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Monday, November 15, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Industrial Ag & Globalization Are Destroying Rural Communities Worldwide
Click here to read the full lecture from the Organic Consumers AssociationRecently, I was visiting Bhatinda in Punjab because of an epidemic of
farmers suicides. Punjab used to be the most prosperous agricultural region
in India. Today every farmer is in debt and despair. Vast stretches of land
have become water-logged desert. And as an old farmer pointed out, even the
trees have stopped bearing fruit because heavy use of pesticides have killed
the pollinators - the bees and butterflies.
And Punjab is not alone in experiencing this ecological and social disaster.
Last year I was in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh where farmers have also been
committing suicide. Farmers who traditionally grew pulses and millets and
paddy have been lured by seed companies to buy hybrid cotton seeds referred
to by the seed merchants as "white gold", which were supposed to make them
millionaires. Instead they became paupers.
Their native seeds have been displaced with new hybrids which cannot be
saved and need to be purchased every year at high cost. Hybrids are also
very vulnerable to pest attacks. Spending on pesticides in Warangal has shot
up 2000 per cent from $2.5 million in the 1980s to $50 million in 1997. Now
farmers are consuming the same pesticides as a way of killing themselves so
that they can escape permanently from unpayable debt.
The corporations are now trying to introduce genetically engineered seed
which will further increase costs and ecological risks. That is why farmers
like Malla Reddy of the Andhra Pradesh Farmers' Union had uprooted
Monsanto's genetically engineered Bollgard cotton in Warangal.
On March 27th, 25 year old Betavati Ratan took his life because he could not
pay pack debts for drilling a deep tube well on his two-acre farm. The wells
are now dry, as are the wells in Gujarat and Rajasthan where more than 50
million people face a water famine.
The drought is not a "natural disaster". It is "man-made". It is the result
of mining of scarce ground water in arid regions to grow thirsty cash crops
for exports instead of water prudent food crops for local needs.
It is experiences such as these which tell me that we are so wrong to be
smug about the new global economy. I will argue in this lecture that it is
time to stop and think about the impact of globalisation on the lives of
ordinary people. This is vital to achieve sustainability.
Seattle and the World Trade Organisation protests last year have forced
everyone to think again. Throughout this lecture series people have referred
to different aspects of sustainable development taking globalisation for
granted. For me it is now time radically to re-evaluate what we are doing.
For what we are doing in the name of globalisation to the poor is brutal and
unforgivable. This is specially evident in India as we witness the unfolding
disasters of globalisation, especially in food and agriculture.
Who feeds the world? My answer is very different to that given by most
people.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Project Sprout: From A Humble Idea, A Garden Grows
by Sam Levin at the Slow Food USA blog
Sam, a Sophomore at Monument, gave a speech at the opening ceremony of Terra Madre ‘08 in Italy, and inspired thousands of delegates from around the world who traveled to Turin for the event. The Slow Food USA blog is thrilled to share his remarks with our readers.
Exactly one year ago Monday, I walked through the doors of my public high school in Massachusetts planning on presenting the idea of Project Sprout to my Guidance counselor. And that’s all it was, an idea. I had not one detail worked out, only that I wanted the students of my school and the people of my community to begin paying more attention to their food, and in turn the natural world around them. I was already an avid naturalist, and when I wasn’t in the woods or swamps, I was spending time on the farm down the road from my house, playing soccer with the pigs or riding the cows. So, after talking to my guidance counselor, Mr. Powell, I connected with two other students, Sarah a junior who loved gardening and children and Natalie a sophomore who was desperate for delicious vegetables in the cafeteria, and together we began refining the idea and figuring out the details of the project. Within weeks we had a plan.
We met with local farmers and gardeners, landscapers and designers, teachers and groundskeepers. We worked with non-profit leaders and most importantly, we worked together. I couldn’t walk by Mr. Powell’s office without stopping in to talk to him. Sarah and Natalie and I met in between classes and during lunch, after school and before school. Although we hadn’t even known each other before October, as time went on, our relationship became unbreakable. As we know, food brings people together. But as I have learned, working to save food creates unbelievably powerful bonds between people.
Meanwhile, something important happened. We found a potential location: an old soccer field across from the high school. Suddenly, our intangible idea gained some tangibility, and we began working at full speed. We took soil samples, and measured water tables and hours of sunlight. We plotted out potential locations for the first year’s garden. And by the time the School Committee meeting January came along, it felt like we had worked too hard, and too long to be told by a bunch of people sitting around a table that we couldn’t grow this garden, that we couldn’t make a difference. So we decided to simply blow them away. We realized we would have to be ready for every question they asked or challenge they posed with ten answers and a whole packet research to back us up. And on January 15th 2008, we were approved.
Afterwards, we realized that it was an important formality that needed to happen, but that we had actually been approved 3 months before when we decided we were going to do this.
We started working with Bridghe, our garden designer and professional gardener, to design yearly plans of the garden. We met with more and more farmers. We sold native plants as our first fundraiser, and sent hundreds of fundraising letters to businesses around the area. We planned our first benefit, a pig roast at a local farm to table restaurant, with all local food donated by local farmers, and live music from a student band. At the pig roast, we raised over nine thousand dollars and had over three hundred community members gathered together enjoying some local food and talking about gardening and farming.
In August, at the Slow Food Nation eat-in in San Francisco, I pledged on a tablecloth that within a year we would get something into the school lunches. One month later, we served lettuce with cherry tomatoes, carrots, and green beans in the high school and elementary school cafeterias.
On Monday, exactly one year after walking into my school to talk to Mr. Powell about this idea of getting kids to think about food and the natural world more, I once again walked through those doors. This time, I had just come up from the garden, where I had been looking at the lines that had been drawn out for the expansion of the garden, and the area that had been marked for a fruit orchard. I was going into school to talk to Mr. Powell, but this time, I needed to make sure that that the head of the cafeteria had received our thirty kilograms of potatoes for the Project Sprout Mashed Potatoes. I also had to confirm the meeting with students from the nearby school who want a garden as well. I wondered in two Octobers from now when I’m a senior, when I walk through the doors of the school, what I would be going to talk to him about. And I wondered who would be checking up on the garden before school in 20 years, when even Mr. Powell is gone. And I knew, that no matter who it was, someone would be there, and the garden would even more beautiful than it is today.
But working on Project Sprout, I have also had some of the worst weeks and days of my life. Like when it seemed our entire fundraising event would fall through after two months of planning. Or when we didn’t get the first grant we applied to, that we spent four weeks working on. At one point in the spring, I missed a science competition to go to an important Project Sprout meeting, and the people I let down didn’t talk to me for months. There have been nights where I didn’t sleep at all, and I thought I would never recover. But I would take a thousand more of those nights, for just one of the amazing things that have happened over the last twelve months.
What all of you (at Terra Madre) have started is an unbelievable beginning to a powerful revolution. But I know that all of you are wondering if my generation will be able to continue that revolution, and carry it to the extent of its mission.
That’s why I’m here today. Not because the story of Project Sprout is a success story. This project is still very young and we still have a long way to go. Who knows what challenges and obstacles lie ahead. It is not a success story. It is something else entirely. It is a window through which all of us can get a glimpse at the power of youth. It is a promise to our parents, to all of you, that we will continue what you started. The story of Project Sprout is a message from our generation to all those that came before us that says, “We will be the generation that reunites mankind with the earth.”
Monday, November 8, 2010
Navajos Hope To Shift From Coal To Wind And Sun
Click here to read the full article from the New York Times
“It’s a new day for the Navajo people,” said Lori Goodman, an official with Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, a group founded 22 years ago by Mr. Tulley. “We can’t be trashing the land anymore.”
Both presidential candidates in the Navajo election have made the pursuit of cleaner energy a campaign theme, but significant hurdles remain, including that Indian tribes, as sovereign entities, are not eligible for tax credits that help finance renewable energy projects elsewhere.
And replacing coal revenue would not be easy. The mining jobs that remain, which pay union wages, are still precious on a reservation where unemployment is estimated at 50 percent to 60 percent.
“Mining on Black Mesa,” Peabody officials said in a statement, “has generated $12 billion in direct and implied economic benefits over the past 40 years, created thousands of jobs, sent thousands of students to college and restored lands to a condition that is as much as 20 times more productive than native range.”
They added, “Renewables won’t come close to matching the scale of these benefits.”
But many Navajos see the waning of coal as inevitable and are already looking ahead. Some residents and communities are joining together or pairing with outside companies to pursue small-scale renewable energy projects on their own.
Wahleah Johns, a member of the new Navajo Green Economy Commission, is studying the feasibility of a small solar project on reclaimed mining lands with two associates. In the meantime, she uses solar panels as a consciousness-raising tool.
“How can we utilize reclamation lands?” she said to Mr. Yazzie during a recent visit as they held their young daughters in his living room. “Maybe we can use them for solar panels to generate electricity for Los Angeles, to transform something that’s been devastating for our land and water into something that can generate revenue for your family, for your kids.”
Mr. Yazzie, who lives with his wife, three children and two brothers, said he liked the idea. “Once Peabody takes all the coal out, it’ll be gone,” he said. “Solar would be long-term. Solar and wind, we don’t have a problem with. It’s pretty windy out here.”
Saturday, November 6, 2010
In Kansas, Climate Skeptics Embrace Green Energy
Click here to read the full article from the "Beyond Fossil Fuels" series in the New York Times
The energy experiment started as a kitchen-table challenge three years ago.
Over dinner, Wes Jackson, the president of the Land Institute, which promotes environmentally sustainable agriculture, complained to Ms. Jackson, his daughter-in-law, that even though many local farmers would suffer from climate change, few believed that it was happening or were willing to take steps to avoid it.
Why did the conversation have to be about climate change? Ms. Jackson countered. If the goal was to persuade people to reduce their use of fossil fuels, why not identify issues that motivated them instead of getting stuck on something that did not?
Only 48 percent of people in the Midwest agree with the statement that there is “solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer,” a poll conducted in the fall of 2009 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed — far fewer than in other regions of the country.
The Jacksons already knew firsthand that such skepticism was not just broad, but also deep. Like opposition to abortion or affirmations of religious faith, they felt, it was becoming a cultural marker that helped some Kansans define themselves.
Nevertheless, Ms. Jackson felt so strongly that this opposition could be overcome that she left a job as development director at the University of Kansas in Lawrence to start the Climate and Energy Project with a one-time grant from the Land Institute. (The project is now independent.)
At the outset she commissioned focus groups of independents and Republicans around Wichita and Kansas City to get a sense of where they stood. Many participants suggested that global warming could be explained mostly by natural earth cycles, and a vocal minority even asserted that it was a cynical hoax perpetrated by climate scientists who were greedy for grants.
Yet Ms. Jackson found plenty of openings. Many lamented the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. Some articulated an amorphous desire, often based in religious values, to protect the earth. Some even spoke of changes in the natural world — birds arriving weeks earlier in the spring than they had before — leading her to wonder whether, deep down, they might suspect that climate change was afoot.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
A Hindu Sect Devoted To The Environment
By AKASH KAPUR
Published: October 7, 2010 in the New York Times
DHUNDLI, INDIA — About three kilometers from this village, across dirt tracks and open scrubland, there is a settlement of seven mud huts bordered by millet and lentil fields. No electricity or telephone poles run to these huts. There’s not a satellite dish to be seen.
In the dry, open land that surrounds the settlement — part of the great Thar Desert that dominates the western part of the state of Rajasthan — black buck deer roam freely, foraging for leaves. They are noticeably bold; they seem unafraid of strangers.
The deer have good cause to feel safe. The settlement — like scores of others that dot this harsh landscape — is populated by members of the Bishnoi, a community that traditionally reveres and protects nature.
Although they are often referred to as a tribe, the Bishnoi are, more properly, a sect within Hinduism. They were founded in the 15th century when a saint laid down 29 precepts for his followers (hence their name: bis means 20 in the local dialect, and noi means nine). Today, there are around 600,000 Bishnoi, spread across northern and central India.
Several Bishnoi precepts are directed at encouraging harmony between man and nature. They include injunctions against eating meat and felling trees, and an exhortation to “be compassionate toward all living beings.”
The Bishnoi are devoted ecologists. Although they are friendly people, full of toothy smiles and warm hospitality, they can also be fierce when defending nature. The Bishnoi of this area have been known to chase down poachers and attack them.
The Bishnois’ ecological ethic represents a remarkable ideology in modern India, where the environment so often seems to take a back seat to the quest for economic growth. Across the country, forests and glaciers are dwindling, air and land are being polluted, and coastlines are disappearing.
A recent World Bank report suggests that environmental sustainability is likely to be “the next greatest challenge” to India’s development in coming years.
I wanted to visit the Bishnoi settlement outside Dhundli because I wondered if their way of life offered a path to sustainability. Historically, India’s environmental consciousness (such as it is, anyway) has often been driven by grass-roots, traditional movements.
Many people attribute the birth of modern Indian environmentalism, for example, to the Chipko movement, a spontaneous protest that erupted in the 1970s when peasants in the Himalayas rose up to stop the destruction of their forests.
More recently, the environmental costs of development have been highlighted by the discontent of tribal populations that have protested large mining and industrial projects in several states.
Could the Bishnoi, in the same way, have something to teach the rest of the country about living in harmony with nature?
I was introduced to the Bishnoi way of life by Sajjan Bishnoi, the 75-year old patriarch of the settlement I visited, and his son, Khiyaram Bishnoi. Sitting under a leafy neem tree, they told me about their community’s efforts to live with nature.
Nobody in their settlement ate meat, they said. Nobody used electricity. They only used motor vehicles when they absolutely had to.
Khiyaram Bishnoi pointed to a thatchlike material on the roofs of their houses. He said they only used plants they knew animals didn’t eat.
He told me, also, that the Bishnoi tried to limit their use of plastic — a choice that was evident in the clean surroundings, noticeably absent of garbage, and in particular of the plastic waste that plagues so many villages and towns in India.
Plastic, he said, was bad for the environment. It lined the bellies of animals, and sometimes choked them.
This evidence of ecological living was impressive. But it was clear, also, that for all their adherence to an ancient way of life, the Bishnoi were struggling against the onslaughts of modernity.
Sajjan Bishnoi talked about another son. He worked in a distant town, as a miner. When asked whether he was aware of what mines did to the environment, how they split open the earth and choked trees with their dust and explosives, he grimaced and said, “It’s necessary for the money.”
He also told a familiar tale of agricultural decline — how yields had gone down, how the water had turned bad. Once, the Bishnoi had been able to live off the land. Now many were forced to move to the cities and take up modern jobs.
The overall impression, sitting in that quiet, bucolic and in many ways quite inspiring settlement, was of an island. I was impressed by the Bishnoi way of life, but I wondered how long they would be able to maintain it. I felt the world was closing in, washing up against the island, eating away at its shoreline.
Father and son both spoke of a new generation that was living in the cities. Sometimes, they conceded, this generation lost themselves. They would drink, maybe even eat meat.
“India is getting more and more developed,” Khiyaram Bishnoi said. “People like us are less educated and have more expenses. Our children will move to cities.” He said he worried that the 29 precepts would decline.
He gave me a tour of the settlement. He showed me the small huts in which they lived, the mud vessels in which they cooked. It all had a simplicity that was almost heartbreaking.
As we walked around, he said that he, too, worked sometimes in the city. It was difficult out there; he hated the filth and the crowds. But he had no choice. He had a family. He had to feed them.
I folded my hands and thanked him for the tour. “Good luck,” I said. “I think you have a hard time ahead of you.”
“Yes, hard time,” he said, and he smiled. “Hard time, but a good life.”
Join an online conversation at www.akashkapur.com .
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
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