Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
its motives. The report even accuses Kerala's organic farming movement
of pandering to the West's desire to control the Third World because,
in the association's view, organic agriculture would undermine the na-
tion's economic autonomy. This sentiment is in reference to the American
PL-
480 program of food aid, which was tied to economic and political
conditions before the Indian government decided to pursue the Green
Revolution. As such, the report implies that rational, scientific agricul-
ture, such as that involved in the Green Revolution, can reduce India's
reliance on the West for food aid. In sum, challengers to the organic farm-
ing policy characterize organic agriculture and modern, scientific agri-
culture as opposites
—one is backward, unscientific, and could weaken
India, whereas the other is modern, is scientific, and could strengthen
the country.
This “modern” versus “tradition” divide in science and agriculture is
stark and glaring in Kerala's government institutions. Not only have many
members of the Assembly and Agriculture Department bought into the
technological optimism of the Green Revolution as an answer to Kera-
la's agricultural troubles, but the Biodiversity Board itself has atached
particular ideals around modernity and tradition to its organic farming
policy, broadening this divide. As the policy itself states toward the be-
ginning: “The Green Revolution, with a single slogan of 'grow more food',
was only a natural outcome of a national challenge to meet the growing
food requirements.” The policy's analysis of the Green Revolution turns
fully negative, however: “This development—unmindful of the ecosys-
tem principles so revered and practiced for centuries—led to seemingly
irrevocable ecological and environmental catastrophes in the country.”29
In arguing that the Green Revolution did not achieve what it was sup-
posed to, the policy reasons that these cataclysms came in part because
of the substitution of the old ways and crops with new ones: “The green
revolution essentially replaced the traditional varieties with high-yielding
ones. These high yielding varieties now recognized as 'high input variet-
ies' needed tonnes of fertilizers, to achieve the target growth. The crops
and varieties alien to the soil atracted new pests and diseases and also
outbreaks of existing pests.” To deal with the pests, Kerala's farmers
turned to pesticides, puting them on the treadmill: “[The] input of these
