(by Macaulay Perapulla)
Hindu Mythologies have a strange onion peeling effect. At first, your eyes find it hard to tolerate them. You can apportion some blame on the poor English translations that were made by enthusiastic Indologists during the 18th century who made sure that the stories sounded like cut-and-dried moral science lessons of “good” devas winning over “bad” asuras.
However, if you bravely peel further, you will be amazed by what you could discover about yourself.
The story of Prahlada, a staple childhood diet for most who grew up in India, is the best proof of the pudding. Allow me to savor it once more with you.
If you were raised in India, you may have heard it in your childhood. It is a very powerful story that has been retold countless times since millennia. ( No wonder they are called “Puranas” – “Pura api navam” – That which is ancient and nascent ). It is a story that never ceases to fascinate me.
Once upon a time, there were two doorkeepers – Jaya and Vijaya in Vaikuntha, the abode of Lord Vishnu. One day, they were cursed for not letting the great sages (four kumaras) enter the abode while the Lord was asleep.
Thanks to their curse, they were reborn on the Earth as asuras.
(Before you mentally equate “Asuras = Devil”, please understand that asuras were considered divine beings in the Vedas, and, as per the Hindu Mythology, they were the first beings to descend on Earth.)
They grew up in Satya Yuga to become Hiranyakashipu and Hiranyaksha.
They realized that the quickest way to return back to the abode of the Lord was through terrorizing the world so much that they could get killed at the hands of the Lord himself. They were adept at “viparit-bhakti” (perverse devotion).
Hiranyaksha dragged Bhu-Devi, the earth goddess, to the sea and got killed by the Varaha avatar, the wild boar, of Lord Vishnu.
It was now Hiranyakashipu’s turn. He wanted the adventure to be more challenging.
Hiranyakashipu performed intense penance and secured a boon from the heavens involving multiple neither-if loops. Imagine designing a “Try to Kill Me If You Can” immortality game (something similar to what transhumanists are attempting today to arrest aging) in which you cannot kill the protagonist neither inside a dwelling nor outside; neither at day nor at night; neither by a man nor an animal; neither above nor below; neither by tool or weapon; by a creature born neither of womb nor egg.
Hiranyakashipu’s wife gave birth to a young son named Prahlada.
Prahlada grew up in an environment where it was a crime to even utter the name of Lord Vishnu. Naturally, the kid became more and more curious about Lord Vishnu and eventually fell in love with the Lord. This was extremely frustrating for Hiranyakashipu and one day, out of sheer frustration, called the little boy to his royal court and tied him to a pillar.
“Why do you spread rumors that the Lord Vishnu exists everywhere? Does he exist in this pillar?
“Of course, he does”, the child quickly responded in the affirming faith of his devotion that every cell of the Universe vibrates with the Lord’s name
Seeing the child’s unperturbed faith made him furious with rage and he dealt a strong blow to the pillar with his sword.
Lord Vishnu emerged from the pillar as Narasimha – Man-Lion avatar and killed him in the perfect counter-if loop conditional environment.
Hiranyakashipu returned to serve the Lord in Vaikuntha.
****
In an age of information abundance, how did we end up in this strange place where we cannot dialogue with each other on anything?
Take the case of the controversial Farm Laws.
In an ideal world (read as democracy), the two sides could argue the question of whether farm laws are beneficial to farmers or not by drawing evidence from mutually acceptable sources of fact.
Today no such source exists.
The media has fragmented into archipelagos of hateful beliefs and mutually exclusive ideologies, each drawing its sustenance by hating vehemently each other, making it impossible to have a debate. All that’s left, as you may have experienced in the cesspools of Twitter or in the gated walls of hate inside Facebook, is a shouting match that is in all possibility, a war that has been unleashed on our collective ability to make sense of the world we live in.
In the absence of debate, anything is possible: propaganda, emotional manipulation, blatant or unconscious lies.
Suppose I wanted to convince a fervent advocate of farm laws that they have been sloppily architected and in few places (7.1, Chapter II of Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation.) Act, 2020) sound like an RFP document that IT companies love to write with grandiose promises, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Even if the advocate wasn’t willing to trust my argument, I could cite painstaking analysis put together by economists who have been studying agricultural markets for decades and are far more attuned to ground-realities , but none of those is going to sound credible to that true believer of farm laws, who assumes, with quite some justification, that anyone writing against farm laws is necessarily against the ruling Government.
The same is true if you are a true anti-farm laws believer and I try to persuade you that the farm laws, for all their flaws, are remarkably accurate in nailing down the central problem ailing the fragmented agricultural markets of this country.
No matter how reasonable I might sound, you will dismiss my argument straight away when you take one hasty look at what I do. You will dismiss me as a Proustian evil agritech consultant who wants to sell the divine soul of agriculture to some corporate giant dreaming about the corporatization of Indian agriculture.
Ever since the farm bills first came out in the public domain around June 2020, I have written more than 10K words on it, in the vain hope that I convince at least a handful of people (those rare beings who can stare at a screen for a long time and do the magical act of reading) that the issues are complex.
I had convinced myself that I needn’t write anything more on Farm Laws. Enough has been said. And yet, today, I find myself writing this piece, with all this hand-wringing, for one simple reason: I have come to a stoic conclusion.
Almost all my efforts amount to nothing! They have gone with the wind!
It doesn’t matter how much more effort I am willing to put in to demonstrate the wickedness of agriculture ( “wicked”, not because it is immoral; “wicked” because it defies straight, generalizable solutions)
If a wicked-by-default domain like agriculture could be monstrously chopped into a zero-sum political battle between pro-farmer socialist forces vs anti-farmer capitalist forces, then any attempt to write objectively on the merits and demerits of the farm laws in India seems tantamount to reason a madman out of his madness.
Now I am not writing this out of any insane belief that I am the only sane person in a world gone mad. I am writing this to get in touch and hopefully get rid of the futility that I sense in my bones, as I witness the political chaos unfolding currently around farm laws, offering no glimmer of hope in the farthest end of the tunnel.
How else can I make sense of this collective outpouring of anger towards an 18-year-old teenager who has been pointing to an obvious fact that we are not willing to stomach: Our house is on fire and we are pretending as if nothing is happening and it is business as usual.
“If our house was falling apart, you wouldn’t hold three emergency Brexit summits and no emergency summit regarding the breakdown of the climate and the environment.” – Greta Thunberg [From her speech to EU Leaders ]
Is it our ostrich-level discomfort to face the grim reality of climate crisis that is driving this visceral outpouring of hate and anger our inner Hiranyakashipus are unleashing on this eighteen-year-old girl and her Indian counterpart, the twenty-two-year-old Climate activist Disha Ravi who was arrested for sedition during farmer protests?
Yes, we could choose to be a good Indian ostrich and ignore stray accidents such as the recent glacier outburst in Uttarakhand , while climate change continues to express itself in newer ways.
In such times, it beats me how almost every other wise being is busy lecturing this eighteen-year-old girl, this Prahlada in the fount of her youthful idealism, to go back to school and stop blaming others for the climate crisis and focus on, well, solutions.
What brilliant solutions have we humans come up with so far to deal with the inescapable climate crisis?
We are busy trading carbon and creating a new “climate money” investment racket that could further worsen the limited time span we have to save us (and not planet Earth) and our food systems from the rude shock of climate change.
Yes, it is necessary to stop complaining and do something constructive. I don’t challenge that. However, the precursor to a constructive and meaningful action is a clear and complete understanding of the gravity of the climate crisis that is hanging its Damocles’ sword over our collective fates.
Let’s be honest. Are we really serious about climate change?
Here is the best proof to show how serious we are. We are busy creating schisms of “Us Vs Them” in social media that hark back to the B-grade Bollywood masala films of the sixties and seventies which loved to tell stories of evil urban citizens vis-a-vis innocent rural folk.
What crime did this 18-year-old Swedish environmental campaigner and this 22-year-old Climate activist commit to earn such visceral hate in India? She highlighted Punjab farmer protests internationally, and going by the response it triggered, one thing became extremely clear.
We are ultra-sensitive to outsiders’ opinions. Why else would Rihanna’s tweet cause so much more consternation than the collective angst of several Punjab farmers who braved the merciless Delhi winter for more than 80 days, camping in Singhu Border?
Let me save the indignant reader some time and write the scathing critique for what I wrote above.
“So you are showing your stripes. aren’t you? How can you endorse this clueless activist and support Punjab farmers? Do you know how many people are suffering due to these, and I quote, “farmers who not only are responsible for some of the worst annual carbon emissions anywhere on earth through their crop burning but also for significant health problems, including asthma and cancer?”,
These quoted words btw, full of compassion and grace, I must admit, come from one Senior Fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, who squarely blamed Punjab’s farmers for the ecocide in Punjab.
At the heart of this question of supporting Punjab’s farmers protesting against the farm laws, lies a pertinent question.
Do you want to see the farmers from the state of Punjab and Haryana as “heroes” of an erstwhile “green revolution” paradigm that was necessitated by the scarring traumas of the 1943 Bengal famine?
Were they really beneficiaries of the erstwhile farming paradigm which made sure that their incomes raised sufficiently during the 1960s to 1990s , before it went down south?
Or were they plain victims of a Ponzi scheme that gave them huge windfall incomes by depleting the capital of soil fertility?
See this Punjab’s data of groundwater assessment units from the ICRIER report (as of March 2011) and you will know what I am talking about.
The agony of the protesters was neatly summed up by agricultural economist Sudha Narayanan in one of her interviews.
“In the green revolution, it was almost like we had a social contract with farmers because at that stage we were food scarce and we needed to ramp up supplies of rice and wheat. They did that very efficiently, so in some sense, there is this idea of fairness – about when you wanted us, you gave us all the support and we got the country to a position that we are now able to export grain and now that we are not needed, you are going to dismantle that structure”
And so the moot question the Punjabi farmers are asking the Government is this.
Is it worthwhile to believe in “free markets” that you are now willing to pay the price of breaking this social contract with farmers?
In his open letter to Greta Thunberg, Mohinder Gulati , Former Chief Operating Officer, United Nations Sustainable Energy for All, raised three pertinent questions that deserve deeper engagement. I want to briefly address one of his questions. Not on behalf of Greta Thunberg obviously. But based on my understanding of this domain. I will write a separate open letter to Mohinder later, time permitting.
“Do you support farmers’ demands to let them continue to burn crop residue and add to emissions?”
While it may seem reasonable enough to blame Punjabi farmers for the smog in Delhi, it cannot be denied that these actions owe a lot to government policies that have spent double the amount on subsidies where it should have ideally spent on asset formation in agriculture.
In their research paper, Siraj Hussain and Dr. Seema Bathla clearly show from government data that while government expenditure on asset formation in agriculture was INR 517 billion (INR 107 Billion in agriculture-forestry-fishing plus INR 410 Billion in Irrigation), the amount spent on subsidy in this sector is almost double at INR 964 billion.
And so if the central government were really serious about Delhi smog, why haven’t they cut down the input subsidy yet? Whom do you blame for the Delhi smog? Do you blame the farmers for being addicted to fertilizers and other unsustainable cropping practices or do you blame the governments which are hesitant to remove the crutches supporting such addictive habits?
Perhaps, you could rightfully argue that these young climate activists arguing in favor of farmers are misguided. It is yet another form of pedophrasty and they perhaps don’t fully understand the complex role played by agriculture in ensuring food security and contributing significantly to climate change. Perhaps, the girl is paying a price too. I don’t know.
One thing is for sure. When you tie these Prahladas to a pillar, what you are going to hear is definitely not going to please you.
“If highlighting farmers’ protest globally is sedition, I am better [off] in jail ” – Disha Ravi
I have gone through this phase during my early 20’s. There was a time, almost a decade ago, when I was extremely angry as an environmental activist after doing a course on Science, Technology, and Ecology. I wrote angry book reviews of authors who flippantly talked about transforming capitalism. Today, when I revisit my old blogs, I shudder at the amount of anger I had during those times.
However, as I reflect on my behavior and where I am today, I can only thank my mentors who channeled those energies, instead of smothering them. Mind you, such energies are extremely precious if you are serious about climate change.
But how do we make sense of our peculiar predicament when we have to be serious about climate change and agriculture, now that reports emerge that COVID-19 could push the number of people living in extreme poverty to over one billion by 2030?
If you closely examine the situation at hand we have in India in the wake of the farmer protests, this double bind is evident:
“I am damned if I support those protesting Punjab’s farmers, for it would ensure that they continue their old, unsustainable ways of doing farming that will further exacerbate our battle to save us (not earth) from the rude shock of Climate Change.
I am damned If I don’t support those protesting Punjab’s farmers, for it would ensure that the voice of small landholding farmers would never matter, which would directly impact the world’s (and therefore our) ability to face environmental crises and climate change, affecting their sovereignty to pursue their economic well being and adapt with the changing times.”
It’s only when we confront this double bind, look straight into its eyes, there is a possibility of Lord Narasimha (Man-Lion God) to emerge and transcend this futile battle between these Prahladas and Hiyanyakashipus Inside Us.
Let’s not forget that such voices of protests aren’t new in this country. They have been integral part of Indian ethos.
It’s only when we find a way to work through these double-binds, we could hear the real voice that is beneath these Prahlada’s angry voices of protests
“I do not want to participate in a system that is destroying life on Earth. Why should I be schooled in participation in this system. It doesn’t make sense, so I’m not going to do it.”
These words are not mine, but Charles Eisenstein’s, and it seems appropriate to end this long article with a message Charles had shared to Greta, Disha Ravi, and several other Youth Climate Strikers who feel called to action.
Anu Warrier
March 4, 2021
Macaulay, this was such an interesting read. As someone who has closely followed the farmers’ protests, and has been bothered by the issues on both sides of the argument (in the interests of full disclosure, my bias has me leaning towards the farmers), knowing that the argument is much more complex than for/against… your article served to crystallise many things.
p.s. Your writing is almost poetic in some places. Made even a dry subject matter as this such a pleasure to read. Thank you.
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leol
March 4, 2021
Thanks for a thought provoking article. We definitely need more voices like yours.
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Macaulay Perapulla
March 4, 2021
@Anu Warrier Thank you. At a moral level, it seems appropriate to lean towards the farmers. However, if we have to go beyond the agricultural morass we as a country are in, we need to ask few hard questions for which there are no straight, generalisable answers. This came out of frustration of seeing such a binary discourse.
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An Jo
March 5, 2021
On expected grounds. Great.
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Rajaram Krishnamurthy
March 5, 2021
Why all under the sun blabbering?. How would you change the climate and the climate spoilers who are none other than the scientists who are adding tools after tools to manufacture and sell to the people, who are happily buying and storing-wow the climate deteriorates. Now People have to change-we wont buy; did you do it?; why 18 year old takes up the issue/; out of Gandhian thought/; she like so many tic-tocs and YouTube producers of that age wants to earn the attention of the people. When one can play a game one has to face the consequences in poking the nose in others affairs too; why misplaced sympathy?; the old woman shown in the picture does it around herself in her remote spot and that is social service; not this 18 year old. A strike with the air conditioner cool foam beds wine and women are a far fetched projection to get elected. All the dramas people will enact. A SC says that criticism is not a cause of arrest; but is SC beyond the Parliament?; after all they interpret what the Parliament passed; if so why criticism against judiciary is contempt of court?; i do remember the mother in law and daughter in law equations. Long article mocking Prahaladha ,supporting young girl and leading the agitations against the Govt show that you are a divider.
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Rad Mahalikudi
March 5, 2021
Macaulay, interesting and thought provoking read. I stay away from social media (twitter, FB, whatsapp) since it is very hard to get a balanced view there. I prefer reading blogs and articles that gives views and makes their argument without resorting to force or shouting or putting other side down. Now the goal is more about how to score points, how to win the argument, a one-upmanship than sharing, and listening.
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Macaulay Perapulla
March 5, 2021
@leol, Thank you. @Rajaram I wish I could dialogue with you to understand your cynicism better. @Rad. Thank you. It is quite ironic when I am addressed as “Macaulay” here:)
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hari
March 6, 2021
A friend of mine who is involved with FFF from day one had this to say “The kids of today don’t understand, how this whole force acts upon them. So they caught up in web & suffer. Problem is not govt or students … focus shud be on the objective. Dont get caught up with people, but with the issues. That way you may have a better chance of winning towards environment causes.”‘.
In India lot of people have a romantic notion of farming. They somehow feel that farming is this and that. The same goes with environmental causes. Both are tough issues to work with on the field.
Working as a volunteer for couple of hours per week for an environmental group I do have some tiny bits of experience. I see so many people coming to plant trees but when we call them for the up keep of them no one turns up. Planting is glamorous, up keep is tough work. The same way goes with Farming. Our environmental group trains farmers to take up Natural farming methodologies and also give them a framework to sell their produce once they get on to it (the support structure for natural farming farmers is bare minimum). So naturally the pricing of these produce is probably 10-20 rs higher per 250 gms, so when I ask fellow friends who are “farm/environment” lovers to buy it, they invariable say no.
What I’m trying to say is, this “issue” gives an opportunity for each one of us to think about the impact of our lifestyle on the environment we live and see how we can reduce its impact on nature as well as the farmers. It is pretty damn difficult to make the slightest of changes. Even checking on our garbage bag to see if any item can be removed so that it can be reused/recycled/reduced is damn difficult. But what is easy is to go to twitter and support Greta.
Enough of my rant. I will get back to supporting Mia and the singer.
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krishikari
March 6, 2021
Great post @macaulay but why on earth did you choose this name?
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Anu Warrier
March 6, 2021
Hari, I can vouch for that part of your argument. A few of my armchair environmentalists friends are of that same mentality. When we first came to the US, we were appalled that our apartment complex didn’t have recyling facilities. We were told it was the town’s responsibility. So, well, I went to the town – they said the apartment management had to require it of them. Well, a couple of months of back and forth (the management must have been sick of me) and we got our recycling. Until then, we carted everything that could be recycled to the stores around us which had recycling bins outside.
We’ve brought our household trash to one bag in two weeks, perhaps three. We recycle everything that can recycled; compost all our kitchen waste. And yes, pay extra for organic food. I can understand why the average person can’t – buying only organic almost doubles your grocery bill for the week (I’m talking US). But we figure that it’s better than having to pay $$$ for healthcare. Friends of ours who can well afford to do so, will still buy the cheapest cuts of meat, and the cheapest milk. “Because!”
But I’m no evangelist – can’t be bothered to police other people’s behaviour. I can, however, lessen my carbon footprint as much as possible.
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Macaulay Perapulla
March 7, 2021
@Hari As someone who ventured into agriculture full time after being one such volunteer, I totally resonate with what you are saying. I have written elsewhere about the “Annadata Conundrum”.
We are damned, if Farmers are called “Annadatas”, while we pussyfoot around and don’t own up to the tough challenge of making food systems economically viable for the farmers. At worse, calling them “Annadatas” robs them of their agency, making it convenient for us to not pay the real price for growing food in this country, and instead smother them with subsidies and grants, further worsening their livelihoods.
We are equally damned, if we treat Farmers as yet another Capitalist with a profit motive, as the current food systems we have in place make it almost impossible to grow food in a sustainable manner to deliver equitable healthy foods to all, while safeguarding the planetary health.
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Macaulay Perapulla
March 7, 2021
@Krishikari Well, “Macaulay Perapulla” (“Macaulay’s Grandson”) is more of my pet cultural beef. It is one of the other work I do in the areas of culture, when I am not working in agri’culture’. I run an organisation called “Mandram” where we invite some of the best minds – artists, writers, farmers, scientists, techies- and ask them to talk about their work in their native tongue. We have covered Tamizh, Kannada and Hindi so far. More recently, we have begun to attempt to reimagine Toastmasters in native tongues. We do toastmasters style “practice speaking” events ( We call it “Mandram pattarai”) where anyone -from banker to techie to cyber security – can practice to speak about their work and present their thoughts fluently in their native tongue (without as much foreign words, but yes without being anal about it) and get feedback from the community.
I don’t know about you. It pains me that I cannot talk as fluently as I can in English about the work I do in agritech in my native tongue. It is an ironic reminder that I am a strange byproduct of the cultural and political forces of my time. Ofcourse, in one way, I am not. And in other way, I am.
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krishikari
March 7, 2021
@Hari Dont get caught up with people, but with the issues. That way you may have a better chance of winning towards environment causes.
@anu But I’m no evangelist – can’t be bothered to police other people’s behaviour. I can, however, lessen my carbon footprint as much as possible.
Both these thoughts resonate with me but I keep thinking individual behaviour changes while helpful don’t change the huge money driven destruction economy that has us trapped in it. I mean it is actually illegal to not be a cog in that machine. Discussions like these can put the complex intertwined strands of environment, economics and politics into perspective.
While my partner works for what has been described as “the China of NGOs” and earns a living wage, I work for a couple of really small organizations. We try to bring into existence the kind of food future we want to live in, we teach people small scale urban agriculture and also design larger rural food forests and organize coops that support local organic farmers by buying from them directly. These activities are fine but are not going to do any system change so we also push for policy changes and back activists, rural, tribal, farmers and ALSO young city bred idealists. That meme or whatever in the write up is such a false dichotomy, those two women are on the same side. (I think that was your point MP, just repeating)
@macaulay At worse, calling them “Annadatas” robs them of their agency, making it convenient for us to not pay the real price for growing food in this country, and instead smother them with subsidies and grants, further worsening their livelihoods.
I hope you work in creating state policies as you see the big picture pretty clearly. This is a difficult balance, subsidies and grants are often absolutely necessary for the transitional phase. Look at Sikkim going organic, those farmers need support while they change and try to compete with dumps of cheap non-organic produce in the market (which is also subsidised!).
There are absolutely beautiful and logical models of agricultural sustainabilty available, but most refuse to combine the economics with environmentalism and ethics and myopically go for either one or the other.
Look at this article: https://thewire.in/agriculture/sikandrabad-contract-farming-sunshine-farms-farmer-protests
“The agitation should be seen in the positive lights. Neither the government nor the farmers’ unions should allow the opportunity arising out of the large scale and sustained opposition to the three acts to get squandered,” army veteran-turned farmer Colonel (retired) Subhas Deswal said, speaking to The Wire on issues related to problems afflicting agriculture in India and if farmers’ unions could take this opportunity to address those concerns.
“The solution lies only in the farmers and the government joining hands in working out the model rooted to the agricultural reality of India and the spirit of consensus rather than sticking to their respective guns,” he added.
The words sound great but the pictures show absolutely unsustainable acres of carrot monoculture.
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Macaulay Perapulla
March 8, 2021
@Krishikari “The words sound great but the pictures show absolutely unsustainable acres of carrot monoculture.” Absolutely. My pet theory in regards to this transformation is simple: We have two ways of approaching farm crisis. 1) Treat farming as “livelihood” issue. 2) Treat farming as “life” issue. I choose to go with the latter. Today, farmers have lost complete self-sufficiency and have gone ahead with more and more cash economy based livelihood issue. Ofcourse, doing this transition is extremely tough. In the case of Sikkim, by making it mandatory, they have actually ruined possiblities of change. Changing cropping patterns and making transition to organic is as much akin to someone developing a different relationship with soil. Unlike the earlier paradigm, You can’t treat soil as gods and then mess it up with all kinds of toxic chemicals. One needs to develop a friendly relationship with soil. Experiment on it. And then keep evolving the relationship. I dont see such changes happening by fiat.
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Madan
March 8, 2021
I don’t know anywhere near enough about this topic to be able to unleash my comments on it. But I did think this article made for interesting and cautionary reading.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/how-big-ag-ate-up-americas-small-farms/articleshow/81384027.cms
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Macaulay Perapulla
March 9, 2021
@Madan “Unleash my comments” – Your choice of words is very interesting. Yes, US experience is fairly disappointing. If you look at their food dollar series data, you would see that farm share is 14.6 cents for every dollar of money spent on food.
Some time back, there was a damning article on Washington Monthly on the dismal rural picture,
“Farmers are caught between monopolized sellers and buyers. They must pay ever-higher prices to the giants who dominate the market for the supplies they need, like seed and fertilizer. At the same time, they must accept ever lower prices from the giant agribusinesses that buy the stuff they sell, like crops and livestock.
Start with how corporate concentration affects the prices farmers pay. In 1994, the top four seed companies controlled only 21 percent of the global seed market. By 2013, just the top three controlled 55 percent, with Monsanto alone controlling more than a quarter. With that increase in concentration has come a shocking increase in the cost of seed, because these giants face little pressure to compete on price. USDA data shows that the per-acre cost of soybean and corn seed spiked dramatically between 1995 and 2014, by 351 percent and 321 percent, respectively.”
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january-february-march-2019/how-to-close-the-democrats-rural-gap/
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Madan
March 9, 2021
I like to poke fun at my own penchant for writing lengthy comments, holding forth as it were.
In essence, we need to reframe the choice. It’s not between status quo and outright dereg. What we need is regulated entry of private players. This already happens in industry so no reason why it can’t be done in agri other than agri doesn’t contribute as much to election funds as industrialists.
The whole neo classical view of economics (Marshall’s perfect competition thesis) doesn’t work in reality because it ignores the power of money. Ergo in a large and unregulated free market, the biggest purse wins. We have seen this in www too. NOT regulating it was seen as the way to ensure internet would reach its full potential and yet it has been efficiently captured by a few big players. It’s almost as if China was right to shut them out and create its homegrown alternatives. Because otherwise we are letting Google, FB and Amazon rule the world.
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Macaulay Perapulla
March 9, 2021
Interesting points. In a sector like agriculture, you need both governments ( to create public goods – road infra, storage) and markets ( to do price discovery of food produce, to move inputs to farmers and allocate food to consumers, to allocate scarce land resources for infinite needs of consumers) to do their thing. Most people, who see humongous subsidy numbers and talk ill of punjabi farmers, often don’t understand the invisible crutches that are being held to keep our food prices low.
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Macaulay Perapulla
March 9, 2021
@Madan “In essence, we need to reframe the choice. It’s not between status quo and outright dereg. What we need is regulated entry of private players. This already happens in industry so no reason why it can’t be done in agri other than agri doesn’t contribute as much to election funds as industrialists.”
Elsewhere I wrote about the delusion of choice and the need to pick a grey pill beyond blue pills and red pills: We are being deluded to believe that this debate over farm laws is a simple choice of picking
1) Chimera of MSP to improve farmers’ incomes Over Myth of Free Markets
2) Status Quo through Corrupt APMC Mandis Over Irresponsible VC Sponsored Market and Price Speculation Experiments conducted by Farm Gate Agritech Startups at Farmers’ Expense.
3) Making Few Rich Farmers Richer Over Keeping Poor Many Farmers Poorer
4) Food Security Over Food Inflation
5) Regulation Over Free Trade
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krishikari
March 10, 2021
In the case of Sikkim, by making it mandatory, they have actually ruined possiblities of change.
This had not occured to me because I didn’t know it was such a top down policy, I thought there was some consensus behind it. You are right about the organic relationship to soil but it takes time to develop that relationship. In the short term they need support not unleashing of free market economics.
I’m basically just nodding in agreement at whatever I’m hearing you say. My comments are only to keep the discussion going so we hear some ways out of the conundrums you have described.
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hari
March 11, 2021
Macaulay Perapulla, more power to you for taking up farming. What methodology you use? Do you grow it for local consumption? Is there a site from which interested people can procure your produce? If you can share please do. I’m always on the lookout for farm fresh/local produce.
I have difficultly thinking bigger picture here. I think of what I as an individual can do to support farmers who want to earn a livelihood by producing good clean natural farming products, that is about it, within my limited means.
In our native in Tirunelveli, whole farm lands are getting used for nendranga farms under contract farming. They are contracted to chip manufacturers from neighboring Kerala. The chip guys gives them the saplings, the chemical fertilizers, and make arrangements for water, the farmer does two harvests per year. This year because of unseasonal rainfall during the Pongal time, lot of plants went under water. Not sure whether the chips guys compensated them or the government. Is it good for the system, the environment, I’m not so sure.
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Macaulay Perapulla
March 12, 2021
@krishikari “so we hear some ways out of the conundrums you have described”. Well, besides running an independent agritech consulting firm, I run a newsletter where I have been exploring with my community, various ways out of these conundrums. And at an individual level, along with my community of like-minded friends, we have been experimenting with various kinds of approaches to reimagine a farmer-consumer relationship context. Here is a partial list of ways that I know are working well. These approaches vary along a vast spectrum from practical to radical.
For Consumers
1) Investigate where your food comes from. Build direct relationships with farmers. Some of my farmer friends have been undertaking initiatives where those who buy foods from them need to work in their farm once a year atleast. The main intent is to realize that consumers need farmers for their wellbeing. Today the power equations are reversed and so consumers think farmers are fungible and good food can be bought with money. There is a popular tamizh phrase in these circles ( Nee avan vayathula adiche. Avan un soththula kai vechaan) (You hit him in his stomach. He hit him in your food)
2) Organize Community Supported Agriculture and Farmer Markets initiatives. There have been few successful experiments in Navadarshanam (closer to Bangalore) and few other communities have also been experimenting with various kinds of initiatives. Farmer Markets are active in Gurgaon. Many residential apartment complexes in Pune are tying with FPOs so that they can deliver directly to their multi story apartment comple
For Entrepreneurs
1) Build institutions like Timbaktu (based out of Chennakoththapalli, in Bangalore -Hyderabad route /Navadarshanam which have beautifully married social purpose with entrepreneurship. There is Urban Leaves in Mumbai. There is “seeragam” in Coimbatore. “Krishi Janani” near Karur; So many institutions are sprouting up which are trying to help farmers become self-sufficient.
2) Move back to your native town and build an FPO there with the local community of farmers in your native village. I have been working with few of my friends who are all in various stages of leaving their jobs and moving back to their native villages. This is a hard process as most of them worry about their incomes and family support. These initiatives take time.
3) Build Land Trusts for doing farming the right way. Some of my pune based friends are trying out these initiatives in places where realtors are eyeing farm lands.
4) Build bio products for farmers to move away from their addiction to fertilizer/pesticides. I am working with few startups who are involved in this. These approaches work best for those who want to build some product.
@Hari I am not doing full-time farming. My family isn’t ready yet. And so I designed my career to work on agriculture so that I get to get my hands dirty on farming. I work with various farmer friends/agritech startups/agri companies/FPOs deal with digital and sustainability challenges and help them with capital/ investments from venture capitalists/DFIs/Bankers/
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Macaulay Perapulla
March 12, 2021
@Krishikari I deliberately excluded “For Farmers” in this list, because the change has to begin with ourselves first, those who are serious about doing something for farmers and their uneven playing fields called farming.
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krishikari
March 15, 2021
@macaulay Had not seen these latest post here! Sounds like you are doing great work, i would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Our org. also does 1 and 2 of your points although not in India. My excuse is that its a global problem but really I think I am just too scared by the complexity of agriculture in India and I had a bit of a scene with a beloved uncle who worked all his life in the fertilizer industry from the 60s.
Some friends here say they want to build solidarity with farmer movements in India and I don’t even know how to address that.
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hari
March 15, 2021
Macaulay Perapulla best wishes to you. Who are you working with in Pune and in Chennai? I have family in both places. Thanks
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Macaulay Perapulla
March 17, 2021
@Krishikari I hear you. It is mind boggling. Just yesterday, I went to the interiors around Coimbatore to meet a bunch of folks who are trying to help farmers practice regenerative agriculture. Their challenge is very straightforward: We are not able to be profitable. Although, we are absolutely committed to following practices that are regenerative. That’s the challenge. How do we make regenerative/organic/natural farming a profitable proposition ( given that they are not going to get subsidies for doing farming the right way).
Regarding the newsletter, I don’t want to put the link of the newsletter here, as I want to keep the identity here tied to my pseudonym. I am more than happy to share the link in a private DM.
@hari In Pune, there is an organic farmers study circle. Couple of my friends lead that. In Chennai, there are a lot ppl. From OFM’s Ananthoo and so many other likeminded people.
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hari
March 17, 2021
MP thanks. A friend of mine is associated with OFM in Chennai, will get in touch with him. My parents were initial patrons of Nalla Keerai, not sure how they are doing now. If you have the link for the Pune circle let me know. Thanks
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