The seed must have everything it needs to survive till it can send its roots into the soil and its first leaves into the sunlight.

The egg (once fertilized) must be able to raise a whole new bird from only the nutrients enclosed within its shell. Hence nature’s complete self-contained growth package.

The egg we all know has two parts: the albumen and the yolk.

The albumen, the white of the egg, is rich in protein and riboflavin.

The yolk, the yellow ball supported by the albumen, is rich in phosphorous, iron, zinc, vitamin A, B6 and B12, folic acid, thiamine and naturally occurring vitamin D. Less than a third of its fat is saturated and there is no trans fat. If the chickens are fed flax seed in their meal, the egg is rich in omega-3 fatty acids as well.

In fact, an egg would constitute a complete meal, except that it has zero carbs and zero vitamin C. Eggs are best in fact if you need a meal without carbs.

The problem is we have a way of ruining even the most perfect of nature’s designed products.

The perfect egg is a product of a bird that is happiest when it is scratching for its food in the soil. Its tastiest morsels are grubs, insects, earthworms. It also eats grit (tiny stones). The hen burns up almost half the energy it eats on its tireless activity looking for food.

So what does industrial chicken farming do? Just the reverse. To increase egg production, birds are kept prisoners throughout their lives in small cruel prison-like cages (called batteries) and fed a monotonous unchanging diet made from fish meal and grain, often laced with antibiotics. This knocks down the nutritional quality of the egg.

First, due to the lack of exercise, the fat component increases and the fatty acid composition in the yoke changes from healthy to unhealthy. The fish meal gives the eggs a fishy odour. Large scale egg handling invites salmonella contamination. Eating such eggs every day of the week is bad health theory.

The best eggs come from country chickens and you can get them if you visit any village haat in your area. These eggs are sourced to birds that are not kept in cages, but allowed to walk around free and scratch. We call these chickens “free range”. Urban folk, however, have to go in for “organic” or “herbal” eggs. Organic eggs come from farms that must feed their birds only organically grown grain, do not inject their birds with antibiotics or growth hormones, and do not flood their chicken houses with artificial lighting to increase day light hours so that the birds lay oftener (and get to sleep less).

Herbal eggs are from farms that feed their chickens herbal supplements in addition to regular grain, so that the “fishy” smell is completely eliminated.

It is not possible outwardly to distinguish factory chicken eggs from organic or herbal eggs. So ask for the source when buying your eggs. The package will disclose if it comes from an organic farm.

But the most important lesson is this: if you cannot source organic eggs in your area, reduce your egg intake. In that case, to once or twice a week at most – that way you can still have them without loading yourself with the dubious stuff that comes latched on to them from industrial-scale chicken farms.

Herbal, organic eggs are available at Easy Day stores. They come from:

M/s Kansal & Kansal Agro Farm

27, Virat Nagar, Panipat, Haryana, IN: 132103

Mobile : +91-9812533722

E-mail : kansalagro@gmail.com

Organic India is now expanding into organic dairy and chicken. Hopefully they will soon have organic eggs for sale as well.

Organic India,

Plot No. 266, Faizabad Road,
Kamta, Post Chinhat
Lucknow-227105
Tel: +91-(0)522-2701579, 099562 96685
Fax: +91-(0)522-2701395
Email: info@organicindia.com

(Published in Prevention Magazine, May 2010)

]]> http://www.typewriterguerilla.com/2010/07/organic-eggs/feed/ http://www.typewriterguerilla.com/2010/05/the-environment-in-the-iits-curriculum/ http://www.typewriterguerilla.com/2010/05/the-environment-in-the-iits-curriculum/#comments Fri, 21 May 2010 05:39:51 +0000 claude http://www.typewriterguerilla.com/?p=47 I am not here to add any new facts to the millions of facts you’ve been getting into your heads from the age of 3 or 4. I do not attend seminars as a matter of routine. I do not know how people like you can sit for the whole day listening to a whole lot of things thrown at you. If this is all that you can do without rebellion, you are obviously beyond salvation.

I have come to share some feelings and perceptions about our continuing disquiet about the fact that the environment remains an externality in the curriculum as it is to the economy. In the economy, the environmental issue takes on an either/or debate, or one to be done at the expense of the other. We have yet to graduate to a perspective in which both (economy and ecology) advance and enrich each other, using human intelligence. Maybe this is too idealistic a proposal for today’s set of realities.
As far as the curriculum in institutions like this is concerned, the attitude is similar. Discussion on the environment is fine, and we shall do something about it, but the syllabus must be completed first. Anything that takes time out from the completion of the syllabus or from course work and is not assessed for examination marks or grades needs to be kept in its place. Like “extra-curricular” activities. We do something about the environment at institutions like the IIT because it looks bad if we don’t, everyone is talking about the environment these days. So we cannot appear to be so primitive. There is even some anxiety that institutions like the IIT actually contribute more and more environment-bashers every year to the general population as a matter of done duty. But I am not into that at this moment.

Let’s keep some kinds of “environment education” safely out of discussions like these. My favourite example of seriously depraved environment education is the respect we seek to inculcate in children for trees. We have these beautiful pictures of trees printed on paper which comes from the flesh of living trees. Our children look at these books sitting on wooden benches which also come from the slaughter of trees. In our not so recent past, children developed fondness for trees by climbing them or swinging from them or concealing themselves in them. That is forbidden activity today.

The environment cannot be chopped up and brought into the classroom in pieces, if we concede that it is about dynamic, symbiotic/hostile relationships between land and air and water and organisms.
Let me show you three sets of pictures, before we proceed further:

a) Amazon: engineering of plant life

What is the characteristic of these three pictures of forests that you see in the slides? The absence of human engineers. In fact, industrial systems and forest systems are always in conflict. Industrial systems which have money power have become the most serious threat to forest systems. One kind of engineering with very little history is wiping out the better, more beneficial production system. The industrial system’s only role in climate change – after generating it – is to exacerbate it.

b) Water crystals: impact of engineering on water

Look at these pictures taken by Minaru Emoto whose work is well circulated on the internet. Nature rejuvenates water by aerating it in springs, waterfalls, movement over rocks and pebbles, swirls and eddies and a hundred various other techniques. Human engineers dam water bodies, stop flows, create conditions for water that is biologically dead. Here is a picture of a water crystal from water that is biologically dead:

c) Waste: inadequate engineering of materials

When they are not stopping natural water flows, engineers are polluting water bodies by careless technological design. Look at the pictures of what we have done to our water through industrial engineering. The last picture is of a new landfill coming up in Gujarat. This huge landfill is for storing for the next generation the poisonous, toxic hazardous waste that we generate as a matter of policy in industrial design. We are not forced to minimize waste because we can gift it to the generations that follow.
Modern day technical education is based largely on how to be good engineers. This is the box in which we operate. If we saw the box located within a bigger bubble, then we would begin to see that our activities must not damage the bubble. Almost all that we are taught is understanding of engineering principles that have come as a wholly imported intellectual tradition, most if not all related to the industrial mode of production as it developed in the West.

But industrial production is open-ended, not cyclical. It’s more of an input-output operation. This is what you put in, this is what you get out. “From the perspective of the second Law [of Thermodynamics], organized coherent motion is most precious, very high (and very low) temperature is next most precious, and heat at a temperature near ambient (lukewarm, cool) is degraded energy.”

C V Seshadri (CVS) used to point out that if we accepted this definition, we would have a poor idea of the “work” that nature does at ambient temperature, like the annual monsoon exercise in which millions of tonnes of water are transported from sea mass to land mass due at ambient temperatures, or slight differences in ambient temperatures.

We are not even close to the work that is done on this planet using principles of “natural design”. One of the qualities of natural design is that there is no concept of “waste”. The idea of waste does not exist in nature. Similarly with the idea of production. Human engineers produce, but do not know how to break down what they produce. Nature however always does both. She did not produce plastic or strontium-90. She produced instead the leaf which merges with the soil after the process of photosynthesis is no longer required by the plant.

CVS for example designed artefacts like the windmill by building into the natural cycle, using local materials and local available energy. We are unable to do that nowadays, since industrial design disregards local materials and local energy. Local energies are free and freely available. Industrial production costs every single step of the way, and some costs it does not ever pay. If we did pay up all those costs, we would have to call a halt to industrial design.

The crisis of climate change is the most serious challenge to the rationality underpinning industrial design.
So there is bound to be a conflict between a curriculum that teaches natural design engineering principles and laws and a curriculum that teaches design laws to further industrial production based on fossil fuels.
If we wish to be serious about the use of engineering to meet the environmental challenge, there is need to make a serious and complete break in our thought processes dealing with design. If we are unable to design systems which, like nature, do not waste, we are in the wrong profession. Human engineering should be superior to natural engineering, not inferior.

Notes for a talk at CTARA 25 years commemorative IIT Powai April 29, 2010

Today the situation is vastly different and one can get a range of edible oils in the market that are “cold-pressed.” Of all these oils, organically produced cold-pressed oil is the most expensive solely because of its stupendous health endowments, flavour and richness. Now what exactly is cold-pressed oil?

Earlier, when life was simple and we were sane, we would produce our edible oils in contraptions called “ghanis”. The ghani was nothing but a long cylindrical chamber carved out of wood, housing a giant pestle and powered by a bullock on auto-pilot. Oil seeds in the cylinder were gradually crushed by the rotating pestle till most of the oil came out through openings at the base. The residue was called “oil-cake” and this was good meal for the bullock and for the cows at home since some oil remained in the residue and the cows returned it in the form of fatty milk.

The interesting thing about ghanis – still be found operating in several places – is they do not pre-heat or heat up the oilseeds they process. The oil they generate is therefore the original “cold-pressed” oil. If it is not sent onwards for “refining”, it remains one of the most perfect of edible oils available.

I have found that every time we depart from our traditions and our time-tested ways, we invariably depart from science and from practices that are unshakeably sound for health.

The other way of removing oil from oilseeds – the “modern” way – is heating them. You first crush the oilseeds, then heat the pulp, thereafter submit the hot mass to a lot of pressure. This extracts practically all the oil (leaving nothing for the bullock or cow except tasteless cud). However, since more oil is extracted, the oil is cheaper.

Modern oil expellers may heat oilseed pulp to 230 degree C which effectively scars the oil for its life. There are, of course, oil expellers which do not apply any external heat to the oilseeds. In such cases, the action of the expeller working on the pulp or the oilseed will generate some heat. Provided the heat does not exceed 27 degree C, European norms allow such oils to be sold as “cold-pressed” which is fine.

After oil is extracted from the oilseed through the modern method, it is further “refined” in plants. Paralleling what happens with the “processing” of white sugar and white wheat flour or maida, the oil refining process invariably removes all the good things in the oil. Some of the elements destroyed by “refining” processes are omega-3 fatty acids and anti-oxidants. Also added during refining are chemicals to keep the oil from going rancid so that supermarkets can keep it longer on their shelves. That’s the main consideration for refining it appears.

Educated, middle class urban consumers take easily to words like “refined,” as it implies the oil is more sophisticated, superior, civilised, modern, whatnot. Nutritionally speaking, refined oil is not only a poor cousin to unprocessed, cold-pressed oil, it is harmful for another reason. Advertisers glorify these refined and superrefined oils as “safe”, so one naturally loses one’s guard against consuming too much oil and indulges oneself instead!

Where does one get cold-pressed oils? Most of the output of traditional ghanis comes to the Khadi and Village Industries (KVIC) stores. Buy it from there. Or from organic or green shops.

I encourage my friends to source good things in life like organically grown cereals or cold pressed oils and hand these out as gifts and presents in place of the items that you are normally forced to buy even when you’re not sure whether they’ll be appreciated. A good bottle of unprocessed (or unrefined) cold pressed edible oil (coconut, groundnut, olive, til or mustard) is a priceless gift. You can give it to family, friends and relatives and feel good because you are taking care of their hearts as well.

(Prevention Magazine, May 2010)

I visited Beijing in 2007, a year prior to the Olympics, and then again last week. The transformation of this gigantic city is clearly impressive. This is the capital of the world’s most populated nation so its scale will naturally be vast. But like the outward demeanour of the Chinese people themselves, there is little flashiness or showing off. The mammoth Olympic Stadium (the Bird’s Nest) looks abandoned and forlorn but the Forbidden City is back to its former glory (it was under renovation in 2007), exactly as one saw it in The Last Emperor.

Outside the walled Forbidden City complex of buildings is Tiennamen Square flanked by the Great House of the People. As the Chinese Parliament is currently in session, the roof of the massive building is profusely lined with hundreds of red flags fluttering in the strong wind. For the same reason, the Memorial of Mao Zedong is temporarily closed to public access and the vast Tiannamen Square itself is under intense police surveillance. The Chinese are wary about any event in the Square ever since one million people gathered there in 1989 and some of the demonstrators lost their lives. You can still enter the Square but only after going through the usual scanners. As it has snowed in the city the previous evening, wandering around the Square is distinctly uncomfortable because of the harsh wind. The fact that I am dressed warm enough to climb Mount Everest makes no difference. My tourism foray does not last more than 20 minutes before I am rushing back to the warmth of my hotel.

Buying tea

Since the lady back home is now a green tea addict, I pop into a small shop that sells everything connected with tea including teapots, tea-trays (made of clay), porcelain tea sets, tea mugs and of course varieties of teas. Unlike tea buying back home, the Chinese will not allow you to get away without a small ritual. The tea must be tasted before you buy it. After you have indicated your preferences, you are asked to sit while the kettle boils on a stove. The hot water is then sloshed over the leaf and you get to sample as much as is brewed in small delicate porcelain cups. Dragons are to be found lurking on every tea instrument including the kettles.

I can say with some confidence that I have discovered the reason for the routine. While the water is brewing, the mind wanders over the other clutter in the shop. Eventually you find yourself buying more than just the half kilo of jasmine tea that first drew your attention. You end up, like I did, with a quaint tea strainer made from pumpkin, a six-cup China tea set with kettle, a large porcelain tea mug with an in-built porcelain strainer and cap, and a set of sampling cups, in addition to the jasmine tea.

Litter and taxi drivers

Coming to Beijing all the way from Goa – which has now become a garbage slut – I am shocked to discover the total absence of litter, of plastic, or papers or empty bottles. Beijing is today undoubtedly the cleanest city in the world, superior to even Amsterdam or Singapore where you can surprisingly nowadays find unattended trash and litter. The tourist places including the Forbidden City or the Temple of Heaven have dozens of litter collectors who snap up anything the tourist may dump. But in the non-tourist parts of the city, the local population has simply forgotten the art of littering.

My Chinese friends tells me this is the result of years of self-indoctrination, education and training, predating even the Cultural Revolution days. Small places in India – Goa again comes to mind – are unable to keep themselves free of garbage and litter. This is a city of 17 million and the stainlessness is simply stunning, achieved without the stiff fines of Singapore or the endless messages on boards or hoardings in India unsuccessfully exhorting people to keep their city clean.

Beijing taxi drivers are another breath of fresh air. After a taxi has me dropped off at a destination in the city, I think I understand the owner’s sign language and give him 40 yuan for the trip. He returns half the money! This is Beijing in 2010. Garbage and taxi drivers: China is clearly far ahead. Forget steel production which was 500 million tons to India’s 30 at last count.

Where else do we differ?

The city still does not speak English. The bell boy at my hotel spends a few minutes with me practising his English. Since I am visiting the university he thinks I am a professor of sorts. I humour him for some time, but I can envision huge employment possibilities for retired English teachers from India. The Chinese believe Indians speak good English and are willing to be tutored by them in contrast to Americans (who are too aggressive in manners, speak too fast and are mostly unintelligible).

The moment you speak to waiters in English in Chinese restaurants they immediately lose their confidence and back off. This has happened to me time and again. The first waiter who arrives at your table will retreat on hearing a customer speaking English and will disappear to find another colleague to take the order. The replacement will also retreat on the same grounds till someone (higher up in the hierarchy) arrives who has the confidence to stand and take orders even if it is still a slow process, edged along with plenty of sign language and pointing at pictures of desired dishes on menu cards. Despite the illustrated menus, ordering with the assistance of Chinese friends is still the only guarantee to a completely satisfactory meal. I have tried sometimes ordering on my own and been dismayed at what the cat brought in.

On thing is clear. Nowhere did I find any sign of our favourite Indian Chinese dish, “gobi Manchurian.” On my return to India I am now wholly disinclined to visit Chinese restaurants. I think I’ve been cheated all my life.

Where are we similar?

At the end of a marvellous Chinese meal, the chief waiter brings a bill. He bends over to whisper and tell our host that this is a draft bill. It takes some time to understand what the problem is. Our host simply laughs and explains to us that the restaurant is saying it can inflate the bill so that we can claim more, if possible, from our sponsors. That’s when I discover that countries do learn things from their neighbours even if they are not always the best of friends.

Our bodies need natural food, just like we know infants need their mother’s milk. The problem is how do we get some? As a rule I have found the more urbanised a family, the more consumer-oriented its habits, the less the chances of its getting access to things that are naturally produced. Urban kids don’t just eat appalling foods, they have now got into appalling shape.

What is natural food? I define it as food that is first grown naturally, without growth hormones, chemical pesticides, synthetic fertilizers. That is one thing. Second, after it’s been grown that way, it is eaten within its natural life and has never been “processed.” You’ll be surprised to know that almost nothing that you can get in your super markets today might even remotely fit that bill. Which is why many of us remain almost addicted to indifferent health even when our pockets are loaded with cash.

So who doesn’t yearn for natural food? Food markets and food manufacturers use that yearning to add the term “natural” to a host of products that are neither natural nor food and in fact are quite unnatural. Let me give you the example of fruit juice, the kind that comes in tetrapak or other containers. We all love it. We drink lots of it. We think by drinking it we are pouring good health and nutrition down our throats.

Normally a fruit which has become ripe will begin to ferment in a few hours. Fermentation is a good and natural process. We eat and drink fermented foods every day from rotis to dosas, apams, idlis, toddy, neera and curd. We also drink alcohol and wine, products of fermentation. All of these are natural products because they are the result of millions of beneficial microbes working to break down the sugars that come naturally in fruit or grain.

In normal course, one can never eat more than a single apple or a single mango at a time. The advent of juicers has changed all that. It means that in a single drink we will now be having the equivalent of 6-8 apples or 3-4 mangoes, that too without their fibre. This is one aspect. The second is that the juice, left to itself, would begin fermenting in a few hours. That is a natural process. Therefore, any juice that comes to you in a bottle or box that can last several months on a shelf is something that is profoundly unnatural. Obviously the juice has been treated to ensure that the good microbes involved in starting or maintaining the process of fermentation are systematically eliminated either by high heat or through the use of chemicals so that the natural process is arrested and the juice doesn’t get rancid or bad.

As a general rule, the longer any food is kept – either in the interest of marketing long distance or for sale in locations where it has not been grown or harvested – means that considerable unnatural things have been done to it.

Conventional food processing will use either salt, sugar, oil or other additives that will freeze or even embellish the outward appearance of food. White crystal sugar, for instance, is the greatest preservative. Jams have 50% white sugar and 50% fruit pulp. However, your body does not need even a teaspoon of white sugar in its entire life-time. Similarly with salt. We use salt to preserve fish since it inhibits the work of microbes. But these substances are really bad for your health. You must avoid foods that have them like the plague.

As a thumb rule, the further away you get from the source of food growing and the longer the period between the harvesting of food and consumption, the more additives are bound to be added. Anything that anyone else tells you to the contrary is cock and bull.

So you find you live in a place where there is little access to naturally grown food, what next?

Seek access to organically grown food which is another name for naturally grown food. Organically grown food does not use chemicals or any artificial stuff. Generally its staying power is quite long. Organically grown tomatoes, for example, will last three weeks outside the fridge without any deterioration in quality because they are not filled with excess water. For access to such organically grown food make it a habit to visit organic food stores (you can find lists of them at: www.ofai.org) or try to access unprocessed foods at every occasion you get whether it’s milk, vegetables or fruits you need. As for fruits like grapes and apples, you should only eat those sourced from certified organic farms. My family and I have now stopped eating grapes and apples from the market completely.

As far as fruits are concerned, concentrate on those fruits that come seasonally. Eating apples from New Zealand or from Himachal Pradesh in Kerala is bound to fetch you only bad stuff since no apple has been made by nature to survive that long without treatment. In order to travel huge distances, the fruit has to be removed before time. It has then to be frozen, then thawed out and artificially ripened at destination. As it was removed before it was ready to ripen, it will never be sweet. Americans pretend to have access to fruit from all over the world but most of it is absolutely tasteless.

In a state like Goa for example, where I live, nature produces consecutively every two or three months a different variety of fruits. We have jambuls, carvandas, cashews in the months of February and March; from March to May we have an astonishing diversity of mangoes, jackfruits, and more berries; from June to August we get pineapples. In the post monsoon, we have a vast variety of bananas and papayas. All these fruits provide sufficient nutrients in natural form. There is, for example, more nutrition in the berry than in broccoli. Growing broccoli in a country like India requires special care, expensive pesticides, green houses, all of which not only make it expensive but also unnatural to eat.

Finally, stick to traditional food recipes. Food cooked with the use of traditional recipes comes closest to natural food for the simple reason that most of these recipes are based on ingredients that are sourced from the region itself. This has led in fact to the amazing diversity of Indian foods. In fact, if one takes diversity of food as an indicator of the quality of civilization, India and China are the two most advanced countries on the planet. The US, dominated by its homogenized, junk food industry would probably be classified as an underdeveloped country.

Traditional food only appears monotonous. Fish curry and rice, for instance, are daily eaten by huge masses of coastal people from Maharashtra to Kerala. The curry is made from coconut (natural) and the rice and fish are also natural products. The fish is eaten fresh and never from cans. I have been on a diet of fish curry rice now for the last 40 years and I know that all the nutrients that my body needs come within this basic menu which is never the same everyday since the curries are made with a variety of chillies, souring agents and greens so that no curry is the same (or has even the same colour) on any day of the week.

In conclusion: every time you buy food check out the ingredients, rule out those with salt, sugar and preservatives forthwith. Buy fresh food as a priority and remember that food with a long storage date has been treated so effectively that if it can stay immune to bacteria outside for six months it will also be immune to digestive bacteria in your own intestinal gut and pass through without acknowledging your existence. Whenever you see fresh food on sale, stop in your tracks and grab it. If you cannot source organic food, stick to home food as a first choice but only if its Indian. There’s a tradition of some 5,000 years behind that cooking against which the feeble waves created by the junk food industry hardly stand a chance.

(Published in Prevention, April 2010. Please ack or credit.)

Almost the first thing you have to do when you step outside Seoul’s Incheon international airport is to learn how to bow. Your hosts bow to you, you bow to them. You hand out your visiting card, with the left hand holding the elbow of the right and then you bow again. You bow to anyone who is even a year older than you. I had not taken any visiting cards with me when I had visited the city last year and had ended up feeling almost naked. Koreans are fiercely dedicated to dishing out visiting cards to any Tom, Dick or Lee.

Seoul (pronounced “Soul”) is a developed city. It’s the headquarters of Daewoo, Samsung and Hyundai: names Indians had rarely heard of till mass consumer electronics and the Santro became a way of life. The city plays host to one third the population of the country. Surprisingly, Seoul does not bear any significant scars from the economic trauma that came in the form of the exchange crisis. The effect of the crisis was similar to that of a neutron bomb – it killed only human beings, but left the massive structures, mammoth malls and office buildings intact. The Koreans have not only recouped with a vengeance, they have pushed the dollar even further back than it was in 1997 when the won collapsed. Apart from the traffic jams, Korea now boasts the highest number of suicides among all OECD countries: approximately 12,000 or 24.7 per 100,000 a year. (Japan comes a close second, with 30,000 suicides or 20.3 per 100,000 a year: that’s the equivalent of a small town evaporating from the face of the earth every year!)

The main tourist exhibit, believe it or not, is the 4 km-wide De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) that separates the two Koreas. This has become a big money-making machine and I don’t think the South Koreans are going to let it go so easily. Never thought you could get thousands of tourists to enjoy themselves gawking at a depopulated stretch of land enclosed within a barb wire fence. How come India’s tourism managers have not yet woken up to the millions of dollars concealed in the India-Pak Line of Control? It’s true that an LOC is not a DMZ, but tourists will look at anything, even if it does not exist, provided you just point it out to them.

At the DMZ, we were taken to see one of a series of 22 underground tunnels constructed by the North Koreans about 45 metres below the ground. Apparently, these tunnels – through which hundreds of commandos could easily pass – were North Korea’s way of clandestinely achieving reunification without Seoul’s consent.

Though the North Koreans are held to be without a trace of humour, they got the South Koreans on this one: the underground tunnels are to be found only on the South Korean side! The North Koreans have been claiming this is proof the tunnels were constructed by the South Koreans. The South Koreans are hard put to explain how we are unable to see any tunnels on the North Korean side: they claim these were dynamited by the North Koreans when the underground passageways were first discovered. But no one has access to the truth, since it is easier to visit the moon than get into North K.

During our visit, the DMZ was sold across to us as an ecological wonder by the military brass in control of the area. With nature left undisturbed by the human presence, and therefore back to its evolutionary pathway, the DMZ sported several unusual species that had found shelter there. Paradoxically, the zone’s borders are heavily mined so environmentalists who wish to commune with nature risk getting shredded into a thousand pieces if they even step on the grass. The propaganda machine is relentless from both sides. The yearning for re-unification is drowned in the propaganda cross-fire. “We have to love them and yet be on our guard,” says our tour guide. Fat chance love will prevail in such circumstances.

A more impressive – and less depressing – story worth relating is about the recovery of public open spaces in Seoul from the fatal embrace of the automobile. The present mayor promised he would, if elected, remove an entire flyover and restore a water body that had once flowed down through the city. Having heard about this, I was curious to see the actual results. I was completely amazed! A flyover of a couple of kilometres length right in the midst of the city had been demolished and removed; so was the concrete roofing that had covered the drain from public view. The drain – which we would call a nullah – had been converted into a permanent garden-lined brook. Around 30,000 city dwellers descended down to the brook every week to get their feet wet or to have a picnic. We did too.

One evening we moved to the flat of a Korean friend, Lee Seung-hwan, who is also assistant secretary-general of UNESCO Korea. He told us that every day in their huge colony, all the families themselves bring down their food wastes to the building’s parking lot where it is put into garbage containers for composting. Every week, the recyclables are similarly brought down and segregated and a recycler comes in and pays for them. The Koreans are successful simply because they have no servants and the people who generate waste handle its disposal themselves, howsoever important they may be in the city. I am now convinced the Koreans have something far better to offer us than the Santro.

(Article written for publication by Third World Resurgence)

For years, Monsanto – and its Indian subsidiary, Mahyco – have tried to make inroads into India’s vast agriculture by poaching its seeds and replacing them with their own. Though some of India’s publicly funded laboratories are also busy with the creation of genetically engineered (transgenic) crops, the speed with which Monsanto sought to introduce its proprietary GM seeds (cotton, brinjal) was simply astonishing.

It began its entry strategies with Bt cotton.

The first step was to show how terribly bad the situation was in cotton cultivation. Mahyco argued that 60% of India’s pesticides were used on cotton alone and it was able to persuade policy makers without too much difficulty that Bt cotton – engineered to tackle the American boll worm, a major destructive insect pest – would drastically reduce the need for such poisons. Farmers in some states found they got good results with Bt cotton, while their counterparts in other states found the results unimpressive. In states like Maharashtra, a good number of farmers who had grown Bt cotton found their crops failing and committed suicide.

Number of suicides:

Even today, the Government of India and policy makers are unable to categorically state that a) Bt cotton is an unqualified success; and b) whether the success in those areas where it is reported is long term and not causing a fresh series of problems including resistance to Bt cotton and transformation of secondary insect pests (like mealy bugs) into primary ones.

Despite the ambivalent achievement, however, Bt cotton entrenched the corporation firmly in Indian soil, emboldening it to venture now into food crops. For its strategy, the corporation selected the Indian eggplant (brinjal, aubergine), whose production is 8% of India’s vegetable production. The popular vegetable is a common food, relatively cheap, eaten everywhere. Some recipes encourage its raw consumption as well. However, there is no real problem of supply nor is there a crisis of production. Therefore, there was little justification for interference.

Monsanto repeated the tactic it had used for Bt cotton. Its literature now argued that farmers in India and Bangladesh sprayed their brinjal plants between 40-80 times for the duration of the crop, largely to deal with the problems created by the fruit stem borer (FSB). Such practices argued the corporation, which led to heavy toxic residues on the vegetable, would be avoided if Bt Brinjal seed was used, as the BT toxin was invariably successful in dealing very effectively with FSB.

Bt brinjal would in fact be the world’s first genetically modified vegetable produced for direct consumption. Monsanto argued that cooking the brinjal would eliminate the toxic protein and no harm would come to consumers.

Indian farmers raise some 2500 varieties of brinjal. These varieties are protected under the Indian Biological Diversity Act and the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Act. Without explicit consent of a host of players, such varieties cannot be appropriated for proprietary gains or for use in patenting.

To get by these restrictions, Monsanto roped in USAID and the Ford Foundation. USAID set up a project called ABSP II. ABSP II in turn set up a collaborative research project under a private Indian agency called Sathguru Consultants. Sathguru contracted with three Indian agricultural institutions to work on the Bt brinjal project. These public institutions scouted around and identified several common and popular varieties of brinjal and handed these over free of cost to Mahyco without the necessary permissions and approvals of statutory bodies. These heirloom varieties were then backcrossed with the proprietary Bt gene own by Mahyco and the resultant seeds sent back to the three institutions for growing out.

Monsanto funded USAID for the project in the US. It subcontracted its proprietary gene to Mahyco.

The three agricultural institutions agreed to work within the framework laid down by Mahyco’s lawyers. The three institutions, for example, were explicitly banned from doing any further research with the product lines. The collaboration brought these institutions grants and monies they were finding hard to get from the government system in any case. Though they claimed they had carried out all the “research” into Bt Brinjal, in actual fact the project considered them nothing more than highly paid manual workers growing out seed handed out to them as part of the “collaborative” study.

In 2008 Mahyco felt sufficiently confident to approach India’s statutory body for GM clearances – the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) – for permission to commercialize its GM brinjal varieties. The GEAC is set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Government of India. Without its explicit consent, no GM crop may be introduced into the country at all.

Efforts made by Indian activists to move the Supreme Court to block large-scale, field trials of Bt Brinjal were initially successful when the Court ordered a ban. However, the same Court later relented and vacated the ban, allowing Mahyco to proceed but under restrictions. Like other public bodies, the Supreme Court also felt that if the technology was going to mitigate the food problem of a growing population, outright bans were not a solution.

On 14^th October 2009, the GEAC finally approved Bt Brinjal for commercial use after ostensibly evaluating the results of field trials. Aware that there might be huge negative response to its decision, it passed on its report instead to the Government to take the final decision. The Environment Minister (Jairam Ramesh) decided in public interest not to take a decision on the GEAC’s verdict till he had consulted with civil society which appeared to have legitimate concerns. Within two days of receiving the GEAC report, he announced a series of seven consultations in seven major cities (Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Nahpur and Bangalore). These took place during January and February 2010. They concluded on 6 February 2010.

At each of these consultations between a 1000-2000 persons came to depose, though only 60 or 70 could eventually be heard at each location. The Minister first heard farmers, then scientists, then NGOs and consumer organizations. After the first two consultations at Kolkata and Bhubaneshwar produced resoundingly negative verdicts, the promoters of GM crops panicked and began to bring in busloads of hired hands to attempt to overturn or dampen public anger and rebellion against the introduction of such crops. Despite such tactics, however, the overwhelming opinion remained relentlessly and consistently against the introduction of genetically engineered brinjal. The final consultation at Bangalore was live-telecast by three separate TV channels.

Organic farmers raised major issues regarding contamination of non GM crops. They argued that the government of India could not promote both organic farming and GM agriculture since national standards for organic agriculture required prohibition of the use of GM seeds or material. Pollen from GM crops was bound to affect organically grown produce, and therefore disturb their trade. (For example, the most recent startling example of such contamination occurred in the area of organic cotton exports. India is the second major exporter of organic cotton. In April 2009, European importers confirmed that around 30% of the organic cotton imported from India was contaminated with genetically modified cotton.)

On 9 February, Jairam Ramesh announced his decision to put commercialization of Bt brinjal firmly on hold. The 9^th February order can be found on the Ministry’s website (www.moef.nic.in).

In his report, the Environment Minister declared he was not against modern science or genetic engineering. However, issues raised during the public consultations were valid concerns. Several measures would have to be taken prior to a reconsideration of the decision in the interests of public safety and safeguarding biodiversity. Some of the reasons are listed below:

· There was no over-riding food security problem, production shortage or farmer distress arguments favouring release of Bt Brinjal other than the need to reduce pesticide use.

· The Chief Ministers of 9 Indian States wrote to the Environment Minister, asking for a ban on Bt brinjal till further studies on impacts were available. Agriculture is a state subject in India.

· Non Pesticide Management or NPM – a part of the National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture (one of the missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change) – scored over Bt technology as it eliminates chemical pesticide use completely whereas Bt technology only reduces the need for pesticide sprays, albeit substantially.

· The threat of contamination and of natural toxins resurfacing is worrisome. In this context, the fact that the safety tests have been carried out by the Bt Brinjal developers themselves (Mahyco) and not in any independent laboratory raises legitimate doubts about their reliability.

· There is a lack of large-scale publicly funded biotechnology effort in agriculture to compete with and countervail Monsanto’s expertise and capabilities so that it does not jeopardise national sovereignty. Further, fingers have been pointed at the manner of funding of the Bt related research in government owned Tamilnadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore (TNAU) and the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad as well as TNAU’s right to transfer products and germplasm to Monsanto.

· India is undoubtedly the country of origin for Brinjal. The National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources of the ICAR has pointed out the likelihood of diversity loss due to gene flow (also relevant is the experience of Bt-cotton seeds taking over non-Bt seeds).

· The Central Institute of Cotton Research, Nagpur has, in the light of its review of Bt Cotton in India, highlighted the need for development of data regarding pest resistance and strategies for pro-active Insect Resistance Management as well as for resistance-monitoring after release, all to be carried out independently.

· Many countries, particularly in Europe, have banned GM foods. China’s policy is to be extremely cautious about introduction of GM in food crops, even when it has a very strong publicly-funded programme in GM technology unlike India.

· The current standards by which the GEAC has formulated its decision to approve Bt Brinjal do not match global regulatory norms to which India is a party, specifically, the provisions in the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, pertaining to public consultations prior to the release of GM food crops and those governing risk assessment, Article 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992) which echoes the precautionary principle and Section 45 of Codex Alimentarius containing “Guidelines for the Conduct of Food Safety Assessment of Foods Derived from Recombinant-DNA Plants.”

· Scientists in the USA, France, Australia, UK and New Zealand have written to the Minister raising very serious doubts on the way tests have been conducted in India for Bt Brinjal. 17 noted scientists from different countries have addressed a joint letter to the Prime Minister on February 8th, 2010 giving scientific reasons against the release of Bt Brinjal.

· The Indian Council of Medical Research and the Drug Controller to the Government of India have recommended that chronic toxicity and other associated tests be carried out independently drawing a parallel with independent testing for drugs on human beings instead of relying on developer companies’ data. Doctors for Food and Safety, a network of doctors across the country, have warned of the health hazards related to GM foods in general, Bt Brinjal in particular and the possibility of loss of medicinal properties of Brinjal used in Ayurveda, Siddha, Homeopathy and Unani (Indian systems of medicine).

· The decision on Bt Brinjal also has to take note of the Public Interest Litigation filed with the Supreme Court of India which is pending response from the Union of India on the steps taken to protect traditional crops. It is also relevant that the Supreme Court has invoked the precautionary principle as a guiding instrument in environmental decisions.

The Environment Minister’s decision was promptly attacked by two other Ministers in the Indian Cabinet, including the Minister for Science and Technology (which hosts the Department of Biotechnology) and the Minister for Agriculture. The Agriculture Minister dashed off a letter to the Prime Minister, claiming that the decision would not only be a setback for Indian agriculture but would affect investments in future exploitation of GM technologies.

On 24th February, the Prime Minister called all the warring Ministers for a joint meeting at which it was resolved that the moratorium on Bt Brinjal and GM food crops would continue.

Unrelenting, the Minister of Science and Technology resurrected instead the Biotechology Regulatory Authority Bill drawn up by his Ministry which had been in cold storage for eight years and pressed for its introduction in Parliament. The Bill seeks to wrest control of decision making on issues relating to genetic engineering from the Ministry of Environment and park these at the Ministry of Science and Technology. One of the most draconian features of the bill would enable the authorities to imprison and fine critics of biotechnology. One clause in the proposed bill which has raised a hue and cry in India reads as follows:

“Whoever, without any evidence or scientific record misleads the public about the safety of the organisms and products specified in Part I or Part II or Part III of the Schedule I, shall be punished with imprisonment for a  term which shall not be less than six months but which may extend to one  year and with fine, which may extend to two lakh rupees or with both.”

The bill also has punishments prescribed for illegal introduction of GM crops though if past experience is any guide, these will hardly be implemented. Corporations like Monsanto are keen to push their crops into India as quickly as possible as there is very little monitoring of the agricultural sector by any of the government authorities. Take the area of pesticides: large quantities of illegal pesticides are illegally imported and used with impunity by farmers without proper supervision. Since a large number of farmers are illiterate they are unable to read the instructions for safe use. In a state like Punjab – which heralded the green revolution – exposure to deadly pesticides is generating a steady number of cancer cases which are now being documented with horror by the medical authorities. Yet it is very rare to find a pesticide manufacturer or distributor in jail even though their activities harm both people and environment.

The case of India’s first genetically engineered crop (Bt cotton) is also quite revealing. More then 90% of cotton in some Indian States is now genetically engineered and around 60% comes from only one seed company: Mahyco. In many cotton growing areas, non GM cotton seed is simply not available. Dealers refuse to stock them. A large number of unauthorised seed multipliers have emerged and packets of fake GM seeds are readily available all over the country. None of the conditions imposed on the cultivation of BT cotton by the GEAC, especially maintenance of isolation distances or buffer zones, are being followed. Yet, despite these violations, approvals for Bt cotton are not being recalled.

During some of the consultations, farmers did make the claim that BT brinjal was already being grown in some pockets in the country in order to pre-empt any negative consequences flowing from a ban. GM promoters know that once seeds are in the hands of farmers, there will be no turning back.

At least for now civil society in India has won the battle. However further battles loom ahead. Whether India decides finally in favour of GM food crops or decides to bypass them will also depend on decisions being enforced by civil societies in other countries as well. Therefore the urgent need for all societies to organise collective action to ensure that the people and animals of the planet are safeguarded forever from genetically tampered food.

]]> http://www.typewriterguerilla.com/2010/03/india-goes-slow-on-gm-food-crops/feed/ http://www.typewriterguerilla.com/2010/02/how-monsanto-usually-takes-charge/ http://www.typewriterguerilla.com/2010/02/how-monsanto-usually-takes-charge/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:14:09 +0000 claude http://www.typewriterguerilla.com/?p=41 Much of the present revolt against the Government’s move to introduce genetically engineered brinjal would have been muted if a) the work had been carried out by our own agricultural scientists, and b) if Monsanto had not been in the background of the effort, like a sinister ghost.

The green revolution which was set in motion in 1966 was engineered outside the country. It was implemented within by the then agricultural establishment without a thought to its environmental consequences. With genetically modified crops we have a repeat, with one crucial difference. This time the technology comes with private ownership as part of its baggage and naturally, a demand for royalty and fees.

The question on everyone’s lips is why is the Government of India so keen to allow powerful, undesirable and ruthless US corporations like Monsanto (represented within the country by companies like Mahyco) to privatise the basis of our food production system – the seed?

Monsanto has gone on record saying that it is working towards creating a world in which all farmers everywhere will only use Monsanto seed (and naturally pay it fees for doing so). Since when did Monsanto’s aims become those of the Government of India as well?

Take the priorities facing us (and Jairam Ramesh) in the environmental arena today. Measures to deal with climate change – which is endangering the planet – deferred. Actions to tackle issues like sewage, garbage, polluted rivers, critically polluted areas, tiger loss – all deferred. But the introduction of GM brinjal has convulsed the Government into action. But is brinjal production one of the Government’s priorities? Since when? There is hardly a single person connected with agriculture in the country today who would venture to plead that there is any crisis in brinjal production. In fact, we have more than enough of brinjal we make it into pickles. So why the hyperdrive? Who decided the brinjal agenda? The answer? Monsanto and USAID.

Speed has always been a key element of Monsanto strategy. Before Americans could even know it (and protest), GM foods were upon them. Today, 85-91% of corn, cotton and soybean are planted with Monsanto engineered seed. Now the company is gunning for America’s wheat as well. With less than 1% of the US population left as farmers, it’s easy to get them all to purchase seeds dutifully every year from corporations. They have no alternative.

Could that happen in India? Well it appears that the Government of India is trying very hard.

Already in some cotton growing areas in the country today, only GM seed is available for farmers – spurious or authentic nobody seems to care. Once every other variety of cotton seed is out of the market, we are at Mahyco’s mercy. For good reason the Andhra Government acted sternly against Mahyco for extortionate cotton seed prices and the Monopolies Commission had to move against the same company to prevent monopoly price fixing.

At a time when rising costs of inputs are making agriculture unviable and are one of the reasons for farmer suicides, it is absurd to promote a seed replacement system in which seeds can only be frightfully expensive. GM seeds are four to five times more expensive than normal certified seed because they carry extortionate royalty charges. This is because they carry proprietary patented genes. The sale and profiting out of life commenced when the Supreme Court of the United States decided that corporations could patent genetically altered organisms which none of them created life in the first place.

Not for nothing has GMos come in with stringent Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) laws. The US Supreme Court has in a recent case held that a farmer whose crop had been contaminated by pollen from an adjacent crop which used patented genes would not be able to use the resulting seed to plant a new crop even though he was the owner of the seed and it had grown on his land. If he did this nonetheless, he would be violating the provisions of the US Patent Act which does not permit illegal, unauthorised use of patented goods without payment of charges.

How would that scenario emerge in India?

Begin with brinjal since it is eaten by almost everyone. Introduce it through popular varieties like the Udipi Gulla or the Agassaim variety from Goa. The Bt versions cannot be distinguished from the non-Bt farmers’ varieties. However, the Bt gene is bound to cross over into the non-Bt varieties where it can be easily identified by looking for its markers. After a period of 3-5 years, all brinjal growing in an area will be contaminated and will carry the proprietary gene (belonging to the corporate concerned). Besides contaminating common brinjal varieties, the gene will have also crossed over into tomato, potato and other solanaceous crops. Wherever it goes, the IPR would apply.

After Bt cotton, they are planning to tamper with bhendi, rice and 52 other crops with the same methods. These varieties will carry either proprietary genes that kill insects or proprietary genes that will make crops safe from Monsanto’s proprietary chemicals (like weedicides).

Imagine a situation in which more than 50 of India’s major food and commercial crops come under the ownership of one or two or three companies because they carry willy-nilly proprietary genetic material and every seed for these crops will carry a tax to be paid to Monsanto, Cargill or their agents.

Can someone tell me how this predictable scenario is incorrect, false, distant, unrealistic?

So what’s the immediate plan to get this scenario in motion?

Introduce genetically modified brinjal before people have time to think. Take them by surprise. Disarm them with scientists saying that GM food is needed for increased production (false) and that it is safe (false). Once its cultivation becomes widespread, there is no looking back because genes released into the environment cannot be recalled even by God. What is more important, they will cause so much of contamination of other crops that India’s agriculture and food will never be the same again.

For organic farmers as a class, GM crops spell a bleak and grim future. Organic farming certification standards do not permit the use of GMOs. Already certifying agencies are refusing to certify organic farms that are adjacent to farms using Bt cotton. States like Gujarat, where 97% of cotton grown is of the Bt variety, will soon lose organic status completely. In April 2009, European markets found to their horror that 30% of Indian certified organic cotton exports were contaminated with Bt genes. (India produces more than half the world’s organic cotton.) We have carefully built up an export market of over Rs.500 crore (growing leaps and bounds every year) which we now see collapsing before our eyes. I am not referring to the crores being spent by both Central and State governments to promote organic farming within the country which is additional.

The tragedy is that by killing organic farming in this manner we are killing ecological agriculture and turning our backs on ecology. Ecological agriculture has always been a win-win proposal. It builds the soil instead of depleting it; it takes the assistance of soil fauna including earthworms and beneficial microbes. It rejects synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and thereby grows safe and nutritious food. It preserves biodiversity and insect balance. It encourages best use of resources as it encourages farmers to generate all their inputs on the farm.

Genetically modified agriculture turns its back on all this. It replaces farmer-generated seeds with corporate owned seed. It promotes more intensive use of chemical fertilizers. It claims to reduce the use of pesticides. I use the word “claims” because in actual fact the entire genetically modified plant (in this case, Bt Brinjal) has been made into a toxic: every cell reproduces the Bt toxin. As organic farmers we use naturally occurring Bt sometimes to get rid of unwelcome pests, but then this is not to be consumed and we wash it off the plant when its use is done. No one in his right mind would want to use a brinjal whose every cell reproduces the Bt toxin.

The most careful assessment of sustainable use technology for agriculture was carried out by the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), a UN group which studied all options including GMOs. India is a participant and therefore signed the final report (2008). The report in fact recommends more reliance on non-GM technologies, especially ecological agriculture. If the government of India promotes GM based agriculture, it will be turning its back on the most up to date assessment agricultural technologies done under the UN system.

Therefore, be there at the consultation this morning. Tell the Environment Minister unequivocally that 1.4 billion people will not allow Mahyco, Monsanto or any other corporation to tamper with their food, now or in future. That message has already been delivered with great gusto in six other consultations in other parts of the country. The Bangalore consultation should seal GM’s fate irrevocably.

Published in Deccan Herald, Bengaluru, India on February 5, 2010

]]> http://www.typewriterguerilla.com/2010/02/how-monsanto-usually-takes-charge/feed/ http://www.typewriterguerilla.com/2010/02/how-the-government-of-goa-stole-land-for-the-thivim-cricket-stadium/ http://www.typewriterguerilla.com/2010/02/how-the-government-of-goa-stole-land-for-the-thivim-cricket-stadium/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:14:10 +0000 claude http://www.typewriterguerilla.com/?p=40 The Government of Goa has today become the single biggest thief of private and comunidade properties in the State.

A recent case is the acquisition of land for the International Cricket Stadium, a pet project of Dayanand Narvekar and the Goa Cricket Association, to be located at Thivim. The acquisition involved two classes of land. The first was a bunch of paddy fields just outside Mapusa town. Though the sales and services report of the enquiry officer (land acquisition) indicated that the compensation to be paid to the farmers would have to be in the region of nearly Rs.6 crores, the department on its own decided internally to reduce the amount to less than Rs.1 crore. This is wholesale misappropriation of property from ordinary people who are unable to fight back.

I am not going into this issue right now as the farmers have filed cases for enhanced compensation and they ought to get Rs.6 crores instead of chicken feed. But you can say in passing that at least some money is being paid for the farmers’ land.

But now read further and discover how government brazenly appropriated to itself 44,000 sq.mts of land from the Sirsaim Comunidade for the same project without paying a rupee.

An area of 44,000 sq. mts of the land acquired for the cricket stadium at Thivim was identified as forest by the Sawant and Karapurkar Expert Committees. Once the Goa Foundation drew this to the attention of the government in February 2007, it imposed a clampdown on any work in the area. Media reports had indicated that Mr. Narvekar wanted the tenders for construction to be issued in January 2007 itself.

The Goa government then filed an application for diversion of the forest land under the provisions of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.

As per existing laws concerning proposals that involve destruction of natural forests, the following conditions must be met if the Ministry of Environment & Forests is to approve the proposal:

a) Payment by the developer of Net Present Value (NPV) of the diverted forest land, which in the Thivim case amounted to Rs.30.5 lakhs.

b) Payment towards compensatory afforestation, which in the Thivim case was another Rs.4 lakhs.

c) Handover of equivalent land for the compensatory forest to be raised.

The Sports Department coughed up the huge amount of Rs.34.5 lakhs, thus meeting conditions (a) and (b). Note that this money came from the public exchequer, and not from the pockets of the Goa Cricket Association, a private body, for which the backdoor acquisition was intended.

Forest condition (c) was more difficult since land is a scarce commodity in Goa. In the case of the Thivim cricket stadium, the Goa government simply stole the land that was required to put up for compensatory afforestation!

Mr. Narvekar on his own admission in writing said he was “successful” in giving 44,000 sq.mts of land from the Comunidade of Sirsaim to the forest department for afforestation. How was this achieved?

On 24^th July 2007, the Comunidade Attorney issued a letter to the Conservator of Forests which stated that the Sirsaim Comunidade “has resolved to give an area of 44,000 sq. mts of its vacant land situated at Sirsaim near Thivim station bearing Survey No. 12 for forestation.” The letter also adds that this land of 40,000 sq. mts., “is in lieu of land being used by government for International Cricket Stadium at Thivim, which is acquired by government bearing survey no. 404, which is classified as private forest.” The letter concluded: “Kindly accept our land and take possession of the same in public interest and set up the International Cricket Stadium.”

While the approval of the comunidade was conveyed to the Government by the Attorney on 24^th July 2007, the notice for the meeting of the Comunidade of Sirsaim to be held on the 19^th of August to approve the handover only appeared in the Goa Gazette on 2^nd August 2007. Since there was no quorum on 19^th August, the meeting was abandoned. However, on the same day, the Managing Committee met and approved the proposal! (Incidentally, the very same managing committee is now facing a High Court enquiry for forgery of documents, illegal allotment of over 300 plots, misappropriation of funds and other irregularities.) Thus the decision to handover 44,000 sq.mts of land of Sirsaim Comunidade without receiving even a token consideration was taken almost one month after the Attorney had not only anticipated the decision but also conveyed it in writing to the Forest Department.

Under the Code of Comunidades, there is no provision in the Code for handing over free even one square metre of land (much less 44,000 sq.mts) to the government or anyone else. Comunidades may issue land on lease to the government but no land can be “distrained” permanently. In no case can land be handed over without a consideration.

Despite being aware of the provisions of the Code, the Revenue Department issued an order on 15^th July 2008 conveying approval of the government for the grant of land by the Comunidade of Sirsaim to the Forest Department “in lieu of equal land acquired by the government to build the cricket stadium at Thivim.” The words “in lieu of” appear nonsensical in the context since the land at Thivim had been acquired under the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act and belonged to the government whereas the land of the Comunidade of Sirsaim could never belong to the government except by land acquisition.

The Revenue Department in its letter of 15^th July refers to the Thivim land as “private forestation of the Forest Department.” How do senior bureaucrats write such rubbish?

Only one last obstacle still remained.

The Forest Conservation Act 1980 insists that the land for compensatory afforestation must be mutated in the records and the Forest Department must be shown as its sole owner. Accordingly, the Forest Department wrote to the Talathi of Sirsaim regarding the mutation. The Comunidade wrote to the Talathi requesting him to show the name of the Department of Forest under the “other rights” column for the Comunidade still considered itself the owner of the plot. However, this was rejected by the Forest Department in February 2008. Without further ado, the name of the Forest Department was now shown in the occupant’s column! Thus overnight, without payment of any consideration, deed of conveyance or any of the laborious processes of land acquisition, 44,000 sq.mts of Sirsaim Comunidade land became the property of the Goa Government!

This land was now presented to the Ministry of Environment as the land that would be used for the purpose of replacing the forest proposed to be destroyed at Thivim.

More surprises? Survey No. 12 of the Sirsaim Comunidade – of which the 44,000 sq.mts is a part – is subject of a legal agreement of 25 years standing between the Forest Department and the Comunidade for purposes of raising social forestry. The agreement was signed in 1986 and expires in 2011. The same land that is supposed to have a social forest was now being reassigned to grow another forest! Maybe the second forest is to be located in the stratosphere, above the present one, so that we can confirm that it is indeed growing from any part of Goa!

Thus it is clear that the purpose of the entire exercise is not to grow a forest, but only to declare an intent to do so. In exchange for this dubious intent, 2500 priceless forest trees at Thivim will lose their life. The trunks of these are now already marked for destruction.

So 4.5 ha of extremely rich, irreplaceable, dense forest will make way for people who will occasionally play games for entertainment with pieces of wood called bats and stumps made from felled trees so that sponsors can make money and Mr Dayanand Narvekar can once again sell any number of tickets for cricket tamashas with a little more confidence since the stadium is a few hundred metres from his house.

The felled forest of Thivim will add to global warming since a good deal of it will be burnt. (Incidentally there have been several efforts to set it on fire over the last 2-3 years.)

This development circus, in normal course, would not be permitted by any group of vigilant citizens. That the proposal for the stadium has reached this stage indicates how deep is the slumber of the people of Thivim (who stand to lose their forest) and Sirsaim (who stand to lose their land).

On 19.11.2009, the Forest Department issued a gazette notification officially declaring the land of 44,000 sq.mts of Sirsaim Comunidade as the property of Government and – though there is not a single tree standing on the plot – constituted it as a “forest” under the Indian Forest Act, 1927. Amen.

The J.B. Auditorium belonging to the Ahmedabad Management Association has 500 fixed seats. There are two additional halls with video displays, each of 100 seats each. The third consultation saw 600 people in the main hall and the two video rooms full. Outside the auditorium more than 200 farmers, students, anti-GM activists held forth with placards and banners, shouting slogans against Bt brinjal. The Gujarat consultation therefore had more than 1,000 participants.

The astonishing attendance at the consultation owes largely to the efforts of a mass mobilization carried out by Kapil Shah of Jatan, Devender Sharma (who camped in the city for three days), and several civil society organizations. Streets and kiosks in the city had anti-GM posters put up by Greenpeace activists.

Jairam Ramesh was his debonair self, never losing his cool (unlike his first outburst at Kolkata), admonishing participants at times on use of undiplomatic language, open to all views, taking notes, representations and ending the session with a display of his email id (jairam54@vsnl.com) for any person who wanted to send him either more information or studies. Most of the discussion took place either in Gujarati or Hindi.

Of the hundreds who came, 66 spoke. Of these 51 opposed the introduction of Bt Brinjal and 15 spoke in support. Some of those who spoke in support were imported to the consultation in vehicles by Mahyco and paid Rs.500 each for the day, besides a hotel room. In fact, one sponsored lot came from Ganganagar in Rajasthan. Minister asked them pointedly if they had all come in a bus.

The pro-Bt farmers claimed that income had increased from Rs.5,000 to 20,000 due to Bt cotton and they had been saved from pesticides use (@Rs.10,000 per litre). One farmer claimed his yields had increased four times. He said though they consumed the seeds, they were not affected in any manner.

Another pro-Bt speaker was Dr P. Balasubramaniam who made the outrageous claim that the work at TNAU was being bankrolled by the Government of India. He ended his brief speech by declaring that since the Bt Brinjal could be grown from seed by farmers (once they had purchased it, of course), it in fact merited the label of “organic Bt Brinjal”. (Though Balasubramaniam came all the way from Tamilnadu, he was allowed to speak, whereas Claude Alvares was not permitted ostensibly because he was from Goa though he had come to speak as a representative of an all-India organic farmers association).

The anti-GM outpouring clearly carried the day. After the first hour, most of the sponsored pro-GM speakers had given up leaving the floor open to the anti-GM groups. The Minister made it a point to spend another half hour with the protesters outside the auditorium after the consultation. If the sponsorship had been absent, the entire auditorium would have resounded to anti-Bt brinjal slogans and speeches.

The organic farmers of Gujarat were out in a sizeable group and impressed upon the Minister that some of them whose farms were located in the immediate vicinity of Bt cotton farms were already losing their certification status.

Vijaya Venkat, Sudarshan Iyengar (Vice-Chancellor of Gujarat Vidya peeth), Rajendra Kimani (GV registrar), Vinubhai Gandhi, Kapil Shah and other spoke. Older Gandhians like Chunibhai Vaidya who could not attend sent written representations against Bt brinjal’s introduction.

Vinubhai who is 82 years old told the Minister that he had not contracted a single illness in the last fifty years simply because he ate organically grown food. He said Government was involved in so many frauds, there was no need to one more. The Constitution did not give any right to the government to allow foods that would affect our lives. Government simply had no right to impose foods on us like this.

Dr Sudarshan stood up to say that because GM food was hazardous was the reason why the GEAC had been set up in the first place. Being in that position, those in charge of deciding these matters had a very special responsibility to take absolute care. Since Bt Brinjal was an item destined for consumption (sometimes barely cooked, sometimes even eaten raw), the ICMR norms must not be violated and no Bt Brinjal should be introduced without studies that indicate it meets the norms. It is true that Bt Cotton had led to high yields in the beginning, but there were ready signs that these yields were evening out and beginning to decline. Looking at the issue as an economist, he remarked that the paid out costs of agriculture, risks and uncertainties associated with agriculture were not going down. He called for a 5-7 year moratorium and insisted firmly that all issued raised must be cleared before Bt Brinjal was allowed for cultivation.

Kapil Shah suggested that we should no longer opt for strategies in agriculture that keep changing every decade because the company had a new product. We need a strategy for agriculture that is based on permanence. The ecological approach is the most permanent. He pointed out that the faculty of Anand University were doing work on Bt cotton as well as on IPM. However its good work on IPM was not being supported or pushed. He countered the statement of Dr Balasubramaniam that the Bt-trials were funded by the Government of India and said they were in fact funded by the Ford Foundation and USAID.

A pastoralist, Laljee, decried the fact that 60% of the ownership of cotton seed had already into the hands of Monsanto. He asked what will happen when brinjal and other vegetable crops are genetically modified with private genes?

Scientists were invited to speak. Surprisingly, they were not supportive of the move to introduce Bt brinjal. One scientist (Dr Manjrekar from M.S. University Biotechnology Centre) criticised the GEAC for what he called was a “shoddy report”. He said the GEAC had offhandedly dismissed antibiotic resistance. He said horizontal gene transfer was a reality that could not be denied.

A medical practitioner said that the six amino acids inserted into the principal gene could induce situations including cancers as the composition was not found in nature. Others denied that pesticides use had come down with Bt cotton cultivation as farmers were still using pesticides in their fields. Most speakers strongly criticised the objectivity of the GEAC. Medical expert Chinu Srinivasan insisted that Bt food be placed on par with pharma products and should be subjected to the same trials and procedures of testing including human trials. Medical practitioner Bharat Shah summarised the medical literature on impact of Bt products on animals which included allergies, liver and other organ damage.

One lawyer categorically stated that the GEAC procedure was profoundly undemocratic and could never be tolerated in a functioning democracy. One organic farmer observed that when scientists wanted to introduce chemicals, they painted a rosy picture of them. Now the same scientists and companies were criticising chemicals because they wanted desperately to introduce GMOs.

A woman activist told the Minister that engineered products are only allowed as animal feed in countries like the US. This meant that the status of people in India was the same as animals in the US.

From time to time, Jairam Ramesh attempted to correct public misinformation. He said very clearly that the Andhra Pradesh government had not banned Bt brinjal. That was a wrong report. However, he did not correct Dr Balasubramaniam’s patently false statement that the entire work on Bt brinjal in India was financed by the Government of India.

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