The Status of Organics in India

When I started working for Navdanya, I was happy to meet Kavita Singh. She is a nutrition educator, who works with schools in Delhi to encourage them to serve local, organic food. Connecting schools and farms in this way was the topic of my dissertation so I was thrilled to learn about the program here.

Navdanya works with about 15 schools out of hundreds in Delhi. Navdanya visits schools during parent events to conduct outreach by selling food and handicrafts, and distributing literature about organic agriculture. She also organizes farm field trips, school assemblies, and other educational events for schools.

On October 12^th, we accompanied Kavita to St. Columbus school for 3^rd-8^th standards. At the event we set up tables to display Navdanya’s educational literature on land and water conservation, organic farming, and children’s books. A group of students from the 8^th standard helped sell products ranging from hand-crafted notebooks and lampshades, to grains, pulses, oils, and Diwali gifts. We also took orders from the teachers for a delicious organic plate of barnyard millet tabouli and vegetable cutlets with coriander chutney.

This event was well-attended and there was a steady flow of parents who were either already familiar with Navdanya or who were interested in learning about the organization. As advocates of organic farming and food, were delighted to inform families on the benefits of going organic! We were happy to see that many individuals took membership forms or bought educational literature, along with organic goods to take home.

Generally speaking, this type of program faces the same issues as Farm to School programs in the US. Namely, organic food is most accessible to folks with more education and more money. The school system here is highly competitive and costly. Often, up to half of the family income is used on education. It is through going to a good school that parent ensure their children will get a good job—or a job at all.

When I asked Kavita if any of the schools they work with serve lower income populations, she replied that none of the parents can afford to buy their food. This is understandable considering it’s about four times the cost of other food. I was surprised to learn that few Navdanya employees purchase any of their food products because it’s so expensive (a café worker only makes about $750 a year). There are a number of solutions to this problem, most of which consist of subsidizing access to healthy food to the poor through public and private entities. For example, the government of Belo Horizonte, Brazil has a great program in which the city subsidizes the cost of farm land, food production and distribution so that all people are able to afford healthy meals at Retaurants Popular (People’s Restaurants) and schools. Check out: http://www.smallplanetinstitute.org/worldhunger/jahi.pdf.

Addressing the gap in access also means evaluating the strategies used to create a sustainable food system thus far. While adoption and regulation of organic standards by government bodies serves to legitimize efforts, it has also turned ‘organics’ it into a bureaucratic program imposing fees, rules, and regulations on farmers. These are strong disincentives to the formation of a new food system, meant to create direct connections between producers and consumers.

Corporations have established a strong presence in the international food system because there is so much profit to be made by industrializing the process of eating. Food is processed and packaged to create products that can sit on shelves for years. This is even happening with fresh produce, like apples and bananas that can sit unripe for months until they are gassed, causing them to ripen. Organic food is the new darling of corporate food because it has the highest growth sector in all food categories. And since governments have started regulating organic, it is easy for lobbyists and corporate lawyers to define what organic is and what it isn’t—thereby defeating the whole purpose. Meanwhile, they’re pressuring countries around the world to grown genetically modified seed. Since it is impossible to regulate the wind, it’s only a matter of time before the majority of the food system is contaminated. Worst of all is the damage done to farmers who have been given no option but to become reliant upon inputs in the form of genetically modified seeds, chemical pesticides & fertilizers, and other biotechnologies that result in economic and ecological debt.

In India, the fact that the term ‘organic’ is used here seems to miss the point altogether. There’s nothing new or technological about organic agriculture. The organic and sustainable agriculture movement simply stands for the return to traditional farming methods in which people work in harmony with animals and land to produce food and preserve the ecology. India has been doing this for hundreds of years and when the British arrived to teach Indians about agriculture, they found they had nothing to teach, only learn. Fortunately, there are agricultural communities in India that have not been reached by unsustainable farming methods. These are the farms to look to for lessons about how to re-build our food system and the best teachers for farmers disconnected from traditional farming. Involving children is an ideal way to bring up a generation of people who value sustainability. The student musicians who performed at the school we visited are an inspiration to us all.