Gandhi, Globalization and Climate Change
Dr. Ashok Kumar Panigrahi, Balasore.
Decades ago Mahatma Gandhi said, “ the earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not any one’s greed.” Gandhiji, a known critique of total mechanization, said, “ what I object to is the craze for machinery, not machinery as such. The craze is for what they call labour saving machinery. Men go on saving labour till thousands are without work and thrown on the open streets to die of starvation…. I want the concentration of wealth, not in
the hands of a few but in the hands of all. Today machinery only helps a few to ride on the backs of millions. The impetus behind it all is not the philanthropy to save labour, but greed”. Gandhiji was a champion of village based cottage industries for ‘they make the village self sufficient and provide adequate employment and products to one and all.’
After two centuries of industrialisation and two decades of economic
globalisation.
? Poverty alleviation not in sight, people continue to die of hunger.
? Drastic climate change, global warming, polar ice caps and glaciers melting, sea level rise, devastating natural disasters causing habitat loss and mass migrations.
? Prolonged debilitating drought, excessive unseasonal rain and flood owing to highly modified El Nino-La Nina .
? Massive food shortage and huge fresh water shortage.
? Direct threat to species and biodiversity.
? 80% of the global population living in the developing countries paying dearly for the luxury and whims of just 20% of the global population in the industrialised countries as far as GhG emissions are concerned.
? Southern rain forests, the Amazonian rainforest, systematically
destroyed for the northern consumers for exotic timber, arable
land for the soy crop and pasture land for raising cattle to provide beef
for the northern hamburgers.
? International treaties, including Kyoto, failed to recognise the importance of tropical forests both as carbon sinks and as stabilizers of our weather systems.
? Multinational corporations moving their operations to developing countries to avoid stricter environmental laws of their own countries.
? Free trade agreements under the WTO regime restrict the capacity of the national governments to frame and adopt new environmental legislations.
? Such actions of the independent nations help modify the El Nino – La Nina impacts, the basics of the changes in the global weather patterns resulting in enhanced sea borne disasters and forest fires.
2 pieces of publications those need be looked in to:-
? Herbert Girardet’s new book; “Surviving the century: Facing climate chaos and other Global challenges.”
It reads,” at root, climate change not a technical or scientific
problem. The main impediment to tackling global warming is
that many of the powerful institutions of the world, which control
the world’s allocation of capital are resistant to radically changing
the way we operate the world economy. The poor, whose share of world
income is certainly not growing are unable to successfully demand
that policies be developed to protect them from climate change or other
environmental or economic disasters.”
The book also mentions, “Large companies are threatened by
actions to reduce emissions. The oil and gas industry will suffer if the
world moves to renewable energy. Monsanto’s profits will fall if we
switch from industrial agriculture back to low input farming methods.
The Brazilian government will lose elections if it resists attempts to
turn more of the rain forest to soy farms and cattle ranches…….
Aggressive action on climate change threatens this power, and is being resisted at every turn.”
? Naomi Klein ( a Canadian Journalist)’s latest book titled; “ Shock Doctrine – The rise of Disaster capitalism.”
It reads, “barely seven months ago the Boxing day tsunami had
devastated Sri Lanka. But once the rubble was cleared away, what was
left, was what the tourism industry had been coveting all along
ocean front property, perfect for plush resorts. It was land grab. The
fisher folk found themselves pushed into inland camps in the name
of safety and security. But these new resorts were exempted from the
buffer zone restrictions as long as they classified their constructions as
‘repair’.”
It further reads, “ The US government was pushing that the tsunami
was an opportunity for Sri Lanka to really launch its high-end
tourism market. The world bank was very aggressive in pushing the
government to adopt these policies in exchange for giving aid.”
Two decades of economic globalisation has converted the earth to a single village with free trade.
? Food could no longer be recognised as a right since the right to food would interfere in free trade of food commodities, declared US Secretary of State at the last world food summit.
? The world produces more food than ever before, enough, to feed twice the global population, yet, more people than ever suffer from hunger and their numbers are rising.
? Thus, “ free trade” is the cause of global hunger.
Economic globalisation has dramatically changed the face of agriculture the world over.
? Diminishing agricultural holdings – agricultural land converted to SEZ, etc. resulting in farmer uprisings as is seen
in Singur, Nandigram in West Bengal, Kalinga Nagar in Orissa,
Mann in Maharashtra and elsewhere.
? Small farmers, direct farmers and small traders driven to bankruptcy, suicides and displacements.
? Most farm inputs including seeds were managed religiously by the farmers themselves.
? Farmers used innovative methods for soil fertility and pest control using local biodiversity. Thus they produced enough good food.
? The green revolution practices and industrial agriculture replaced internal inputs including seeds by purchased inputs, thus raising the production cost.
? Agriculture thus changed from biodiversity and animal dependence to chemical and machine dependence.
? These two exotic concepts between them eliminated the vast agro biodiversity, and the principle of mixed cropping. In Orissa, as in many parts of south – east Asia, the principal crop is Kharif (rain) paddy. Once there were, more than 5 thousand varieties, suitable for varied eco- climatic conditions giving farmers enough options to select the varieties for every crop, for taste and need.
? Farmers in Orissa now grow just one paddy variety during kharif (rain) and two/three, during rabi (winter summer), all green revolution varieties, dwarf and chemical soaking on ever diminishing agricultural
land and rural population.
? The main cause of this is that millers purchase these varieties paying much higher costs over the natives.
? Yet, there are farmers who for different ostensible reasons save and cultivate dozens of native paddy varieties in their fields, but they are diminishing.
? Navdanya Orissa Biodiversity Farm near Balasore has saved nearly 600 of the Native / nativised paddy varieties and there is a Central Seed Bank from which desired seeds are provided to farmers for cultivation.
? Orissa has its own and unique vegetable varieties in Radish, Brinjal, Tomato, Sweet gourd , Bottle gourd, Ash gourd, Bitter gourd, Cow pea, Sour okra, Taro and Yam.
? Their weak point is that they are highly seasonal.
? The green revolution varieties have pushed most of their cultivations to the back seat but some of them are still there, although not known when the last vestige will also vanish.
? Navdanya – Orissa Biodiversity Farm proposes to conserve these varieties from this year.
? As far as pulses are concerned Orissa has some unique varieties of Pigeon pea (kandula) in KBK, Green gram (specifically ‘suna muga’) cultivated on the raised boundaries of the paddy fields) and Bengal gram in Khurda – Nayagarh districts. Traditional farmers have conserved these varieties for their tastes, liked by some consumers.
? Traditionally seeds were saved by the farmers from the last harvest and exchanged freely with other farmers and relations far and away. Thus, two needs were met, obtain new seeds and enhance the crop yield. Hence, each farmer is a seed saver or conserver. Seed saving and seed exchange has been the basis of agriculture since ages. But, now toeing the new IPR regime, there is a law which threatens this practice, the right of the farmers. Although some of the farmers are aware of the dangers associated with genetic modifications in crop varieties, many illiterate farmers don’t know that the cultivations of GE or patented seeds may wipe out the natives, the precious varieties developed since ages by the combined actions of Darwin’s natural selection and artificial selection.
? Experts say that it is the export agriculture which is the third major contributor (after energy and transport) to global warming because it involves huge inputs of petroleum.
? It takes 100 gallons of oil to grow just one acre of US corn.
? It requires a massive global transportation infrastructure. In many places 4 0- 50 percent of truck traffic is for hauling food over long distances. The food that could be grown locally is today trucked, shipped or flown half way round the planet.
? In the US, the average bite of food travels 1,300 miles from farm to fork.
? Trade rules have so distorted agricultural markets that the imported food costs less than the locally grown food.
? The system has become so wasteful that many countries import the very same food that they export; as for example, last year the US exported and also imported around 9 lakh tons of beef.
? Agribusiness has acquired unprecedented control over the world’s farmers and food supply.
? However, the realities of climate change, resource depletion, crop failure and human sufferings owing to spurious industrial food have led more people and policy makers to have a new look into the links between food, environment and social justice.
? Round the globe voices are being raised on food sovereignty and peoples right to control their own food systems which include the American consumers also.
? For the religious Indian communities- more so in Orissa – food is linked to culture and celebrations. There is a saying in Oriya, “ Bara masare tera parva,” meaning 13 festivals (mostly agriculture related) in 12 months; although all oriya festivities put together will exceed 30.
? Oriyas do have unique palates and also the ways to soothe them, hence, there are over 20 typical oriya cuisines, each one specific for the particular occasion, all with mostly rice as the principal ingredient. For example for Raja – Rice poda pitha (rice cake) ; for Bakula Amavasya– Gainthagudi pitha; for Chitalagi Amavasya – Chitou pitha, for Saptapuri Amavasya- Sapthapheni pitha, for Nuakhai – new rice and so on.
? This is the reason why there were so many rice varieties in Orissa. In addition to this, there was the Mogul influence and this added ‘Biriyani’ (all not non veg. type) each prepared with a specifically aromatic rice variety. There is one vegetarian Biriyani, called ‘Kathal Biriyani’ prepared with immature jackfruit and a specific rice variety, ‘ Mugajai’, that smells like fried ‘muga’ (moong or green gram).
Above all Oriyas always like special sweet dishes on all occasions and
that is ‘kheeri’ (rice + milk +sugar) and for this they have a wide range
of aromatic rice varieties. ‘Pimpudibasa’ is the most used variety in
‘Kheeri’ preparation. For ‘Polao’ (sweetened rice) other aromatic rice
varieties from ‘Laxmikajal’ to ‘Kalajiri’ are used.
With the changing situation and modified cultivation practices,
farmers by and large adopting the green revolution varieties, Oriyas
may soon be forced to forget the palate during these festivities.
However, long ago Gandhiji said,“ this (industrial) civilization is such
that one has only to be patient and it will be self destroyed.”
Now we find dozens of reports and articles stating that globalization has
failed and is receding. The causes cited are –
? The case for globalization was oversold.
? The bulk of the production and sales of products are limited to the
country of origin.
? Third world countries have evolved novel methods to thwart globalization. Ecuador has decided to keep its fuel reserves in the ground rather than exploiting it. Hugo Chavez has launched a plan for regional integration- better known as ‘Bolivian Alternative for
the Americas (ALBA), based on genuine economic cooperation instead of free trade, there by not involving the MNCs which Chavez called, ‘logic beyond capitalism’.
The above text is the speech delivered delivered by the author in power point at the International Workshop organized jointly by the Navdanya Trust of New Delhi and The World Future Council, on 5 – 6 February, 2008, at the India International Centre, New Delhi.
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Addendum
Radical proposal to inject sulphur particles in to the Earth’s atmosphere in order to cool it down and battle global warming could instead badly damage the ozone layer, reports an US study. Simone Tilmes of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research reported that trying to artificially cool off the planet could have perilous side effects. Computer simulations showed that large amounts of sulphur injections onto the Earth’s atmosphere would likely destroy between 25 to 75 percent of the ozone layer above the Arctic, leading to devastating effects on the northern hemisphere. The expected recovery time of the existing ozone hole over the Antarctic would be further delayed by 30 to 70 years, warned the report published in the Science Express on 24 April,2008.
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Author is an avid natrure analyst,has worked on & written books,research papers and short & large articles on several aspects of the nature such as farming,forest,food and water etc.
