Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Wednesday that a general council with the Chief Minister as Chairman
and an executive council headed by the State Agriculture Minister would
be formed to work out the modalities for implementing the policy.”22
Vijayan was excited by the detailed news. He ran over to Ratnakaran's
office to obtain a copy of the final document that had been approved and
reported in the media. “I wanted to send it to the Prime Minister, say-
ing that this is the model which should be followed in the country,” he
recalled. W hen he reached the office, an assistant handed over the pol-
icy to him. “[The] minister's personal assistant told me 'we have made
some changes here and there, but not much
. . . in the introduction some
points . . . otherwise everything is fine, as it was.'”
Vijayan took the copy eagerly, only to have his excitement immediately
crushed. “W hen I read it,” he said, “I thought, my God, what they had
done, they had completely changed it. That was a shock to me. Most of
the clauses were completely changed or altered. I was so upset.” The pol-
icy had been modified to suggest that intensive chemical agriculture was
the best and most reliable type of agriculture available to farmers, while
organic farming was just an optional alternative. This message contra-
dicted the Biodiversity Board's vision of making organic farming the only
acceptable agricultural practice within the state.
Vijayan went directly to Ratnakaran to complain. “W ho has done
this?” he asked, trying to pinpoint when the policy had changed and who
had changed it. Apparently the minister was blindsided as well. “I told
him what had happened, so he had the shock of his life. He could not
answer me.” The Biodiversity Board and Thanal, as well as their allies,
protested against this version and petitioned for revisions. As a result,
over another year and a half the Biodiversity Board and the Agriculture
Department continued to deliberate and debate the policy, arbitrated
by Minister Ratnakaran. Staff at Thanal described this time as a period
of multiple levels of prevarication and delay. W hile neither members of
Thanal nor the people on the Biodiversity Board felt comfortable publi-
cally elaborating on the details (so as to not alienate potential allies, they
claimed), they did emphasize that certain officials and bureaucrats in the
Agriculture Department and agricultural extension disliked the organic
