One Hand Clapping: Organic Farming in India

Dave Wood, AgBioView, December 12, 2002

Vandana Shiva now consistently recommends agricultural policies that will damage Indian farm productivity and national competitiveness in global agricultural trade. Will Shiva's bad advice wreck Indian farming?

She now pushes for organic agriculture. In her 'rejection' speech for her Johannesburg 'BS award for sustaining poverty' http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-11/12shiva.cfm (posted on AgBioView 25 November) she praises an early promoter of organic agriculture in India, Sir 'Alfred' Howard.

Her multiple errors start with the name. He was Albert Howard, not Alfred. He was born half way through Victoria's reign in 1873 and probably named after her consort, Prince Albert.

Howard's 1940 book 'An Agricultural Testament' promoting organic agriculture is just that ­ a testament to pseudo-religious belief, rather than farming fact. At the time it was criticized as 'muck and magic'. Shiva concentrates only on the muck ­ the cow dung. But she is wrong again: very simply, there are not enough cows in the India or the world to provide enough nutrients for today's food crops.

A real agricultural scientist, E.J. Russell, in his 'History of Agricultural Science in Great Britain' (p. 467), was highly critical of Howard, claiming that farmers could never make the hundreds of tons of compost annually required to give even moderate crop increases.

This is also true for India: a 'History of Agriculture in India' (Randhawa, M.S., 1983, Vol. 3, p. 314, written by an Indian who wished to promote, rather than destroy, Indian agriculture) was yet more critical: "Howard, apart from being a scientist, was also a crusader. He spread his gospel of organic manuring in the English-speaking countries through his books. There were some faddists among his followers who regarded chemical fertilizers as an anathema and strongly opposed the setting up of  fertilizer factories in India. This shows how dangerous it is to entrust policy matters to people with single track minds." Of the 8 million tons of nutrients removed at harvest in India, it was only possible to return 4.2m t through organics. The negative balance was tremendous: "the main reason for low crop yields in India".

While Howard was stationed in India, the 1928 Royal Commission on Agriculture in India reported that the soil 'reached state of maximum impoverishment many years ago' and identified a general lack of nitrogen. Note that this was under organic farming as espoused by Shiva.

There is no way whatever that cows in India can produce enough organic fertilizer to grow enough food for India's present population: Shiva must know this. And cow dung in India is needed not just for fertilizer ­ it is needed for fuel and as the bonding agent for plaster and mud-brick needed for housing. Shiva's recommendations for organic farming in Indian is the repetition of foreign dogma, a 'one hand clapping' approach.

In contrast, the current national and state extension recommendation for many Indian crops is the application of many cartloads of farmyard manure plus ­ always plus ­ high levels of synthetic fertilizer. The recommendation of Indian extension scientists thus goes beyond the dogma of only adding organic matter to the soil. It is the 'two hands clapping' approach that combines the nutrient retention of soil biomass with essential nutrients of plant food added as synthetic fertilizer. Each is needed. This complementarity is banned under the ultra-organic dogma peddled by Shiva and the Soil Association. As a bonus of the dual approach, the synthetic nutrients promote higher biomass production by the crop, and, in turn, yet more organic residues in the soil in a cycle of improvement.

Bio-contamination by cow DNA?

With the blinkered thinking of a dogmatic 'one-hand clapper' Shiva then ignores the other message in Howard's book - 'neovitalism'. This is the 'magic' part of the 'muck and magic' package.

Howard believed that soil receives a 'vital principle' from animal manure that moves to food plants and then to humans: this contributes to human health. What is this 'vital principle'? If vital, it can be none other than genetic. If food plants incorporate cow DNA from manure, such plants are at the same time genetically modified and also strictly banned as food for Hindus. If Shiva wishes to be a full disciple of Howard she has to believe in 'vitalism'. If so, she will be unable eat any plant food manured with cow dung. For a Brahmin believer in Howard's doctrines there is little else left to eat ­ perhaps hydroponic vegetables or seaweed?

Natural monocultures

There is another fundamental error in Howard's book, specifically endorsed by Shiva. Howard (Agricultural Testament p.13) believed that Indian farmers followed 'Nature's method as seen in the primeval forest'. Shiva argues that ''The method of mixed cropping is part of the adaptation of nature's ways in which cereal crops like millet, wheat, barley and maize are mixed with pulses, providing nutrition to give better results than monocultures''. Howard and Shiva are badly misreading the ecology of real nature.

Shiva is exactly wrong on this [exactly wrong is when, from a wide range of wrong positions, the one exactly opposite to the truth is chosen]. There is no way whatever that key cereals such as rice, wheat, sorghum, millet and barley have anything to do with primeval forest. No farmer anywhere would ever try to grow wind-pollinated cereals in forest ­ there would be no pollination, no seed, no food for us, and billions would starve. The forest as the sole ecological model for fields is the mega-bunk of foreign NGOs aimed at damaging Indian national crop production.

The reality of monocultures is the exact opposite: all our important Old World cereals have immediate wild relatives growing in vast monodominant natural grasslands throughout Asia and Africa. These natural monocultures were a key source of gathered food before farming; seem to have been maintained and toughened by seasonal fire or flood disturbance (reducing functionally-surplus biodiversity); are the ecological antithesis of 'primeval forest'; and provide exact monoculture models to early farmers for tree-free cereal fields.

Thus there is sound applied ecology underpinning our cereal monocultures. The historical and robust ecological benefits of cereal monocultures directly derived from 'primeval grassland' continue to this day, providing most of our food [see the peer-reviewed Wood, D. and Lenné, J. 2001 Nature's Fields: a neglected model for increasing food production. Outlook on Agriculture 30, 165-174].

Anti-monoculturalists such as Shiva will continue to ignore these ecological facts and dismiss the practical genius of early farmers who chose productive and simple grassland ecosystems as stable models for our fields.

Imperial role models

It is curious that an Indian bio-feminist like V. Shiva should praise the imperialist male Howard, who was Imperial Economic Botanist at the Imperial Agricultural Institute at Pusa in Bihar (and before that Imperial Mycologist in the British West Indian colonies). If Shiva needs to identify Imperial agricultural heroes, there are better and more original models than Albert Howard, whose cranky ideas could still damage Indian agriculture.

Fifty years before Howard the agricultural chemist Voelcker gave detailed descriptions of traditional mixed and rotational cropping in India (Voelcker, J.A. 1894 Report of the Improvement of Indian Agriculture. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, pp. xxxiii, 460). For example, p. 233, mixed cropping - "has the advantage of providing against the fluctuations of season, for, should one crop from any reason fail, the other will probably stand and cover the ground. This is a matter of no small moment, seeing that the raiyat's entire holding is only a few acres in extent, and that it has to feed, him, his family, and his cattle..." p. 234 ''... alternating rows may themselves be made up of mixtures of different crops, some of them quick growing and reaped early, others of slower growth and requiring both sun and air, and thus being reaped after the former have been cleared off. Again, some are deep-rooted plants, others are surface feeders, some require the shelter of other plants, and some will thrive alone". Note that Voelcker gives several reasons here for mixed cropping that have no relation whatever to the anti-fertilizer dogmas of the Soil Association.

Howard seems to have plagiarized Voelcker's observations (and Howard's disciples have ignored the insights of the agricultural chemist Voelcker).

And if a bio-feminist like Shiva wants a female role-model, she should recognize the scientific contribution of Howard's first wife, Gabrielle. Mrs Howard was an accomplished professional wheat breeder, working with excellent Indian scientists on the early high-yielding and rust-resistant 'Pusa' varieties. By 1927 12% of Indian wheat production was from such 'modern' varieties. Gabrielle died in 1930 in the service of Indian agriculture. Her work has proved to be of far more lasting importance to Indian food supply than her husband's dogmas (and the understandable promotion of Albert Howard, rather than Gabrielle, by Howard's second wife, Louise).

This early spread of improved wheat varieties and the professional success of Gabrielle are of course ignored by the international activist NGOs intent on blaming the Indian Green Revolution for the loss of farmers' varieties. But feeding people through indigenous scientific research on wheat in India took place half a century before the Green Revolution.

Shiva's generic and repeated claim of 2-300% production increase under organic cropping is fanciful. Where is the data? What is the ecological footprint? How can the high labour cost be sustained in face of massive global subsidies for mechanized staple crop production in developed countries?

Shiva should trip along to the Pusa Institute library (now in New Delhi) and read about some real farm-based agricultural science in India rather than repeat Soil Association foreign propaganda about Sir Albert.

Who is damaging Indian agriculture?

It is not 'irresponsible corporations' that are damaging Indian agriculture, as claimed by Shiva. Such corporations can only survive if they meet, and continue to meet, the needs of Indian farmers for greater productivity. Farmers must decide this, not Shiva.

But Third World agriculture is certainly being damaged by the highly irresponsible agricultural subsidies in developed countries, now approaching $1 billion a day. The result is a glut of staple cereals, export dumping in developing countries, and the destruction of poor farmers, who cannot compete with the subsidies in rich countries. As small farms are abandoned, the loss of biodiversity in the form of local crop genetic resources is enormous.

Northern export interests are now enhanced by interference in the agricultural policy of the South. European and North American multi-billion dollar crop export interests would obviously benefit from reduced production and increased imports in developing countries. Expanding wheat and cotton production in India is a threat to Northern export interests.

Northern NGOs try to counter this threat to their own farmers. One mechanism is 'trans-national Luddism' ('Luddism' damages your own national production; 'trans-national Luddism' damages the production of other countries). It is now the multi-million dollar business of NGOs in the North to recommend 'traditional', 'organic', 'biodiversity-friendly', or 'sustainable' crop production in the South. All are synonyms for lower agricultural production, all increase the already-massive trade in heavily-subsidized crops from the North. All bring in funding for Northern NGOs like RAFI in Canada and Food First in California and ITDG in England and many more.

The promise of biotech is a threat to the funding base of these NGOs. They lobby hard to protect their financial interests. They are prepared to see people in the South die of pesticide poisoning or starvation rather than allow local productivity increases based on science and skilled farming.

It's decision time for Shiva. She must now choose between being a patriotic supporter of Indian food and fibre production, or being a future tool of foreign agricultural export interests (interests cloaked in anti-GMO, pro-organic rhetoric, and a complex web of NGO funding). She must ask herself if her success on the international lecture circuit is in India's interest. She should calculate the cost to India's farmers of all her foreign 'free lunches', and ask who really picks up the tab.

Indian cannot yet afford the luxury of organic farming. Faced with intense global competition to dominate trade in staple crops, India also cannot afford the luxury of having foreign activists trying to damage national crop production. For cotton alone, this is a billion dollar issue.

Dave Wood, AgBioView, December 12, 2002. http://www.agbioworld.org

(Dr. Dave Wood is a geneticist from UK who has lived in India for the past few years, and can be contacted at <113077.3244@compuserve.com>)