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Studies show that there is little difference in the quality and productivity of processed 'certified' seed and normal seed. But Indian farmers are being pressurised to grow registered seed, regardless of the fact that much of the current agrarian crisis is a result of cost-intensive technologies being forced onto farmers
The controversial Seed Bill 2004, which has been referred to a parliamentary select committee, lays emphasis on ensuring the quality of improved seed being supplied to farmers. It seeks to make it mandatory for farmers to grow registered seed, a proposal that has come in for severe criticism from farmers as well as civil society.
Seed quality is an important aspect of crop production. For years, farmers have selected and maintained good quality seed, as they knew and understood the importance of quality seed in production. But this thinking changed with the advent of Green Revolution technology based primarily on high-yielding dwarf varieties of wheat and rice. For reasons best known to themselves, agricultural scientists began to doubt the ability of farmers to maintain seed quality.
Aided by the World Bank, the ministry of agriculture launched a National Seeds Project in 1967. Under the project, spread across three phases, s eed processing plants were set up in Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa. Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh were covered under phase 3. All that these huge processing plants were supposed to do was provide farmers with ‘certified’ seeds of mainly self-pollinating food crops.
Most of the plants have since become white elephants, as lack of demand for the ‘certified’ seeds caused the plants to slide into the red; they soon became burdened with carryover stocks. If the seed replacement ratio is any indication, farmers preferred to save and clean part of their grain harvest to sow during the next season.
Studies have subsequently shown that there is hardly any difference in the quality and productivity of processed ‘certified’ seed and normal seed from self-pollinating crops like wheat and rice. In fact, what’s relatively unknown is that the 18,000 tonnes of dwarf wheat seed imported in 1966 from Mexico, which ushered in the wheat revolution, was not ‘certified’ processed seed. It was cleaned wheat grain collected from Mexican farmers. If the cleaned grain could bring about record production what was the need to push expensive ‘certified’ seed onto farmers?
Not only seed quality, even the traditional method of sowing paddy was dubbed inefficient and considered the main reason for low yields. Agricultural scientists urged farmers to discard the traditional method (broadcasting) of sowing paddy. Farm extension machinery was mobilised to disseminate the improved technology of transplanting from a paddy nursery. Within a few years of the advent of high-yielding varieties of rice, paddy transplantation changed the rural landscape.
Transplanting paddy required additional farm labour and therefore increased the cost of production. Crops were transplanted in rows, making it easier for tractors and other mechanised instruments to negotiate the rice paddies. It also forced farmers to go in for more irrigation, resulting in increased use of groundwater.
In the mid-1980s, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines concluded in a study that there was hardly any difference in crop yields from transplanted rice and crops sown by the broadcasting method. Puzzled, I asked a distinguished rice breeder: “If this is true, then why in the first instance were farmers asked to switch over to transplanting paddy?” He thought for a while and then replied: “We were probably helping the mechanical industry grow. Since rice is the staple food in Asia , tractor sales could only grow if there was a way to move the machine into the rice fields.”
No wonder sales of tractors, puddlers, reapers and other associated equipment soared in rice-growing areas!
Spraying the crop with insecticide is also a regular feature of modern farming. Pesticides for rice (and other crops) were deemed necessary as the fertiliser-responsive dwarf varieties attracted hordes of insects. To get the pesticides to the target pests, farmers were advised to use ‘knapsack sprayers’ mounted on their backs. These sprayers came with various nozzles -- different sizes for different crops. Tractor-driven sprayers were also promoted for several crops.
Although David Pimental of the University of Cornell concluded in the early-1980s that only 0.01% of pesticides reach the target pest -- 99.9% escapes into the environment -- farmers were asked to use more sprays. IRRI, which now publicly accepts that using pesticide on rice is a “waste of time and effort”, also came out with a study on the efficiency of pesticide application. This study concluded that there was no difference in efficiency between the knapsack sprayers and when the chemical is used at the source of irrigation in the field.
Much of the current agrarian crisis, therefore, is a result of ‘unwanted’ and ‘cost-intensive’ technologies that have been forced onto farmers. It seems clear that all that the scientists were doing was unknowingly promoting the commercial interests of the seed, tractor and pesticides industries. Blindly introducing alien farm technologies without ascertaining their utility under Indian farm conditions has cost our farmers dearly. The lure of unwanted, expensive technology has impoverished the farming community, as savings from crop harvests have gone towards buying and maintaining these irrelevant technologies.
It is time we examine and analyse the politics behind the new agriculture technologies, including biotechnology, nanotechnology and farming systems like ‘contract farming’ and ‘corporate agriculture’ before they are pushed onto our unsuspecting farmers.
InfoChange News & Features, August 2005
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