A crash course on organic farming

Last week, I spent a few days at Wardha and Yavatmal (Vidarbha, Maharashtra), meeting farmers, NGOs and others, trying to understand organic cotton farming… and why cotton farmers in the region have been committing suicide. Reportedly, there have been over 1,200 farmer suicides in the region in the last 2 years. Matters are getting serious.

I was accompanying a senior journalist from Mumbai, Darryl D’Monte, his photographer (Aniruddha), and our guide (Sanjay). My role was that of an observer on this trip. So I kept my mouth shut, and my ears and eyes open. I had my own agenda – that of going through a crash course on organic farming. My future work on improving the lives of farmers is closely connected to organic farming. Hence, this crash course.

Although, organic farming is being promoted as the perfect solution for farmers by many authorities, I’m not sure if it is the only answer to India’s farmer suicide crisis. However, it does offer some wonderful benefits to farmers… and consumers like you and me. From what I learnt, organic farming is clearly defined as playing a dual role: as a technology, as well as a way of life for India’s farming community. The benefits of organic farming are many – from generating a livelihood for India’s farmers to preserving our planet.

Organic farming, a traditional-type farming (although not entirely so), which relies solely on natural resources, human labour and ingenuity, in conjunction with nature, ought to be an obvious choice of farming technology for India’s farmers. However, over the last 40 years, Indian farmers, following the Government of India’s directions, have decided to opt for modern (Westernised) farming methods using genetically-modified seeds, fertilizers and pesticides… and in some cases, mechanized equipment like tractors.

Modern (Westernised) farming, although seemingly scientific and progressive in technology, has turned out to be a source of tragedy for many farmers. The use of, and reliance on, genetically-modified seeds, fertilizers and pesticides have resulted in several serious problems for Indian farmers: introduction of toxic elements in farming, deterioration of fertility of their soil, ill health, and a reliance on ‘purchased inputs’ (such as genetically-modified seeds, fertilizers and pesticides) which is so heavy and addictive that it drains the farmers financially, without yielding expected results. Driving them to debts and death.

The Indian government, with its pro-modernisation outlook and MNC orientation, is non-responsive to farmer needs (in spite of the Prime Minister’s visit to the region). Leaving the farmers, and a few care-giving NGOs, to find their own solutions. Adopting organic farming may be one such solution for Indian farmers.

Richard Colman’s graffiti

“Richard’s background in graffiti, while stylistically nearly irrelevant in terms of his art, is the kind of background that changes one’s perceptions of what is permanent and precious. Graffiti has every right to embrace vulnerability. Paint outdoors and you know full well your art will die, maybe before you can catch a photo in daylight, maybe in a few months, and definitely within a decade or two. Stylistically, though, graffiti is all cocksure attitude, bristling edges, and menace – strange for a medium so utterly fragile. Anyone with hundreds of graffiti paintings under their belt knows the strange feeling when they shift to fine art: it just feels weird knowing the work isn’t destined to die. Richard’s artwork isn’t going anywhere, with its nice archival paper and glass, but he’s imbued it with that vulnerability of impermanence.”

[Citation: text and image from www.richardcolmanart.com]

Books, passion

“People who care about books care profoundly. What they lack in numbers they make up for in passion.”

– John Maxwell Hamilton, journalist and author

Altered states

It’s a world not many will understand. And, hopefully, not many will have to live through. It is science fiction, after all.

It’s the world of undercover cop Fred. Fred is his given name, along with a futuristic scrambler suit which he must wear when he is on the job, to protect his identity while he mingles with drug dealers in order to bust a narcotics cartel. The narcotic is a highly addictive drug called ‘Substance D’ which leads to delusion and degeneration of the mind; and finally to death.

In his undercover role, Fred is ‘Substance D’ user and dealer Bob Arctor, living with and spying on his drug-dealing friends, and his equally-disreputable girl, all of whom are on ‘Substance D’. He hopes one of them will lead him to the source of the ‘Substance D’ cartel while, back at the Police Dept as special agent Fred, he watches recordings of his own life and that of his friends through holographic scanners.

It’s enough to disorient the best of us, but ‘A Scanner Darkly’ is a wonderful study of the consequences of excessive drug use… and the schizophrenic life that both addicts and undercover cops experience. Sometimes, to tragic ends.

‘A Scanner Darkly’ is Richard Linklater’s amazing film adaptation of Philip K Dick’s novel by the same name. Set in near-future America, the film deals with alienation and the sense of altered reality that one experiences with increased drug abuse. At a broader level, the film is concerned with the possibility of drug epidemics and the role of Corporate America in perpetuating this possibility.

Perhaps to create an effect of altered reality, director Linklater (better known for ‘Before Sunrise’ and ‘After Sunset’) has treated the film as an animation. He has used a technique called ‘interpolated rotoscoping’, first shooting the film with live actors and then animating it frame by frame, giving it a look of a comic book.

‘A Scanner Darkly’ stars Keanu Reeves (as Fred/Bob Arctor), Robert Downey Jr, Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder and Rory Cochrane… and is definitely worth a watch. Particularly if you’re a sci-fi fan.

Flatness

“Melanie Russell describes her work as ‘an investigation into flatness’. In her compositions, figure and ground are given equal priority; the ‘subject has to fight it out with the ‘backdrop’ for the viewer’s attention. It’s not just a visual levelling; the implication is that objects, patterns and people all exist in the same flat world.”
















“Russell tests how far a figurative image can be pushed before it becomes unrecognisable.”

I think her idea is working...

[Citation: Text and image ('Team Hoof') reproduced from ‘Eyestorm – Melanie Russell artist profile’.]

Picky

“We’re not that interested when we try to comprehend what others say, in getting in our minds a copy of what they had in mind. We’re interested in getting that which is of use and of relevance to us, and we see what others are trying to tell us as a source of insight and information from which we can indeed construct a thought of our own.”

– Dan Sperber, anthropologist

When it comes to communication, I guess, we’re a picky lot.

Cock-tale

“Have you seen my cock on the roof?” enquired the Parsi gentleman the moment I walked into his house in Lonavala yesterday.

Caught unawares, I was hesitant. When I answered with an embarrassed ‘no’, his wife took me outside, pointed to the weathervane with an elegant rooster-cutout on the roof of their bungalow and said, “He means that.” Explaining, “My husband made it himself. He insists on this drama to get a little extra attention.”

And so he did.

Why does one write?

1. Because one feels the drive and the need to do so.
2. To entertain oneself and others.
3. To teach something to someone.
4. To improve the world.
5. To make one’s ideas known.
6. To free oneself from anguish.
7. To become famous.
8. To become rich.
9. Out of habit.

– Primo Levi, summary taken from his essay ‘Why Does One Write?’ in Other People’s Trades