Saving Seeds, Saving Life: Farmers in India gear up for a second freedom struggle
By Rev. Thomas John, Companionship Facilitator, Chethana, JH Indi
“But ultimately war will be won only if farmers, the last farmer, actually holds on to seed because she or he realizes that this is something too critical and too sovereign to be handed over to anyone else.” - Kavitha Kuruganti
Galla Rangatiah and his son, members of DIPA organization in the state of Karnataka, They are engaged in the preparation of a demonstration plot for cultivation of traditional seed varieties.Photos courtesy of Rev. Thomas John.
Chethana, the Joining HandsNetwork in India, in its campaign to promote sustainable and organic farming as a means of ensuring the livelihood rights of small farmers, is focusing its efforts on saving traditional seeds and protecting biodiversity. The goal of the seed saving work is to stem the invasion of corporate seed and food monopolies while safeguarding India’s food sovereignty.
Seed is obviously one of the most critical inputs in agriculture. Without seed you can't farm. Farmers, using their ingenuity and skills, over many years of labour, have evolved hundreds of varieties of seeds. Tremendous diversity of seed existed across different crops and within a single crop. Farmers saved seeds from their crops and re-sowed them. But the Green Revolution of the 1960s, a shift from traditional forms of agriculture in the developing world to newer higher yielding technologies which required costly synthetic inputs, completely altered this reality.
During the 1960s, farmers in India began to abandon their traditional agricultural practices for the promises of the improved and higher yielding technologies. Associated farming practices such as organic farming and multi-cropping were disparaged as obsolete and not profitable. Many within the farming community in India, about 72 percent of the total population of 1.1 billion, were sold on the logic of a market economy, wherein they were compelled to give up their sustainable means of producing their farming inputs on the farm to purchasing their inputs from the market.
Mono-cropping and cash cropping destroyed the soil fertility and compromised the water supplies, but also dramatically altered people’s food habits as the diversity of available foods decreased, leading to malnutrition and associated vulnerability to new diseases. Furthermore, the practices increased the risk of crop loss due to unpredictable climatic conditions and attack from virulent pests. The new realities of seeds, hybrid and GM (genetically modified) were bred to respond to a new set of costly farm inputs in the form of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and to require excessive water, raising the cost of production far above what farmers could meet from their income and putting extra strain on natural resources. This of course pushed farmers into debt and poverty.
Small and marginal farmers have come to realize that their future depends on seed sovereignty and restoring their traditional seeds and associated sustainable and organic agricultural skills and practices, which have been denigrated by the seed-chemical industrial lobby, the state and even the agricultural scientists influenced by the corporate lobby.
Small and marginal farmers in South India, who form the membership of Chethana, have found a focus for their action in a two pronged strategy: 1) saving and propagating traditional seeds and organic farming practices and thus, freeing themselves of corporate seed monopolies and chemical industries; and 2) campaigning against Monsanto and its local affiliates and the policies and legislations of the state that favour GM seeds and corporate seed monopolies. The strategies are modelled after the Swadeshi Movement of the freedom struggle days, which involved boycotting British products and reviving domestic/native products and production processes.
The following strategic actions have been initiated to achieve this goal:
- Organizing the farmers in the region into ten-member clusters modelling the decision making processes and leadership roles of Farmers’ Field Schools, a system of non-formal education used by small groups of farmers for sharing agricultural information, skills and techniques. They decide among themselves as to who, when, where and what seeds will be sowed for conserving and propagating traditional varieties of seeds, especially minor millets and pulses which have almost become extinct from their food habits.
- Retrieving, pooling and exchanging traditional knowledge and skills in the areas of organic farming, multi-cropping, preservation of seeds and preparation of nutritive and relishing foods, and validating them for generations to come.
- Developing a demo plot in each locality to demonstrate to all stakeholders the impact of using traditional varieties of seeds and organic methods of cultivation and their potential for making farming financially viable.
- Organising seed festivals associated with the harvesting of crops to raise the awareness of the public, especially the media and agricultural universities and scientists, to the advantages and viability of saving traditional seeds and practicing organic farming.
- Documenting information regarding the nutritional value of each of the different varieties of millets and pulses; retrieving and creatively re-inventing recipes to popularize these foods as delicious and good sources of nutrition.
- Creating entrepreneurial opportunities around traditional seed saving for farmers.
Dhanalakshmi, from the Manushi organization in Tamil Nadu, is farming a traditional variety of rice named "Garudan Sampa," which has almost become extinct.
A large scale mobilization of people focused on saving traditional seeds has emerged. Chethana convened a meeting of the various stakeholders: farmers’ groups, organic farm producers and marketers, ecology and biodiversity activists and consumer forums on October 9, 2013 at the Rober de Nobili Center in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. The stakeholders at the meeting resolved to constitute a Coordinating Forum to Protect Plant Genetic Resources in Tamil Nadu. They took a pledge to work with allied organizations to make Tamil Nadu a GM free state and also continue to campaign against the legislations and policies of the central government that favour large corporate seed companies.
Saving traditional seeds has become both a political and spiritual act: a political act of disobeying the state and holding on to one’s right to produce seed for oneself and for his or her community; a spiritual act of committing oneself to saving life at any cost. The life of this planet is reliant on preserving our precious biodiversity; and it must be preserved at any cost.
