February 2001
By Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP)

Covering a distance of 1000 kilometres and moving through 11 towns and villages in eight provinces in Tamil Nadu, the People's Caravan 2000 mobilised thousands of farmers and citizens calling for safe and secure food as a basic right for the people of India and for people all over the world.

The Tamil Nadu Women’s Forum (TNWF) and the Society for Rural Education and Development (SRED) were the principle hosts of the People’s Caravan in India, between November 13-18, as it moved through several towns and districts including Marakanam, Pondicherry, Tanjore, Pudukkotai, Trinchi, Dindivanam, Chengleput and Arakkonam.

PREPARE and the Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems (CIKS) also hosted a one-day seminar in Madras discussing the health and environment impacts of pesticides and genetic engineering (GE) technologies in food and agriculture. Farmers, government health officials, university students, academics, consumers and the press, among others, attended the meeting.

TNWF and SRED Coordinator Fatima Burnad said the People’s Caravan was an expression of the frustration of thousands of farmers, landless peasants, farm workers, fisherfolk and indigenous people, throughout Asia, with the exploitation by transnational corporations (TNCs) and local elites of their lands, their food and agricultural production systems, and ultimately their lives.

Trade, pesticides, health, food and agriculture experts were also on tour with the caravan.

A public seminar attracts many avid participants in Valluvar Kottam, Chennai. Photo by: S. Supramaniam, PAN AP.

Since the mid-sixties the states of Tamil Nadu and Punjab have been at the forefront of Green Revolution farming in India. Nowhere else in the world has the impact of monoculture farming been so evident than in India. While food grain production has increased several fold over the last three decades, hunger, poverty, malnutrition and landlessness have also substantially increased.

Relating to their own experiences, these were some of the many questions raised and discussed at numerous public meetings at bus stops, in villages and towns by local people. Food First U.S.A Co-director Anuradha Mittal also stressed that the negative impacts on farmers from the process of globalisation is a global reality (see Box: Globalisation is destroying the lives of American farmers, says Anuradha Mittal, Food First, U.S.A).

As a sign of solidarity for landless labourers and poor farmers, the People’s Caravan joined the 3000 strong protest rally—from Valluvar Kottam to Vani Mahal—calling on the government to honor the recommendations made in the Kolapan Report—an investigation instigated by the government into the plight of agriculture workers made by a 15 member committee.

"While countries like India are told to adopt the technological fix of ‘Green Revolution’ or genetic engineering to increase food production to feed the hungry, the world's largest surplus producer, the U.S., has 36 million Americans who do not have enough to eat. The reason for hunger is not shortage of production but shortage of purchasing power.

While Dan Glickmand, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under president Clinton, boasted about U.S. farmers growing food for the world, he failed to mention that the U.S. census no longer recognizes the category of farming as a profession. The numbers of small family farms have dwindled. The result is there are less than 1.5 million farmers left in the U.S. While the U.S. farm population has been reduced below five per cent of its 1920 aggregate, the government agency charged with the protection of our farmers, the USDA has tripled in size. Since 1995, California has been losing farms at the rate of 10 per cent per year.

Small family farmers, according to the USDA, are no longer an 'endangered species', they are extinct. Corporate America has taken over our food system and created a situation where farmers are starved and forced to commit suicide and make it look like accidents so their families can get life insurance money to survive on.

This globalisation of industrial agriculture has wreaked havoc on our rural communities whether its farmers in India—who are forced to consume pesticides to end their indebtness or sell their body parts to survive—or it’s a poor farmer in the U.S. We have to challenge this economic gloablisation with globalisation from below—with true peoples' power based on cross border organising and internationalism."

The Kolapan report, submitted to the government in 1998, remains unpublished. The labourers demand the immediate implementation of the reports 41 recommendations. These include: pension and insurance provisions; compensation for work related death and physical injuries; social security; and the establishment of an independent board to liaise with agricultural workers.

A final demand, separate to the recommendations made in the Kolapan Report, is the call for land reform and equal wages for women agricultural workers.

According to Kollapuri Murugan, farmer and leader with the Tamil Nadu Landless Labourers Movement, "The majority of fertile and cultivable land in India is controlled by 20 per cent of the population who are socially, culturally, politically, and economically powerful. Owing to the caste system (social segregation sanctioned by religion and based on birth) the upper castes retain and have appropriated a large proportion of this land. Furthermore, due to the process of globalisation, the government is encouraging foreign companies to undertake huge projects in India.

Transnational corporations like Hyundai, Ford and Dumont have been granted thousands of acres of land for literally throw away prices. Thousands of peasants and farmers, most of them indigenous, have been displaced from their lands and have been relegated to mere agricultural labourers.

This appropriated land is being converted to export oriented cash crop production instead of food crops for the community. Of particular concern is the conversion of vast tracks of land to shrimp and flower cultivation. In coastal areas such as Nagappatinam, Sirkazhi and Chidambaram, shrimp cultivation, underpinned by pesticide and fertiliser use, is causing salination and land contamination."

TNWF and SRED pesticide activist Santi Gangadharan says the majority of agricultural labourers in India are ‘DALITS’, otherwise known as the ‘untouchables’—not merely at the bottom of the caste system, but not even recognised as part of the caste system. She said whenever the ‘DALITS’ express their struggle for self-respect, economic rights, and land rights they are massacred.

The People’s Caravan joins over 100 farmers and landless labourers in Ulundurpet, Tamil Nadu calling for ‘land and food without poisons’. Photo by: S. Supramaniam, PAN AP.

Executive Director of Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP), Sarojeni Rengam said the reported poisoning of the residents of Kamukhaan was not an isolated case. "It is happening across Asia and in other parts of the world, particularly in poor countries," she said. According to the World Health Statistic Quarterly, a World Health Organization (WHO) publication, about 25 million workers in developing countries are poisoned every year by pesticides.

Throughout India Rengam spoke on pesticide exposure and the potential for long-term disruption to the human endocrine (hormone) system causing development and reproductive abnormalities.

In the article "Poisoned Lives" by Dr. Romy Quijano, published on March 6, 2000 in the Philippine Post, it is reported that the poisoning of residents in Kamukhaan—a village in Davao del Sur, Mindanao, the Philippines—was caused by regular aerial spraying by the local banana plantation owned by Lapanday Development Corporation (LADECO).

Residents attributed sickness and diseases—reportedly resulting in the death of some—to the toxic fumes inhaled during periods of aerial spraying. The plantation sprays two to three times a month to maintain its export quality bananas. LADECO supplies bananas to the U.S. giant, Dole.

LADECO has slapped a 10 Million Peso libel suit against Quijano, PAN-Philippines President, and his daughter Ilang-Ilang, co-author of the article "Poisoned Lives"—saying the article was malicious and carries false imputation that the company committed violations of the Labor Code and government regulations on the use of pesticides.

Quijano maintains the information conveyed in the article is based on actual interviews and medical examinations he himself conducted on several residents in the area.

He asserts that the article "Poisoned Lives" was written to send the message that poor and marginalised people suffer because of pesticide use due to profit oriented cash crop production for the benefit of the rich.

"There was no malice whatsoever in writing the article and the message being conveyed is a legitimate and an important concern for the general public who have the right to be informed," Quijano said.

Rengam told the crowd that today the pesticides market is a $32 billion industry. With the advent of seeds genetically engineered to tolerate pesticides or be dependent on chemical inducers to promote growth and development, the use of hazardous pesticides will only increase if this technology is accepted and used (See article on Bangaldesh activities).

The legacy of the Green Revolution, promoting high-yielding varieties (HYVs) and intensive chemical farm inputs like pesticides, has poisoned our food, ravaged our land and left millions of small farmers landless or near landless and hungry. The advent of the ‘Gene Revolution’ will only intensify this trend as the control of our food supply shifts increasingly into the hands of a few large corporations.

Dr. Romy Quijano (PAN Philippines) shows graphic evidence of the horrendous effects of pesticide poisoning in Kamukhaan—a village in Davao del Sur, Mindanao, the Philippines. Photo by: S. Supramaniam, PAN AP.

The People’s Caravan, while highlighting these issues, was also about hope. It was about celebrating our local initiatives towards more sustainable healthy agriculture that is in the hands of the people, that is for the people, that can really feed our people and free them from dependence on hazardous pesticides and other dangerous agricultural inputs and technologies.

Ganapathi, a sustainable agriculture practitioner from the village of Pudukottai, uses an integrated system of crops and animals in his farm to control pests and fertilise his soils. He said, "I use the holistic concept of food production and let nature take care of my farm. I let nature do my work and I do not use pesticides and chemical fertilisers."

During the one day seminar organised by PREPARE and CIKS, CIKS Executive Director Dr. Vijayalakshmi shared the successful initiative of CIKS in linking farmers practicing sustainable rice cultivation to share their experiences and advice.

The father of sustainable agriculture in Tamil Nadu, Mr. Namalvar also stated, " We have already done what has been said to be impossible, to grow food without poisons. We have moved away from hazardous pesticides and fertilisers and made use of available resources to grow our food. I am confident that the whole of Tamil Nadu can produce crops sustainably and profitably. Our aim is to make the villages pesticide free by the end of 2001."

In Trichy, chairperson of the Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN), Tony Tujan said, "As sustainable agriculture practitioners, we have shown the world that we can grow food without poisons. We must all come together to challenge industrialised agriculture and agrochemical TNCs."

To this end, local pesticide activist with TNWF and SRED Santi Gangadharan expressed solidarity with farmers and people all over Asia for the "struggle against agrochemical TNCs and for land and food without poisons!"

With a clenched fist she shouted, "Lets chase out TNCs like Monsanto! Lets force our governments to ban genetically engineered food! Preserve our natural resources. Ban all patents on life forms. Stop and reduce the use of pesticides and save our land, air, water and the environment!"