FOOD SECURITY AND INTEGRATED RURAL DEVELOPMENT

1. FOOD SECURITY AND INTEGRATED RURAL DEVELOPMENT Prem P. Verma Jharkhand Alternative Development Forum Ranchi premverma42@yahoo.com

2. Introduction • The article is in two parts • 1. Food Security for our future generations • 2. Integrated Rural Development Plan. • The underlying common thread of continuity for both the topics is gradual development of a self-reliant and self-sufficient village less and less dependent upon market and its resultant forces.

3. Government policy Government policy is to augment agriculture productivity by – • Aggressively promoting rice and wheat cultivation at the expense of other beneficial and healthy crops • Marketing laboratory-developed high-priced high-yielding hybrid paddy and wheat seeds that require heavy inputs of fertilizers, urea and water • Providing loans to farmers for purchase of above items and giving fertilizer subsidies • Periodically waiving off farm loans • Shedding crocodile tears on farmers’ suicides due to excessive debt

4. RESULTS of Government Policy • Increasing poverty of farmers • infertility of farmland due to excessive chemical inputs • Disappearance of our biodiversity on the farm through systematic disappearance of bajra, jwar, madua and other crop grains • Promoting monoculture resulting in malnutrition • Putting farmers in debt on account of forced seed and fertilizer purchase, etc.

5. ORGANIC FARMING • Farming without any chemicals in the form of fertilizers, insecticides, urea, potash, pesticides, etc. • Relies on own indigenous seeds • Self-prepared fertilizers (from organic materials like cow-dung, cow’s urine, earthworms, leaves and plant wastes, etc.) • Depends on Nature’s prey-predator balance • Use of bio-pesticides when required.

6. We have to say NO to : • Hybrid and genetic seeds • Monoculture in farming • Fertilizers and pesticides • All government propaganda in support of above

7. We have to say YES to : • Indigenous seeds • Multi-crop bio-diversity in farming • Improved organic manure making • Improved organic farming methods • Freeing ourselves from the market

8. INTEGRATED RURAL DEVELOPMENT Aim is to make villages self-reliant and free from market forces. The main thrust of these efforts are – • Micro-thermal Power Plant • Village owning and operating their own independent micro-thermal • Power unit for generating electricity for village consumption

9. INTEGRATED RURAL DEVELOPMENT • Tiny Scale Industrialization in Rural Areas This electric power being used for operating small machines to add value to agriculture produce as well as providing employment to village youth

10. INTEGRATED RURAL DEVELOPMENT Round-the-clock Agriculture through Availability of Adequate Water The electric power being used also for year-round pumping of water for irrigation

11. The great revolutionary thinker and leader Sri Jayaprakash Narayan wrote in 1959 in an article entitled ‘A Plea for Reconstruction of the Indian Polity’: “The economy of the community……… should be as self-sufficient as possible ………… The primary concern of the community is to provide for satisfaction of the primary needs of its members. It is therefore natural for it to produce all it can to provide for them food, clothing, shelter and other necessities of life. It is also the community’s responsibility to see that every able-bodied individual in the community finds useful employment”.