reprinted with permission of permaculture activist magazine.
A man walks through the puddles and mud of an empty rice paddy. In one hand is a thin wispy branch he uses with sounds and calls to direct the bullocks in front of him. The other hand grips the simple, strong handhewn tiller that the animals pull. Overhead the high tension wires crackle as lower, silent ones crisscross through the landscape. All around coconut, banana, papaya, neem, cowpeas, pulses, ladyfinger, sorgum, ragi, fodder, medicines, fuel and more create a complex green pattern. Three bajans (sacred chants) compete distortedly from loudspeakers atop different temples in a nearby village. Amongst these a distant train and somewhat nearer tractor refuse to allow any stillness. India today, as she has been for many thousands of years past, is a many layered thing. When considering any part of this vast country and people it is impossible not to find many fascinating and involved stories. This is especially true when considering her incredibly varied landscape and the cultures that are a part of them. With agriculture going back at least 7000 years and the waves of influences (Muhgals, British, Globalization, etc) that have swept over, through, and in her, it is well beyond the scope of this article to give even an introduction to all the land systems that were used. What is important to note is that up till colonization even though India faced many challenges, both human and environmental, in many varied and linked systems Indians lived within their land such that over time it and they were sustained.
What follows is then the briefest of introductions to some of the layers that were and are a part of the traditional, complex weave of land use in India.
TRADITIONAL
In land systems water is a key in many ways, a node upon which much else is created and designed. In the Thar Desert of Rajastan it is said that rain is so precious that it is measured not by volume, but rather, by drops. There are places in this desert that receive one or two brief rain showers every year, with some years not a drop. Yet, it is the highest and most densely populated desert of its kind in the world. This was possible because of the cultures deep understanding and creative interaction with their water cycle. These systems scaled from family to village size. Every drop that lands on a dwelling or hard surface is carefully caught and ingeniously channeled into an underground tank (tanka). These were effective enough that one good rain would give enough water to last a family several months, two or three rains enough to last till next years rain. In Gujarat, there are ancient wells of ingenious design that are an engineering marvel. These wells are quite a few meters in diameter, descend many stories into the ground and have a downward spiraling walkway. There are adjoining areas where people can relax in the sheltered cool moist air. Some of these still contain water of fresh clarity with no known water source. In Karnataka (South India), there were an estimated 39,000 tanks(ponds), one as large as 64 kms. in circumference.
These local water strategies were also linked with wider flows of humans, animals, and resources. There were many seasonal nomadic peoples in India. When the rains ended they would leave their home villages to roam through less used areas and routes of passage. In this way resource use was spread out leaving valuable and limited grazing areas to those remaining in the village. This pattern also spread out a resource long recognized as essential for a vibrant agriculture. These nomadic herders were welcomed, often honored, guests at the farms and villages they passed by. With enough animals and days a farmer could receive enough manure from the herd grazing his harvested field to enrich that soil for the next three to five seasons. In turn these nomads often received food, gifts and at times money for this blessing of the herd. In this way cattle from Rajastan reached Madhya Pradesh while some from Punjab found their way into Orissa or Assam. The nomads were just one way that cultivated and uncultivated areas were linked. All over India very evolved relationships between farms, commons and wild were a deeply integrated part of land use.
The common fields usages were often overseen by a village elder or group of elders. Their cropping and grazing was rotated to maintain fertility as well as some fields being rotated among village members. Often these fields were allocated such that every family had good, average, and poor sections equally amongst themselves. It was often through this allocation and use of common areas that a leveling of burdens and benefits could be achieved. The wild areas were also what allowed people to survive during lean years and crop failures.
There was also an awareness of maintaining the health of the wild. The insight and skill of the harvesting patterns used was obvious by the health and biodiversity that was sustained in these areas for many generations. From these forests and jungles thousands of species provided food, fuel, fodder, fertility for cropping, timber, medicine and an immense variety of craft materials.
Indians were not just interested or concerned with extracting from these wild areas. There was a deeper understanding and respect for what these wild areas meant and provided for them. Throughout India many different cultures held certain species, and often areas, to be sacred and thus protected. The Bishnois (Rajastan) took this to the extent of willing giving their lives (and many have) to stop the forest from being cut. Today many of these species are recognized as Keystone species having links and relationships with a high number of other species in their environment. By protecting these environments and species Indians integrated another layer of diversity, with its accompanying gene pool and links, into a wholistic land system. In traditional Indian land culture it would have been impossible to disentangle this complex web of cycling and connections between the cultivated and uncultivated.
As would be expected this diversity of sites and interactions gave rise to an incredibly diverse biosphere. Many thousands of species were known to be of value to the traditional cultures of India. Domestic cropping methods, strategies and patterns were similar in style to those of other long enduring traditional systems. Locally focused, resource cycling, high integration of animals, a highly varietal mix of annuals, varied perennial strategies, multiple source inputs, and a continually diverse set of yields.
Again, exactly how these generalities were articulated was very site specific as continual generations of farmers observed, selected, experimented, created, and adapted to their very specific situation. From the Thar Desert to Meghalaya (home of the wettest spot on earth), from the Himalayas and the Northeast to the Kerala coast Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, tribal and nomadic peoples were in a continuous conversation with their world. This incredible mix of cultures overlaid an immense variation of landscapes creating a complex diversity that is India's foundation and strength.
COLONIAL ERA
It is not insignificant that the British entered India via the East India Company, a commercial enterprise. It was this focus on commerce and value that underlay almost all of the British policies that related to land use. To extract this value they had to alter many aspects of the traditional land use system as well as impose concepts and philosophies that had never been a part of traditional Indian agriculture.
A foundational concept they imposed was the idea of private property and private ownership of land. Thus owners of land were identified or created and held responsible for revenue payments. Where previously tax or duties were only imposed on products of the land, now the land itself was taxed. It was also deemed that if the value of the land was not being extracted well enough the land could be seized and auctioned (money lenders, traders and large land holders being the primary buyers). The legal policies and acts generated from this idea of value and private property led to the creation of a landed aristocracy, landlords, and a vast number of small marginal farmers and landless peasants (Permanent Settlement of 1793 being the most famous).
Related with this was the enclosing of the commons and the forests. Seeing the commons as unproductive, a cardinal sin in the market economy, people were settled into them, village boundaries were defined, nomads were restricted, and access to the forests and jungles was stopped. (These forests became public property to be exploited for timber and other raw materials.) This meant a significant loss of food, fodder, fuel, etc. This loss also included the ability to utilize strategies and options based on access to these areas, such as grazing and the seasonal movement of people and animals. Thus there was an overall reduction in livestock as its support base had been dramatically reduced. These losses put more pressure on cultivated lands to produce as well as reducing the local resource base for agricultural inputs. This led to a decrease in soil fertility and the increased need for external inputs. Thus the importance of money to acquire these external inputs started its rise. Another core aspect of colonization was the fundamental importance of export. The farmers were encouraged to go this way with incentives (need to purchase external inputs, loans and guaranteed selling prices) and threats (loan defaulting, evictions, physical violence). With this conversion from subsistence farming and local market to cash cropping for export less food and products are grown for local consumption along with the concurrent loss of jobs, commerce, and culture associated with these abandoned crops. It cannot be emphasized enough the deep layering of work and culture that were a part of Indian agriculture. Whole towns and villages had economic bases related to a particular plant or agricultural product. The loss of such an agricultural product often had widespread and devastating effects.
Cash cropping created greater insecurity for the farmers and their communities. With increased input costs, from seed to fertilizers to labor, export cropping often leaves little room for profit and security. If the cash crop fails or if the selling price drops the farmer suffers. When this failure is coupled with drought, flood, or such than the suffering and loss accelerates and spreads.
It should be understood that when you export crops you are exporting land, fertility, health, and culture. The exploitation of these crops affects jobs, resource use/sharing, economic cycling, and yield diversity, which in turn are associated with hunger, disease, migration, and poverty.
The importance of the export market was linked to the increased need to move water into areas where cropping patterns were out of sync with or expanded past the capacity of the local water cycle. The British had one basic uniform approach to these situations. They sought to build extensive canal systems in various parts of India which would move water from major rivers to drier or higher use areas. These canals led to the destruction of long enduring traditional irrigation systems, be they well or catchment. Canals from the Ganges and Yamuna rivers caused the collapse of the traditional well-irrigation system that had supported some 1,470,000 acres. Canals, however, provided an uncertain supply of water that was often twice as expensive. This further pushed the farmer to grow cash crops (sugar cane, indigo, opium, etc) and to abandon traditional semi-dry production (millets and pulses).
Debt and debt cycling became the core concern of the farmer. Even with successful harvests income could still be less than expenses (money lender payments, water, seed, infrastructure, labor, land taxes, crop duties). If it was a bad harvest then the farmer was another year deeper in debt, most often to the village money lender whose rates could be 35-50% annually. Consolidation of land into larger corporate or private holdings was the result of debt and supported by British policies. Such policies encouraged or mandated the consolidations of small holdings into a larger 'viable economic unit'. In some areas land transfer reached 25-50% (of total land) within a 20 year period. The purchasers were most often money lenders, traders and large land holders.
This loss of land often led to internal migrations. Many landless peasants migrated as seasonal agriculture labor, a growing necessity for larger land holdings. Many migrated into urban areas in hopes of finding jobs.
The shift that colonialism brought to India can generally be characterized as a movement from decentralized, locally based intensive agriculture towards a centralized, export oriented, higher input agriculture. The various policies, acts, and laws enacted to create this shift wove together in such a way as to re-enforce their individual collections of social impacts. These impacts included the erosion of sharing water and crop products, taking care of others during drought and lean years, rights of passage through fields, and under and unemployment,. These can be seen as the loss of the culture associated with traditional agriculture that bound a village together.
Export cropping, enclosing the commons, abandonment of traditional water systems, the falling apart of social structures reduced the local resource base with a concurrent loss of food security. At times these influences converged with drought and other conditions to cause broader and deeper impacts then in previous years. Throughout the 1800's famines began happening where previously there had been none, and where hunger and scarcity had occasion to happen now famines replaced these with increasing frequencies and impacts. This escalation continued until 1940-41 when crop failures coupled with a poor response from a war time government to create the famine of 1943 that killed an estimated 3.5 million people.
Uprisings, as with famines, were then a natural outcome of these situations. And like famine they increased with frequency throughout the 19th and into the 20th century. A few of the noted ones are Chuar Rebellion (1799-1800), Bhumiji Revolt (1832-33), Pabna Disturbance (1873), East Bengal Peasant Unrest (1919-33). It was through the long struggle for independence that India once again had an opportunity to determine its own relationship with the land.
INDEPENDENCE
Independence brought with it a desire to reestablish all things Indian. This included traditional land use patterns and systems. A few politicians and government ministers gave speeches about reviving traditional land and water systems. There was a massive redistribution of land to peasants and lower castes. Accompanying this were land ceiling acts that sought to limit the size of land holdings. However, as with many other places, there is the way things are said to be and how things actually are. For India it was not long before the concept of development became operative. Though many land ceiling acts remain on the books they presently appear to have indifferent effects upon what actually happens. There is currently some movement to alter these acts to match the reality of what is happening, ratherthan attempting to have reality be shaped by the act.
GLOBALISM
With 1/6th of the world population and a land rich in resources India is being courted and coerced by world powers who wish to tap both her market and resources to their advantage. Today India must deal with intense pressure to open her vast diversity and develop her resources and industries to world standards. What is essential here is to understand and work with the invisible structures that shape the landscape we are working with. For India these next few years could well be the crucial ones as world industrial powers seek to shape her with dreams of modernization and globalization that are framed with dictates, standards, and requirements.
As during the Colonial Era, development has been closely linked with cash cropping for export, the opening of markets, access to raw materials, and centralization. What is differentthis time is the scale of these processes and the structuring of international laws and agreements which justify and institutionalize it. It was just over ten years ago that for the first time agriculture became commodified with the creation of the WTO(World Trade Organization). Today India's (and the Worlds) landscape is being transformed by the labyrinth of treatises, agreements, and standards coming out of the WTO and its associated agencies. Again, it is not possible for this article to articulate even a basic rendering of these articles which are becoming the global standard that countries are supposed to follow. What follows is a very brief look at concepts and policies that are affecting India and her farmers. This is important and fundamental in that we are fast approaching a point where all land use will be affected and, perhaps, controlled at this global level.
Subsidies and tariffs have been historically used to protect and support a country's industries until it was able to withstand and profit from equal footing in the world market. In practice, this is no longer the case. Though much talk and some fancy to blatent number shuffling has been given by the developed world, the reality is that the tariffs and subsidies are continuing to have significant impacts on the developing world.
India was forced to lower her tariffs and quantitative restrictions by April 2001, which then helped dramatically push down domestic prices for coconut, rubber, coffee, pepper and other agricultural products. Subsidizing agriculture as the developed countries do, allows the farmers or their governments to dump produce into unprotected markets, like India's, at prices below what it costs local farmers to grow the same produce. Consistently the developed world has refused to lower or reduce its tariffs or subsidies while requiring developing nations to alter theirs' to WTO dictates. An outcome of this imbalance of tariffs and subsidies is the impoverishment of small farmers which then leads to the loss of small farms and migration into urban areas.
Farmers are also quickly losing their right to save, trade, and use farm grown seeds. Under many different agreements and organizations (TRIPS, Substantial Patent Treaty Law, World Intellectual Property Organization) the patenting of life is being streamlined and accelerated. Developing countries are pressured in various ways to harmonize their patent laws with these agreements. India has been doing just this (Seed Bill of 2004), requiring the registration of all seeds sold. These laws are profoundly affecting how the farmer is viewed and severely limiting the choices they have. The shift of seed propagation to transnational corporations using biotechnology is and will have immense impacts on the biodiversity of the farm and how the farmer chooses how to farm. The issue of seed sovereignty involves freedom of choice, money, and who will control agriculture.
A Stated purpose of the WTO and World Bank (WB) is to bring development to the undeveloped world. A very significant part of this development is industrialization. With agriculture this means chemical pesticides and fertilizers along with replacing animal labor with machines For the Indian farmer this means more money needed to purchase these chemicals along with more money for petrol and maintenance of these new machines. The loss of animals means the loss of a vital link to creating cycles within the farm. It is also losing another piece of Indian security (animals can be eaten or sold during lean times) and culture. What industrialization does is bind the farmer to external outputs that require money and energy to access. It also dictates shifts in cropping methods and strategies. It was once common to have trees, usually legumes, planted throughout cropping fields. However, these are being removed because it greatly simplifies machine plowing. The accumulative effect of these has been to create a reoccurring and often continual indebtedness for the Indian farmer. Industrialization, loss of seed sovereignty, unfair markets and more have impoverished the Indian farmer in ever growing numbers. It is estimated that nearly half the farm households are in debt, mostly to local private money lenders. In Andra Pradesh, 4/5ths of farmers surveyed were in debt.
India is now witnessing farmer suicides as it has never seen before. In the past ten years 25,000 farmers (some estimate it is closer to 40,000) have committed suicide. In Maharastra reports are of 2 farmers per day committing suicide. When a farmer commits suicide their family receives government compensation. For a deeply indebted farmer this compensation can appear as the only viable option by which they are able to relieve their family of the debt burden.
What these processes do is to create a shift towards centralization. Unfair markets, harmonization of patent laws, industrialization, and the debt cycle push small and marginal farmers off their land and, most often, into urban poverty. Small farms are being absorbed into bigger holdings. Corporations are taking control of the seeds. WTO and WB policies are focusing on decreasing government involvement and responsibility in pricing, production, stock holding and distribution of food. These than become aspects of the market, a market that is more and more controlled by fewer and fewer transnational corporations (6 corporations control the bulk of international trade in agriculture, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development). What this will mean and what is already happening is that land use will not be based on local resources, community health and sustainable practices, but rather, on the needs of the market as defined by a small number of extremely large global corporations.
INDIA TODAY
1 in 4 farmers worldwide are Indian. 40% of a country of more than 1 billion people are farmers. Approximately 65% depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. The vast majority of farms are small, owned by an individual or a family and are connected to a local market. 2/3rds of the tilled land is done so non-mechanically, mostly by animal labor. Many small farmers have been to poor to have bought into industrial agriculture. Much of India's land heritage and knowledge still exists. The question is, for how much longer will this be true? Industrial agriculture, with its chemicals and mechanization, is being pushed by vested interests. Vast swaths of land are mono-cropped with rice, cotton, tea, coffee, wheat, etc. Indian politicians are moving towards globalization and changing or creating laws inline with WTO and World Bank dictates. Markets are being opened and farmers exposed to the inequities of global trade. Consumerism is growing, indebtedness is rising. Internal migration is overflowing the cities.
For now industrialization is attempting to dominate here and worldwide. Along side this the desire for and an understanding of the importance of their traditions is strong and widespread in India. India also has a very long and cherished tradition of service. Many people hold this sense of service as an intricate part of themselves and their culture. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of NGO's (non-governmental organizations) that are focused on land or aspects of land use currently working throughout India. The following are some examples of what some ngo's are doing to preserve and nurture their long and deep traditions of land use.
The Deccan Development Society (DDS, Andra Pradesh) held the first permaculture workshop in India in the mid 1980's. They currently have a biodiversity festival that travels by colorful bullock carts for a few months each year to hundreds of villages celebrating the blessings of seeds, diversity, and tradition. While doing this they help educate and motivate farmers to grow a variety of traditional crops for local and market consumption. Gravis (Rajastan) is working throughout the state to revive traditional agriculture and, in particular, the traditional water harvestng structures. When a family, poor or lower caste, has a Tanka put in or revived this means that the mother no longer has to walk 5 kms 3-5 times a day for water. Now the children can go to school because they do not need to stay home to do chores and work. The family is able to have some animals, which in turn creates more benefits.
Navdanya Biodiversity and Conservation Farm (part of Vandana Shiva's Bija Vidyapeeth, Uttaranchal) is working with villages to document plants and their uses so that no one 'discovers' them. In this way they hope to protect them from patenting and commercialization. Many other ngo's are doing similar work to record, preserve and distribute the vast storehouse of information and understandings that are a part of India's traditional land systems.
The Bethany Society (Meghalaya) hosts permaculture certification courses and plans to start two permaculture demonstration sites. They have also submitted a proposal to the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) which, if accepted, will make permaculture projects and sites nationwide eligible for funding through the bank. Prerna (Darjeeling) hosts design certification courses and will soon begin work on a permaculture demonstration site that will include an elder care home.
The Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems (Tamil Nadu) is involved on many levels with saving and revitalizing indigenous sciences and practices. They run research and training programs on sustainable agriculture, work to conserve traditional seed varieties, research applications of Vrkshayurveda(traditional Indian plant science), and publish books, posters, and newsletters on traditional healthcare and traditional agriculture.
Auroville (Tamil Nadu), while not an ngo, is an international community which has various groups that are working on different aspects of sustainability. Several of their member communities farm using permaculture principles. Other projects are involved all over India with appropriate technology; wind and solar power, humanure, waste water treatment, water harvesting, quality drinking water, and compressed earth blocks for construction are some of these. There is extensive work being done to preserve and re-establish the native ecosystem know as Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest. Only one percent of this historically very restricted ecosystem remains and contains an incredible collection of medicinal plants.
There is also movement towards sustainability on some political levels. Both Sikkim and Mizoram have declared themselves organic states. This past fall the Sikkim government sponsored the first permaculture certification course in the state. The state legislature is considering declaring permaculture as state policy (with budget).
Few things are certain with India, she has the potential to go a few different ways. India in its vastness can contain alot of many things. Over the next several years India will be making decisions and formulating policies that will have significant influences on how she will grow and develop. With over a billion people she will soon become the most populated country in the world. It is not a question of if India will become a world power, rather, it is about when she will be recognized as such. Corporations and the developed world governments understand the significance of India. It is not a small thing. Slowly she is realizing it also.
