wheat
Cotton
304
160
Jute
1990-91
205
225
620
320
1994-95
340
360
1000
470
1998-99
440
550
1440
650
Source: Economic Survey 1998-99
Even though relative price of agriculture has improved, you may want to ask if it is
because of what the architects of reform had said. Formost crops, intervention prices
had grown faster in the 1990s than in any other period. So the relative price increase
is because of intervention. Most crops, where there has been no intervention have
been doing worse off. And I keep emphasizing this because I strongly believe that it
is this form of intervention that has made food security even more tenuous after
1991 than before.
8
Let us now discuss reforms and welfare. The simplest approach to this is the price of
food in relation to your income. Given the price of a commodity, it is your income that
determines your access to that commodity. It could be completely independent of
the availability of the commodity according to Amartya Sen. The price of food is very
important in determining the food security, especially in India where poverty is high
est. If reforms don't improve poverty at a faster rate than before, then it is useless.
So will the reforms be able to reduce it at a faster rate? Lets talk about the factors by
which the reduction in poverty is being slowed down in the economy. It is related to
the nature of intervention of the government in the economy. Table 7 gives data
about 4 indicators - procurement price, market price, general price level (general
price of all commodities in the economy which is how inflation is measured), stocks
in the economy.
Table 7: Food grain price, inflation and stocks
Market price
Procurement price
Year
(index)
(index)
100
100
1980-81
179
193
1990-91
216
225
1991-92
242
1992-93
261
261
296
1993-94
293
314
1994-95
313
333
1995-96
354
375
1996-97
363
406
1997-98
384
455
1998-99
General price
level
100
185
218
235
251
283
304
328
340
379
Stocks
(Mn tones)
16.7
11.3
17.9
13.9
11.8
22
30.3
2835
20
18.2
Notes:
(1) The procurement price index is based on a weighted average of the price of
rice and wheat, the weights being the quantities procured.
(2) Stocks of rice and wheat, are as of January 1s;the prescribed norm for the
buffer stock is 15.4 million tones.
Source: Economic Survey, Got, various issues.
Once again by the mid 90s the procurement price had increased as much as it had
increased in the entire 80s. So procurement prices are rising at a very fast rate,
same for market price of food. The general price level has not risen quite that fast.
9
which is the point that I want to make. In India the relative price of food is rising. This
is happening precisely at a time when reforms are being carried out which are meant
to make the economy more modern. A high relative price of food is a feature of a
very under developed economy. If you look at international trade market, from 194080 the relative price of food is declining at a steady rate and from that point of view
the Indian experience is contrary to the rest of the world and it is extremely worrying.
So for those sections whose incomes are fixed or not rising as fast as the rest of the
economy, it is a matter of even more concern. This is no doubt on the result of the
nature of government intervention in the market. The government is pegging the
price of food and raising it from year to year at a rate higher than the inflation rate for
which there can be no justification except for placation certain lobbies. Especially
when the stocks of food is quite high. That explains the whole puzzle. Stocks are the
price above what the market will bear. And because there is a procurement policy
where the government will take up whatever is given to it at the MSP that cannot be
sold because most of the population is tightening its belt because they cant afford
the food and are getting poorer and that results in greater stocks. So the point that I
want to make is that there is a conflict between producer prices and consumer wel
fare. All this is happening at a time when the food subsidy is ballooning. It is happen
ing not because more is being distributed but more is being held.
The ballooning subsidy does not prove that the government is doing good work and
giving more to our fellow citizens but the fact is that the food policy is being con
ducted in the maniacal sort of way where the price of food is constantly being raised
and many sections are getting priced out. The stocks are also rising relative to total
production and not just in absolute terms. The reason I mention food subsidy is that
the argument from any economist cannot be from the level of subsidy but the use of
the subsidy — in the Indian case it is just the operational loss of the FCI — it is not used
to feed people. It is better to just go out and give the money to people who need it
rather than buying food at a price determined at a political level and not being able to
sell it.
10
There is a great deal of debate about the PDS. Well, there is some debate and there
should be more in my opinion. There is the PDS being the answer to the high stocks.
That is only the partial solution according to me. Generally, can PDS do anything
much about poverty in the long term? I’d say no. The PDS is a supply side arrange
ment. It is giving you a certain amount of grain at a fixed price but it is getting the
grain out of somewhere else in the economy. It is getting grain that the FCI has
procured. If the FCI keeps getting grain at a higher price, then, unless it keeps in
creasing the subsidy to the PDS, it cannot maintain the price of food in the PDS. In
an accounting price it is not feasible to do it without subsidy. So my thought is that
the PDS is some sort of an afterthought. The principle purpose is to ensure a high
price to the farmers, everything else is an afterthought. If maintaining food consump
tion levels was the primary purpose then you will not keep doing that by raising
producer prices. It is not sustainable. There is a complete contradiction between the
2 policies. There is lot of talk about Kerala’s levels of living having improved due to
the PDS; poverty is less because of the PDS. I very strongly disagree, because the
PDS can only help you get grain at a fixed price. If you don’t have income then, god
help you, you can’t buy the grain. If you look at the procurement prices, these are not
small increases. They are increasing at dramatic rates compared to the general price.
This is not a case against subsidy or government intervention. But this kind of gov
ernment intervention cannot but have the effect of weakening food security. I think
the government has made the situation worse by raising prices of food at such dra
matic rates. And you need to have a decline in the relative price of food to have any
activity in the economy because only when food is cheaper, people can spend on
other things.
Let me wind up by making another argument in the PDS. I have looked at some
measure of the PDS and a measure of poverty. Table 6 has a ranking of the states in
terms of the PDS and poverty.
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Table 6: PDS and poverty: State wise ranking
State
PDS
Andhra Pradesh
5
Bihar
11
Gujarat
4
Haryana
12
Karnataka
7
Kerala
1
Madhya Pradesh
9
Maharashtra
6
Orissas
10
Punjab
13
Rajasthan
8
Tamil Nadu
3
Uttar Pradesh
14
West Bengal
2
Poverty
12
2
10
13
8
11
5
7
1
14
9
3
6
4
Source: The estimates, pertaining to the years 1986-87 and 1987-88 by Shikha Jha
and the Planning commission respectively, are as reported by Mooji(1999)
If the PDS were an important element in combating, you would expect a positive
relation. The poorer should have a greater PDS. If you take off Punjab and Haryana,
which are very rich states, then the correlation is negative. What it shows you is that
the PDS is not where it is needed most. I’d like to relate my own experience when I
lived in Bangalore. I went to the civil supplies office close to my house. You will really
have a shock if you go there because the staff there have no idea what is happening
and you cant blame them. The government is not giving them any support. They are
in no position to monitor what is going on. And this is the case for a person who was
living with a valid address and paying income taxes. What if you are migrant labor?
What if you live in a slum? I'm not sure if the PDS will help in its current state. My
more general point is that a system that gives you food at a fixed price when the
input prices are rising cannot work. The origins of the PDS were in Bengal when the
government was pumping in a lot of money for the war effort and demand for food
soared and prices spiraled. So in order to maintain urban prices, tiie government
procured grain from the farmers at any price. So it benefits the people in the urban
areas. But, what about the people in the rural areas who grow chillies or fish or
whatever? They are affected because their access to grain is limited because prices
are being bid up. Hence the PDS's viability is questionable.
Overview on ‘Indian Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods in the
Context of Globalization’
Prof. A. Damodaran
Prof. A. Damodaran is on the faculty of the Indian Institute of Plantation Man
agement, Bangalore. He is an officer in Ministry of Environment and Forests. He
stayed in Hoskote for a while looking at problems of farmers as part of govern
ment responsibility. He holds a Ph.D in environmental economics.
An overview and critical issues in Indian agriculture and rural livelihoods in the con
text of globalization
•
The total area under food grains in India between 1970-71 and 1990-91 has
grown by 2.22 %, whereas agricultural production increased in the pre-liberaliza-
tion phase from 176.39 million tonnes to 203 million tonnes in the same period.
•
Yield I hectare for food grains have grown from 1380 kg I hectare (all India) to
1620 kg / hectare representing a 17.39 % increase while last and most signifi
cant, area under commercial crops has grown by 20-35 % growth from 1990-91
to 1998-99, while production of commercial crops grew by 23.48 %.
Why the broad range of 20-35 % for commercial crops? If we take the growth of
coffee during 1991-94 the growth rate was 15-16 % in area terms but after the coffee
price boom, between 1994-99, growth accelerated to 35 % because people wanted
to take advantage of prices and so people started growing coffee by even encroach
ing on reserved forest areas. Production of commercial crops including coffee, tea,
spices, vegetable, gherkins grew by 23.48 % in the same period. Growth in the area
under foodgrains after 1991 was around 2.9 % and production grew from 203-205 to
206 million tons in the same period. Obviously, one sees a substantial growth in
commercial crops. And with that we come across problems of conserving biodiversity.
Agribusiness is a very favored term today and people talk about converting every
crop into agribusiness proposition. I am not saying that it is all because of globaliza
tion process but there are certainly signs of agribusiness. India had its economic
reforms initiated in 1991 even though it has not been very pronounced in the field of
13
agriculture. There was the Bhanu Pratap Singh High Power Committee on Agricul
ture, which in its report of 1990 had argued that agricultural enterprises should be
treated as industries. For people like our farmer friends, it will come as a shock
because after cultivating landraces for ages they are told to abandon it and shift to
high yielding varieties of other crops and make it into a profitable venture. In 199394, the WTO came into the picture and created the conditions for globalization in
trade. One of the most significant changes in the WTO era was that of the Coffee
Board moving away from the scene of pooling and monopoly marketing of coffee to
a situation where small growers were made to confront the market directly. This
coincided with the steep increase in coffee prices internationally and one of the most
drastic dismantling of the command and control structures of the Coffee Board. So
this is the larger context that I see. Now when we come back from plantations to
agriculture, we see that:
•
The net area sown in India from 1970-71 to 1990-91, which is the pre-liberaliza-
tion phase rose by about 1.81 % - keep in mind this is not the gross area sown
but the area that is practically brought under the plough. Now the gross sown
area has grown by 13.48 % in the same period. So one sees that land that was
intended for agriculture was not being cultivated. Obviously someone was claim
ing land as being under agriculture crops but was not actually using it.
•
The net irrigated area has however increased by 70.4 % during 1970 71 to 199495 and by 10.9 % from 1990-91 to 1994-95.
•
During the same period, (and this is the thing of great concern to agro ecolo
gists), the ratio of ground water to surface water irrigation was 3:1. For every 4
litres used for irrigation, 3 litres is supposed to come from the aquifers and one
litre from surface sources. This is bound to create some sustainability problems
in the long run. Rather it has already created problems, as we will discover soon.
•
The gap between irrigated yield levels and unirrigated yield levels has narrowed
down for coarse cereals that is jowar, maize, etc. (1.98:1.56 tonnes I hec) gap
between irrigated yield levels and unirrigated yield levels for coarse cereals is
practically nothing for jowar, maize etc. My experience with ragi or finger millet
has also shown the same trend. Though the Indaf variety had come by the 1980s,
the new varieties of HS 64 varieties released by the GKVK came in resulting in
14
astounding progress. All this while, it was not as if the crop yield was responding
to large doses of irrigation. Now the gap between irrigated and non-irrigated
yield is maximum with rice. Rain fed vs. irrigated makes a big difference for rice,
but not for coarse cereals. It is only for paddy and wheat that the difference in
yield levels between irrigated and unirrigated crops is 2:1. This is not to say that
the new varieties of coarse cereals are not yielding much — the HS 64 gives
around 12 quintals I acre viz. a viz., 5-6 quintals / acre for the older varieties
under rainfed conditions. But the critical issues for a poor coarse cereal farmer is
how much fodder he gets. - This question is never raised because every one
likes talking about grain yield. You will find that the traditional varieties had much
more yield for fodder than the new varieties for the simple reason that the stalks
were longer and broader. But when technification came after the green revolu
tion, it resulted in a complete focus on cereal yields. And the method of harvest
ing also changed. Earlier the maize and finger millet crops, ear heads and stalks
had to be cut before harvesting the stalks and the sickle was used to leave 1inch
stubble on the ground. As the ear heads have become bigger, the focus is now
on harvesting earheads first while the fodder part suffers due to indifference in
its harvest. So these are some of the ground level realities that match with the
macro economic policies that we have seen over the past few years. Irrigation
has served to enhance the productivity of non-coarse cereals and the small and
marginal farmers primarily cultivate coarse cereals.
The inference is that Indian agriculture has clear limits on the extensive margin
because the net area sown has been growing at a very niggardly pace. The system
of vertical growth has been the predominant strategy (i.e. increase of yield and not
of biomass). There are clear limits to this too as there has been progressive deple
tion in ground water irrigation in the Deccan trap geological zone. My doctoral work
has been on the externalities of bore well irrigation in Karnataka and I can tell you
that in 1983-84 when I came to the villages in Hoskote, I found that (the farmer
never used to tamper with land records as he does these days) dry land farming was
the primary mode of cultivation. About 80 % of land was under finger millets. Bore
wells had started coming into the Bangalore-Kolar belt and the ground water table
used to be at 175 feet then. Last month when I went back to the village I was told
15
that it was 800 feet. So this is the kind of situation in an area that is declared as a 'red
area’ for ground water exploitation. Incidence of bore well failures is very high on the
Deccan traps. Unfortunately the small and marginal farmers who are given subsi
dized loans have gone in for bore wells - For what? For taking to high yielding variet
ies of coarse cereals that do not respond to irrigation. There are excellent tech
niques being given by the AICRP to propagate water conservation measures. But
today farmers are asked to ’advance’, to ‘agribusiness’ - i.e., keep on producing and
wait for Civil Supplies Department or FCI to come and pick up their surpluses. So at
800 feet depth, while bore wells are failing, farmers are still steadily advancing to
wards the ultimate dream of doing agribusiness.
I am told that the Karnataka government has been good enough to constitute a
committee to study the agricultural crisis of farmer suicides. Some people say sui
cides arise from psychological problems. I have done an analysis of farmer suicides
- it is very easy to theorize on other people’s problems but it is different when it
happens to us. I am sure that suicides have a lot to do with the changing economic
conditions of the farmers, I described earlier. Lastyear I attended a meeting of farmer's
families who had committed suicides that had assembled in Gandhi Bhavan - it was
a very sad story that they had to narrate.
Here I can share with you something very interesting. I had just returned from North
Kerala where I found that most of the farmers who had committed suicides were
those who had switched to modem methods of farming. A lot of this shift was on
account of the pattern of agricultural extension where they emphasize more yields,
more pesticides, more fertilizers, high productivity, and more chemical use, all of
which seems to have destroyed their farming and hence their lives.
Let us now move to Andhra - I had recently visited the Guntur area, which is known
for chillies. Guntur farmers don't necessarily have large holdings. Some of the chilli
farmers have very smallholdings. Their strategies are basically sell the chillies, get
the cash and buy food grains. They have thus a food security problem when chilli
prices crash. We often think that if you are raising a commercial crop you don’t have
food security problems but that is not the case. Farmers having smallholdings and
who have gone in for a commercial crop have in reality a greater food security prob
lem. This story goes like this - when I went to Guntur to do a study for the Spice
16
Board, I found agents from 5 pesticide companies telling farmers that “this year the
rains are bound to be weak and the fertilizers won’t work well and so you need more
pesticides to solve the likely poor health of plants". This kind of ingenuity you will not
find when our Agricultural Extension Departments market sustainable agricultural
technologies.
So where are we now? Ground water tables have declined; there are pressures on
fertilizer subsidies, MSPs are perverted. What is the latest story from Tamil Nadu
and Karnataka? We have had a bumper rice harvest for Kalyani and Masuri rice.
Prices have gone up during the post harvest season this year. Two years ago it was
the other way around - prices were falling. Why is it so? Basically this year traders
stocks have gone up. Many of the small farmers have lost their marketable surplus to
traders. Traders are waiting for prices to go up and this is how things work. I also
have a problem with the MSPs based on my empirical surveys on APMC systems
working in Dharwad and Bangalore. Though the APMC Act is very well designed to
improve the farmers in the regulated markets, in reality it is not the farmers who sell
in the APMC. Further what the farmer gets is a neat Rs. 30-35 per quintal less from
the market prices for maize and finger millets on an average. We can’t avoid middle
men anyway. Once the stocks move from the producers to the middlemen you will
have this situation. Now what is happening in Punjab? Last year there was an inter
state restriction on food grain movements in the last kharif season. This year they
lifted the restriction. Traders bought from farmers from the UP mandis at Rs. 400 /
quintal and sold at the MSP rate of Rs. 700 I quintal in Punjab. The point that I was
always advocating even in my recent paper on the subject is that, farm gate prices
form the most important criteria of deciding whether the farmer is in a good state or
not. MSPs don’t make any difference and neither does APMC prices. There is a big
gap from farm gate prices to the actual price and that is where the farmer is losing
out.
Now let us come to the prices stabilization front. When coffee and rubber prices start
falling, we have talks of prices stabilization funds and buffer stocks. The Coffee
Board looks like spending around Rs. 5-6 crores for mopping up the surpluses. We
don’t have a strategy of this kind for food grains. The point that Vanaja mentioned
17
about Common Property Resources (CPRs) is important. Essentially all the semiarid
small farmers have survived on CPRs. It is not a fable, it is a fact - it is a biomass
economy and there is a healthy relationship between livestock, CPRs and subsis
tence agriculture in arid and semiarid zones of India. Unfortunately, where are the
CPRs today? They are no longer available. I have before me an interesting study
done on total factor productivity (TFP) in Indian Agriculture in the pre-reform period
by two renowned economists. As per the study TFP growth was between 1.1 -1.3 %
from 1956 to 1990 while conventional inputs contributed another 1.1 % thereby pro
viding the 2.3 % growth in crop production during those years. This means that even
though the green revolution has contributed its might, a lot of the growth has come
from better organization and translation of the technology to operational practices.So
out of the 2.2 % growth, 1.1 % from new technology but the remaining 1.1 % came
about due to better organizational framework i.e., the tech was sold well and was
backed up by marketing systems, agricultural credit and extension. This in turn was
contributed in the post green revolution period by two things i.e., public investments
and agricultural extension.
Can the same thing be maintained during the post liberalization period, which coin
cides with Gordon Conway calls the doubly green revolution i.e. biotechnology? The
other interesting point about the study is that it mentions that agricultural production
went up initially and then tapered off until 1972 when it began to rise again. The
reason for that is that the initial seeds required for the green revolution were im
ported. Then the IARII ICAR started indigenising the imported germplasm later. This
phase resulted in a reduction of productivity for a while until the indigenisation was
perfected around 1972, after which it rose again. Now public investment in agricul
ture has decelerated so we don’t have a guaranteed method of achieving what we
could achieve in the green revolution phase. The GR phase is now over and now we
are supposedly entering the biotech phase so let us examine what the imponderables
are, First is, whether agricultural extension can be continued to promote unsustain
able activities? Second, whether the social and ecological costs of biotechnologies
can be absorbed? and third is who will internalize these costs? Will agricultural ex
tension get the money that it requires today as in the GR phase because we have
fiscal crisis? Even if the government finds the money it is likely to put it into biotech,
18
GM or newer hybrid varieties with an eye to improving yields. Agricultural extension
would then aggressively promote the case of transgenics. This will create a social
cost. People say that there is biosafety problem in transgenics. There are strong
reasons to support it. Supposing this is true, who wili lap up the ecological and social
costs? Is there a support mechanism in place for such cases? What should be the
agricultural extension structure for biotechnology? Should it be following a precau
tionary principle even while it is advancing a tech such as a GM crop or should it be
based on aggressive promotion of biotech? There is no policy stand on this issue.
We have biosafety guidelines issued by the Ministry of Environment but we don’t
have an agricultural policy that talks about agricultural extension in relation to biotech
crops. If this is not there, farmers will suffer. There are a few other questions. After
2000, will investment in biotech outpace conventional agriculture? What will be the
process of indigenization of safe GM crops? IARI has already started researching
indigenous GM crops such as Bt cotton, brinjal, cauliflower, sorghum. Will interna
tional seed companies run the show or will the national seed companies produce
indigenous varieties of these crops? After all genetically modified germplasm could
be dangerous. The basic point is whether we are prepared for the r-DNA biotech era
in agriculture? We just seem to have a GEAC that will say ‘yes' or ‘no’ to GM crops
and there the matter ends. What follows? These are some of the questions we need
to address in the biotech era.
Now on livelihoods, I was speaking at the World Spice Congress last week. An Ameri
can delegate told me that for the American food industry, the primary issue is that of
food security. The US FDA has been discussing food security with the meat and food
industry. What is their concept of food security? The advanced countries, which
were indifferent to food security until now would like to define food security. Their
definition of food security is basically 'food safety’. September 11 and the anthrax
scares have prompted them to go for this interpretation. Having seen the last two
rounds of the WTO, I can see that the terms such as ‘production limiting’ in the
Agriculture Agreement were taken right out of the EC-CAP and put in the WTO
Agreement. Pierre Boudreaux the great French sociologist says that the harbinger
of the arrival of globalization is the common use of jargon. So if food security is being
appropriated and being equated to that of food safety, it is likely that this definition
19
will go though in the new round. We will then have tremendous entitlement issues
when it comes to negotiating terms on the Agreement on Agriculture in the WTO.
We should argue for defining food security in terms of availability of food as opposed
to food safety. Also the issue of food security should not be confined only to farmers
who are not involved in commercial crops. Any farmer could have food security is
sues.
The other matter is with regard to farm gate prices. We should be monitoring farm
gate prices and not MSPs because that is what affects the farmers directly. Who will
do that? - NGOs of course.
Third is market reforms and on the matter of insulation from negative effects of the
market place. I am not against reforms. Let us consider what is happening tofew
agro commodities. Farmers of Dakshina Karnataka or AP, TN or Kerala survive to
day not on paddy but on coconuts. Recently there has been a big problem of mites
attacking coconut palms. Copra is supposed to be the basic produce of coconut and
is milled and turned into oil. Nowadays all market reforms are happening at the
upper end of the value chain - there is a coconut oil futures market in Cochin. But
there is no future market or price-hedging mechanism for the copra, the basic prod
uct that the farmer is producing. So that market based safety valve reforms do not
touch the farm gate. They are ail designed for rich exporters and processors. Why is
it that the government not getting into it? After 1991, MSPs are alive and kicking but
it is going to the wrong people. Cash crops are now being subjected to the play of
market forces. But at the level of the farmer there is no reform. Now there is talk of
precision farming that will avoid wastage - a very good idea for high tech farmers
who want to cut their costs. What about simple biomass based farmers? Why don't
we do them a good turn? Why are we talking about environmental programs sepa
rate from agriculture programs?
We need to revive common property resources. You have to increase public invest
ment. We need to promote traditional practices that are environmentally appropriate
for the region. There is a vacuum when it comes to that. But unfortunately there is
policy fragmentation when it comes to agriculture. You have an environment policy, a
forest policy, an agriculture policy but each is going in separate directions. Unless we
have an enveloping theme we will not make meaningful progress. The latest craze
20
amongst Malnad farmers of Karnataka is vanilla cultivation as it fetches around $
230 per kilo so many farmers are moving away from the traditional millets, etc aided
by liberal extension on the part of the commodity board. But I am sure that it will go
the way of coffee in a of couple years. The need of the hour is a careful structuring of
the extension program, environmental policies and market based reforms so that
even if we introduce new tech and market reforms our poor farmers could still hold
out.
21
Genetically Engineered Crops—Risks*
Prof. Debashis Banerji
Prof. Debashish Banerji was formerly Professor and Head, Botany Department,
CCS University, Meerut, India. Presently, he is the Director, Baba Amte Centre
for People’s Empowerment, Samaj Pragati Sahayog. He has made major re
search contributions in the area of Heavy Metal Pollution, Biochemical Tech
nology. Presently, he is the Director of Baba Amte Centre for People’s Empow
erment, which is one of the 7 National Institutes recognized by the Government
of India for training in watershed development.
There is a lot of euphoria about the genetically engineered crops being introduced in
our country in the near future. These crops are being projected as solutions for food
security and environment friendly agriculture. A lot of propaganda about Bt-cotton
being the final sustainable answer to bollworm attack is also prevalent. However,
proper scientific analysis of the Recombinant DNA technology which is used for
making transgenic crops and the present world market for such Genetically Engi
neered (GE)ZGentically Modified(GM) crops indicate the situation to be quite other
wise.
The first thing to be realized is that transgenic crops/organisms are unnatural, as
genes are transferred across species, e.g., frost resistance gene from Arctic Fish is
transferred to tomato to make frost resistant transgenic tomato (such transfers if
known, would be unacceptable to vegetarians and transfers like genes from pigs to
vegetables as potato would be horrendous for the followers of Islamic and Jewish
faith). Further, transgenic production, unlike the usual claims, are in no way similar to
crops derived through conventional breeding, as, selection and cross hybridisation
breeding.
To understand these points it is necessary tc recall some fundamentals of cell biol
ogy. Plants /Animals are made of cells and each cell contains a nucleus in which are
lodged the Chromosomes—the chains of genes. The genes have the codes for the
various traits. It was proven long back that the nucleotide polymer chain, DNA (Deox
yribose Nucleic Acid), is the chemical basis of heredity. So, chromosomes consist of
22
DNA chains and specific nucleotide sequences are the genes or blue prints for the
expression of the traits. An interesting feature is that all cells have the same chro
mosomes, therefore, the genes also and yet in different organs/tissues different genes
are expressed, e.g., all plant cells have the genes for chlorophylls but, these pig
ments appear only in the green leaves and not in the roots. The explanation is that,
in the chromosomal DNA, besides the gene sequences there are also regulatory
sequences, which control the expression of the genes. Such sequences are the
promoters, repressors etc., some sequences as transporters, mobile elements are
also there which sort of move the genes. However, during evolution these elements
have been 'tamed' to ensure stability of traits in a gene mix (neem begets a neem
and a fly begets a fly). Organisms have a fixed number of chromosomes, e.g., in
humans the number is 46. Further, the chromosomes occur in homologous pairs.
Thus, in humans there are 23 pairs of chromsomes. Genes for any trait occur in
pairs-alleles, e.g., for the trait height, there can be a pair of genes, one for tallness
and its allele for dwarfness. Now, each homologue carries one of the alleles. Thus
one chromosome will carry the gene for tallness and its homologue the one for dwarf
ness.
With this background we can now follow the path of a gene in conventional cross
hybridization breeding for production of hybrids and in r-DNA technology for produc
ing Transgenic Crops. Cross hybridization is based on the natural process of fertili
zation. For reproduction, male and female sex cells are formed from reproductive
mother cells. For instance in plants, pollen mother cells divide to form pollen and egg
mother cells give rise to egg cells. The division process involved in the formation of
sex cells from mother cells is very important and different from the normal cell divi
sions. Normally when a tissue grows, the cells divide without any change in the
number of chromosome between the mother and daughter cells. This type of divi
sion is called Mitosis. However, during the formation of the sex cells a special type of
division, called meiosis, takes place, which ensures that the chromosome number is
halved in the sex cells. Thus, in the case of humans, the mother cell has 46 chromo
somes (diploid, 2n number) and the sex cells 23 (haploid, n number). This halving of
chromosomes is not random. One of each of homologous chromosome pair of the
mother cell goes to a daughter cell. Thus, in the sex cells the homologues with their
23
particular set of alleles get equally distributed. During fertilization fusion of the nuclei
of the male and female sex cells takes place, restoring the 2n number of chromo
somes as also the pairing of the homologous chromosomes which ensures that ev
ery gene and its allele gets correctly aligned.
From this fertilized egg the whole
organism develops. Thus, in natural fertilization based cross hybridization, the path
of a gene is chromosomal homology directed and therefore it gets into its proper
neighbourhood. This ensures its correct and stable expression. As the gene moves
from parents to off springs, this transfer is termed as Vertical Gene Transfer.
A point to be noted is that during meiosis, crossing over of chromosomes takes place
leading to various combinations of genes, which is necessary to generate diversity.
Cloning and Transgenic production completely miss this out. Of course, ensuring
diversity is not the concern of transgenic production!
Transgenic crops are produced by transferring genes across species barriers. Nor
mally, alien DNA cannot enter and survive in host cells and cannot get integrated into
host DNA. This is a natural phenomenon io preserve the characteristics of a species.
So, how the magic of transferring a gene/DNA sequence from one species to an
other has been achieved? Scientists have used the DNA of pathogenic bacteria and
viruses, which, as is common knowledge, can cross species barriers and enter all
sorts of cells. They can further utilize the host cellular machinery to proliferate at the
cost of the host. Such DNA is used as a carrier/vector to smuggle transgene DNA
into the target plants. In the case of bacteria, their circular extra chromosomal plas
mid DNA is taken, a portion is removed and in the gap so created the previously
isolated transgene DNA is stiched/spliced. This recombinant DNA (plasmid DNA/
viral DNA plus transgene DNA) is also tailored to contain selectable marker genes,
usually antibiotic resistance genes, and promoter sequences to ensure switching on
of the transgene in an alien environment. The most common promoter is a fraction of
Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (Ca MV 35S fraction). Incidentally, this virus resembles
AIDS and Hepatitis B virus! This recombinant DNA is amplified and inserted, by
various means, into free cells(protoplasts) of the target plants. The cells having the
transgene integrated, are selected by exposure to specific antibiotics which kill all
cells except those containing integrated antibiotic resistance marker genes and there
fore also the transgene. Whole plants are developed from such transgenic cells.
24
In this technique, in the absence of any natural guiding element, there is random
gene insertion through Horizontal Gene Transfer. As, the gene is in an alien
neighbourhood there are high possibilities of its unpredictable, uncertain and un
stable expression.
Thus, the r-DNA technique of production of transgenics is neither natural nor equiva
lent to conventional cross hybridisation. (In the lecture, all this has been explained
through hypothetical diagrams, with arctic fish/tomato example. Only few chromo
somes have been shown for convenience and they do not reflect actual chromo
some numbers).
It must be remembered that the vector -transgene recombinant DNA construct is
very different from normal DNA. Derived from pathogenic bacteria and viruses, the
DNA is shielded against usual cellular degradative agents. This vector DNA has
chemical groups which provide protection against degradative enzymes. Therefore,
this DNA is relatively much more stable, in the digestive tract and the environment,
than normal DNA. Further, as the DNA is made to cross species barriers and ‘jump’
into the target plant, it can also jump out and enter other related organisms causing
genetic pollution —a pollution without recall.
The revealations of the human genome project have further shown that the very
conceptual basis of transgenic production through r-DNA technique is incorrect. This
technique is based on one gene-one trait concept. Now it is known that many traits
are multigenic and even the expression of one gene is controlled by many other
sequences in its natural neighbourhood. If one has to transform a plant, a whole set
of sequences will have to be transferred specially in cases like yield enhancement,
stress resistance etc.,. The success so far, in transgenic crops, has been with single
gene product systems like Bt Toxin, resistance against a particular herbicide resis
tance against a pathogen and the like.
Even such successes are beset with problems as indicated by research worldwide in
Research Institutes and Universities. Some major findings are mentioned in the fol
lowing sections. In fact the health and other risks associated with transgenic cropseg.,
25
possibilities of Bt corn being allergenic, have affected their sales badly in the Global
Market. Why India should lurch ahead to grab this so called opportunity is not under
standable.
Our major concerns center around :a.
Inherent Risks of R-DNA Technology and Transgenic Crops
b. Transgenic Crops and the World Market
Inherent Risks of r-DNA Technology and Transgenic Crops:
The major categories of risks are:
1.Unstable Expression and Instability of the Transgene
1.1
Farmer's Dilemma:
1.1.1
Uncertain Agricultural Productivity
1.1.2
Resistance of Pests to Bt Crops
1.2
Health Hazards
1.3
Environmental Hazards
Viral Recombinations
2.
2.1
Super infectious viruses
2.2
Stable Harmful Microbial DNA
3.Horizontal Gene Transfer
3.1.Spread of Antibiotic Resistance Gene
3.4.Spread of the Transgene
Bt
4.
Toxin Related Risks
4.1.Effects on Non Target Pests and the Ecosystem Food Web
4.2
1.
Risks to the Soil Microflora
Unpredictable Expression of the Transgene and Instability :-
1.1 Farmer's Dilemma:
1.1.1.
Uncertain Agricultural Productive-
Studies on the productivity of glyphosate(herbicide)tolerant soybean varieties con
ducted by several American Universities have shown that these transgenic crops
yield on average 6.7 % less and require 2 to5 times more herbicide than nontransgenic
26
soya (Benbrook, 1998,Ag.Biotech. Tech. Paper no.1).Similarly, a Nebraska Univer
sity study revealed that GE herbicide resistant cultivars of soybean gave lower yields
than their non GE sister lines (Elmore et al , 2001, Agronomy J.,93:408). There are
reports that in tobacco , 64 to 92 % of the first generation transgenics show insta
bility ( Ho and Steinbrecher, Env. And Nutr. Interactions 2:51) and this could be due
to silencing of the inserted transgene (Finnegan and McElroy , 1994, Biotechnology
,12:883).
1.1.2.
Resistance of Pests (Bollworm) to Bt Crops:-
Several crops like cotton and corn are damaged by boll/stem borers. A biocontrol
method is the spray of a bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt).This bacterium pro
duces a protein protoxin which gets converted into a lethal toxin in the insect guts.
The Bt crops have been developed by transferring the Bt gene, responsible for the
production of the toxin (and not the protoxin ) to target plants. Bt crops had been
considered as eco- friendly crops, as , pesticide sprays were not supposed to be
necessaiy. However, such hopes collapsed in the US, Canada and other countries
where pests resistant to the Bt gene developed within 2 generations . Rigorous field
studies by Prof. Bruce Tabashnik (University of Arizona) and Prof.Fred Gould ( North
Carolina State University ) have shown that the frequency of resistance to Bt cotton
is high (Tabashnick et al, 2000, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. US,97:12980; Gould et al,
1997, PNAS,US,94:3519 ). For pest management, now farmers have to sow along
with the seeds of the Bt crops non Bt seeds, so that, some susceptible pests remain
!! Planting a field with 100 % resistant crops will lead to the development of a totally
resistant population of pests in 2 to 5 years.
1.2.
Health Risks:-
The first case of a hazardous consequence, is the death of 37 people and perma
nent
disability of 1500 others in the US in 1989 after consuming Tryptophan, an
amino acid
supplement, made by fermentation with a Genetically Engineered (GE)
bacterium
Bacillus amylequeformis (Myerno and Gieich, 1994, Tibtech,
12:346).Chances of induction of cancer in mammalian cells by residual Bovine Growth
Hormone (BGH) in the milk of dairy cows raised with BGH administration have also
been indicated (Epstein,1996, Intl.J. of Health Services, 126:173).In a landmark re
27
port Dr. A Pusztai had shown that pest resistant GE potatoes .with snow drop lectin
gene, when fed to rats, inhibited growth, disrupted the immune system and induced
viral infection symptoms (Ewen and Pusztai,1999, The Lancet, 354:1353). Similarly,
the observation that GE soybean containing a foreign brazil nut gene could cause
allergic reactions in sensitive persons led to immediate withdrawal of this product
(Nordlee et al, 1996, New England J. of Medicine, March 14, 688). Further, GE soya
has been shown to have lower levels of phytoestrogens, as, genistin and diazdin
and can have adverse effects on menopausal women already in need of estrogen
replacement therapy (Lappe,J.Med.Food,1:4).
There are also several reports of unintended production of toxic chemicals due to
unpredictable gene expression. Thus, the use of GE yeast with multiple copies of an
alcohol producing enzyme, led to the production of toxic methyl glyoxal, besides,
alcohol (Inose and Murata, Inti. J. of Food Sci. Tech.,30:141 ). Some tobacco plants
engineered to produce gamma-linoleic acid, unexpectedly produced octadecatetranoic
acid also, a substance, previously unknown in natural tobacco plants (Reddy and
Thomas, Nature Biotechnology, 14:639).
1.3.
Environmental Hazards:-
There are several instances of well intentioned genetic engineering efforts having
adverse impacts. Thus, a common soil bacterium Klebsiella planticola had been
engineered to transform plant residues, like leaves, into ehanol which the farmers
could use as a fuel. But, released into the soil it decreased the population of bacte
ria and fungi.
In the root zone of the crops and consequently plant growth also (Holmes and Ingham,
1995,Bull.Ecol.Soc.Amer.,Suppl.,75/2,97;Holmes etall 999, Appl. Soil Ecol.,11:67).
Similarly, another bacterium Pseudomonas putida was engineered to degrade the
herbicide 2,4-D. However, the degradation product was highly toxic to the root zone
fungi, crucial for soil fertility and protection of the plants against diseases (Dcyle ei
al, 1995, Adv. In Appl. Microb., vol40 ).
2. Viral Recombinations :2.1.
Superinfectious viruses :28
Many plants have been engineered with genes from viruses to resist virus attacks.
The transgene inserted is made noninfective. Several studies have shown that due
to recombination between the viral transgene and coinfection viruses, highly infec
tive viruses develop (Vaden and Melcher, 1990, Virology, 177:717; Lommel and
Xiong,1991,J.Cell Biochem.,15A:151;Anderson et al,1992, Mol. Plant Microbe Int.,
5:48;
Green
and
Allison,
Science263:1423;
1994,
Palukaitis
and
Roossnick, 1996,Nature Biotechnology,14:1264;). A matter of concern is that Cauli
flower Mosaic Virus (CaMV) is closely related to human AIDS and Hepatitis Virus and
a fraction of this entity (CaMV35S) is used as the commonest promoter to turn on the
transgenes.Therefore, as pointed out by Prof. Joe Cummins, a Molecular Biologist
of repute (jcummins@julian.uwQ.ca), possibilities of the appearance of such infec
tive viruses due to recombination between the CaMV promoter and coinfecting re
lated viruses exist. So, in a country like India, just consuming the cob (bhutta) of Bt
corn containing the CaMV promoter( if introduced ) can induce AIDS/Hepatitis B. It
must be noted that the microbial DNA is quite stable, it would be fatal to brush
asidesuch caution by stating that, so far, there is no such evidence. We may note
that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
2.2.
Stability of GE Microbial DNA :-
Studies of Prof. R.Schubert and his colleagues have shown that viral DNA when fed
to mice, can survive digestion in the gastrointestinal tract and large fragments can
enter the blood stream and into many kinds of cells (Schubert et all994, Mol.Gen.
Genetics, 242:495 ;ibid,1997,PNAS, US , 94:961). Another study indicated that 25
% of GE plasmid DNA could survive in human saliva upto 60 min and transform
Streptococcus gordonii a common oral bacterium(Mercer et al,1999,Appl
andEnv.Microbiology,65:6).
2.
Horizontal Gene Transfer :-
Various sequences of the 'made to be mobile' Vector-Transgene DNA can not only
enter the target plant but can also jump out and get into other plants/microbes through
the phenomena of pollination/transformation. Some examples are mentioned here
under.
3.1 Spread of the Antibiotic Resistance Gene:As opposed to certain claims, spread of antibiotic resistance gene through HGT is a
29
well-established phenomenon. (Anderson, 1975, Nature, 255:502, Amabilecuevas
and Chicurel, 1993, American Scientist,81:332 ). Further, transfer of kanamycin
resistance gene from the leaf homogenates of various GE plants as, potato, to
mato, oilseed rape, sugar beet and tobacco into soil bacteria have been convinc
ingly demonstrated (de Vries and Wickernagel,1998,Mol.and Gen. Genetics,
257:606).
3.2.
Spread of the Transgene (herbicide and pest resistance genes ):-
Dr.Skogsmyr (1994,Theo.Appl.Genet.88:770) through field tests with GE potatoes
demonstrated both high frequency and wide range of gene flow. Even at 100 m
distance 35% of the seeds of non GE potato had transgenes. In fact, Bergelson and
his colleagues have pointed out that as transgenes can escape 30 times more effi
ciently than host genes, herbicide resistance genes can lead to ‘superweeds’
(Bergelson et al, 1998,Nature,395:25).Actually a wild weed population of Brassica
campestris was shown to have acquired herbicide tolerance genes from GE Bras
sica rapa (Mikhelsen et al, 1996,Nature,March 7,380).The Government of Thailand
had banned Bt cotton trials after it was discovered that 16 medicinal plants growing
in a nearby Institute of Herbal Medicine had acquired the BT gene(Bangkok Post,
Nov 17,1997) .Recent discovery of transgenic DNA sequences in native corn of
Mexico, the centre of origin of corn, has created
quite a stir (Quist and
Chapala,2001,Nature,414:541).
1.
Bt toxin related risks:-
Several studies havfe shown that pollen/leaves of Bt crops can be harmful to the
first trophic level insects of the food chain. Obviously such a damage can affect the
2nd trophic level and ultimately the whole ecosystem food web (Losley etal, 1999,Na
ture,399:274; Hilbeck et al , 1998, Env.Ent.,27:480;Birch et al ,1996-97,Scot Crop
Res. lnstt.,Ann Report)
Another problem is the persistence of the Bt toxin in the soil, affecting the soil
microflora. Prof Stotzky of New York University has provided ample evidence in
this direction (Crechio and Stotzky, 1998,Soil Biology and Biochemistry,
30:463;Saxena, Flores and Stotzky, 1999,Nature,402.Dec2).
30
b)Transgenic Crops and the World Market
World markets have consistently rejected GM crops. The US Department of Agricul
ture has itself cancelled the registration of StarLink Bt corn and future planting of
stocks of StarLink has been prohibited. It is making aggressive efforts to remove
StarLink from the US market, all of which is expected-to disappear by next year. The
European Union (EU) had already imposed a 3-year moratorium on genetically modi
fied organisms (GMOs) in 1998, in the face of overwhelming evidence regarding
dangers inherent in these products. At a Council of Environment Ministers in Luxem
bourg in October this year, 12 out of 15 EU governments rejected the idea of lifting
this ban on importing and planting new GMOs. It could take another two years for
countries to formally adopt the Commission’s proposed regulations on traceability
and labelling. These rules would make it possible to trace GM crops back to the farm
they were grown in, making product recalls possible if health risks were found. The
delay would be many years longer if members insisted, as France and Luxembourg
said they might, on a major new directive on environmental liability to be drafted and
passed into law before new licences were granted.
The EU has steadily decreased its purchases of US corn from about 2.8 million
metric tonnes in 1995-96 to about 6,300 metric tonnes in 2000-01. Japan reduced its
US corn purchases last year by over 50 million bushels. The US has foregone about
350 million bushels of corn exports to those two markets combined since 1997-98,
the year after Bt corn was introduced in the US. According to the US Department of
Agriculture’s Foreign agriculture Service Weekly Export Sales report, total U.S. corn
exports as of the week ending Nov. 15, 2001, were 12% lower compared to one year
ago. It believes that GMO-driven importer alienation has lost U.S. corn exports. Those
lost sales have meant higher corn inventories in the US, resulting in lower farm-gate
corn prices.
Bowing to pressure from its customers, grocery chain Trader Joe’s agreed last month
to ban genetically modified ingredients from its thousands of private-label products.
Monrovia-based Trader Joe’s is not the first large chain to ban GMOs from its prod
ucts. Natural foods chains Whole Foods Market Inc. of Austin, Texas, and Wild Oats
Markets of Boulder, Colorado, dropped GMOs from their house-brand products two
31
years ago. The National Farmers’ Union of Canada and the Canadian Wheat Board
want to halt GM test plantings, fearing GM wheat will damage exports.
Meanwhile, Brazil and China are busy, aggressively capturing US corn markets. Ar
gentine growers recently announced a move to implement identity preservation plans
to ensure the non-biotech integrity of Flint corn, guaranteeing customers a non
biotech food product EU buyers already prefer Argentine Flint corn. Europe, Japan,
Taiwan and South Korea now largely buy non-GM corn and soya from Brazil and
China rather than the US. Algeria, a large food importer, says it may completely ban
the import, manufacture or sale of GM products. Japan, which takes 20% of all US
food exports, worth $11 billion a year, has imposed tough labelling rules on 24 prod
uct categories. It is not surprising, therefore, that a recent survey of the 14,000 mem
bers of the American Corn Growers’ Association suggested 78% would abandon
GM to recover lost export markets.
Since states such as Madhya Pradesh are reported to be eyeing the supposedly
companies developing them are ever on the lookout for new markets, in countries
where public opinion is still ignorant about the really serious problems of these crops.
As a nation, we need to be vigilant that discredited technologies and products do not
sneak into our borders, just because of the ignorance of public opinion. Any decision
must be based on full knowledge of all available evidence on the issue to serve the
best interests of our farmers and consumers. And not the interests of desperate
companies seeking to make a quick buck at our expense, higher productivity of GM
soybeans, it may be useful to mention that European demand for animal feed guar
anteed to be free of GMOs has soared in recent years. Supermarket chains such as
Tesco and Asda have become sensitive to consumer preferences for non-GM prod
ucts. Since about 70 percent of the U.S. soybean crop is planted with GM soybeans,
Brazil, which bans GMO crops, has become the major source of non-biotech soymeal.
Latest reports from Mexico also indicate that earlier this month, the Mexican Con
gress unanimously demanded that President Vicente Fox ban the import of GM corn,
claiming that the new corn could affect the genetic integrity of Mexico’sxrops and
threaten the country's food supply. GM corn has been a hot issue in Mexico since
genes from U.S. GM corn were found in wild corn in the southern state of Oaxaca
several months ago.
At the same rime, in the US, Iowa state farmers and elevators have received a
total of $9.2 million in compensation for losses associated with growing and han
dling StarLink Bt corn, which contaminated grain supply. Some estimates place
total eventual payments, in compensation to farmers and elevators in 17 states, at
more than $200 million. Elevators are being compensated for the genetically
modified corn being mixed with traditional corn. Farmers were paid a premium to
keep it off the market by feeding it to livestock. Farmers, whose corn was contami
nated through cross-pollination, or those who purchased corn without being told it
contained StarLink genetics, are also being compensated.
We are not anti-technology, back-to-nature romantics. We are scientists who believe
that science in general and bio-technology in particular has a massive contribution to
make in advancing human welfare. But as scientists we also believe it is our duty to
conscientise people about technologies and products that are potentially danger
ous. Uncontained Recombinant DNA as in the recent case transgenic Bt can cause
genetic pollution -a pollution without recall. In contrast .production of drugs/vaccines
where the vector -transgene construct is contained in the laboratory and is not reck
lessly released into the environment as in the case of transgenic crops is safer.
Massive evidence available in established scientific journals suggests grave risks for
human health in the use of genetically modified products. Because of this, most
countries have imposed bans or very strict regulations on GM crops. As a result,
companies developing them are ever on the lookout for new markets, in countries
where public opinion is still ignorant about the really serious problems of these crops.
As a nation, we need to be vigilant that discredited technologies and products do not
sneak into our borders, just because of the ignorance of public opinion. Any decision
must be based on full knowledge of all available evidence on the issue to serve the
best interests of our farmers and consumers. And not the interests of desperate
companies seeking to make a quick buck at our expense.
33
Law to protect plant varieties - the farmer’s right at jeopardy
Prof. N.S. Gopalakrishnan
Prof. N.S. Gopalakrishnan is presently a faculty member at the Cochin
University of Science and Technology. Earlier he was at the National
Law School of India for more than ten years.
Protection of the farmer’s right on genetic materials particularly on seeds became a
national issue, ever since, the demand of the global seed corporations to protect
intellectual property rights on new plant varieties got incorporated in the Trade Re
lated Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement under WTO. Ac
cording to TRIPS India is now duty bound to protect the intellectual property rights of
the breeders of new plant varieties. From 1994 onwards many attempts were made
to put a legislation to achieve this objective. It was the strong protest from the farm
ers’ group that prevented the successive Governments from introducing legislation
to protect the new plant varieties. The demand has been to effectively safeguard
the traditional rights of the farmers in the use of genetic materials while providing
intellectual property protection for the new products developed from the genetic
materials. Of the many options available to India, the present Government decided
to introduce a legislation, The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmer's rights Act
2001, taking provisions favourable to the breeders from the International Conven
tion for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) 1991 and introducing a set
of new norms to protect the farmers’ right. But it one examines the provisions deal
ing with farmers rights, it is clear that the legislation is intended to protect the interest
of the breeders at the expense of the farmers.
The Act envisages different methods to protect the interest of traditional farming
communities and farmers. This includes the provisions for recognition of rights of
farmers, benefit sharing, paying compensation to communities for their contribu
tions, payment of annual royalty by the breeders and the creation of Gene Fund.
The right of the farmers include the right to save, use, exchange, share or sell his
farm products obtained from a new variety protected as per the provisions of the Act.
But this benefit is not extended in case where the sale of the farm produce is for the
34
threaten the country’s food supply. GM corn has been a hot issue in Mexico since
genes from U.S. GM corn were found in wild corn in the southern state of Oaxaca
several months ago.
At the same rime, in the US, Iowa state farmers and elevators have received a
total of $9.2 million in compensation for losses associated with growing and han
dling StarLink Bt corn, which contaminated grain supply. Some estimates place
total eventual payments, in compensation to farmers and elevators in 17 states, at
more than $200 million. Elevators are being compensated for the genetically
modified corn being mixed with traditional corn. Farmers were paid a premium to
keep it off the market by feeding it to livestock. Farmers, whose corn was contami
nated through cross-pollination, or those who purchased corn without being told it
contained StarLink genetics, are also being compensated.
We are not anti-technology, back-to-nature romantics. We are scientists who believe
that science in general and bio-technology in particular has a massive contribution to
make in advancing human welfare. But as scientists we also believe it is our duty to
conscientise people about technologies and products that are potentially danger
ous. Uncontained Recombinant DNA as in the recent case transgenic Bt can cause
genetic pollution -a pollution without recall. In contrast .production of drugs/vaccines
where the vector -transgene construct is contained in the laboratory and is not reck
lessly released into the environment as in the case of transgenic crops is safer.
Massive evidence available in established scientific journals suggests grave risks for
human health in the use of genetically modified products. Because of this, most
countries have imposed bans or very strict regulations on GM crops. As a result,
companies developing them are ever on the lookout for new markets, in countries
where public opinion is still ignorant about the really serious problems of these crops.
As a nation, we need to be vigilant that discredited technologies and products do not
sneak into our borders, just because of the ignorance of public opinion. Any decision
must be based on full knowledge of all available evidence on the issue to serve the
best interests of our farmers and consumers. And not the interests of desperate
companies seeking to make a quick buck at our expense.
33
Law to protect plant varieties - the farmer’s right at jeopardy
Prof. N.S. Gopalakrishnan
Prof. N.S. Gopalakrishnan is presently a faculty member at the Cochin
University of Science and Technology. Earlier he was at the National
Law School of India for more than ten years.
Protection of the farmer's right on genetic materials particularly on seeds became a
national issue, ever since, the demand of the global seed corporations to protect
intellectual property rights on new plant varieties got incorporated in the Trade Re
lated Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement under WTO. Ac
cording to TRIPS India is now duty bound to protect the intellectual property rights of
the breeders of new plant varieties. From 1994 onwards many attempts were made
to put a legislation to achieve this objective. It was the strong protest from the farm
ers’ group that prevented the successive Governments from introducing legislation
to protect the new plant varieties. The demand has been to effectively safeguard
the traditional rights of the farmers in the use of genetic materials while providing
intellectual property protection for the new products developed from the genetic
materials. Of the many options available to India, the present Government decided
to introduce a legislation, The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmer’s rights Act
2001, taking provisions favourable to the breeders from the International Conven
tion for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) 1991 and introducing a set
of new norms to protect the farmers' right. But it one examines the provisions deal
ing with farmers rights, it is clear that the legislation is intended to protect the interest
of the breeders at the expense of the farmers.
The Act envisages different methods to protect the interest of traditional farming
communities and farmers. This includes the provisions for recognition of rights of
farmers, benefit sharing, paying compensation to communities for their contribu
tions, payment of annual royalty by the breeders and the creation of Gene Fund.
The right of the farmers include the right to save, use, exchange, share or sell his
farm products obtained from a new variety protected as per the provisions of the Act.
But this benefit is not extended in case where the sale of the farm produce is for the
34
purpose of reproduction under a commercial marketing arrangement. These rights
are going to be of little use to the farmer when it is looked from the angle of re-using
the farm product as seed. The reason being that the products of many new varieties
may not be capable of being used as seeds without further scientific processing. The
new developments in biotechnology are going to make the farmers fall back every
time to the seed producer if he wants the same productivity from the new variety.
For the purpose of rewarding the value addition by the traditional communities and
farmers, the term farmer has been defined to include a person who consumes, pre
serves any wild species or traditional varieties or add value to it through selection
and identification of their useful properties. But there is no special procedures pro
vided in the Act to achieve this objective. If a farmer through selection and identifica
tion added value to an existing variety the only way to get protection is to file an
application for the registration of the new variety following the same norms man
dated for a breeder of new variety. This includes the proof of novelty, distinctive
ness, stability and uniformity, that too by written description. These norms are based
on the modern scientific methods of breeding rather than traditional methods and
could be satisfied only if one undertakes laboratory research. It is obvious that this
may not help the farmers who add value to a variety in their traditional settings.
Sharing of benefit by the breeder who used the traditional variety to develop the new
variety is another method envisaged in the Act to protect the interest of farming
community. For the purpose of claiming benefit the interested parties i.e. a person
or group including NGO's must apply to the Authority created under the Act in the
prescribed form paying the fees. The Authority after giving notice to the breeder and
making necessary enquiry, if satisfied, fixes the amount of the benefit sharing. The
breeder must deposit this amount in the Gene Fund. In case he fails to do so, the
remedy is to approach the District Magistrate within whose local limit the breeder
resides to recover the same as arrears to land revenue. Are these provisions going
to work? The law presupposes the farming communities to be vigilant and make an
application when a new variety based on their genetic materials has been protected.
The Head Office of the Authority is going to be in one of the major cities and most
probably in Delhi. There may be a few branches in the major cities. Given the social,
35
economic and educational conditions of our faming communities it is not possible for
them to approach the Authority at the appropriate time. The law presumes that the
NGO’s will take care of the situation. There is no responsibility on the part of the
breeder who used the genetic materials and the knowledge based on it to disclose
the details of the community, place etc., from where he took the materials while
applying for registration of the new variety. Nor there is any responsibility on the
breeder to take prior informed consent from the custodians of genetic material and
the knowledge based on it before it is used. This seems to be a total negation of the
obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity. The CBD mandates prior
informed consent and participation of the communities when their knowledge is be
ing used. There is also a mandate that the benefit sharing must be based on mutu
ally agreed terms and conditions. There is no provision for this in the Act. The only
option for the community is to ask for some money. Even for this, the community has
to prove that the material and knowledge used belong to them. This has put the
custodians of genetic materials and the knowledge based on it at the mercy of the
exploiters of the materials who are going to be large corporations.
Payment of compensation by the breeder to the village or local communities for their
contribution to the evolution of the variety is also contemplated in the Act. To achieve
this centers will be created at different parts of the country. Interested persons on
behalf of any village or local community whose genetic material and the knowledge
based on it is used to develop new variety shall apply to the center staking claim for
compensation for the contribution they made in the evolution of the variety. The
claim must be verified by the center and if found correct will report the matter to the
Authority. The Authority after giving opportunity to the breeder of the new variety
grants a sum of money as compensation. This money is also credited to the Gene
Fund.
In addition to this the breeder is also bound to pay an annual royalty as
determined by the Authority.
There seems to be an overlap between these payments particularly between benefit
sharing and compensation. If benefit sharing is for the use of genetic materials, the
compensation is for the contribution to the evolution of the variety. They seem to be
for the same purpose. It is the knowledge about the quality, utility etc., of the variety
36
that make the breeder to use the same for the development of the new variety. This
information is normally evolved by the constant use of the genetic material over a
period of time by the community. This seems to impose responsibility on the breeder
to pay more than once for the use of genetic materials.
In all the cases it is the
Authority, who determines the quantum of amount. But there is no provision to avoid
double payment. In all the cases the money is deposited to the Gene fund and then
paid to the claimants. It is impossible to think how money can be paid to an indi
vidual if the compensation or benefit sharing is for a community. It is also not made
clear that the NGO’s or group of persons who can also make a claim must have the
authorization of the village or local community for doing so, nor the law obligates that
the money must be spent for that specific community. There are bound to be con
flicting claims. There is no provision to solve this as well. It appears that the whole
scheme of law is impossible to implement and will remain in the paper. The attempt
of the law seems to encourage investment particularly foreign in plant breeding,
sacrificing the interest of the farming community. If one is really interested in protect
ing the interest of the communities who are the custodians of genetic materials and
the traditional knowledge based on it the best approach is to have a separate legis
lation for this segment of the society.
37
Technology and livestock -Implications for rural livelihoods
Dr. K.P. Ramesha
Dr. K.P. Ramesh is a Senior Scientist at the National Diary Research Institute,
Bangalore. His specialization is in Animal breeding and artificial insemination.
Presently, he is engaged in research on conservation of Zebu breeds’
germplasm, focusing on South Indian indigenous cattle breeds. He has many
articles to his credit concentrating on molecular and genetic characteristics of
Zebu breeds of cattle. He is a co-author of ‘Kamadhenu’- a vernacular publica
tion on indigenous breeds.
Domestication of zebu cattle appears to have taken place in the area of present
Afghanistan, Sind and Baluchistan before 4000 B.C. Different breeds of zebu cattle
(Bos indicus) were evolved over centuries to suit to the requirements and the agro
ecological situations. Despite decades of modernization, India remains as one of
the largest, oldest and predominantly rural agricultural societies in the world. Even
today, every aspect of the country’s economy, polity and day-to-today lives of the
majority of its 1000 million population are governed by what happens in the agricul
tural sector. The sustainability of India's agriculture is, therefore, of paramount im
portance.
While farmers and environmentalists struggle against the dangers of
increasing un-sustainability and ecological/social imbalances, they understood that
there are many aspects of conventional farming which are relevant, and the modern
methods should at best supplement indigenous and local knowledge rather than
displacing it.
The rural population, especially the poor and marginal sections, and those living in
remote hamlets are still dependent on animal draft power for various agricultural
operations and for rural transportation. It is often stated that India lives in her vil
lages, and livestock is an essential feature of the rural scene. Over the centuries,
many indigenous breeds of cattle and buffaloes were evolved to serve the specific
purpose.
38
The challenge of the millennium is to evolve sustainable farming models for the
small and marginal farmers who form the largest chunk of our farming community.
The nature of small production and marketable surpluses of these farming units
essentially depend on livestock draft power right from tillage to transportation of
produce to the market as a viable and cost-effective model. The use of draft animals
has implications for fuel requirements, conservation of fossil fuel and ecology.
Livestock enterprise, complementing the crop production is perhaps the only hope
for the economically fragile population in the post-liberalization era. The small and
marginal holdings have very little marketable surplus of the crop output but their
cash needs for both purchased inputs and family needs have been increasing in
leaps and bounds. Livestock enterprises have the potential to generate surpluses
by not only utilizing the
by-product of crop
farming, but also to supply valuable
manure for crop farming and provide productive employment to the family labour
during off-season. One cannot deny the fact that the Indian livestock industry can
boast of its “White Revolution” to match the much-acknowledged “Green Revolu
tion" on the agricultural front.
Nevertheless, the development focused more to
wards dairy farming with an emphasis on improving the quality of milch animals
through introduction of exotic and cross breed cattle than on zebu animals and
buffaloes. However, the benefits have once again eluded the marginal and small
farmers’ because of high initial investment on exotic/cross bred animals and hy
gienic animal sheds as well as high maintenance costs compared to the local breeds
of cattle. Though crossbreds have the high genetic potential of production, they are
unable to express fully due to environmental stress, low quality feed and fodder and
high susceptibility to diseases. Along with the crossbreeding many new diseases
like Theileria, Tuberculosis and Infectious Bovine Rhinotrechitis (IBR) etc also
emerged. Due to soft hoof, many of the pure exotic cattle and crossbreds are suffer
ing from foot rots. They are unable to survive and produce optimally under low input
conditions of the majority of the rural areas. The increased use of modern tech
niques in animal production without desired level of veterinary health care and feed
and fodder resources have resulted in sub optimal performance of crossbreds. In
contrast, our buffaloes and indigenous breeds of cattle are able to convert available
39
poor quality roughages like paddy and ragi straw into milk where as exotic breeds
like Holstein Friesian and Jersey require concentrates and quality fodder. Exotic
breeds struggle to adapt to Indian climatic conditions.
Special characteristics of Indigenous cattle and buffaloes:
The general superiority of zebu cattle and buffaloes with respect to adoptability,
disease resistance etc. is well recognized. Their special characteristics include their
ability to withstand and graze even at atmospheric temperatures as high as 40°C.
The sweat glands in indigenous breeds of cattie are twice as big and 30% more
numerous than those of the European breeds. The extensive area covered by the
dewlap, loose body skin, more sweat glands and their hair coat play a vital role in
their heat tolerance. Zebu cattle and buffaloes can twitch their body skin and drive
away flies and mosquitoes. The sweat also acts as a repellant to these insects due
to its peculiar smell and their low level of metabolism also contributes to heat resis
tance.
The zebu breeds and buffaloes can efficiently convert poor quality forages into milk,
beef, etc. and withstand long periods without water. Indigenous cattle as well as
buffaloes have the ability to reverse down metabolism during extremes of scarcity
and restore their body condition quickly with improvement in the availability of feeds
and fodder. This is of great help in situations like drought, famine etc. They are
efficient forager and better converter of poor roughages.
Butterfat percentage in
them is high and helps in rapid growth of calves. In indigenous cattle and buffaloes
premunity is high as compared to Bos taurus.
There is a great degree of genetic variation in zebu breeds cattle and buffaloes with
respect to their size, nutritional uniqueness, productivity, growth rate and reproduc
tive efficiency that can be effectively utilisised for their improvement worldwide. As
already mentioned, indigenous cattle and buffaloes have natural resistance to many
diseases which will be of great use in developing livestock with least health prob
lems.
40
Genetic resources of our country: India is bestowed with valuable and unique
germplasm resources of cattle and buffaloes. Best milch breeds of buffaloes are
native to India. The breeds like Murrah, Surti, Jaffarabadhi, Nili Ravi are native to
our country and well adaptable to our agro climatic conditions. Many of our indig
enous cattle like Amrithmahal, Krishnavalley, Punganur etc., are threatened with
extinction. Indian milch breeds of cattle viz. Sahiwal, Tharparkar, Gir are well suited
to tropical conditions of our country. The dual-purpose breed like Deoni is ideal for
areas like Gulbarga, Bidar and surroundings areas. For hilly and malnad areas small
sized cattle and buffaloes are well suited. Farmers have to choose animals, which
can survive and perform optimally under the existing agro climatic conditions by
utilizing the existing feed and fodder resources in a sustainable way with least health
problems. The breed suitable to one area may not be suitable for another area.
Hence, great care has to be taken while utilizing the modern tools for the improve
ment of cattle and buffaloes.
41
Changing Land Reforms and Implications for Rural livelihoods
Prof. Ravivarma kumar
Prof. Ravivarma Kumar is a renowned lawyer in Karnataka and Managing Trustee
of Ram Manohar Lohia Samata Vidyalaya, which is active as a public forum and
first Chairman of the Karnataka Commission for Backward Classes.
Land Reforms
Since independence India is seriously grappling with the problems of poverty, illit
eracy and unemployment. The constitution of India has set a manifesto for every
Government in the form of directive principles of State Policy (part IV). These direc
tives have set a constitutional goal to be achieved by every Government and to
secure a social order for the promotion of the welfare of the people (Article 38);
secure right to an adequate means of livelihood (Article 39 (a); secure with the own
ership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed as
pest to sub serve the common good (Article 39 (b); to ensure that the operation of
the economic system does not result in the concentration of wealth and means of
production to the common detriment (Article 39 (c); promotion of educational and
economic interests of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other weaker sec
tions (Article 46) and raise level nutrition and standard of living and to improve public
health (Article 47). These directives are fundamental in the interest of the country
and it shall be the duty of the state to apply these principles in making laws.
These constitutional goals remained unfulfilled for over two decades.
Karnataka
became sensitive to carry out its constitutional duty only after Devaraj Urs became
the Chief Minister of the state.
I am very proud to say that the late Devaraj Urs
brought about revolutionary reforms in rural economy, through abolition of absentee
landlordism; abolition of inams, abolition of village offices.
The Karnataka Land
Reforms Act, with effect from 1.3.1974 introduced three major reforms - (i) It im
posed a dealing of land-holding and the holding in excess of the ceiling was distrib
uted among the Dalits and Adivasis. The maximum permissible holding was 10
42
standard acres; (2) Absentee landlordism was abolished.
Tenant was made the
owner of the land and all tenancies were declared as unlawful; and (iii) There was a
total ban on non-agriculturists holding lands.
I have heard that very good land reforms have been launched in West Bengal. I had
the unique oppurtunity to interact with the West Bengal Minister for Land Reforms. I
learnt that the West Bengal Land Reforms did not confer ownership rights on the
tenant. Only tenancies were protected from harassment in the matter of fixation of
rents and security of tenure. As against this the revolutionary Karnataka Land Re
forms Act abolished absentee landlordism and directly conferred ownership of the
land. It recognized the well-known socialist concept of ‘one man one job’. It also
abolished titles of non-agriculturists and prohibited land holding by persons other
than the natural persons. Through this process the law ensured an adequate source
of livelihood to greater number of field.
Surplus land, land held in excess of statutory ceiling, vested in the state government
and is distributed in the ratio of 75% to Dalits and Adivasis and the rest to the land
less laborers. Totally 2,68,219 acres of land has been determined as surplus land.
1,21,823 acres of land have been distributed to landless agricultural labourers and
other Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes eligible persons. The Schedule Castes
and Scheduled Tribes have secured 77,281 acres and 44,542 acres of land has
been distributed to landless labourers.
Under section 48A of the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 8,40,171 applications were
received from tenants claiming ownership rights, 21,03,566 acres of land has been
distributed to 4,94,218 tenants.
Under the Karnataka Village Offices Abolition Act, 1961, out of a total extent of
12,96186 acres, 6,81,713 acres have been registered in the name of tenants. These
were lands held by the former Patels and Shanbhogs and other village offices.
Another revolutionary measure taken by Devaraj Urs was to restore the lands to
Advisasis and Dalits. The lands granted in their favour have been sold to others in
violation of the condition of the grant. Such lands were restored to the original grantee
with a very simple procedure.
43
These three enactments were implemented through the Land Tribunals, which were
justly called as people’s court. The Assistant Commissioner presided over these
tribunals. Non-official members were in majority and one of them is required to be a
Dalit. No specific educational qualification was prescribed to be appointed as mem
bers of the tribunal.
tribunal.
Initially, even lawyers were not allowed to appear before the
These tribunals have power to confer occupancy rights, to declare the
ceiling area not withstanding anything contained to the contrary in orders, decrees of
judgments of civil courts including the Supreme Court. This is how in a major thrust in
the economic reforms in the rural sector; the land tribunals were able to implement
the laws without much legal complications and technicalities.
families were benefited from these three major reforms.
In all over 17 lakh
Lakhs of acres formerly
held by religious institutions and non-agriculturists were made over to the tillers and
ownership was given to the tenants.
Persons with a family income of Rupees more than 12,000 were prohibited from
acquiring agricultural lands. This income limit is now increased to Rs. Two lakhs. It
is however regrettable that in thousands of cases, the orders of the land tribunals
was set at naught on technical grounds. This has caused a serious set back to the
implementation of the land reforms. About 500 cases are still stated to be pending.
However by and large the law has been implemented.
I do not say that the Karnataka Land Reforms Act as a perfect enactment. There is
scope for improvement. For example, the definition of personal cultivation permits
cultivation through hired labourers. This should not be done. This has actually given
room for evading the consequences of the Act by describing the actual cultivation as
a
hired
labourer.
The
Act
is
not
extendedCoffeeand
Tea plantations, as a result of which unlimited extent of agricultural lands are even
now in the hands of few persons as a coffee or tea plantation. The ceiling law should
have been applied to these lands also with an enhanced ceiling area.
About six
years ago, the law has been amended in a major retrograde step. An amendment
has been given a blanket power to the Government to issue notification exempting
the application of the land reforms Act. This has given room for MNCs, Bio-tech
industries and other non-agriculturists to acquire lands in contravention of the funda
44
mental rule ‘no agricultural land shall be acquired by non-agriculturists’. Section 108
of Act permits the Government of Karnataka to issue a Notification and exempt op
eration of the whole enactment.
Though the original Land Reforms Act was enacted as early as in 1961, it was brought
into force on 2.10.1965, as it was originally enacted had lacked the revolutionary
aspects mentioned above. It was only with effect from 1.3.1974 through an amend
ment to this Act, the land reforms have been accomplished by means of ceiling,
creating land tribunals and restricting the holdings to the agriculturists.
In Karnataka we have built 12 dams and spent thousands of crores of rupees and
uprooted millions of families. The total extent of irrigated land through these dams is
40 lakhs of acres. As against this, the farmers have themselves tapped under
ground water through bore-wells and irrigated their smallholdings. On an average
one lakh of rupees has been invested on each of these bore-wells. Karnataka has
about 14 lakh borewells through which the farmers have irrigated 50 lakhs acres.
This was accomplished entirely through the farmer’s capital without any drain on the
taxpayer.
But these bore-wells required uninterrupted power supply. The power
tariff has gone up from 11 paise per unit to 1.75 per unit. Even this has been subject
to an upward revision. Farmers are discriminated on various grounds including own
ership of vehicles and telephone connections. While the KPTCL is buying power at
the rate of Rs.1.35 per unit, the cost of supply is estimated to be Rs.2.67 per unit.
The transmission and distribution loss is estimated to be about 40%. Incidentally the
loss, which was at 16% earlier jumped to 38% the moment the Reguiatory Commis
sion, was set up under a new enanctment. Today power supply is made only once in
two days that too for a period of six hours, but the tariff is being raised substantially
imposing burden on the farmers and without taking their paying capacity into consid
eration. This anti-farmer policy has resulted in large-scale suicides of farmers who
are unable to make both ends meet.
A major accomplishment by Indira Gandhi was nationalization of banks. The loan
disbursement to farmers had gone up to 18% as a result of this nationalization.
However according to Reserve Bank annual report of 2001, the disbursement of
loans to small farmers (holding less than 2.5 acres) has declined by 50%. The farm
45
ers owing lands between 2.5 acres and 5 acres, it has come down by one-third of
what it was earlier. It is in this backdrop that farmers are forced to fall back on private
money lending and have become victims of unscrupulous loans. This is one of the
major reasons of large-scale suicide of farmers. The agricultural credit policy has
literally eliminated the farmers from public financing. So now farmers are left with no
financial assistance.
It is in this back-drop I request you to focus on certain major problems faced by the
farmers and consider some of my suggestions as detailed below:
(i)
The entire hydel power should be resurged for the agricultural sector. It is the
farmers who had paid for these hydel projects. None of the present-day industrial
ists have contributed for the said construction. In law we have a concept known as
restrictive right where by continuous user will acquire the right to continue to exer
cise such rights. The farmers have been using hydel power for the last 100 years
and therefore the farmers are entitled to continue to use it. The hydel power in
Karnataka is the cheapest in the country.
(ii)
Remunerative prices should be fixed for agricultural produce. In food production
we have crossed the earlier record of 209 million tons. In India agriculture happens
to be the only sector on which self-sufficiency is accomplished. However income
from agriculture has come down to third place, GNP making way for the services and
the industry. This is only because the agricultural prices have crashed with the in
creasing production. The agriculture economy has also crashed by indiscriminate
import of food-grains as a result of economic liberalization and globalization. It is
therefore necessary to at once fix remunerative prices for agricultural produce and
arrest on import of food-grains;
(iii)
The Land Reforms Act should be restored to its original glory. All exemptions
should be removed and the law should be made more progressive by applying to
plantation lands also; and
(iv)
50% of public finance should be reserved for the agricultural sector. This is the
only way to remove poverty from the villages and eradicate unemployment.
46
Institutional reforms-
Land reforms- The question of distributive justice, I think, this
is central to us in terms of looking as the major period of agricultural crisis in our
country, it is very interesting in our media, about the success of East Asian countries
and can selectively forget to tell us the celebration of East Asian growth which was
first based because of excellent implementation of land reforms. In Taiwan, Japa
nese army did the Land reforms, China- Mac;s -Chinese revolution did the land
reforms, Korea through dictatorship whereas Thailand- historically traditional laws
have prevented accumulation of lands, so it is that I would call the first generation of
reforms which as central to the East Asian countries.
In the latest issue of Frontline, the author mentions about, even at this moment of
low agricultural growth, increasing poverty and hence forth, states that have done
well with respect to land reforms are still doing better in terms of both agricultural
growth and poverty. This is very important lessons for us, along with other questions
were addressed in the morning. The whole technological gismo that we are bringing
basically to support us to divert the attention from the fundamental institution ques
tions.
For if you cant implement land reforms, like the Green Revolution.
Green
Revolution was chosen because instead of adopted land reforms, you chose selec
tively well endowed districts which had irrigation and other things that increased
production, avoiding the social route of land reforms. I think we are trying to do the
same with GMO and so on, Dr. Banariee mentioned today.
Discussion- Effectiveness of these measures are not equal district wise.
In North
Karnataka, in certain districts, see people holding 100 acres of land, as it a loop hole
or was it designed to hold so much lands, by and large the ceiling has been vigor
ously implemented, mainly due to the legal interpretation made by the courts that
some holes have been picked into the programme.
One of the greener areas for this venture is partition and membership of a joint
family, that has been an area, courts have given a number of rulings which can be
taken advantage of and hold more lands. Secondly, when the ceiling was imposed
but was clear, However, the binami transactions that were quite valid then was made
in order to hold more lands and of course like any other law, this law has also been
subject to many violations like the land lords setting up their own servants at home
as tenants and getting them registered in order to getting away with the ceiling laws
"
47
that is how lands are held in exces of the ceiling area. North Karnataka this has
been made possible, mainly because the hold over the land tribunals in North
Karnataka as in the hands of the land lords’ themselves because of the caste sys
tem, because it is more feudal and more rigorous, than in the South, where we were
ruled by a benevolent king who introduced reservation and social institutions. So in
North Karnataka this has happened because land lord ruling the rules even in the
land tribunals. Otherwise, it is for the land ceiling laws was implemented. We are
short for the target. When the law was enacted it was estimated that 8 lakh acres of
land in excess of ceiling area but we have acquired only three lakhs, so that itself is
a clear testimony that the law has not been fully operated.
Comment- Pulapre- Agriculture becoming third part of the economy presumably
you are referring it as GDP - being a smaller share, this is a feature in all over the
world particularly in the Developing economy. What should actually concern is
the standard of living in India. Internationally, the declining share of agricultural
total output has been co-terminus with improvement in living standards. In India,
much too slowly, but nevertheless. The share of GDP in agriculture is not so
important as far as I see.
Land reforms in Karnataka as interesting. You are
absolutely right, about Bengal- Operation Bharga- just assures something like
non immediate eviction, share of the rent is specified etc, and in that sense be
radical at all.
You seem to have missed out in Kerala, 15 years back, in some sense it was much
more radical than Bengal not necessarily what has happened in Karnataka. In Kerala
also, Land reforms was not that radical, self cultivation was allowed with hired labour,
the same thing which was not the land like to the tiller at all. And in some sense, it
was not radical. Agitation of the adivasis led by C.K. Jalu is perfect evidence that in
some sense as successful as it was made out. I feel Kerala has been blown out.
Was there a substantial section of agricultural labour, pure labour not tilling the land,
but working for somebody else, not tenants and what has been as record as benefi
ciaries in Land reforms of Karnataka?
How have they fared? Agricultural labour - Did they get access to land as part of
Land reforms?
48
Ravi varma Kumar-
i agree that agriculture has taken a back place, but in a
socialist pattern of society, which is a welfare state, the first priority should have
been to give enough work food and remuneration to the teeming millions in the
country, that was to be achieved.
down to the third place.
Agriculture should have not been stepped
It is true in the developed economies that this could
happen because as very small percentage of farmers live on Agriculture.
Secondly, your comment on Kerala is also correct, I did miss it. In Kerala, one should
not forget that the land reform as backed by a strong union, but in Karnataka we did
not have a union, but in Karnataka, we did not have a union, though an initial attempt
as made during Kaagdou Satyagraha when Gopala gowda was alive in 1951, there
was an agitation and not after that. It was a Congress chief minister who accom
plished it through the legislation.
So far as the agricultural laoour are concerned, the entire land that has come from
the ceiling area has exclusively gone to the agricultural labourers and 75% of land is
reserved in favour of SC’s and Adivasis.
Tenancy- Tenant has got it, land held on excess of the ceiling area whether he as in
position or not- Adivasis and ST.
Umashankari-1 would like to share experiences of Andhra Pradesh, J.P Centenary
year- close to Bhoodhan movement, Bhoodhan is still sitting on the land given and
not distributed it. Atleast we should campaign for that to be distributed.
Very often when land reform is raised, where is the land, there is no land to be
distributed because of fragmentation of land plus forests cannot be touched, actu
ally there is enough land if we look at it, carefully, if there is no political will to go for
a revolutionary kind, even if the government is willing to pay a market price, to the
lands and distribute to the poor, then food subsidy can come down. Instead of giving
food subsidy, if you can give the acre of land to landless farmer with irrigation and let
the state somehow, Now the government’s say that they don’t have money, if gov
ernment does’nt have money- then who has it?
49
Comment
Agriculture contribution to GDP is coming down. Observation is 1950’s agriculture
was contributing 70% and 70% people was dependent.
84% of the income was
from agriculture, now it has drastically come down to 40% in 97-98 from agriculture,
now that our industry is growing, it is understandable. But what is the ratio of decline
of population dependent on agriculture, it is very less 68%.
Second generation reform is aiming at diluting the whole spirit of MSP for the priced
market what have the structural adjustment. In industries, it is very clear, privatize a
separate sector is there, ministry for disinvestments. In agriculture, the largest pri
vate sector- diluting the reforms under the agenda is what is focused at. Contract
farming- equity constraint- is what is the outcome.
Public Distribution system has come into effect for various reasons may be poverty
allievation, what can be observed is that it has not gone into look deeply into the
socio-cultural aspects of the people, whom we are targeting it. PDS has completely
rained the dryland farming, draining away all Biodiversity, hundreds of varieties of
millets have vanished and everybody in India should eat rice and wheat, nothing
else, tragic situation. Youngsters don't even know the name. Proved by studies-
have highest nutritive by our own policies. We have brought about devastation our
capacities has reduced and we are spending huge sums on health problems making
the pharmaceuticals, prosperous. Dry land area which has cannot be brought under
irrigation, 2 Rs. Rice, we could have got Kuralu, Ragi, Why dint’ we get into the PDS,
it was during Kumarappa and Gandhi’s time, rice was supposed to be distributed
unpolished. There is constant nutritional destruction and by changing the food hab
its of through technical change and cultural change in food habits and leading in the
long run undermining our own sustainable agricultural systems- Dry land areas even
now have capacity to produce.
25 lakh acres i.e 75% was under food crops in
Anantpur- from 73 now- groundnut has taken over and the whole area is dominated
by groundnut- presently. After the starting Rs.2/- for Rice, people started buying
only. This has gone into supporting the infrastructures; our own studies have shown
that only 2,500 acres have small millets under the 25-lakh acres of cultivated area of
50
land. This has to be considered, start using millets, one way of promoting biodiversity.
Unless the urbanites start eats if, rural people will not produce it. We need to look to
taste.
One of the Pavagada taluk of Tumkur district- a Thesis was submitted to Indian
Institute of Science- Study indicated that 50 years back, 40 to 50 different crops was
grown in this taluka, now it has lined down to 3 to 4. All the varieties were suitable by
the rainfall pattern that was occurring in these region even if they lost one crop, the
other ones would bail them out.
People are talking about million tones of rice, oil but they are not talking about grass
root level changes. Oilseed - massive propaganda of production of oil seeds. Ragi
is never grownfor commercial production. Fragmentation is taking place, many num
bers of families living in 1/4lh of an gunta- growing mulberry, keeping the family in
tact. As Chairman of the backward classes Commission, it had come to my experi
ence that the best thing that could be done is to wind up the whole social welfare
department and distribute the cash to the beneficiaries directly - No schools, no
hospitals. According to one estimate, the total amount spent to SC and ST's after
the independence, in their name, if only it had been kept in a bank without distribu
tion today every child born yesterday would have got 2.9 lakhs net cash.
The beauty of Karnataka programme as that the Dalits and Adivasis need not spend
a penny what was granted to him, it was totally under the cost of the state was
restored and no compensation as paid from whom the land was purchased. Andhra
government, government is giving 26,000 rupees per acre to buy land, 26,000/ fam
ily. There is money, source of livelihood could be provided by providing the capital,
such an experiment should be done in a wider range. It can be taken in phases.
Adivasis in one year, SC-ST in two or three years.
Lawrence Surendra
The major thing is that such an important type is not getting the kind of attentional
focus it is supposed to get. One of the reasons the rural people are fed up- NGO’sas Japanese call them, ‘No Good Organisations’ and Net working as ‘No working’,
51
we have diverse groups, that e had fundamental issues like distributive justice and
institutional reforms, we did address in the early 60’s and not now. Any government
or the government in power, given the nature in shift of social classes contribute are
becoming political class, if you like the reason is the political class today feels that it
should support the traders, 2 successive budget have made trading more profitable
than - one engaged in any manufacturing or production activity. Discussion on this
is necessary. With diverse ecological country like ours that we are moving into such
situations, the agricultural- in the week end, traditional fishing community, situation is
terrible and pathetic.
Deep South of Tamil nadu- village- fishing king prawns was the main occupation. It
is pathetic that the village will close down - Houses are built of stone, beautifully built
houses in the 80’s, gives an impression that they are rich. None of the fishermen
knew about globalisation but expressed that it all happened after the 80's and gave
intricate economic calculations. Everytime I see a village closing down, along with
them the tradition, occupation and culture. If we start from that kind of discussion to
the questions we asked today, then we have to ask what is this nation about? With
the initiation taken by Vanaja, I hope atleast some educationists, researchers, inter
ested citizens, so that some attempt , hopefully will enter public debate, and public
policy.
i mi
52
List of Participants
SI
No
1.
Name
Dr. Debashis
Banerji
Organisation
Address
Samaj Pragati Sahyog, SPS, Bagli District,
Baba Amte People’s
Dewas,
Empowerment Institute Madhya Pradesh
Phone/Email
07271 -77757
2.
Ms. Sughandha Valley School
KFI
Upasani
Valley School KFI
Kanakapura Road
Haridvanam
8435240
3.
vis. Sunita Rao
Kalpavriksha
908, Deccan Gymkhana
Pune:411004
Field Base
Karkolli Village
Hulekal p.o.
Sirsi Post - 581336
08384 - 38563
serow @
rediffmail.com
4.
Dr. S. Surya
Prakash
University of
AgriculturalSciences
Bangalore - 65
B-15, UAS Staff
quarters, Hebbal
Bangalore - 24
3636774 (O)
3433050 ®
5.
Mr.M.N.Dinesh
Kumar
Timbaktu Collective
Chennekothapalli
Anantapur Dist
Andhra Pradesh-515101
08559-45335
(O) 45149
@45337
f.
Mr. Raghuram
19/2, 4“’ Main Road
Apt 301
Malleswaram
Bangalore - 560003
3360493
bkr ram @
yahoo.Com
2220912
7.
Dr.Sridhara
Adiga
K.S.A.P.C.
Bangalore
Karnataka State
Agriculture Price
Commission, Bangalore
8.
Mr. K.N.
Shanyu Kumar
Karnataka State
Department of
Agriculture
Department of Agriculture 2215093
ext 127
Sheshadri Road
Bangalore - 560001
53
Agriulture Price
Commissio
Commissioner
S 65, 10th Main,
Bamgalore - 72
3211539
Mr. Cardl
Upadhya
Bangalore Indepen
dent researcher
447 11m Main 5,h cross
RMV ext
Bangalore - 80
3318541
Cupadhya @
vsnl.com
11. B.P. Amarnath
Rao
Department of
AgricultureAgriculture
Assistant Director of
Agriculture M&E Unit
Directorate of Agricul
ture Bangalore
2211350
12. P.S. Hanuman
tha Rao
Department of
Agriculture
Asistant Director of
Agriculture
(Fertilizer)Commisinerate
of Agriculture
22123431
13. Prof. Hanuman
tha
Institute of Social
Sciences,
Bangalore
191,10m Cross
3213613
NGEF layout, Nagarbavi,
Bangalore
Faculty member
National Centrefor
Mgt. Dept Agricul
ture & Rural Develo
pment Banking
# 67 RICM Campus
Padmanabhanagar
Bangalore - 70
6691928
9.
Mr. P. Banu
10.
14. Dr. Nandeesh
V. Hiuemath
15.
Mr.Jacob
Nellithanaa
Kisani Samvardhan
Kisani Samvardhan
148, Fadrapuri
Indore
Madhya Pradesh
-452 017
Jackne @
readof mail.Com
16.
j.C. Devnendra
ADA KPAPC
Bangalore
Sheshadri Road
Bangalore
6690592
17.
Mrs Sudha
G. Bhat
DAN I DA - WYTEP
522, 33rd Cross
VI Block,
Jayanagar
Bangalore -11
6634930
54
Voluntary Actiion for
Rural Development
Ainangalu
Chitradurga
Ainangala
Hiriyur Taluk
Chitradurga - 577 588
08193
73326
Dr. H Prakash
Department of
Agriculture
486/A 23'd Main
IVT Block Jayanagar
Bangalore -11
6648402
Prof. Dasappa
UAS
Bangalore - 65
18.
Sarvamangla
Yard Secretary
19.
20.
21. Dr.T.N. Prakash
3424637
UAS
Bangalore
Department of
Agricultural Economics
UAS GKVK
Bangalore - 65
3637002
22.
Mr.Shubham
Singh
23.
Dr. M.Sumanth Aggricultural Professor
Reddy
US, GKVK
Bangalore - 65
6647706 ®
24.
Mr. N. Chandra
Kumar
Commissionarate of
Agriculture
Sheshadri Road
Bangalore
6321568®
25.
Mr.
Hanumanthaiah
26.
Mr. S.D.
Kalyam Shety
MYRADA
27.
Ms. Parvathi
Menon
Frontline
19.
Bangalore
2861154
28.
Dr. G.N.S.
Reddy
BAIF
PB NO. 3
Tiptur-572 202
50654 (08144)
29.
Mrs. Rashmi
Department of
Aricultural Economics
UAS Bangalore
30.
Mr. Ramji
DHAN Foundation
Department of
Agriculture
C/o C.H. Kunchiti
Hariyobbe
Hiriyur Taluk
Chitradurga (dist)
Pin - 577 546
ISPWDK Kodli
Chincholi (Tq)
Gulbarga
75402 (08475)
3637002
6686591
55
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