MAPSTL

Gandhi, Globalization and Climate Change

Dr. Ashok Kumar Panigrahi, Balasore.

Decades ago Mahatma Gandhi said, “ the earth supplies sufficient to satisfy each man’s will need, but not any one’s greed.” Gandhiji, a known critique of total mechanization, said, “ what I object to is the craze for machinery, not machinery as such. The craze is for what they call labour saving machinery. Men go on saving labour till thousands are without work and thrown on the open streets to die of starvation…. I want the concentration of wealth, not in

the hands of a couple of but in the hands of all. Today machinery only helps a couple of to ride on the backs of millions. The impetus behind it all is not the philanthropy to save labour, but greed”. Gandhiji was a champion of village based cottage industries for ‘they make the village self sufficient and supply adequate employment and items to one and all.’

After two centuries of industrialisation and two decades of economic

globalisation.

?Poverty alleviation not in sight, men and women continue to die of hunger.

?Drastic climate change, global warming, polar ice caps and glaciers melting, sea level rise, devastating natural disasters causing habitat loss and mass migrations.

?Prolonged debilitating drought, excessive unseasonal rain and flood owing to highly modified El Nino-La Nina .

?Massive food shortage and enormous fresh water shortage.

?Direct threat to species and biodiversity.

?80% of the global population living in the developing countries paying dearly for the luxury and whims of just 20% of the global population in the industrialised countries as far as GhG emissions are concerned.

?Southern rain forests, the Amazonian rainforest, systematically

destroyed for the northern customers for exotic timber, arable

land for the soy crop and pasture land for raising cattle to provide beef

for the northern hamburgers.

?International treaties, which includes Kyoto, failed to recognise the significance of tropical forests both as carbon sinks and as stabilizers of our weather systems.

?Multinational corporations moving their operations to developing countries to steer clear of stricter environmental laws of their own countries.

?Totally free trade agreements under the WTO regime restrict the capacity of the national governments to frame and adopt new environmental legislations.

?Such actions of the independent nations support modify the El Nino – La Nina impacts, the basics of the changes in the global weather patterns resulting in enhanced sea borne disasters and forest fires.

2 pieces of publications those need be looked in to:-

?Herbert Girardet’s new book; “Surviving the century: Facing climate chaos and other Global challenges.”

It reads,” at root, climate change not a technical or scientific

problem. The primary impediment to tackling global warming is

that many of the powerful institutions of the world, which control

the world’s allocation of capital are resistant to radically changing

the way we operate the world economy. The poor, whose share of world

income is certainly not growing are unable to successfully demand

that policies be developed to protect them from climate change or other

environmental or economic disasters.”

The book also mentions, “Large businesses are threatened by

actions to decrease emissions. The oil and gas industry will suffer if the

world moves to renewable energy. Monsanto’s profits will fall if we

switch from industrial agriculture back to low input farming methods.

The Brazilian government will lose elections if it resists attempts to

turn more of the rain forest to soy farms and cattle ranches…….

Aggressive action on climate change threatens this power, and is being resisted at every single turn.”

?Naomi Klein ( a Canadian Journalist)’s newest book titled; “ Shock Doctrine – The rise of Disaster capitalism.”

It reads, “barely seven months ago the Boxing day tsunami had

devastated Sri Lanka. But once the rubble was cleared away, what was

left, was what the tourism business had been coveting all along

ocean front property, best for plush resorts. It was land grab. The

fisher folk found themselves pushed into inland camps in the name

of safety and security. But these new resorts were exempted from the

buffer zone restrictions as long as they classified their constructions as

‘repair’.”

It further reads, “ The US government was pushing that the tsunami

was an opportunity for Sri Lanka to truly launch its high-end

tourism market. The world bank was very aggressive in pushing the

government to adopt these policies in exchange for giving aid.”

Two decades of economic globalisation has converted the earth to a single village with free of charge trade.

?Food could no longer be recognised as a correct since the proper to food would interfere in free of charge trade of food commodities, declared US Secretary of State at the last world food summit.

?The world produces much more food than ever before, enough, to feed twice the global population, yet, much more folks than ever suffer from hunger and their numbers are rising.

?Thus, “ totally free trade” is the cause of global hunger.

Economic globalisation has significantly changed the face of agriculture the world over.

?Diminishing agricultural holdings – agricultural land converted to SEZ, etc. resulting in farmer uprisings as is seen

in Singur, Nandigram in West Bengal, Kalinga Nagar in Orissa,

Mann in Maharashtra and elsewhere.

?Little farmers, direct farmers and tiny traders driven to bankruptcy, suicides and displacements.

?Most farm inputs such as seeds were managed religiously by the farmers themselves.

?Farmers used innovative strategies for soil fertility and pest control making use of local biodiversity. Thus they produced enough good food.

?The green revolution practices and industrial agriculture replaced internal inputs such as seeds by purchased inputs, thus raising the production cost.

?Agriculture thus changed from biodiversity and animal dependence to chemical and machine dependence.

?These two exotic concepts between them eliminated the vast agro biodiversity, and the principle of mixed cropping. In Orissa, as in quite a few parts of south – east Asia, the principal crop is Kharif (rain) paddy. Once there had been, far more than 5 thousand varieties, suitable for varied eco- climatic conditions giving farmers enough alternatives to choose the varieties for every single crop, for taste and need.

?Farmers in Orissa now grow just 1 paddy variety throughout kharif (rain) and two/3, throughout rabi (winter summer), all green revolution varieties, dwarf and chemical soaking on ever diminishing agricultural

land and rural population.

?The major trigger of this is that millers purchase these varieties paying significantly higher costs over the natives.

?Yet, there are farmers who for distinct ostensible factors save and cultivate dozens of native paddy varieties in their fields, but they are diminishing.

?Navdanya Orissa Biodiversity Farm near Balasore has saved nearly 600 of the Native / nativised paddy varieties and there is a Central Seed Bank from which desired seeds are provided to farmers for cultivation.

?Orissa has its own and distinctive vegetable varieties in Radish, Brinjal, Tomato, Sweet gourd , Bottle gourd, Ash gourd, Bitter gourd, Cow pea, Sour okra, Taro and Yam.

?Their weak point is that they are highly seasonal.

?The green revolution varieties have pushed most of their cultivations to the back seat but some of them are still there, although not recognized when the last vestige will also vanish.

?Navdanya – Orissa Biodiversity Farm proposes to conserve these varieties from this year.

?As far as pulses are concerned Orissa has some distinctive varieties of Pigeon pea (kandula) in KBK, Green gram (specifically ‘suna muga’) cultivated on the raised boundaries of the paddy fields) and Bengal gram in Khurda – Nayagarh districts. Conventional farmers have conserved these varieties for their tastes, liked by some customers.

?Traditionally seeds had been saved by the farmers from the last harvest and exchanged freely with other farmers and relations far and away. Thus, two needs had been met, obtain new seeds and improve the crop yield. Hence, every farmer is a seed saver or conserver. Seed saving and seed exchange has been the basis of agriculture since ages. But, now toeing the new IPR regime, there is a law which threatens this practice, the correct of the farmers. Although some of the farmers are conscious of the dangers associated with genetic modifications in crop varieties, numerous illiterate farmers do not know that the cultivations of GE or patented seeds might wipe out the natives, the precious varieties developed since ages by the combined actions of Darwin’s natural selection and artificial selection.

?Specialists say that it is the export agriculture which is the third major contributor (after energy and transport) to global warming since it involves large inputs of petroleum.

?It takes 100 gallons of oil to grow just one acre of US corn.

?It requires a massive global transportation infrastructure. In numerous locations 4 – 50 percent of truck traffic is for hauling food over lengthy distances. The food that could be grown locally is these days trucked, shipped or flown half way round the planet.

?In the US, the average bite of food travels 1,300 miles from farm to fork.

?Trade rules have so distorted agricultural markets that the imported food costs much less than the locally grown food.

?The system has grow to be so wasteful that several countries import the very exact same food that they export; as for example, last year the US exported and also imported around 9 lakh tons of beef.

?Agribusiness has acquired unprecedented control over the world’s farmers and food supply.

?Nonetheless, the realities of climate change, resource depletion, crop failure and human sufferings owing to spurious industrial food have led much more men and women and policy makers to have a new look into the links between food, environment and social justice.

?Round the globe voices are being raised on food sovereignty and peoples appropriate to control their own food systems which contain the American consumers also.

?For the religious Indian communities- far more so in Orissa – food is linked to culture and celebrations. There is a saying in Oriya, “ Bara masare tera parva,” meaning 13 festivals (mostly agriculture related) in 12 months; although all oriya festivities put together will exceed 30.

?Oriyas do have distinctive palates and also the methods to soothe them, hence, there are over 20 typical oriya cuisines, every 1 specific for the particular occasion, all with mostly rice as the principal ingredient. For example for Raja – Rice poda pitha (rice cake) ; for Bakula Amavasya– Gainthagudi pitha; for Chitalagi Amavasya – Chitou pitha, for Saptapuri Amavasya- Sapthapheni pitha, for Nuakhai – new rice and so on.

?This is the reason why there were so numerous rice varieties in Orissa. In addition to this, there was the Mogul influence and this added ‘Biriyani’ (all not non veg. kind) every ready with a specifically aromatic rice selection. There is 1 vegetarian Biriyani, known as ‘Kathal Biriyani’ prepared with immature jackfruit and a particular rice selection, ‘ Mugajai’, that smells like fried ‘muga’ (moong or green gram).

Above all Oriyas always like unique sweet dishes on all occasions and

that is ‘kheeri’ (rice + milk +sugar) and for this they have a wide range

of aromatic rice varieties. ‘Pimpudibasa’ is the most used variety in

‘Kheeri’ preparation. For ‘Polao’ (sweetened rice) other aromatic rice

varieties from ‘Laxmikajal’ to ‘Kalajiri’ are utilized.

With the changing scenario and modified cultivation practices,

farmers by and large adopting the green revolution varieties, Oriyas

may soon be forced to forget the palate throughout these festivities.

However, lengthy ago Gandhiji said,“ this (industrial) civilization is such

that 1 has only to be patient and it will be self destroyed.”

Now we come across dozens of reports and articles stating that globalization has

failed and is receding. The causes cited are –

?The case for globalization was oversold.

?The bulk of the production and sales of items are limited to the

country of origin.

?Third world countries have evolved novel approaches to thwart globalization. Ecuador has decided to keep its fuel reserves in the ground rather than exploiting it. Hugo Chavez has launched a plan for regional integration- greater known as ‘Bolivian Alternative for

the Americas (ALBA), based on genuine economic cooperation instead of free trade, there by not involving the MNCs which Chavez known as, ‘logic beyond capitalism’.

The above text is the speech delivered delivered by the author in power point at the International Workshop organized jointly by the Navdanya Trust of New Delhi and The World Future Council, on 5 – 6 February, 2008, at the India International Centre, New Delhi.

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Addendum

Radical proposal to inject sulphur particles in to the Earth’s atmosphere in order to cool it down and battle global warming could instead badly damage the ozone layer, reports an US study. Simone Tilmes of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Analysis reported that attempting to artificially cool off the planet could have perilous side effects. Computer simulations showed that big amounts of sulphur injections onto the Earth’s atmosphere would likely destroy between 25 to 75 percent of the ozone layer above the Arctic, leading to devastating effects on the northern hemisphere. The expected recovery time of the existing ozone hole over the Antarctic would be further delayed by 30 to 70 years, warned the report published in the Science Express on 24 April,2008.

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