*India's "second green revolution" through the KIA – a questionable deal*
While the whole country is discussing the 123 nuclear deal that the Indian government has struck with America, there is another Indo-American deal which is quietly being implemented without much discussion. This is the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture or KIA/AKI in short. This was also signed during PM Manmohan Singh's visit to the US in 2005, the same time that the nuclear deal was negotiated. This KIA was hailed by the Indian PM as the harbinger of the second green revolution in India. If this is indeed about launching the second green revolution in India, this deal should have been debated widely and in-depth with all stakeholders. From all appearances, this did not even get discussed within the agricultural research establishment of the country! While there is much hoo-ha-ha about the nuclear deal which may not affect most Indians one way or the other, the KIA - if it is indeed about the second green revolution, is going to touch all of us without any exception – as producers and/or as consumers of food. The very first question to be asked about the KIA is what informed its shape and framework. Is it from any analysis of the first Green Revolution – about what went wrong and what went right with it? If it is not based on any such balance sheet drawn up [note that the Planning Commission is also talking about the 'ecological disaster' and 'technology fatigue' of GR], the agricultural research establishment could be straightaway accused of being unscientific. Critics of the KIA have also raised more fundamental questions – they ask if there are many commonalities between Indian and American farming. It appears that in America, most farmers are propped by ever-increasing subsidies rather than their efficient farming – is there much to learn from the USA, they ask, given that the socio-economic conditions of farming are so vastly different between the countries. Coming to the specifics of this bilateral agreement, the first phase of KIA focuses on four areas: Recasting agricultural research and education; Food processing, use of byproducts and biofuels; Biotechnology including transgenics and Water Management. The largest budget outlays are for the third theme 'Emerging technologies'/biotechnology. While the issues of concern under each theme need to be discussed in depth, it is important to highlight that the real impacts of the KIA may not be in the content of each theme or the targets set there but the larger policy and regulatory level changes that the KIA seeks to bring about. The minutes of the five Board Meetings held so far are a clear indication of the fact that American commercial interests - which are represented on the KIA Board in the form of Monsanto, Wal-Mart and Archer Daniels Midland - are seeking to make regulatory regimes that govern Indian farming in the form of regulation of GMOs, contract farming, food retail sector etc. When the USA went to the WTO Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) in May 2006 opposing Indian proposals on GM labelling and trade certification, the preamble to the American complaint refers a lot to this joint Indo-US endeavour as a way of questioning Indian regulatory systems. One of the main thrusts in the first theme of the KIA – capacity building in agricultural research and education – is to shift Indian agricultural research to basic and strategic research from applied research. This is a debatable issue. While such a shift could on the one hand push agriculture scientists further into the labs and away from farmers' reality, linking research to commercial interests in the form of strategic research may ignore many other socio-cultural and ecological concerns in farming. There are already many critiques available about the mono-disciplinary, reductionist, top-down and undemocratic models of agricultural research in this country. It is feared that the recasting proposals contained in the KIA will strengthen these models. The second theme is about agro-processing and value addition. This is a sector described as a sunshine industry – where farmers are reportedly considering quitting farming given an opportunity, industry sees a great opportunity in farming through this route. It is reported that the technologies that will be taught to Indians by the USA in this theme will only benefit big players and not farmers. As it is, one sees that farmers are getting lower and lower shares in the retail prices provided by consumers on many products. Even from a consumer's perspective, it is not clear whether such processes make for safer and more affordable consumption. Ecologically, the entire energy equation from such consumption is yet to be worked out – products from agri-processing target export markets and affluent consumers in most cases. Bio-fuels is also an area of incomplete and even one-sided debate. The current push for bio-fuel plantations certainly has implications for land use patterns, food production and importantly, food prices as compared to fuel prices. In fact, the approach to bio-fuels taken by the KIA is in contrast with the one taken by the Planning Commission in its eleventh plan approach paper where it is recommended that there is a need to 'check bio-diesel planting'. The third theme is that of Biotechnology, including transgenics. While marker-assisted selection apparently is a safer and more efficient breeding technology, it is not clear why the KIA has chosen to still engage itself with transgenic crops, given the vast controversy that surrounds it. The last word on transgenic agriculture has still not been heard in India and the Supreme Court is still looking at the biosafety regime and regulation of transgenics in the country. Meanwhile, evidence from the ground in the form of Bt Cotton has shattered many myths about GM crops right from the beginning. In this context, further research on transgenics is perplexing and brings back questions on science policy formulation. Is it an indication of the American stubbornness and strategy of somehow bringing in GM into this country? What is also very important and mostly left untouched by the official document on the KIA is the IPRs regime that will govern research and subsequent commercialisation on this front. This is a technology which is almost completely proprietary and there are evidences from Indian Agricultural Universities like the UAS-Dharwar that indicate that on the IPRs front, the public sector and the farmers will lose out in such agreements. There are also many fears about bio-piracy acquiring a new route and legitimacy through the KIA. The last theme of the KIA is Water Management. It is interesting to note the purely techno-centric approaches to water management in the KIA, while there is a growing realization that this needs to be addressed mostly through socio-political approaches more than anything else. It is also clear that droughts and climate variability created through climate change cannot be addressed in a localized fashion, as an end-of-the-pipe solution. It should also be mentioned that *prima facie,* the KIA seems to be violating many collaborative research guidelines notified under the Biological Diversity Act which is meant to protect India's biological diversity resources and people's knowledge. All in all, this is a highly questionable deal and raises serious concerns about its implications on Indian farmers. It is a sorry state of affairs in the country that it did not evoke any serious debates or made the government accountable for taking up such deals without any serious discussions on its implications. kavitha kuruganti centre for sustainable agriculture, hyderabad (english original of edit page article in mathrubhumi, today) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. 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