Agricultural Science, Green Revolution and Farmer Suicides

It seems that many farmers are reaching the dead end of No-Through road of Green Revolution.

Farmers' suicide is a subject too painful to discuss with the grieving families but it demands a public debate discussion about its possible causes and solutions. Wherever the Green Revolution was unleashed in developing countries few decades ago, marginal farmers are paying the ultimate price for its 'success' now. Are farmers the main culprit and deserve this harsh penalty or there are others factors that might have contributed to their demise.

To understand the complete picture, firstly we need to establish and define the major players of this game and their respective roles in it. 

Farmers of modern agricultural model are not farmers in true sense. They can be classified as miners because they are mining their soil and water. They can also be classified as petty-industrialists relying on cheap fossil fuels as their energy source along with other petro-chemical poisons and fertilisers as their farm inputs. Modern farmers can also be classified as 'Suicide-Bombers', going by the number of cancerous disease related deaths they bear in the process of perusing chemical farming.

Food production and politics of any country cannot be looked in isolation.  Whoever controls the political power (State) of any country, also controls the food production and distribution. Using subsidies, licenses and minimum support prices, not only they indirectly control which crop is grown from which seed, which chemical is sprayed to kill the weeds but where the farmers sell their produce and at what price. State also controls the research cum educational institutions like Agricultural Universities thus controlling what is taught to the next generation of scientists and what is recommend to the present generation of farmers.

The whole exercise of Green Revolution was like copying the idiots in the 'advanced economies'. Farming community was locked up in the cage of industrialised civilisation. They were like prisoners who were free to choose between doom and extinction. Agricultural scientists, in conjunction with the government department of Agriculture and with the help of foreign 'aid', taught them in such a way that they unlearned their traditional knowledge accumulated over hundreds of generation and started to behave like conquerors of the nature. We were not just another species on this planet but master of all others who are only there to serve our material needs. We did not believe anymore that Sun, air, rain and forests are there for all the inhabitants, not just for the sake of Homo sapiens.

We forgot to notice that billions of plant seeds were somehow germinating and reproducing for millions of years even before the first tractor was rolled into a field. It didn't occur to us that if you do not harden the soil running heavy farm machinery on it, you don't need to plough it to soften it up.

By developing some chemical poisons that can kill the insects and plants who compete with humans food production goals, these scientists start to believe that humans are not just one of the millions of other species but are somewhat different and special with super natural powers.

It seems that no one can misunderstand the crisis of scientific agriculture more than the highly trained agricultural scientist himself. One can imagine the condition of a mature man who was adopted by a fanatic religious group in his early childhood. What are the odds that he can break away from his masters and join another religion? An advanced degree of modern agricultural science is no different. These scientists are far too committed in their beliefs and far too dependent on the financial rewards for sticking to their guns that it doesn't make sense for them to change the course.

The grip of modern educational institutions is so tight that only a few can escape without severe constraints in their ability to think independently once they are fed through this mass production shaft. First of all a new scientist cannot graduate/post-graduate from a university unless he submits a thesis in line with the prevalent line of thinking of that institution. His score, scholarship, degree and finally job prospects depends on it.

Those who excel in such studies and do further research enhancing these scientific intervention techniques, secure high decision making executive positions in various government agencies and departments. At the top level a nexus is thus build between those officials, their political masters and multi national corporations that eventually benefit from the sale of their seeds, fertilizers, chemicals and farm machinery. Even if an agricultural engineer or a farm scientist reaches to the conclusion that his interference into eternal laws of nature is unwarranted and destructive, he cannot advocate the uselessness of his profession without losing his livelihood.

The followers of the sect of scientific agriculture are certainly capable of making the natural balance undone for a while but Mother Nature is not mother Teresa. Sooner or later Nature will use its veto power and force the equilibrium. We cannot sustain for long whilst exceeding the carrying capacity of our local environment, first and foremost its land and water. 

May be its not the fault of farmers or scientists after all. It was not long ago we all were hunter-gatherers and in the face of daily needs and threats our genes are still programmed to worry about the short-term survival in the immediate environment and not think beyond that.

It’s painful for the farmers to admit that their governments and universities, all of who promoted mechanised, energy intensive and chemical based farming practices, has fooled them. This 'Green Revolutionary' model of farming not only ruined their land and water but also forced them to go in a deep hole of debt, making it virtually impossible to get out without committing suicide.

Current political turmoil in Africa, Middle East is in fact an expression of a food crisis. Any modern scientific model of farming, whether operating under a Socialist or Capitalist economic system is in danger of collapse without unlimited supply of limited cheap fossil fuels.

Efficiency of modern scientific techniques such as tractors, pesticide power sprayers and tube-wells all help us to make our journey to the finish line faster, more efficient. 


It is not easy for an inmate to plot the prison break, not first without realising that he has been imprisoned. Only then he can think of the possible escape routes. Scientific farming is like fighting a War against Nature, no chance of winning. Sooner we admit our defeat and return to age-old traditional natural farming, better are the chances of averting more suicides in the farming families.


daradhillon@hotmail.com

Eating Oil and Soil – Imminent Collapse of Agriculture in Punjab

(This article was published by The Tribune on 4th Feb 2010.)

History of Agriculture is approximately 10,000 years old. This is when some of our ancestors changed their life style of hunter-gatherer and started crop production that required relatively permanent settlements which subsequently turned into our villages.

Punjab, thanks to its Aab (fresh water resources) and deep fertile soils provided a natural package which helped our past few hundred generations to have a sustainable harvest. They were not educated by famous agricultural universities but somehow most of them sustained by not over exploiting their soil and water resources. They might have to divide their parcel of land to smaller portions to their next generations, but the quality of parcels was maintained. Soil was neither poisoned with artificial fertilizers, chemical insecticides, pesticides nor compacted with heavy tractors and other farm machinery. May be they were simply lucky not to have electric or diesel powered tube-wells capable of sucking the ground water from such depths that it might need next few generations to live without water and give enough time to nature to fill up the ground aquifer again.

Then something changed in the 2nd half of the last century. With the emergence of world industrialization and globalisation Punjab farmers got struck with greatest curse, hailed at the time as ‘Green Revolution’. Farmers were led to believe that their land can produce more and more if they get rid of their bullocks and buy a tractor, not to dirty their hands with cow manure and use bags of Urea instead, not to waste time in sowing a crop for green manure or give a rest to the soil by having a lay year but go for intensive cultivation as suggested by the American educated Agricultural Scientists of Punjab Agricultural University. These advocates of ‘Green Revolution’ also advocated the heavy use of poisonous chemicals, mainly produced by multinational chemical companies who were offering scholarships to scientist prepared to promote their way of thinking. Some of these crops were not suitable to Punjab’s soils and climate and thus required enormous artificial irrigation compelling the farmers to install centrifugal pumps left right and centre, running on cheap subsadised electricity or diesel fuel. Sometimes they were duped to have free electricity in exchange of their votes, which encouraged them to cultivate paddy crop on barren sandy lands. It gave them an illusion of prosperity whilst sucking many of them deeper into financial debt. If my grandfather was ridding a horse, my father rode a motor cycle, I must drive a car and the next generation would obviously like to fly an airplane. To stay in that unwinnable race, inadvertently Punjab farmers were increasing the fossil fuel content in the production chain.

Oil (Fossil Fuels) is simply the solar energy stored as Hydro-Carbon deposits under the crust of earth over a period of millions of years. Human specie was unlucky to be smart enough to pump and burn more than half of it in just over 100 years. No one is denying that we humans are consuming fossil fuels at such a rate that can’t be replaced in few thousand generations time frame. The only difference of opinion between various researchers is whether there is enough left over for 30 years or 50. This 20 year difference is simply because computers don’t know how much Saudi Arabian, Iranian or Russian government is lying about their oil reserves. This is not to suggest that there will be no oil left somewhere deep underground but it is to say that it will not be economical to extract it any more. In other words, it might need to burn 2 drums of diesel to produce 1 drum. Very much like Ethanol production fantasy in the USA where they are burning tenfold quantity of fossil fuels to produce equivalent quantity of Ethanol.

Farmers all over the world, including that of Punjab, have/had a culture of not selling their farm land. They would rather add to their holding if possible and pass it on to the next generation. This is programmed in their genes to make sure their off springs have a better chance of survival and keep the gene pool alive. One should not be surprised to see a large proportion of court cases related to land disputes. Land is valued so high in mind controlled by our genes that one can kill his real brother for the sake of gaining an extra piece of land. What we did in the last 50-60 years was not in line with the rules of nature. We developed a delusion that we can control the forces of nature. Instead of acting as care-taker of land for coming generations, we started to act like Land-Owner.

So where does it lead us? Is there any hope of survival? Fortunately this entire mirage is coming to an end in the near future. The good news is that as much as multi-national companies like to sell their chemicals, fertilizers and machinery to toiling farmers of Punjab, they won’t be able to produce and transport all that without cheap oil either. Fortunately, for some of us, who haven’t been ruined by unserviceable debts, who haven’t sold our farming land to city developers and who haven’t started taking drugs to avoid the harsh reality, there is still a hope to go back to our pre green-revolutionary way of farming based on locally available resources. Rejuvenate our soil by adding organic manure and choosing sustainable cropping pattern not dependant on cheap oil inputs.

Natures’ court is very unforgiving to those who try to be smarter than her but at the same time she may consider an appeal from those who acknowledge their mistake and undertake to correct them. Lets all try to understand the importance of Guru’s following words.

“Pawan Guru, Pani Pita, Mata Dharat Mahat”.