Page 24 - NAMAH-Oct-2023

Namah Vol. 31, Issue 3, 15th October 2023

where she collects indigenous seeds she can methodologies can be appropriated and
distribute to farmers, and also train people to patented, this is a battle eco-activists have to
do conscious farming. She is tapping into the fight. The patent filers are in the West, where
wisdom of the old ways. Her centre is called these two genera of plants do not even grow
Navdanya, which is a short name for Nava (3).
Dhanya, meaning “nine grains.” These are the
nine grains that ancient Indian wisdom said Another sinister fall-out of modernity
would benefit both human and soil health. and its fruit, capitalism, is the world food
problem. It is not because of shortage, but
Corporate agriculture is a many-headed because of improper distribution, as many
hydra. The Green Revolution of the 1980s was economists point out. Grains are dumped in
a loan package for developing countries from the ocean to control the stock market prices,
the developed nations, to buy the seeds and while a nation that has had a bad season
fertilisers supplied by the loan-granters. This starves. Essential commodities are traded
does not sound much different from selling as service commodities, which is another
weapons to the Third World to solve their reason farmers get wiped out in a day. The
internal conflicts. The profiteering cartels value of their labour is laid to waste because
are from the same places, and the victims someone with monetary power can decide
are the same. The neo-colonised nations lose to dump the stocks of a certain essential
their native seeds, their soil gets polluted commodity. Starvation is also caused by
with chemicals, the water gets depleted forcing communities to grow cash crops at
as the foreign strains need more water. the expense of food crops. When flowers fetch
Above all, the food is nutritionally poor and more money from European auctions than
adulterated. Only for the sake of quantity of rice that feeds the natives, farmers choose
harvest is such a high price paid. When the to grow flowers. History repeats itself when
monoculture is a cash crop such as cotton, the left to market forces. In 1848, in East India,
entire region can suffer famine because food millions died of a man-made famine. The
is not grown any more. Often the data used reason was that rice was then replaced with
to prove suitability of a crop is inapplicable indigo plantations. Indigo was the first dye
to the particularity of the land. The glamour for cotton yarn, and was highly sought after
of numbers is intimidating, just as a person in Europe. Indigo and opium were the cash
wearing a suit can be, in a room where the crops of that age. The narrative has hardly
others are wearing plumes and homespun. changed, although nations are now free, and
therefore free to practise free trade.
Another battle to reclaim indigenous land
and knowledge is the battle against bio- To protect against food insecurity, governments
piracy. The technique of making basmati rice have put policies in place. They are most
and the medicinal value of neem, to take often: local crop protection; price control,
two examples, were developed centuries a public distribution system and common
ago in India. The patent office is a new granaries; subsidies and incentives to farmers.
phenomenon, a baby of technocracy. Although These techniques are practised by all nations,
it sounds incredible that these products and whether socialist, authoritarian communist

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