ruin after the rain - part II

it was forecast to be a poor farming season early march.

looking at predictions vs actuals:
Pr: "it is only around 90 days since the rains stopped and already the well levels have dropped alarmingly. the lakes/tanks of the area will barely be able to cover one cropping season (till april end or so)."
Act: tanks dried up early april itself. wells were brought into service and those without that facility had to pay for it.

Pr: "paddy crop seems relatively less affected but due to oversupply offtake prices are likely to be depressed for paddy." as if this was not adequate misery, the farm lease rates and the daily agri labour rates had also gone up by 25-50%.

Act: last year paddy price was Rs 1000-925 (max-min) for 80 kgs. this year it was Rs 900-700. in fact as of today, there are no buyers even for rock bottom rates.
had last year's rates held, the farmer would have made Rs 5000/acre profit (best case - maybe 2% of the farmers) but at the prevailing off take prices now the average farmer would have  made a loss of Rs 5000/acre. a farmer who took a nearby 2.5 acre farm on lease took home a loss of 20k for his work from dec to march! makes us wonder why farmers bother to grow paddy at all.
a high level local trader was lamenting that his stock levels was not moving to the next stage (rice mills) and was likely to make serious losses!!

another statement: "in our 6 years, we have never seen pesticide sprays on groundnut crop (no. 1 cash crop of this area). already farmers (with cash) have resorted to 3 sprayings, and everyone at least 1. and this has barely had any effect."
Act: groundnut prices are better than last year. before you rejoice, the yields have dropped dramatically - by almost 50% on an average. and so is the case with pigeon pea, black gram and green gram. almost certainly entirely attributable to the pest attack.
so again the farmer gets rogered.

wait. some farmers did have it good this season. the watermelon growers. it was not just good, it was a bonanza for them. with scorching heat right from early march and no rain in the season, there was no shortage of demand. prices and yields were good throughout. average profits were almost Rs 1 lac/acre. more about this in another post.

net result: the season has been an unmitigated disaster. taking a crop holiday and earning as agri labour would have been the best option.

monsanto - more monstrous than before

monsanto is scary.
the extent to which they will go to dominate world food production, thus annihilating anyone who stands in their path is documented beautifully in "the world according to monsanto".

read the review here and watch the video here.

monsanto's all pervasiveness in our lives is highlighted in april davila's daring 'month without monsanto'.

ananthoo and his friends are on a Monsanto-Quit India campaign.

giving away wealth in not enough

gates and buffet have been at the forefront of giving up their wealth....billions of dollars.
and they are asking others of their ilk to join in this giving away.

and surely many will join in this giving away.

while it appears to be a noble task (i agree), the point where this process has given way is how and the speed this money is utilised.
invariably these monies will be fed into charities focussed on improving the healthcare and education.
and in education their efforts are not quite making any dent and i continue to maintain that this corporate approach is more likely to worsen the situation.
the sheer impact of pumping in so much money into any sector will just inflate everything uncontrollably.

what is more important than giving away your wealth, is to stop making it.

ban-ki-moon has called the current economic model - environmental suicide.
it is putting it lightly, making more billions using the standard economic templates is environmental murder.

so gates, buffet et al - stop making more money at the cost of our environment.

the cost of damaging the earth

part 1 of this three part BBC series (author - richard anderson) - Nature' sting- the real cost of damaging the earth - throws ups some startling economic facts.

A recent study for the United Nations Environment Programme, entitled The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb), put the damage done to the natural world by human activity in 2008 at between $2tn (£1.3tn) and $4.5tn.

and as bee populations alarmingly decline, someone is doing the pollination and at a cost..

In the US in 2007, for example, the cost to farmers of a collapse in the number of bees was $15bn, according to the US Department of Agriculture, contributing to a global cost of pollination services of $190bn

it is quite clear that the rapid degradation is caused by the unending human desire to have more which is fuelled by corporate growth which is fuelled by share indices and so on...

Trucost has estimated the cost of environmental damage caused by the world's largest 3,000 companies in 2008 at $2.15tn.
That equates to around one-third of their combined profits.

the data is better than the article, but it is to be noted that the economics of the our excesses is coming to light.

bhopal - justice betrayed

yesterday, the verdict was passed on the tragic bhopal gas accident causing the deaths of over 35000 people and affecting lakhs.
26 years after the incident...
the delay by itself is a betrayal of enormous proportions.
and the verdict. rubbing salt into raw wounds.
obviously it has angered the observers.

the guardian has a great editorial comparing the current BP oil spill in the gulf of mexico as an equivalent. go read it...
and cry for bhopal...

more than Dow chemicals/Warren Anderson/UCC, this miscarriage of justice lies entirely in the laps of the indian government, currently headed by a highly incorruptible but totally incapable person...or maybe only capable of serenading the west.

timely escape

the latest lead stories of tehelka cover the dangers of radiation from cell phone signal towers.
delhi was the first city analysed and then bombay.

one of the most dangerous spots in bombay is prabhadevi/shiv sena bhavan, our residence for over 3 years.
makes me wonder if our move was more a timely escape...

major issues around mining

the path to prosperity via the industrialisation route hinges on the manufacturing sector, namely automobiles, electrical and electronics, machinery, construction which depend on the metals manufacturers.
metals comes from ores which are mineral deposits lying under the earth. the processing of these deposits require coal which also lies underground.

so following the link, the industrialisation route will heavily mine these minerals.
mining is not clean work.
anyone who dusts their house will know how much irritation their noses bear with during this process. imagine that scenario escalated many many times and on a 24x7 basis.
that is the likely scenario around mining areas.
and of course, water is required in copious quantities and there is heavy use (aka exploitation) and pollution of all local water sources.
all this is simple elementary knowledge.

to what extent this industrialisation route will lead people/companies to do can be sampled at:
1. tehelka's cover story on the reddy brothers of karnataka.
2. kafila's report on major action against locals/tribals by police under the behest of Tata Limited.

while you are at it, you should also read arundhati roy's massive essay on her trip into the hinterlands of maoist-dominated india.

haiti - torn asunder

the population of haiti is approx 9.7 million.
nearly 100,000 people are feared to have died from the massive earthquake of Jan 12.
thats 1% of the population eliminated in a few seconds (and another 3-4% rendered homeless and destitute, it is devastating).
like banda aceh from dec 2004 (5 years later, banda aceh seems to have moved on).

and when the affected include decision makers, then chaos is inevitable...