Agriculture: Suicide or Survival
By
Zahrah Nasir
With
a population of over 190 million and growing, Pakistan is
under increasing pressure on many fronts with food
production.
The provision of water,
power and the raw materials necessary to keep the indigenous
manufacturing industry up and running.
Obviously of paramount
concern along with, it goes without saying, vast increases
in the heath care, education and housing sectors too which,
consi- dered en mass, is an astronomical problem indeed.
The agricultural industry has
always, since the country’s inception, been the backbone on
which all else depends and, with a burgeoning population to
feed - a frightening percentage of which is already
malnourished due to a combination of escalating inflation
and nutritional ignorance - a massive boost in food
production is an emergency essential. That, unfortunately,
those profiting from the manufacture and sale of chemical
agricultural inputs and of GMO (Genetically Modified
Organisms) seeds are already poised to take quick advantage
of.
The vast majority of farmers, be these actual landowners or
tenants, are uneducated people who have, especially over the
last two or three decades, been easily convinced by salesmen
representing chemical agricultural inputs - these ranging
from fertilizers through to lethally toxic herbicides and
pesticides - that by investing in such products, they can
increase yields, therefore profit margins, to an astonishing
degree. And farmers have taken this enticing bait hook, line
and sinker, often getting deeply into debt in the process.
A dire lack of education, amongst many of the sales agents
too, means that they do not, on the whole, have any idea of
the long-term consequences of their actions - on the soil
itself, on the crops they produce or on their own and
consumer’s health - and remain under the impression that the
more toxins they apply, the more profit they will ultimately
reap.
The frightening example of
the horrendous situation, a situation completely arising
from the exact same misconception, during the so-called
‘Green Revolution’ in Indian Punjab where resultant health
issues - with cancers predominating - and bankruptcy have
led and, it must be said, still lead to horrifyingly high
rates of farmer suicide, is not publicized amongst the
farming community here for the simple reason, it is
presumed, that the word ‘India’ is, quite ridiculously given
the circumstances, viewed with unwarranted suspicion and
what are true stories of agricultural problems in Indian
Punjab are considered to be nothing more than highly dubious
propaganda here.
If our own Government
Agricultural Department had any sense - or was the slightest
bit concerned about the health and safety of farmers and
consumers, plus, the sustainability of agricultural
production over the years to come - all they need do is
organize traveling video shows of where Indian agriculture
went wrong in the over application of toxic chemicals and of
the dire consequences of following in the exact same
footsteps.
But no - this is far too
sensible an idea to be taken up at any level, especially so
as it would adversely affect the astronomical profits
currently accrued to, for example, chemical fertiliser
production units owned and operated by the armed forces and
‘spin -offs’ of the same.
Now, on top of chemical
catastrophes - the majority of agricultural produce in the
market is contaminated to an actively poisonous degree -
there is the unholy spectre of GMO seeds being ‘dumped’ on
Pakistan, despite these highly questionable ‘inventions’
having being totally banned, right across the board, in a
number of eminently sensible countries around the world in
the wake of scientific evidence that the world of GMO seeds
is dangerously far from being all that is claimed by its
main progenitors, such as Monsanto, but has, instead,
distinctly Frankenstein connotations.
Successful seed purveyors, at
the behest of multinational seed corporations and companies,
are already responsible for the almost complete loss of
indigenous seed varieties here - the remaining few are
liable, unless action is taken, to be extinct very soon -
having coerced both commercial and home growers to switch
over to ‘improved’ hybrid varieties from which seed cannot
realistically be saved but must, to the glee of its sellers,
be purchased afresh each growing season.
Seed saved from hybrid
varieties does not produce the same standard of crop as the
parent plants if, that it, it manages to crop at all.
Indigenous varieties - often
referred to as ‘Heritage’ - on the other hand, are open
pollinated varieties or species from which growers can save
their own seed, year after year, without any deterioration
in crop production as long, that is, as correct soil
conditions are maintained.
The only ones to profit from
these ‘Heritage’ species are, quite obviously, growers,
which is why seed corporations are doing their level best to
knock ‘Heritage’ on the head once and for all.
The latest twisted
agricultural manoeuvre launched by those profiting from
chemical agricultural inputs - these would, by the way, make
even more if GMO seeds are allowed free reign here - is to
viciously malign organic, totally chemical free, growing
practices as are being taken up by an expanding number of
‘enlightened’ growers - commercial and private - around the
planet and who, by the way, also use only ‘Heritage’ seeds
as, naturally, they can make no profit from them at all.
For Pakistani agriculture to
improve - as it must - the need of the hour is to educate
farmers as to the real dangers of chemical reliance, of GMO
and hybrid seeds and to make them realise that the only way
for them to remain safely and financially afloat, is to
implement the new, updated methods of sustainable organic
agriculture for the benefit of all - except chemical input
manufacturers and the sellers of GMO and hybrid seeds -
concerned and to factor very real climate change into this
completely natural equation.
March, 2013
Source:
The Nation