Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Mr. Bhaskar Save
Mr. Bhaskar Save
There were no social laws and religion when people used to hunt in groups except sharing of the proceeds of hunting together as per their level of hungers (may not be because they wanted to, but most likely because they were not equipped with the technology of preservation).
When one of the world’s greatest scientists understood the plant life cycle, agricultural science and economics were born simultaneously.
Some very smart and enterprising people realised that more land tilled by more of their people would yield more money and power and felt the need for religion as well as all-encompassing social laws (including marriage) to control the people under their command. Philosopher Bertrand Russell, in his book Marriage and Morals, said “In early agricultural and pastoral communities both wives and children were an economic asset to man. …. Consequently, the most powerful men aimed at having as many wives as possible.”
Those communities respected and obeyed Mother Nature and natural laws. Subsequently, many Economists, Scientists, Engineers and above all, the power-hungry politicians all over the world, funded by equally power hungry individuals, consciously and systematically tried to destroy Mother Nature in their vein attempt to control her.
Mr. Bhaskar Save, an octogenarian defiant farmer of a village in Gujrat, in his open letter to Mr. M.S. Swaminathan, supposedly the father of “Green Revolution” in our country aptly says “The mindset of servitude to 'commerce and industry,' ignoring all else, is the root of the problem. But industry merely transforms 'raw materials' sourced from Nature into commodities. It cannot create anew. Only Nature is truly creative and self-regenerating – through synergy with the fresh daily inflow of the sun's energy.” He quotes Vinova Bhave - “Science wedded to compassion can bring about a paradise on earth. But divorced from non-violence, it can only cause a massive conflagration that swallows us in its flames."
All of us are aware of the devastations brought about by the nuclear bombs created by some uncompassionate scientists in the interest of a few lunatic power-hungry politicians.
The natural scientist Mr. Bhaskar Save made me, a so-called Engineer who crossed to the senior citizen world recently, ashamed and guilt-stricken as with so called formal education, I failed to stand up like him and accepted with open arms anything and everything that the western world dumped on us in the name of economic, scientific & technological progress, without ever establishing their usefulness in our environment beyond doubt. I overlooked the huge gap between “modern technology” and “appropriate technology”.
I salute Mr. Bhaskar Save, a natural scientist to my mind, who stood up in a small village in Gujrat and registered his protest by his actions.
As a tribute to him, I am attaching his open letter to Mr. M.S. Swaminathan in the fond hope that those of you, who care, would ponder over what is modern and what is appropriate for our beloved country. And where I failed, at least one amongst you would have enough courage to stand up and say “enough is enough”. If any you think that it is futile, may I request the same person to forward Mr. Bhaskar Save’s open letter to your acquaintances so that one amongst them stands up.
Please remember (as the Haida Indian saying goes) “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
Open Letter
From: Bhaskar Save, 'Kalpavruksha' Farm,
Village Dehri, via Umergam,
Dist. Valsad,
(Phone: 0260 – 2562126 & 2563866)
To: Shri M.S. Swaminathan,
The Chairperson, National Commission on Farmers,
Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India
Subject: Mounting Suicides and National Policy for Farmers
Dear Shri Swaminathan,
I am an 84-year old natural/organic farmer with more than six decades of personal experience in growing a wide range of food crops. I have, over the years, practised several systems of farming, including the chemical method in the fifties – until I soon saw its pitfalls.
I say with conviction that it is only by organic farming in harmony with Nature, that
[Annexed hereto are: (1) a concise comparison of chemical farming and organic farming; (2) an introduction to my farm, Kalpavruksha; (3) some recorded opinions of visitors; and (4) a short biographical note on myself.
You, M.S. Swaminathan, are considered the 'father' of
As destiny would have it, you are presently the chairperson of the 'National Commission on Farmers', mandated to draft a new agricultural policy. I urge you to take this opportunity to make amends – for the sake of the children, and those yet to come.
I understand your Commission is inviting the views of farmers for drafting the new policy. As this is an open consultation, I am marking a copy of my letter to: the Prime Minister, the Union Minister for Agriculture, the Chairperson of the National Advisory Council, and to the media - for wider communication. I hope this provokes some soul-searching and open debate at all levels on the extremely vital issues involved. – So that we do not repeat the same kind of blunders that led us to our present, deep festering mess.
The great poet, Rabindranath Tagore, referred not so long ago to our "sujhalam, sufalam" land. Ours indeed was a remarkably fertile and prosperous country – with rich soils, abundant water and sunshine, thick forests, a wealth of bio-diversity, … And cultured, peace-loving people with a vast store of farming knowledge and wisdom.
Farming runs in our blood. But I am sad that our (now greyed) generation of Indian farmers, allowed itself to be duped into adopting the short-sighted and ecologically devastating way of farming, imported into this country. – By those like you, with virtually zero farming experience!
For generations beyond count, this land sustained one of the highest densities of population on earth. Without any chemical 'fertilizers', pesticides, exotic dwarf strains of grain, or the new, fancy 'bio-tech' inputs that you now seem to champion. The many waves of invaders into this country, over the centuries, took away much. But the fertility of our land remained unaffected.
The Upanishads say:
Purnamidam Purnat Purnamudachyate
Purnasya Purnamadaya Purnamewa Vashishyate
"This creation is whole and complete.
From the whole emerge creations, each whole and complete.
Take the whole from the whole, but the whole yet remains,
Undiminished, complete!"
In our forests, the trees like ber (jujube), jambul (jambolan), mango, umbar (wild fig), mahua (Madhuca indica), imli (tamarind), … yield so abundantly in their season that the branches sag under the weight of the fruit. The annual yield per tree is commonly over a tonne – year after year. But the earth around remains whole and undiminished. There is no gaping hole in the ground!
From where do the trees – including those on rocky mountains – get their water, their NPK, etc? Though stationary, Nature provides their needs right where they stand. But 'scientists' and technocrats like you – with a blinkered, meddling itch – seem blind to this. On what basis do you prescribe what a tree or plant requires, and how much, and when…?
It is said: where there is lack of knowledge, ignorance masquerades as 'science'! Such is the 'science' you have espoused, leading our farmers astray – down the pits of misery. While it is no shame to be ignorant, the awareness of such ignorance is the necessary first step to knowledge. But the refusal to see it is self-deluding arrogance.
.
Agricultural Mis-education
This country has more than 150 agricultural universities, many with huge land-holdings of thousands of acres. They have no dearth of infrastructure, equipment, staff, money, … And yet, not one of these heavily subsidized universities makes any profit, or grows any significant amount of food, if only to feed its own staff and students. But every year, each churns out several hundred 'educated' unemployables, trained only in misguiding farmers and spreading ecological degradation.
In all the six years a student spends for an M. Sc. in agriculture, the only goal is short-term – and narrowly perceived – 'productivity'. For this, the farmer is urged to do and buy a hundred things. But not a thought is spared to what a farmer must never do so that the land remains unharmed for future generations and other creatures. It is time our people and government wake up to the realisation that this industry-driven way of farming – promoted by our institutions – is inherently criminal and suicidal!
Gandhi declared: Where there is soshan, or exploitation, there can be no poshan, or nurture! Vinoba Bhave added, "Science wedded to compassion can bring about a paradise on earth. But divorced from non-violence, it can only cause a massive conflagration that swallows us in its flames."
Trying to increase Nature's 'productivity,' is the fundamental blunder that highlights the ignorance of 'agricultural scientists' like you. Nature, unspoiled by man, is already most generous in her yield. When a grain of rice can reproduce a thousand-fold within months, where arises the need to increase its productivity?
Numerous kinds of fruit trees too yield several hundred thousand kg of nourishment each in their lifetime! That is, provided the farmer does not pour poison and mess around the tree in his greed for quick profit. A child has a right to its mother's milk. But if we draw on Mother Earth's blood and flesh as well, how can we expect her continuing sustenance!
The mindset of servitude to 'commerce and industry,' ignoring all else, is the root of the problem. But industry merely transforms 'raw materials' sourced from Nature into commodities. It cannot create anew. Only Nature is truly creative and self-regenerating – through synergy with the fresh daily inflow of the sun's energy.
The Six Self-renewing Paribals of Nature
There is on earth a constant inter-play of the six paribals (key factors) of Nature, interacting with sunlight. Three are: air, water and soil. Working in tandem with these, are the three orders of life: ' vanaspati srushti' (the world of plants), 'jeev srushti' (the realm of insects and micro-organisms), and 'prani srushti' (the animal kingdom). These six paribals maintain a dynamic balance. Together, they harmonise the grand symphony of Nature, weaving the new!
Man has no right to disrupt any of the paribals of Nature. But modern technology, wedded to commerce – rather than wisdom or compassion – has proved disastrous at all levels... We have despoiled and polluted the soil, water and air. We have wiped out most of our forests and killed its creatures; … And relentlessly, modern farmers spray deadly poisons on their fields. These massacre Nature's jeev srushti – the unpretentious but tireless little workers that maintain the ventilated quality of the soil, and recycle all life-ebbed biomass into nourishment for plants. The noxious chemicals also inevitably poison the water, and Nature's prani srushti, which includes humans.
The Root of Unsustainablity
Sustainability is a modern concern, scarcely talked of at the time you championed the 'green revolution'. Can you deny that for more than forty centuries, our ancestors farmed the organic way – without any marked decline in soil fertility, as in the past four or five decades? Is it not a stark fact that the chemical-intensive and irrigation-intensive way of growing monoculture cash crops has been primarily responsible for spreading ecological devastation far and wide in this country? – Within the lifetime of a single generation!
Engineered Erosion of Crop Diversity, Scarcity of Organic Matter, and Soil Degradation
This country boasted an immense diversity of crops, adapted over millennia to local conditions and needs. Our numerous tall, indigenous varieties of grain provided more biomass, shaded the soil from the sun, and protected against its erosion under heavy monsoon rains. But in the guise of increasing crop production, exotic dwarf varieties were introduced and promoted through your efforts. This led to more vigorous growth of weeds, which were now able to compete successfully with the new stunted crops for sunlight. The farmer had to spend more labour and money in weeding, or spraying herbicides.
The straw growth with the dwarf grain crops fell drastically to one-third of that with most native species! In
Engineered Pestilence
The exotic varieties, grown with chemical 'fertiliser', were more susceptible to 'pests and diseases', leading to yet more poison (insecticides, etc.) being poured. But the attacked insect species developed resistance and reproduced prolifically. Their predators – spiders, frogs, etc. – that fed on these insects and 'biologically controlled' their population, were exterminated. So were many beneficial species like the earthworms and bees.
Agribusiness and technocrats recommended stronger doses, and newer, more toxic (and more expensive) chemicals. But the problems of 'pests' and 'diseases' only worsened. The spiral of ecological, financial and human costs mounted!
The 'Development' of Water Scarcity and Dead, Salty Soils
With the use of synthetic fertilizer and increased cash cropping, irrigation needs rose enormously. In 1952, the Bhakra dam was built in
The living soil and its underlying aquifers thus serve as gigantic, ready-made reservoirs gifted free by Nature. Particularly efficient in soaking rain are the lands under forests and trees. And so, half a century ago, most parts of
While the recharge of groundwater has greatly reduced, its extraction has been mounting.
More than 80% of
One acre of chemically grown sugarcane requires as much water as would suffice 25 acres of jowar, bajra or maize. The sugar factories too consume huge quantities. >From cultivation to processing, each kilo of refined sugar needs 2 to 3 tonnes of water. This could be used to grow, by the traditional, organic way, about 150 to 200 kg of nutritious jowar or bajra (native millets).
While rice is suitable for rain-fed farming, its extensive multiple cropping with irrigation in winter and summer as well, is similarly hogging our water resources, and depleting aquifers. As with sugarcane, it is also irreversibly ruining the land through salinisation.
Soil salinisation is the greatest scourge of irrigation-intensive agriculture, as a progressively thicker crust of salts is formed on the land. Many million hectares of cropland have been ruined by it. The most serious problems are caused where water-guzzling crops like sugarcane or basmati rice are grown round the year, abandoning the traditional mixed-cropping and rotation systems of the past, which required minimal or no watering.
Since at least 60% of the water used for irrigation nowadays in
Conservative Irrigation and Groundwater Recharge at Kalpavruksha
Efficient, organic farming requires very little irrigation – much less than what is commonly used in modern agriculture. The yields of the crops are best when the soil is just damp. Rice is the only exception that grows even where water accumulates, and is thus preferred as a monsoon crop in low-lying areas naturally prone to inundation. Excess irrigation in the case of all other crops expels the air contained in the soil's inter-particulate spaces – vitally needed for root respiration – and prolonged flooding causes root rot.
The irrigation on my farm is a small fraction of that provided in most modern farms today. Moreover, the porous soil under the thick vegetation of the orchard is like a sponge that soaks and percolates to the aquifer, or ground-water table, an enormous quantity of rain each monsoon. The amount of water thus stored in the ground at Kalpavruksha, is far more than the total amount withdrawn from the well for irrigation in the months when there is no rain.
Thus, my farm is a net supplier of water to the eco-system of the region, rather than a net consumer! Clearly, the way to ensure the water security and food security of this nation, is by organically growing mixed, locally suitable crops, plants and trees, following the laws of Nature.
Need for 30% Tree Cover
We should restore at least 30% ground cover of mixed, indigenous trees and forests within the next decade or two. This is the core task of ecological water harvesting – the key to restoring the natural abundance of groundwater. Outstanding benefits can be achieved within a decade at comparatively little cost. We sadly fail to realise that the potential for natural water storage in the ground is many times greater than the combined capacity of all the major and medium irrigation projects in
Even barren wastelands can be restored to health in less than a decade. By inter-planting short life-span, medium life-span, and long life-span crops and trees, it is possible to have planned continuity of food yield to sustain a farmer through the transition period till the long-life fruit trees mature and yield. The higher availability of biomass and complete ground cover round the year will also hasten the regeneration of soil fertility.
Production, Poverty & Population
After the British left, Indian agriculture was recovering steadily. There was no scarcity of diverse nourishment in the countryside, where 75% of India
The new, parasitical way of farming you vigorously promoted, benefited only the industrialists, traders and the powers-that-be. The farmers' costs rose massively and margins dipped. Combined with the eroding natural fertility of their land, they were left with little in their hands, if not mounting debts and dead soils. Many gave up farming. Many more want to do so, squeezed by the ever-rising costs. This is nothing less than tragic, since Nature has generously gifted us with all that is needed for organic farming – which also produces wholesome, rather than poisoned food!
Restoring the natural health of Indian agriculture is the path to solve the inter-related problems of poverty, unemployment and rising population. The maximum number of people can become self-reliant through farming only if the necessary inputs are a bare minimum. Thus, farming should require a minimum of financial capital and purchased inputs, minimum farming equipment (plough, tools, etc.), minimum necessary labour, and minimum external technology. Then, agricultural production will increase, without costs increasing. Poverty will decline, and the rise in population will be spontaneously checked.
Self-reliant farming – with minimal or zero external inputs – was the way we actually farmed, very successfully, in the past. Barring periods of war and excessive colonial oppression, our farmers were largely self-sufficient, and even produced surpluses, though generally smaller quantities of many more items. These, particularly perishables, were tougher to supply urban markets. And so the nation's farmers were steered to grow chemically cultivated monocultures of a few cash crops like wheat, rice, or sugar, rather than their traditional polycultures that needed no purchased inputs. [See Annexure 5 on an old, six-crop integral system (of cotton, 2 millets and 3 edible pulse legumes) which successfully provided farmers in low-rainfall regions with more diversity and continuity of yield round the year – without any irrigation or external inputs.]
In Conclusion:
I hope you have the integrity to support widespread change to mixed organic farming, tree planting and forest regeneration (with local resources and rights) – that India greatly needs. I would be glad to answer any query or doubt posed to me, preferably in writing. I also welcome you to visit my farm with reasonable prior notice. Since many years, I have extended an open invitation to any one interested in natural/organic farming to visit Kalpavruksha, on any Saturday afternoon between 2.00 and
I may finally add that this letter has been transcribed in English by Bharat Mansata, based on discussions with me in Gujarati. (The annexures hereto are excerpted from his forthcoming book, 'The Vision of Natural Farming,' Earthcare Books, which draws largely on my experience.)
Whether or not you agree with my views, I look forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely,
Bhaskar H. Save
Copy to: (i) The Prime Minister of
Annexures:
- Comparison of Chemical Farming and Organic Farming
- An Introduction to Kalpavruksha (my farm)
- Recorded Opinions of Visitors
- A Biographical Note
5) Note on a Traditional Six-Crop, Integral System – in a low rainfall zone, providing diverse yield round the year without any irrigation or external input.
- Content Overview and More Excerpts from 'The Vision of Natural Farming'
Annexure 1: Comparison of Chemical Farming & Organic Farming:
-- by Bhaskar Save, transcribed from Gujarati to English by Bharat Mansata
- Chemical farming fragments the web of life; organic farming nurtures its wholeness
- Chemical farming depends on fossil oil; organic farming on living soil.
- Chemical farmers see their land as a dead medium; organic farmers know theirs is teeming with life.
- Chemical farming pollutes the air, water and soil; organic farming purifies and renews them.
- Chemical farming uses large quantities of water and depletes aquifers; organic farming requires much less irrigation, and recharges groundwater.
- Chemical farming is mono-cultural and destroys diversity; organic farming is poly-cultural and nurtures diversity.
- Chemical farming produces poisoned food; organic farming yields nourishing food.
- Chemical farming has a short history and threatens a dim future; organic farming has a long history and promises a bright future.
- Chemical farming is an alien, imported technology; organic farming has evolved indigenously.
- Chemical farming is propagated through schooled, institutional misinformation; organic farming learns from Nature and farmers' experience.
- Chemical farming benefits traders and industrialists; organic farming benefits the farmer, the environment and society as a whole.
- Chemical farming robs the self-reliance and self-respect of farmers and villages; organic farming restores and strengthens it.
- Chemical farming leads to bankruptcy and misery; organic farming liberates from debt and woe.
- Chemical farming is violent and entropic; organic farming is non-violent and synergistic.
- Chemical farming is a hollow 'green revolution'; organic farming is the true green revolution.
- Chemical farming is crudely materialistic, with no ideological mooring; organic farming is rooted in spirituality and abiding truth.
- Chemical farming is suicidal, moving from life to death; organic farming is the road to regeneration.
- Chemical farming is the vehicle of commerce and oppression; organic farming is the path of culture and co-evolution.
[Note: Annexures 2 to 6 are being sent separately to avoid overloading.]
