Ragpickers

Staring out.

A hole-ridden dirt road bobs my head.

Tents. Hundreds? Thousands? No.

Millions.  

Black trash bags draped over bamboo poles,

A sea of starless nights.

A stagnant pool of wishes.

Two kids crawl out, boy and a girl.

Siblings?

Torn shorts, no shirts.

Bare and naked, I see

but I don’t. How could I?

Congress says no problem.

“Lower the BPL!”

For if less have less, we have more.

More what? More right to say we fucking took it all?

Might as well just throw them out too,

All 500 million.

The children held hands and

Walked into the dusty dusk,

The weight of the waste of the world slowly filling their burlap sacks.

Andrew Vance

A Local Living Economy

The road which trails through the sparse landscape that enters Navdanya’s Bija Vidyapeeth, or Earth University, reminds me very much of the roads one would pass through in our very own Northern New York back country.  Along with the necessary steeples of development, the cement and brick factories, the local venders selling newspapers and material objects of the like, the hills are largely aligned with small working farms.  Before Navdanya purchased their plot of land in the Himalayan foothills, it was deemed infertile due to an unsustainable eucalyptus plantation.   The local farmers had little choice as to which crops they grew, how they grew them, and to what extent their seeds may support further life and cultivation.  Vandana Shiva, whose efforts help invent the Navdanya community described the farmers’ situation as a paradox, where as “usually, in traditional agriculture in Third World societies, farming is a collective decision” but under pressure from large scale biotechnology and chemical supporters, “the new package converts a farmer from being a member of a community and a producer to being a consumer of purchased inputs like seeds and chemicals.”  Like the plot of land that is now revived and flourishing with life, the community surrounding Navdanya has followed suit in similar impressive and pragmatic fashion. 

During our second day at Navdanya we travelled through these communities and we could see visible signs of Navdanya’s spill over and prowess.  The locals were eager to have us visit their homes and take note of the crops that in essence, reflect their status and quality of life.  For these people, life is not about monetary gains; these pursuits are too far from reach.  Their purpose is to survive and maintain their land and livelihood, to ensure that their children, and children’s children will be provided the same comforts that come with food and land security.  A westerner would be amazed at the degree in which these small farmers can support their families and neighbors with the land they claim.  The organic practices that Navdanya teaches these farmers, allows them to produce more nutrition per acre than any industrialized farming techniques, while also enriching their land to ensure productivity in the future. 

Along with added nutrition, farmers are also saving money; on average a Monsanto seed would cost an Indian farmer nearly 36 rupees.  At Navdanya, the price of ones chosen seeds is merely a percent of the return.  For a small farmer, or local resident, organic farming techniques, and in particular Navdanya diverse seed collection, allows the community to escape the binds of Monsanto’s modified organisms that too, bear the name of ‘seed.’  Without these restraints, the community partakes in both work and leisure as they slowly begin to reflect Navdanya’s ethics of seed and food sovereignty accompanied by sustainable agriculture. 

Along with the freedom we noticed on the nearby farms, we also visited a local potter whose skill and understanding of his profession equaled that of the farmers.  His wheel was crafted from clay to from a round and flat disk roughly five inches thick.  We watched over his shoulder as he squatted by the wheel, grabbed a clay covered wooden stick to his right, and immediately spun the wheel into motion as he found the tip of the stick to the groove on the left side of the wheel.  His lean muscles functioned like clockwork as the heavy wheel caught speed and coasted along after he had dropped the stick on the brown and wet clay soaked floor.  Smoothly in a dire focus,  he leant over and grabbed a large slab of clay that he retrieved under a cloth covering to his right.  Without hesitation he threw the clay on the wheel, dampened his hands and slightly centered the heap on the wheel, a skill that ultimately defines the overall shape and basin of the vessel or plate.  Once prepared properly, he offered all of us a chance to practice on his wheel.  Without much practice our untrained hands quickly jeopardized our products, but with this potters guidance, anything could quickly be mended and crafted into art within seconds of his hands touching clay.   He was a true patron of the saying, practice makes perfect. 

Like the local farmers, whose livelihood is derived from these Himalayan foothills in Northern India, as is the devoted and gifted potter.  All of his clay is retrieved from nearby riverbeds, which in the summer time dry to rocky basins, exposing the muddy banks in which bare the potter’s medium.  When the farmers began to harvest, the potter begins his dig, and both prepare to sustain their trait and well being into the future.  This cycle of regeneration and stewardship with the land is not a product of economic incentives; in fact Navdanya promotes just the opposite.  As Vandan Shiva claimed in our interview, “money does not inspire me…seeing life flourish inspires me.”     

Indian Land Acquisition

As we drove around various parts of the Indian sub-continent we noticed many different construction projects appearing along highways.  Some looked like they were well underway, while others looked as if they had been abandoned with the scorching heat of the summer.  We quickly learned that these were projects implemented by the government, many to help with India’s lack of infrastructure.  Neoliberalism and the increased development brought along with globalization has changed India very rapidly.  The past infrastructure cannot hold what is happening now, and what is ahead in the future for the country.  The government must expand highways and create other building projects to keep up with the market.  In order to do so the government needs land, and to get this land they take it away from the people. 

 During India’s colonial period the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 was established to allow the government to legally acquire land from individual landowners with proper compensation.  In order for them to do this, the land must then be used for a public purpose.  After independence this act was adopted and continued by the new government.  Today India is seeing a whole new wave of land acquisition because of the more liberal markets and the amount of development happening throughout the country. 

Driving through the countryside and in between cities our group saw a lot of this construction.  We talked with Usha Ramanathan about a lot of the problems associated with this governmental control over land.  Land is one of the most precious things a person can own, and to most Indians it is a huge part of their lives.  Today much of this land that is being taken by the government and is used for making highways, dams, ect.  It is causing huge problems, rather than helping the people and communities.  Usha explained that farmers are getting their land taken from them and are not getting compensated enough for it.  They are then left without much of their land, which accounts for their work, money, homes, and livelihood.  The compensation that they are given is not enough to buy land to replace what they have lost and they are left with little to nothing.  Many are forced into jobs outside of the agricultural sector and are soon at the bottom of that field because of the lack of training programs.  On top of the economic problems, migrations happen because jobs are taken away and the development of dams causes mass displacement. 

In addition hurting many individuals and families, it is not just the farmers that are being hurt.  Whole communities are being affected by this acquisition of land by the government.  It is seen that through development and increased infrastructure the country will see growing wealth through a trickle down effect.  This is just not the case because in reality it is the people at the top who see the benefits of neoliberalism.  The money does not trickle down at the rate that it should, and it creates more economic problems by causing a widening gap between the rich and poor.  In the end it is not about the amount of money in a particular country, it is about how that money is being distributed and if the people at the top are the only ones benefitting, it is doing much more harm than good because it creates a growing gap.

Whole communities are being destroyed, along with a deep history and connection to the land.  The governments are doing more harm than good by taking away this land from the people and to not even provide them with the proper compensation is unacceptable.  

Group Word Painting, Rajasthan, June 3, 2011

Excursions Outside Jaipur: Once Drought-Stricken, Now Fertile Village, and Women's Embroidery and Jewelery Cooperatives, June 3, 2011

Heat: 122 degrees Fahrenheit, or so we are told.    Desert, camels, children, women singing a song of welcome from under orange veils.  

 

Chameleons, hospitality, water harvesting, the town spigot, wells, water.  Seed-saving.

 

  Village development council.  Mustaches, purdah, no more water, thorns, water buffalo, water irrigation, barley, irrigation, mustard, oats, spinach.  

optimism, loans, 40,000 rupees in savings, samosas, orange saris, carriage.  embroidery, empowerment. 

Two wheels the same size: balance.  If one wheel is bigger than the other, this cart won’t move.”  Equality, rights: hard-won. 

Translators, pictures, sweat, loans, child marriage, dogs vs. wild boars.  Whirling fans and white turbans  

Water. Optimism.  Peace.

Looking Back

When you go some place that changes you or have an experience that transforms you, it’s hard to comprehend that change. Sometimes it’s an idea, something creeping inside you, deep down, fermenting into some greater purpose. Perhaps it’s a something you saw, a scent up your nose, or a honk in your ear. This spark can foster inside you for days, months, years, who knows when or in what form it will bloom into being. For me, India was one such experience.

Staring outside the back of the bus. A hole-ridden, dirt road bobbed my head. Tents. Hundreds of them. Black trash bags draped over bamboo poles. Two kids crawl out, boy and a girl. Siblings? Torn shorts, no shirts. Chest bones lifting their skin, like the label-stripped ribs of the tin cans at their feet. They held hands. Walked into the dusty dusk. Burlap sack in each hand….Trash pickers?  Notes from the bus ride from Dehli to Agra.

When did we define this notion of progress? This idea of infinite growth. Always pushing forward, further, and on to the future! Can we never sit back, relax, and say, “we’ve made it.” The march of civilization would trample right over that person. But if we don’t slow down how do these people I see out of the window, the sleeping homeless covering miles of sidewalk, the scavengers, the shirtless, the hopeless, the forgotten; how do they catch up? And this progress, for what? Kool-aid and frozen pizza? Why is progress always forward, aren’t there any other trajectories or possible courses of action. Can’t you take a forward step in any direction, it just seems backwards from your old perspective, but don’t we need a new direction?

            I smell. Manure. Fresh. I see. Orange Sari’s draped over the women’s heads. Curious eyes peeking out. Curious children clinging. Bushy mustaches. Chase would be jealous. Come see! Wheat. Oats. Mustard. Loamy soil. Livestock. Laughter. Proud of their plot. Community empowerment. Interdependence. Life in the desert. Oasis among seas of sand. Notes from Rajhastan village meeting.  

            This community lives in the dessert of Rajhastan. It was over 120 degrees the day I went to visit this community, pretty average there. But there, in this sea of sand, the most desolate of landscapes and desperate of situations, these people built an oasis. An oasis of food, or life, or water, but even more, of community. A community that supports each other, thrives off of each other, helps and educates each other. It’s not about singular development, it’s about encompassing development; an entire community lifting itself up together. This place thrives off of a social capital, a trust; something dead in so many parts of the world.

            This is just two small paragraphs from a notebook of experiences, too many to fathom at any one given time. But these encounters, dialogues, interactions, happenings, they all take root. Like a tree growing in reverse, root tips burrowing and searching, joining, entwining, and blossoming into the leaves that change and transform one’s life. This experience will forever live with me, and forever affect my life. As Jeff Johnson said in 180 South, “The best journeys answer questions that in the beginning you didn't even think to ask.”

At Navdanya with Dr. Vandana Shiva

Bija Vidyapeeth -- "School of the Seed"

Warming dew dampened my bare feet as I trotted through the tall grass that blanketed the berm dividing the two cultivated plots to either side. The sun snuck through the tall trees to my east and though its newborn rays barely reached my feet at that point, I felt its emanating warmth tickle my toes. More berms jutted out from either side of the central path I walked upon, dissecting the two larger plots into ten or so smaller plots. During harvest season these small plots grow hundreds of different varieties of seed, to name a few: lentils, eggplants, thyme, rosemary, mint, lemon balm, okra, coriander, chilies, ginger, turnips, mustard, barley, millet, any number of their 500 paddy strains and 80 races of wheat. A collection that makes Navdanya’s farm a true crown jewel of biodiversity, and not just in India.

Navdanya didn’t always boast such diversity, once a barren monoculture, it took five dedicated years to transform the lush, loamy soil. Starting in 1987 as a movement for seed conservation and empowering and protecting the local farmers of India, Navdanya’s influence has grown with it’s soil and seed over the years: slowly enlightening its entire community to the wealth of organics.

The seeds sewn here almost make it through their entire sequence of life: they are planted, given time, sun and water enough for them to germinate, sprout, bare fruit, flower, and just before their seeds fall back into the earth to become the children of next years harvest, they are collected and stored in Navdanya’s Seedbank.

Meandering along the berm path through bigger fields, more smaller seed plots and forest gardens, I eventually came across the seedbank. A group of workers washed mason jars outside and smiled as I entered the building through a door on the left. The small structure was made of the earth: mud, clay and cow dung shaped the walls, with straw used as the fiber to give it congealing strength (like rebar in cement buildings). The thick, earthen walls kept it cool, like an above ground root cellar, and a northern facing window cast light, but not heat into the room. Hundreds of jars filled glass-paned cabinets throughout the room, and flowered grains and chili plants hung from a string on the ceiling as they dried and waited for their seed to be extracted and stored. The cabinets had labels delineating their contents: medicinal plants, ornamental timbers, spices, oil-bearing seeds (like mustard), vegetables, legumes, cereals and millets. The room adjacent to this one had larger vats containing greater quantities of seed. These seeds were given free of charge to farmers hoping to start organic farms, or already practicing and lacking the money for seed. The farmers then grow the plants, harvest the produce, and collect the seed. For each kg of seed borrowed from Navdanya, they must return 1 and a ¼ kg to keep the seed variety alive, and so future farmers can enjoy the fruits of seed sovereignty.

Outside the seedbank my nose followed the distinct scent of cows that led me past the stables, earthen-made as well. The distinct sounds of cow’s off-center chews distracted me as I watched their tails lazily wag flies off their backs. Soon, I noticed a big blue container standing outside. After curiously poking inside and observing the strong scented, yellow liquid within, I stopped and pondered.

“It is what you think it is,” a worker told me as he noticed my query. “It’s cow urine.”

I’d heard of cow urine’s incredible uses for pesticide and plant nutrition, and some farmers had began replacing their synthetic fertilizers with this otherwise wasted byproduct…But Navdanya added a new property to its list of alleviations: a health elixir….for humans.

“1 Tsp. each morning does wonders on human health…I take it myself.” The man told me.

After pondering the taste of cow-urine, I moved my mind onwards to another barn just past the stables. Long, skinny, brick-laid rectangle spanned the barn, only about six inches high, but they guarded thick plots of soil. Reaching a hand and turning the soil could reveal hundreds of skinny, red wrigglers with each handful. The worms ate and digested the soil, turning it into potent, organic fertilizer after only a few weeks. Small amounts of this could be spread over entire acres, saving time, money, and a debt-ridden dependence on commercial fertilizers.

Outside the vermiculture barn stood a large clay container that looked like a tall, skinny barrel. The container was usually piled up with 6 inches of small rocks, 6 inches of pebbles, 6 inches of sand, 6 inches of manure, a thin layer of worms, and some loose hay on top. Above the open-top barrel hung a small bucket with tiny holes punched into its underside that allowed for water to slowly drip into the layers below. After gradually filtering through the system water was collected from the spout below and spread over the crops to suppress diseases, and provide nutrients for plant growth. This “compost tea” is a safe, affective and cheap alternative to synthetic varieties.

I started back towards the path along the grassy berm. I gazed as a slew of radiant butterflies danced in the morning sun, I could hear the hum of honeybees out on morning patrol, buzzing, chirping, and insect gossip all began to fill the air around me; I paused for a moment and allowed my senses time to catch up, and I realized, this place is truly a haven for life of all kinds. Navdanya is a hallmark of biodiversity, seed conservation, and organic farming techniques that save time, money, and empower the farmers who use them. Navdanya’s uses for manure as fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and heating redefine what is waste on the farm. Their efforts in seed conservation have reclaimed hundreds of India’s indigenous seed varieties. Navdanya’s efforts helped pushed their state of Uttarakhand to declare itself a Genetically Modified free state. But their sphere of influence doesn’t stop in their direct communities, but with their half a million famers in India, and their many supporters abroad; which makes Navdanya a true beacon for change in a world becoming vastly dependent on unnecessary resources.