An agriculture that cools the earth Visit to the farmers movements of Southern India

We are just activists - in no way experts on India or on agriculture. However, having had the privilege of visiting our friends of the farmers organisations, who took the time to explain and accompany us, we feel that we owe it to them to share this glimpse of such important struggles and promising experiences. If, as Via Campesina says, small farmers cool the earth, it is particularly true of the Zero budget natural farming, a sort of permaculture towards which the Indian farmers are returning: an agriculture without petroleum dependencies and which as well uses less water something that could save millions of lives in the dry times ahead. Oliver and Viviane, February-March 2012 Generally speaking, we observed many similarities with agriculture elsewhere: On the one hand the pitiless advances of Monsanto, of agri-business and the land-grabbing provoked by free trade. Ever lower crop prices continue to drive farmers into debt and thousands to suicide (in France too the suicide rate of farmers is double the average of the general population...). Others, as we also saw in Ecuador, sell their land to plantation or land developper, to escape an apparently hopeless situation; to buy an education or a mariage for their children. And end up as laborers or worse in a city slum. Here too, the first effects of climate change are felt: extreme droughts, floods and a more unpredictable monsoon. It is in any case clear that the farmers cannot survive by improving their productivity with conventional methods. Small farmers in India (the great majority have less than 2 hectares 5 acres) are already twice as productive per acre than the large ones! And unfortunately use more than twice as much irrigation, high-yield hybrid seeds and pesticides1, in a desperate effort to get a living out of it. Today, the trap of the Green Revolution is closing on them, as they are squeezed between the ever lower crop prices and the rising price of petrol, which pushes up that of fertilisers, pesticides and electricity for irrigation. On that road, they are doomed. Fortunately, here too, the struggle continues and promising alternatives are spreading fast!
- Assembly of the KRRS in Bangalore - A No work farm - A Zero budget farm - An organic farm woman - The APVVU, organisation of fisher-folk, indigenous, small farmers and farmworkers (landless) - Kerala, and some general notes on India

Assembly of the KRRS in Bangalore (Karnataka) Before the assembly of KRRS, Chukki Nanjundaswamy (member of the State Committee and daughter of its much regretted and legendary leader) and Luca explain a little of its recent history. In 1999, Putannaih, one of Nanjundaswamy's lieutenants, provoked a division in the organisation. He wanted KRRS to ally itself with the local BJP (the Hindu fundamentalist party) and another party for elections to the State parliament. (Since 62 % of the population are still farmers, political parties often attempt to recuperate farmers' organisations and their leaders.) KRRS had an independent deputy in Parliament, but Nanjundaswamy always refused all alliances with political parties.) Last year the two factions negotiated the reunification of the organisation, but internal

disputes between leaders continue, at the expense of grassroots organising and mobilisations. Chukki, who is very direct, criticised them in assembly for this. At one point, had Chukki actually stopped participating in the State committee of KRRS (where the representatives of the 30 districts deliberate), to devote herself full-time to the Amrita Boomi project. However, lately she has returned there to propose a program and actions. (The good news is that, during our stay, an assembly of the local leaders of KRRS strongly criticised the central leadership, and demanded a more horizontal mode of operation something very new for in these parts.) Among the latest actions of KRRS there has been a blockade of ports, to protest against cheap agricultural imports, rice from Thailand, for example. (All agricultural prices continue to decline. The farmers working the most for cash crops on the market are the ones who suffer most and who have been committing suicide most frequently.) The other big problem is the increase in the cost of electricity for the irrigation pumps : a result of higher oil prices and the partial privatisation of electricity. Last year, the KRRS occupied the headquarters of the electric company in Bangalore for two months (first with a demo of 5000 farmers, then by turns), locking out the employees. Actually, many KRRS farmers stopped paying for electricity several years ago, as the cost of electricity for pumping had gone up steeply with privatisation. Worse, the company supplies it only at night (no doubt supplying industry by day), forcing the farmers to work at night, with the risk of meeting snakes, scorpions, elephants and other dangers. The KRRS launched the campaign saying We will pay for a service, not for torture , also teaching the farmers how to re-establish disconnected lines. However, now the company is trying to sue, particularly the local leaders, who could even face prison sentences. Anyway the struggle has to continue, as the farmers couldn't possibly pay all the accumulated bills. Chukki finds that the State leadership has not been offensive enough on this issue, and apparently the grassroots agrees. In November there was a big demo on the subject in Bangalore, but when the cops blocked the march, the leaders only reacted with speeches. Finally, the farmers spontaneously blocked the main road, forcing the prime minister to come to talk to them. He made some promises, unkept until now. Assembly for Nanjundaswamy's birthday, 13th of February These last years, the KRRS has celebrated Nanjundaswamy's birthday with a special assembly and distribution of awards. More than 1200 farmers were gathered, having squatted trains from all over the State (KRRS never pays for trains). Chukki was a bit angry because the prime minister and the minister of agriculture had been invited to speak, something Nanjundaswamy would never have done. (The idea behind the invitation was actually to pressure them to accord pensions and reserved public service jobs to the families of farmers having committed suicide.) To make things worse,
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they are both of the fundamentalist BJP party. As I was supposed to also say a few words, I proposed to quote the PGA hallmarks with their explicit opposition to fundamentalisms of all creeds . Chukki approved. The assembly is held in the Freedom Park, a sort of outdoor conference center, where an old prison (in which Nanjundaswamy had once been prisoner) stood before. Under a beautiful caravanserail, a huge and multi-colored cloth roof big enough for a good thousand people. When we arrive, around 11H, there is already someone speaking about possibilities of generating electricity with biogas. Obviously, the farmers would indeed be better off as producers of electricity than consumers... Next, a young woman, an NGO expert on the GMO legislation, gives a thorough talk on the horrors of the legislation debated in Delhi to regulate GMOs, and on some victories of the resistance. First, the general problem of Indian democracy : all laws are proposed and debated exclusively in english, surely understood by less than one percent of farmers. In addition, the proposed law forsees that all decisions would be taken in secret by a small committee, and that any requests for compensations for farmers (there have been thousands concerning the first GMO, BT cotton), would be treated by a special court in Delhi, thousands of kilometers away. The speaker recalls the disaster of BT cotton : the increase in yields claimed are false, as the BT gene was introduced concurrently with a new hybrid grain and increased irrigation. Above all, BT cotton is no better in fact, quite the contrary if one cultivates without irrigation, something that Monsanto carefully avoided announcing. The resulting crop failures monstrously multiplied the number of suicides. Finally, the consumption of pesticides has not gone down (although the BT cotton incorporates a gene which was supposed to kill the parasites). However, it does kill quite effectively the goats that normally feed on the remains of the cotton plants... Meanwhile, 93% of the cotton grown in India is now Monsanto's BT cotton. The positive side of this disaster is that the resistance against Monsanto's next product, GMO Brinjal (eggplant) has been successful so far. The States have acquired the right to refuse experimental GMO cultures and there have been some public hearings. Above all, there has been a decision in Parliament based on the principle of precaution.(This principle had been already invoked by courts, but never by the legislative bodies.) In brief, the struggle continues, as the government remains pro-GMO. The speaker says that a law on GMOs is indeed necessary, but not the one proposed. Follows a talk on zro budget farming (i.e. an autonomous agriculture, paying for no exterior inputs such as fertiliser, pesticides, hybrid seeds and much less water), which is more and more popular in KRRS. It is basically a return to a traditional Indian form of permaculture, many of its techniques already being described in classical Indian texts. It has been popularised and enriched 3

with modern scientific analyses by a farmer from Maharashtra State, Subhash Palekar, who after studying agronomy practised chemical farming for more than a decade. Like thousands, he noticed that his harvests first became more abundant, and then started to implacably decline. However, instead of falling into the trap of ever more intensive (and expensive) treatments, he recalled his youthful experiences with the indigenous tribals of the forest areas, still practising hunting and gathering. How can the forests, with all their fruits, reproduce themselves indefinitely with no pesticides or fertilizers? After 6 years of forest observations and experiments, he elaborated a series of models for zero budget farming. In 2004, KRRS, invited him to present his method to a group of 16 farmers. Only one of them was convinced to try it, but his results were so spectacular that farmers from all over the State started visiting and imitating him. Eight years later, Chukki estimates that there are maybe 50000 farmers using the method in Karnataka. Of course that is not even 1% of the farmers of Karnataka (Palekar claims that 3 million of the several hundred million Indian farmers are practising zero budget ), but the method is spreading explosively, as chemical farming is rapidly driving the small farmers into bankruptcy. KRRS (and now other organisations) are organising mass presentations. A training of one week for 6000 farmers was planned for April. KRRS's objective is to train a farmer-trainer for every 5 villages in the State. The speaker claims that within three years, the yields of export quality rice become equal to the yields obtained with expensive pesticides and fertilisers, and that the earth having returned to life, remains that fertile for decades. The spirit of Swadeshi (the ideal of autonomy of the Gandhian village republic ) seems thus to be making a comeback after the disaster of the Green Revolution , but at the very last minute. Personally, I hadn't realised how completely chemical agriculture had conquered India, but we were told that only the oldest farmers still remember how agriculture was done before. In fact the smallest farmers (that is, with less than two or three acres!) are the ones that use chemicals the most intensively, exhausting the soil and going over their heads in debt in a desperate attempt to get sufficient revenue out of their plot. On our trip we encountered three sorts of natural farming : organic farming, more similar to the western model, complete with certification ; zero budget farming and no work farming, an even more radical sort of permaculture, practised by an uncle of Chukki. Rather like in Europe, natural farming is quite often embarked upon also by urban people returning to agriculture. In India, this also includes returning migrants - often very qualified, such as computer experts - some laid off by the crisis in the US. In fact, a fellow passenger on our return flight to Europe, a high-level hardware person at HewlettPackard, had such a project in mind. Strange loops of history! Alternative energy, politics of seeds and GMOs, alternative agriculture... the first half of Nanjundaswamy's anniversary, which sounded like a rather ritual affair, turned out to be a hefty 4

session of popular education very useful for this in large part illiterate public. Second act : politics. The prime minister arrives, sporting a magnificent Colgate smile. The president of KRRS had precisely made fun of him in the medias, saying that he was always smiling, while the people suffered. So the minister starts his speech by turning off his smile and saying how much that attack had hurt him... He goes on to say lots of other things, that my translator says aren't worth explaining, as its just hot air. Finally, however the widows and orphans of the latest suicides are sent up on the podium, and the PM is obliged to promise some help for them. As we are in a pre-electoral period and all the TV crews are present, it will probably happen. Other speakers intervene : a progressive star of the Karnataka cinema, then a Swamiji (sort of Hindu monk, having made vows of poverty and chastity). KRRS is anti-caste and anti-Brahmin, but we are explained that this swamiji has always supported the farmers and even offered a valuable house in Bangalore to the KRRS as headquarters. He gives a little sermon in which he says that the recent reconciliation of the factions of KRRS is very good, but that it seems to him all the same that there are some people missing in the assembly. True enough, a bit later about two hundred more peasants arrive. We learn afterwards that they had just been released by the police. Chandru, the leader of the other faction of KRRS had not only boycotted the assembly, he had organised an action at the same time. Well, anyway no one can claim that KRRS is too monolithic ! Then the man beside me on the podium, a jovial guy with a huge nose, looking rather like a cartoon character, does a speech. He looks like he is maybe 50. In fact he is almost 80, and an old colleague of Nanjundaswamy. They were both independent deputies in the state parliament in the '90ties, often leagued together to oppose the Establishment. His speech makes the farmers laugh a lot. Its a comical-political fantasy with a little taste of myth to it. He says that the other day the old prime minister (who has been dead for years) called him. He told him that he was in heaven with all the old gang, and that things were really great, much better than down below. The only problem is that they are afraid that Nanjundaswamy, who is as scrappy as always, is going to give God such a hard time that they will all be sent back on earth. But Nanjundaswamy reassures them, by saying that the heavenly Prime Minister is awful, but all the same, much less bad than the one on earth (little jab at the PM sitting next to him). I don't get a complete translation, but the final moral of the tale is that the dead activists seem more active than the living ones (little jab at the warring leaders of KRRS). The farmers are visibly enchanted with the story. The minister of irrigation and water also speaks, to tell how he went to Davos and to the World Water Conference in Marseille to defend the principle that Water is not for sale ! (ATTAC has made a disciple !). I catch a reference to WTO but my translator seems uninterested again. He does translate laughingly when the minister insists that the farmers' movement should stay outside party politics. Apparently he is afraid KRRS might support the opposition ! 5

The assembly ends with the presentation of the Nanjundaswamy foundation awards. One goes to an old farmer from Madhya Pradesh, a long-time ally of KRRS, and another to me, as a sort of symbol of the international PGA network, still remembered and valued by many of the Asian farmers' organisations. We are installed ceremoniously, decorated with garlands of sandalwood, and given a beautiful, handsewn bag, filled with a suitable treasure : a variety of grains and some earth of Karnataka. We also receive a commemorative plaque with our name and photo engraved on it, which we have to hold up in front of us for the photos. It reminds me of something... Oh, yes ! Its just like when one is arrested and one has to hold up one's name for the identity photos. Someone forces Viviane to join me (garlands of jasmin for her). No doubt as close to a wedding ceremony as we will ever get. Better late than never ! Then a long string of KRRS activists also get a sort of trophy. The ceremony is over. A bunch of the older farmers come up to the podium to shake my hand. I feel at once totally unworthy of the attention, and very touched. A Zero budget farm Chukki and Luca take us to the farm of Krishnappa, the pionneer of zero budget farming in Karnataka. While asking her way in a roadside stall, Chukki is recognised by the shopkeeper, who tells her that she must put a stop to the internal disputes between the KRRS leaders. It would be difficult to escape the responsabilities inherited from her father ! Nous partons visiter la ferme de Krishnappa, le pionnier du zero budget farm au Karnataka. Krishnappa and his family receive us in a typical, traditional village home. Before showing us his farm, he insists on telling us his story. A farmer's son, he quit school after primary school. Cultivating rice for export, with industrial fertilisers and pesticides, he accumulated debts with each bad season. 8 years ago, he had 1,5 million rupees of debts and was thinking of suicide (at least debt isn't inherited), when he attended the seminar on zero budget farming of Palekar. (see http://palekarzerobudgetnaturalfarming.com/aboutme.aspx , we also made a makeshift video of our visit to Krishnappa). Today, he has reimbursed almost all his debts, earning 100,000 rupees per acre, and above all without having to pay for fertilisers and pesticides. Several times a week, people come to visit his farm from all over the world, including university researchers who treat him like a colleague and whom he can discretely laugh about. He is beautiful to see, in the middle of his family, dignity and serenity recovered. We set off to visit his farm 3 or 4 kilometers barefoot through the paddy fields and sugar cane, trying not to slip into the muddy irrigation of his neighbors. His sugar cane is planted in rows twice as far apart as his neighbors : 2m40, with 60 cm between plants. Between the rows of cane there are several lines of associated cultures : pulses to fix azote in the soil, other vegetables, oeillets d'Inde, pimentos, and a line of onions or garlic. He explains the advantages of the flowers are : they 6

are beautiful, they repel certain parasites, they attract pollinising insects and finally they can also be sold. The garlic and onions gather cosmic energy (generated by the interaction of the 5 elements... ancient Indian theory, but which apparently works). The best part is that he harvests as much sugar cane per acre with his rows twice as far apart ! He shows us one reason why, pointing out how his cane leaves get sun and thus are green right down to the ground. This also discourages parasites, which are also attacked by ally insects that are attracted to the plants of other rows. True enough, his canes are much thicker than normal (up to 20 cm in circumference). Once the associated cultures are harvested, the ground is covered with mulching. (He often also uses the weeds and cane debris that his neighbors would normally burn.) Part of the plants are left in the ground to provide seeds for the next planting. Apart from polyculture side by side or in vertical layers of canopy the method is based on the Four Wheels : water (not too much, but at the right place and time) ; mulching (with dead leaves, with living plants, or by plowing superficially (10-15 cm) with an ox and wooden plow to overturn the weeds) ; the preparation of the seeds ; and the fertilisation-activation of the soil with Jiwamitra. These last two wheels depend on the urine and cow dung of the rustic Indian cow. Using Jiwamitra, a single cow suffices to fertilise 30 acres (a dozen hectares), as its not a question of adding organic matter, but of adding microbes that activate natural life processes in the soil (a single gram of rustic cow dung contains 30 to 50 billion beneficial microbes bnfiques). (Krishnappa, who has acquired an impressive theoretical bagage on the subject, reminds us that the biomass beneath the surface of the earth is much larger than all the animals and plants above.) Jiwamitra ( water of life as it is poetically called) is a mixture of 10 kilos of cow dung (as fresh as possible), 5-10 liters of cow urine (as old as possible), 2 kilos of powdered legumineuse, a handful of earth, 2 kilos of raw cane sugar and 200 liters of water. (Palekar explains the importance of the sugar by research that shows how tree roots secrete sugars to attract useful microbes.) All this must be stirred 3 times a day for two days, then used within a week, distributed parcimoniously on the soil once a month. The results of this homeopathic treatment are spectacular. At 5 weeks Krishnappas sugar canes are two or three times higher than his neighbors. Without spending a cent on fertizers, he gets as big a harvest, with rows twice as far apart. And he can eat or sell everything that grows between them ! He also points out to us the much less well developped cane at the edge of his field. Its because it receives too much water spilling over from his neighbors irrigation. If one of the Wheels is falty, the cart won't roll ! The method is really extraordinarily precise and well worked out. Not the least of its virtues being that it uses much less water. Something that could save millions of lives when climate change starts 7

to really take hold (droughts are already more frequent and severe than before, and the water table is going down every year in many parts). We are fascinated by the expertise that Krishnappa has acquired along with the skills : he explains to us the principles of photosynthesis, the chemistry of vegetables, while criticising the sclerosis of university research, largely paid to justify the use of pesticides. Palekar and his followers are also critical of standard organic farming. Apart from the certification, seen as a new and irritating attempt to control farmers from above, they say that the transition period is too long, that composting is more work than mulching on the spot, without speaking of the cost of commercial organic fertilizer, which is even higher than the chemical variety. A new system to exploit the farmer, according to them. They are also critical of worm composting. They say that in India, the worms used are an African variety, not native; they arent real earthworms, that make the soil breathe, but worms that live off rotting matter. Whats more, they say that they concentrate heavy metals and make them more assimilable by the organism. Strangely, despite his success and fame, his immediate neighbors dont imitate Krishnappa. Traditional agricultural knowledge has been lost and the new practices are distrusted. Some neighbors are even persuaded that he must add some special chemical in secret... He next shows us the part of his land planted in canopy: a thick, five layered jungle. At the top, coconut, banana, betel nut, lemon and orange trees; then the lower bushes, coffee, chocalate, drumstick (a sort of bean bush), glycedia (a fertilizing plant); then the climbers and creepers, vanilla, pepper, tumeric, ginger, cardamon; and finally on the ground level pulses (lentils), pumpkins, etc. All this organised according to the precise recommendations of Palekar: coconut trees every 12 meters; in the square they define, respectively 528 coffee, arica nut, banana, etc; 400 drumstick, 30 sweet lime, etc.,... No weeding is done, and yet none are to be seen, as this thick forest of useful plants absorb all the rays of sun! The plot is protected on one side against the dominant hot wind by a band of trees, mixing silver oak, teak, guava and grenadine, which also constitute a barrier against pests. These are rare in such a mixed culture and Krishnappa can tolerate loosing some of his crop, because he hasnt invested any money in it. (If really necessary Palekars method does forsee the use of herbal pesticides: mixtures of neem, etc.) Our tender city feet suffer from the red ants and the hard soil, the sun goes down, but Krishnappa although he makes this tour several times a week continues to talk enthusiastically. He even excuses himself for this, saying that he wants to persuade everybody, because alone one cannot change anything and that he doesnt just want a personal success, the whole world must change. With a gesture to his little forest, he says, This is my meditation. It gives me peace. He says too that he wants to follow the example of people like Gandhi and Nanjundaswamy. No one is going to keep the photo of Tata ! (The richest man of India.) Before he leaves, he takes a moment to go 8

speak in a loud voice to a sweet lime. He says that it helps. Night has already fallen, as we return, happily slipping in the mud of the neighboring rice fields. At his home, an informal reunion is held to take advantage of Chukkis presence. The farmers of the village are going to block the road the next day, to protest against the fact that their rice has not been bought as usual by the Kerala government, and that the Karnataka authorities do nothing. The crop is rotting in the storehouses. Two local activists of KRSS, green scarf on shoulder, try to explain the legitimacy of their action to the local plainclothes cop. He wants them to occupy an office instead, but they point out that there isnt one in the village. A No work farm We meet up with Chukki and Luca again in Mysore. Some alleys of the city look like farmyards. No need to have a stable or fields: cows, goats and chickens are in the streets, feeding on garbage. The relation between town and country seems quite different than in Europe. One can be an urban professional and still consider oneself a farmer, because one comes from a farming family (and caste), or because one has a cow. Chukki tells us a story of her grandfather, who was a lawyer at the supreme court. One day while he was pleading, his cow - recognising his voice - entered the courtroom and refused to leave until he stopped to tell it to go home, that he would come later. The man who whispered in the ear of cows! Together we visited her uncle Kailash's No work farm. In the rather parched landscape of rice fields and banana, Kailash's untidy little forest (about 2 hectares) stands out. He greets us with coconuts that we drink with straws made of papaya stalks. His principle is to accompany nature's processes, more than to impose projects on it: an agriculture without plowing, weeding, fertilisers or pesticides. Its above all a question of observation and encouraging natural processes to develop in a useful direction. For example, he has observed that seeds that are fruitful in one spot, may not be 50 meters from there. But in a few generations, better performing plants will appear out of the natural diversity of the seed. Its really re-localisation at its most radical - the total opposite of the multinationals search for one best seed for the whole world ! For example, he shows us three generations of banana, originally derived from hybrid seed, but which have progressively grown larger and more resistant as they re-naturalise and adapt to the spot. He does the same with papayas, etc., simply choosing each time the most promising seedling and keeping the seeds of the most prolific plants and best tasting fruits. He prefers growing fruits, saying that primates are above all fruitivores. Grains are for the birds ! . He observes too the beneficial associations of plants, for instance one that owing to its root structure will cover the soil without entering too much into competition for water with his crops, or another that can displace an invasive weed. Without adding any sort of fertiliser not even the Jiwamitra activator used on the 9

zero budget farms his earth has gradually become more and more alive and rich. He makes us compare two handfuls of soil picked up two meters apart. The handful from the pathway, still hard and sandy, and one from under the plants, humid, light and dark. Like couscous , he says with pride. Rather the same demonstration made with french soil by the french agronomist Bourguignon in Local Solutions to a Global Disaster . Except that in that case the living soil came from a natural wood and the dead soil from the (industrially) cultivated land. Kailash tells us that he uses less and less water; because the earth is never exposed to the sun, but also because his land has become an enormous sponge. He says he now has more than a meter of organic earth, and demonstrates the fact by burying an iron bar at one stroke at least that deep. He estimates that 75% of the water that he pumps for his (drip) irrigation is recycled and only 25% comes from the general water table. He also irrigates sparingly, so that the plants will put down deep roots and not become dependant. Also, he says that the insects need dry periods in order to reproduce. When I ask him what he does when parasites attack, he replies Its the plants problem, not mine. It must defend itself or die, in which case he will look for a more resistant seedling. Kailash is inspired by the ancient Indian texts, but also Darwin. At the same time, Kailash is quite pragmatic. He shows us a new plot of land that he just bought. This he completely cleared, to start off. Although he generally doesn't use cow dung to fertilise his land, here - to accelerate things - he had put a dose of dung with the baby papaya trees that he had planted. But to clear the land of invasive crabgrass, he had planted a sort of pulse (lentil), which will also fix nitrogen and cover the soil. He also believes that it is a mistake to turn the soil around bushes, supposedly to weed and air the soil. In reality, on the long term this hardens the soil, because it destroys the small roots and the insect tunnels that make the soil really porous. He lovingly shows us the excretions of white ants on the exposed roots at the base of a betel nut. He explains that these ants are capable of directly transforming wood into compost and that they only feed on the dead roots. He is also delighted to show us an isolated locust feeding on a young jackfruit. He says that the plant will react by multiplying the number of fruits. One can only imagine the time and immense work of observation and experimentation that installing this no work agriculture implies. It is certainly less easily generalisable than the zero budget models. And in fact Kailash never depended on it to survive, as he worked in a bank until retirement. He also cultivates a lot of Betel nut, which fetches a good price and can be easily stored when the price is too low. Still, it is an amazing and inspiring example of what a real knowledge economy could be. All in intelligence with Nature rather than using huge amounts of petrol energy to plow, weed, and generally manhandle her. His method reminds me of the successful practices of active education that I observed as an educational researcher. The traditional teacher vainly imagines starting from an intellectual tabula 10

rasa, hoping to align his students minds in an almost military fashion so that he can then tell them what they must think in order to understand. In contrast, the teacher using active methods is more of a stage director, encouraging and coordinating a variety of more or less spontaneous intellectual activities. The interactions between students play a role similar to the beneficial associations between sorts of plants. In this case too, the more or less provocative discourse is to say that the teacher lets the students do the work. In reality, their activity is highly and intelligently organised, even manipulated, and there are moments when a good active education teacher doesn't hesitate to intervene very forcefully. The limits of the two methods are probably similar. In particular, both necessitate enormous knowledge concerning the complex processes of growth that one wishes to orient, combined with an acute attention and respect for the activities of ones' protgs . Kailash has a website : www.the-anf.org and gave me two videos made by researchers in agronomy on his experience.

We continue on to Amritha Boomi, the well-named Eternal earth , a project of Nanjundaswamy that Chukki is realising. It is to be a sort of agricultural and political training center for all sorts of agricultural and alternative techniques, where big groups of farmers can stay, with a seed bank, small school, housing, kitchen, etc. 60 hectares of land, a little lake, some small bucolic peasant temples. The project was held up several years by administrative red tape concerning the land, but the building is at last under way. In the middle of the land, the monument and tomb of Nanjundaswamy and his wife, two low curving walls which form the shape of a huge leaf. Chukki explains that this design was chosen because things can be planted inside it. That's how precious each square meter of land is for Indian farmers. On the way to Amritha, the road goes through a series of villages controlled by the KRRS. In these, green signs are posted informing money lenders, bureaucrats, tax collectors, etc., that they can not enter farmers' homes without permission and only during certain hours. And that monday they are closed for holidays. A nice revenge for the farmers, fixing office hours against the city-people ! Those not obeying the rules have on occasion been tied to a tree for a few hours...
An organic farm woman

Meeting in Madurai (Tamil Nadu) with Rajareega, a woman who has established an organic farm. Like nearly all our activist farmer friends in India, she is at the same time from an urban and professional background. She studied agronomy, her husband is a doctor, her father a retired teacher and her brother who sells part of her crops in a shop in Chennai has a degree in maritime engineering. In ten years she has transformed un cultivated landand poor soil into a flourishing multi-crop of 11

millet, two sorts of lentils, rice, mangos, rubber, jackfruit, various vegetables plus trees of teak, sandal-wood, palm, etc... The farm is certified bio by a german outfit and a State certification will soon be done. She has 50 acres (20 hectares), which is big by Indian standards, half of it already in the family and half bought at 5000$ an acre. The farm furnishes a fixed salary for 6 persons (plus seasonal workers for harvests). She explains to us the various kinds of organic fertilisers, although activators would probably be a better term, as they are used in very small amounts. The principle is not to supply organic matter in quantity, but to stimulate the living processes in the soil which increase its fertility. These Karaisols are all mixtures of cow dung, urine and yoghurt, with other elements. Just the three basic elements is Amirtha Karaisol, but one can also add fruits, medicinal herbs (Five leaves Karaisol), or if one is not vegetarian- pork, fish, egg or butter (but according to Chukki this would be too costly for most farmers). The mixture should be mixed clockwise then anti-clockwise every day for 35 days. The richest is apparently Panchakarya, which adds milk and melted butter qui ajoute du lait et du ghee (beurre fondu). Ten liters is sufficient to fertilise several hectares. She also uses the vermicompost which our other contacts disapprove of. Apart from the fertilisation, she practises multicropping and very rapid rotations (passing from millet to lentils to rice, etc., in the same year) and mulching (with any kind of organic waste, and also with two layers of different medicinal herbs)- The ground is plowed only superficially, weeds are cut, not uprooted. Keeping the earth covered at all times economises a lot of water. Obviously no artificial pesticides, she uses plants that repell parasites. Last year, all the same, she lost the crop of her 30 mangos to a parasite, but she says with a little laugh Nature does not belong to us ! .

The APVVU, organisation of fisher-folk, indigenous, small farmers and farmworkers (landless)

In Chennai (Madras) we meet up with Raja Reddy, secretary of the APVVU in charge of the fisherfolk, who takes us 170 kilometers north to the area of Nellore. The union started organising here after the terrible destructions of the tsunami of 2007. At the time, people were already warning that the neoliberals would take advantage of the disaster to dispossess the people (yet another example of Naomi Kleins Shock Doctrine). True enough, first the government announced that it was too dangerous to live within 7 kilometers from the coast and that it was going to build a wall along hundreds of kilometers of coast! That was apparently just to gain time. An existing law protecting the coastal and humid areas forbids all industrial constructions within 2 kilometers of the sea, but the government proposed a Coastal Management Act, a sort of megaproject, forseeing an industrial development zone along 600 kilometers of coast, the villagers, fisherfolk and indigenous being displaced and the land turned over to private industry: chemical, steel, plastics and thermal (coal) electric plants. This coastal corridor is for the moment blocked 12

thanks to the mobilization of the APVVU (470,000 members, 55% of which are women), with the support at the national level of the NAPM (National Association of Peoples Movements) of Medha Patkar. However, the project is being realised in certain areas using another neoliberal reform: that law on Special Economic Zones, which allows for the re-zoning of agricultural and other protected lands for industrial development. Here, around Nellore, in less than four years an immense industrial port of 25,000 hectares has been created, which imports coal from Australia and Malasia to power electric power stations, and exports iron ore (mined illegally in other protected areas) towards eastern Asia. 30 900MW power plants have been authorized! The APVVU organises the resistance, supported by the NAPM (National Association of Peoples Movements) at the national level: occupations, occupations, national campaign, legal actions, demos repressed with police provocations searching for maoist guerrilas, three dead and a dozen court cases, among them our guide Raja Reddy. For the moment, 4 power plant projects are blocked, but twenty others are planned and 5 or 6 are running. (In private hands, they produce electricity only for industry. For the local population, electricity is intermittent.) As a result of this development, twenty fishing villages no longer have access to the sea. In any case, the sea around the port is so polluted by the construction, the big cargos and iron oxyde that the fish are rare. Before a boat brought back 500 to 1000 kg of fish a day, enough to feed 5 families. Now, they get about 50. There were also tribals living from fishing in the huge lagoon behind the coast, but the port has largely blocked the entrance of sea water and fish, also endangering a large bird reserve. The government and parties promise to create ports for the fishermen, jobs in the plants, compensations... In reality they are playing for time, waiting for the local people to abandon their villages. Perfect example of the development that destroys the livelihoods of hundreds of people for every job created. How to transform poverty into misery and despair. The APVVU, which first came here bringing urgent aid (rice, boats and nets) after the Tsunami, tries now to organise the resistance to this manmade on-going tsunami. We arrive in one of the tribal villages cut off from the sea (and soon from the road!) by the project. Huts and two or three more solid dwellings built on a sand dune. In the distance, two power plants under construction. The villagers are occupied with the relief public works program, which garuntees a hundred days of work, normally at the minimum wage (120 rupees - 2 euros a day) for the rural poor of India. This program is a result of a long struggle, but locally people have to mobilise to get it, and mobilise again to be paid. A large woman, the local union leader who has come to meet us, gathers people for an improvised meeting. We understand that people are very angry. First, because they are only being paid 100 rupees, and that irregularly. Worse, before they still had hopes of getting jobs in the plants and being able to stay there. But since the union 13

organised a visit near a functionning power plant, they have realised the coming disaster: the respiratory ailments that attack, in particular the children and elderly. The company promises to capture part of the pollution with a dust pond, but they understand that it will eventually get to them via the water table. And as landless tribals, they dont even have rights to compensation. Not long ago, this area was a little paradise, where Raja Reddy often came to picnic. Now it is mostly an industrial desert, decorated with mountains of coal. A bit further, after having passed several police barrages, we come to a village of fisherfolk. Some have recieved compensation two years of revenue but have lost their livelihood. For generations, they have always been fishermen. They dont know agriculture or how to run a little business. They mostly play cards, while some women find work as cleaners. Here, their struggle managed to at least to preserve a partial connection of an old colonial canal with the sea. We meet someone coming back with the days catch: a kilo of shrimp which will fetch him 50 rupees. We dont dare say that we paid 900 for a plate in a tourist trap! We leave the area, slightly depressed and admiring the determination of Raja Reddy and the union, as it is difficult to imagine an acceptable outcome for these villages. Moreover, both tribals and fisherfolk are difficult to organise, as they have always lived apart, have had practically no dealings with the administration, etc. And all the coastal area around is developping rapidly. In Chennai (12 million inhabitants) ultra-moderne buildings are sprouting. On that bit of coast, resorts (there is even one called Palm Beach) have already expelled the fisherfolk. Reddy says that around here most people only think about money, whereas further inland they are still ready to die to defend their land. To complete the picture, the corruption of the political parties is total. When their turn to power comes, BJP and Congress Party regularly send the ex-ministers to jail (the ones exporting the illegal iron ore, for example.) And everyone (even members of Reddys family) find it quite normal to receive 1000 rupees from each party at election time. As Reddy says this, as if to illustrate his point, our car is stopped by police. They search... in Vivianes purse (a good place to be sure to find nothing!), explaining that there is an election in the area and that they have already siezed 800,000 rupees that morning. Fortunately, further from the port the situation is less desperate. Reddy tells us of a tribal village where the State refused to furnish aid after the tsunami, on the excuse that there was no established village. (These tribals are traditionally nomads). The union organised writing up a list of the families. People were made to learn by heart the (invented) name of their village, but the day the authorities came, everyone was elsewhere. Finally, they were persuaded to stay in one spot for a week. But a new problem appeared. By the time the civil servants came back, several women had already changed husbands... something that tribal women quite often do. After some tough negociations, the aid was finally obtained: rice, nets and houses that the tribals were not very keen 14

on. I cant eat that house, and the fish wont always be here. We follow the fish! Finally, the houses were accepted, but the doors taken off. Otherwise the goddess (the sea wind we surmised) wouldnt be able to go in and out. Chennaiah spoke of his respect for this very special culture: a people at once totally poor and totally free, but also of his desire to settle them enough that the children go to school. It is a hunting and gathering society, without agriculture, houses, land, boats, eating mostly fish from the lagoon and rats. Today, living partly by harvesting for farmers. Traditionally, they didnt even put aside food for the next day. A prehistoric society just outside Chennai and its skyscrapers. Luca is right: there must be few places in the world where on can find practically all the forms of human existence (and all the impacts of capitalism) so dramatically close to each other. As public school would be just torture for this strange and despised minority, with another language, etc., the union found volonteer teachers. First, they just read stories to the children, capturing their curiosity. After a year or so, the parents decided to make some shade for the children a palm frond school building. Today they are learning to read, the administration has been pressured to pay the teachers and the children have a collective lodging, for when their parents are away. An example of the finesse with which the union gained the confidence of these undomesticated people. Before, some of these tribals also earned a few rupees cutting wood on a large plot of land which was allotted to Apache, a Taiwanese shoe factory. At one point, the tribals told the union that they wanted to take back that land and learn to do some agriculture. Chennaiah advised them to first make a hole in the fence and see what happens. No reaction. (All the factories have grabbed hundreds of hectares of surplus land for speculation. In some cases, its value can be multiplied by 1000...) The tribals then start clearing the land. The police arrive with the owners, but the tribals are not impressed by a bit of paper: Where do you come from? We have never seen you around here before! We have always used this land. The goddess gave it to us! The union gets to work on the media. A journalist of the BBC picks up the story. Somehow the tribals get to meet the sports champion who is Brand ambassador of Apache shoes... who falls in love with the tribals and takes their side! They get 50 hectares of this Industrial zone for their farming. The fisherfolk have different customs and organisation than the tribals. The dalits (the untouchable caste, generally landless labourers) still others. So each group is organised autonomously within the union. With the Dalits, land occupations are an essential activity of the union. The method is very precise. First comes an inquiry to find public land that is illegally appropriated by a big landowner. (According to Chennaiah, more than half of land in India belongs to the government since colonial days. Legally it should be distributed in priority in plots of 2 hectares to the landless. That would be 15

sufficient to achieve food sovereignty and end hunger in the country, but at least a quarter is in the hands of big landowners. Without speaking of lands that were officially distributed during the land reform to dalits who in reality continue to let the traditional landowner administer it for them.) The targets are carefully chosen among the very big landowners, generally politicians or their cronies (1000 hectares or more is common, at least in Andra Pradesh). The medium sized landowner (say 30 hectares) is not the enemy. Generally, the best is to occupy land of the party that is currently in the opposition. Repression is thus less immediate! Before occupying, the futur squatters file a claim in court (Chennaiah is a lawyer), which blocks an immediate expulsion order. On a moonlit night, hundreds of dalits from the surrounding villages occupy the land, which is immediately plowed and sown, using a tractor donated by a Canadian union (it would be impossible to rent one for an occupation). Often the proprietors send women to stone the squatters, so the tractor driver is equipped with a motocycle helmet (Things are well organised!). They send women because there are specially severe laws for molesting both Dalits and women. That way the handicaps sort of balance out! If the occupants can stay on the land and prove that they have cultivated it for three years (generally practising moonlight harvesting) and that the former proprietor was illegal, they can get title. Since the founding of the union, in1987, 210,000 acres of land have been obtained for about as many Dalit women. Sometimes the APVVU settles out of court by leaving 20% to the old owner. Driving on the highway, Chennaiah points out the huge tamarind trees that line the road and tells us of an action worthy of an italian comic film. A law dating from more progressive times, stipulates that the right to harvest one of these trees, which are evidently public, is reserved for landless women. In reality, corrupt politicians also often appropriate them by the hundred. One day, an honest civil servant informs the union that a certain member of parliament has 500. The union sends a courageous journalist to interview the MP, among other things on his opinion about this law. The article is published, with the MP evidently upholding this very social legislation. The following night, 2000 persons harvest all 500 trees. At 6 AM everything is already sold. And a second article appears, telling how landless women, inspired by the words of the MP have taken direct action to affirm their rights! The MP, red with rage, can obviously do nothing, but convokes the head of the newspaper, to get the journalist fired. The director compliments the journalist in private, but asks him to accept a transfer elsewhere. A few months later, the trees are discreetly allotted to landless women. Since, the union regularly takes back tamarind trees along the highways. That seems to be Chennaiahs style: radical and brave, but also flexible - and cunning as a monkey. The next day, when leaving the village where he started the union, 25 years ago, he pointed out the place where some landowners tried to kill him one night, when on his way to an assembly. Exmaoist guerrilero, he managed to get back on his motocycle despite his wounds, and reach the 16

assembly of Dalits, which immediately rushes out and arrests his assailants. At that time, they would normally have been immediately released, but a big crowd of Dalits turned up, every time that the court heard the case. Finally, the landowners did three months of preventive prison and risked a severe sentence. But Chennaiah decided that three months of humiliation was enough and agreed to withdraw his accusation. His moderation was repaid. Today, some of his ex-assailants support the union. However, when Dalits have been killed, the union has pressed for life sentences. Chennaiah and his wife Suria, also very active in the union, take us to a village where the Dalits have recently won land. All the men are working elsewhere, but no matter, as the women seem to be the best organised. It is also the women who get the titles to the land (a total revolution here as in most parts), because they say that the men are less reponsible, tending to drink, to get into debt. To get their title, they had to occupy the land for 3 years and lay siege to the administration in the local town for 3 days. The first official sent to make report was honest. The landowner had him transfered in 24 hours. The second only lasted three months. We are received on the porch of a little house which also serves as seed bank. Baskets of seeds pulses (lentils), millet, etc. are proudly exposed. A woman, the only one of the village who can write, takes down everything in a big notebook. The president of the village association explains there struggles and activities. A year ago they got the title to their land: each Dalit woman of the village now has one acre. But that can only assure food for three to six months. They want two acres.The landowner comes and insults them, but now they feel strong and can answer back. (Twenty years ago, Dalits were still obliged to take off their sandals to walk in the upper caste parts of villages...) Once a landowner came making death threats, but they surrounded him and made him understand that the shoe was on the other foot now. In each village (in this one there are 30 Dalit families), the union consists of an assembly that meets twice a month, with a committee of 7, of which 3 or 4 are women. They are also organised in groups of twenty people, with as at each level of the union a leader of each sex. Working groups of 5 people are responsible for specific activities: seed bank, production of ayurvedic medecine (taught by Suria), community bank, relations with the governement. Thus many people are active. Each village sends two delegates (man and woman) to the higher union meetings. Their achievements are diverse: The women have a herd of 90 goats, starting from a donation of 5 (the men would have just eaten them!). Inter-cast mariages have taken place, despite death threats. They have successfully campaigned to obtain the 100 days of public work, insisting that the elderly must also be allowed to participate, even if they are less productive. They insist also on the importance of school for the children, although they themselves cant read. And despite all this, they say that they have still only done 5% of what they want! When Olivier asks how it came about that the women got the land titles, one of them says angrily 17

All these years, men have profited from our strength, while we were confined to the kitchen. Now things are going to change! A bit later, she adds that in any case, women are stronger then men, physically and mentally !! They ask me (Viviane) about the situation of women in our country. They are all delighted when I say that women have too much work in the home, and that it must be shared with the men, so that the women have the time and energy to change the world. We leave the village enchanted and inspired by their desire for struggle and change. The 8th of March The assembly only starts around midday, as the women cant afford to lose the salary of a d ay of public work. More than 500 women (mostly Dalits, with some tribals and artisans) seated on the ground one of the first fields occupied at the beginning of the union - under one of those beautiful Indian cloth tents. Other assemblies are apparently being held in other parts of the State. Behind the table, Suria, Chennaiah, the leader of the womens section of the union and other local leaders. The central theme this year is a campaign against prenatal determination of sex and the abortion of feminine foetuses. Recently, parallel to higher standards of living, the terrible custom of the dowry - before limited to certain regions and higher castes has started to be taken up by Dalits. Men demand that their future wife garantee them a motocycle, a matrimonial bed, a fridge.... Demands that can finish in tortures and murders. Thus the birth of a girl becomes a terrible problem. The head of the womens section says that it is unthinkable: how can they who organise as women how can they accept to kill future women? How many of us (even, it is rumored, a woman holding responsibilities in the union) have accepted an examination to determine the sex of their future baby? How many have had abortions? A sheaf of large color posters is unwrapped. Someone explains that the poster says that the detection of the sex of the foetus is illegal, and that the woman, the doctor but also the husband who demands one, are all punishable. Another woman intervenes to say that the enemy is not only the landowners and the cops. The enemy is also interior, since we ourselves kill women! But if we have found the strength to oblige the chief of police to come to the village to listen to us, if we have been able to impose the paving of the road, then we are also capable of deciding together to stop this atrocious thing that is happening among us. The assembly is also the occasion to announce a new campaign in favor of the Unorganised Workers Social Security Act, a law enacted at the federal level, but not applied in Andra Pradesh. It includes an increase in the much too low retirement pensions, and which should be given to each person, instead of to each family. There is also a six months paid maternity leave that is proposed. Another older leader speaks of her pride to see so many women united and organised, when in her youth women remained shut up in their houses. Another reminds the assembly that twenty years 18

ago, Dalits didnt even have the right to enter the nearby town of Chitoor. That they had defied their own families to join the march that had entered the town to file a complaint. Proudly: Thats the kind of thing that I learned to do in the organisation. Another says that they must obtain secondary education and as much for their girls as their boys. Yet another reminds the assembly that there are 486 villages in the district without good water, but how many lack an illegal alcohol stand? Can we tolerate this? It is difficult to list all the subjects raised: increased rations of subsidized rice; domestic violence; sterilizations of women with cancers caused by pesticides, although they could have been treated differently; the heavy labor in the household, while the men do nothing: We work from 5AM to 10 at night. Our husbands stop at sundown, and beat us if they dont like the food! Their level of organisation and their gender perspective is amazing. We have to struggle and organise ourselves from a womans point of view, and not let ourselves be influenced by patriarchal values!We had to struggle 20 years to get the public work program, the law on domestic violence, etc. If we dont struggle, change wont come by itself When I was young, people thought that womens place was in the kitchen, that they didnt need education. We challenged that everywhere. But we must go further, get higher education! Still another: We have obtained things, but can we be satisfied with that? We must also force the government to respect us! It is my turn to speak. I stutter a few words in english, a few basic slogans: the crisis hits women harder, the necessary sharing of housework, of becoming stronger and badder. Happily, Chennaiahs translation seems more developped than my speech. Olivier also speaks, with a catch in his voice he remembers that starting to share housework was not easy. That at first the men had the impression of wasting their time, but that today he could appreciate the value and pleasure that can be found in it. That they should be inflexible, but also a bit patient with their men. And the power to change the world that was present in such an assembly. And indeed, it was an really stunning demonstration of popular empowerment. Chennaiah asks the assembly if they can imagine this sharing of housework. Laughter and big smiles. A woman in the crowd yells to Chennnaiah, Its been so long since you last came! Have you forgotten us? He salutes her by her name, and asks if she doesnt want to sing one of her songs. Spontaneously, four women deliver a melancholy ditty about dowry and patriarchy, evoking all the miseries that set in, right after the mariage feast. Chennaiah leads a few slogans, the women are hungry and start moving towards the meal offered by the union. The assembly is over.

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