Farmland in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains in Almora in the Indian state of Uttarakhand / credit: Charanjeet Dhiman on Unsplash
Editor’s Note: The following is the writer’s analysis.
Although the poorer and vulnerable sections of the Global South are least responsible for climate change, they are the most likely to suffer from its ravages. Despite this, their concerns have been the least heard in negotiations at the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26), the largest annual climate-change summit that attracted more than 190 countries. Meanwhile, leading businesses have influential lobbyists who quickly move to use any opportunities to corner funds.
Having sniffed out new opportunities, they have occupied important positions in the planning and negotiations relating to climate change to try to prioritize their projects as beneficiaries of new green funding.
Officially constituted expert committees have in recent years linked dam projects in the Himalayan region to ecological destruction and flash floods, which have claimed thousands of lives. Yet, similar kinds of projects are now being advertised as examples of green energy and solutions for climate change. Climate smart agriculture is being defined in ways business lobbies vying for more control of farm and food systems are being strengthened. At the same time, this weakens small farmers’ sincere efforts for ecologically protective farming. Projects that displace poor people in the name of protecting the environment are wrongly prioritized, alienating them.
Hence, it is important at this stage to warn against the misuse of funds marked for climate change mitigation and adaptation. These funds should reach those who need this help the most and are likely to put this to the most just and ecologically protective use. This means in practical terms that most funds should reach small peasants and rural landless workers for taking up mitigation as well as adaptation work. Indigenous people and tribal communities have a particularly important role in this as they have been closer to nature.
What’s more, this concern should be extended to wider planning in which reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is linked to meeting the basic needs of all people, with an emphasis on a justice-based resolution of climate change.
Small peasants should be supported for ecologically protective farming, including soil and water conservation work, which can improve the organic content of soil in just a few years. Organic soil spread over vast areas can absorb large quantities of carbon dioxide. At the same time, by avoiding or reducing chemical fertilizers, pollution caused by nitrous oxide can be reduced. That gas is about 300 times more potent compared to carbon dioxide. Mixed farming that includes indigenous trees can be well integrated, supplying more staple foods that are produced in healthy ways and close to home, reducing a long transportation burden. While contributing to mitigation, millions of acres under organic farming will ensure small farmers are less dependent on expensive chemical inputs and improve their adaptation capacity. Hence, both adaptation and mitigation can be achieved simultaneously on a sustainable basis. This is a particularly important aspect of such efforts. In fact, the more the organic content of soil improves with the passage of time, the more the mitigation and adaptation capacity increases. Such efforts simultaneously improve food sovereignty, reducing dependence on polluting and expensive substances.
Land reforms can help the landless emerge as small farmers and be a part of such efforts. In addition, the landless should be assured employment close to home in various tasks of the ecological rehabilitation of villages and nearby areas. One possibility is protecting degraded land and giving nature time to regenerate it. Yet another is to increase protections for remaining natural forests. New afforestation with indigenous species of trees should seek to mimic local natural forests.
Apart from fair wages, the landless should get longer-term rights to non-timber forest produce. This again helps mitigation as well as adaptation at the same time.
All these efforts should seek to tap and encourage creativity of workers and farmers for local solutions and innovations. To give just one inspiring example, a farmer from the Bundelkhand region of India named Mangal Singh invented a special turbine that can lift water from streams and canals without using diesel or electricity.
A turbine invented by farmer Mangal Singh. The device can lift water from streams and canals without using fossil fuels or electricity
Although the primary aim of the inventor was to help farmers and reduce costs, calculations show that a single unit serving over 15 years can reduce the use of 125,400 liters (33,127 gallons) of diesel oil and avoid 335 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. This can increase further if, with a few adjustments, this innovation is put to additional use, such as in crop processing. This has been highly praised by many senior experts, including those in official positions.
However, government apathy has stood in the way of its spread, even though the Maithani Committee appointed by India’s Rural Development Ministry strongly recommended its rapid deployment. Potentially, tens of thousands of units can be installed worldwide wherever suitable conditions exist. These kind of innovations by villagers can help greatly in simultaneously addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation. If there is better support for such initiatives, the creativity of farmers and workers can contribute much more because they are the most familiar with their local conditions.
In urban areas, construction of improved design shelters to provide protection from excessive heat to workers and homeless persons could be an obvious priority.
Democratic participatory systems based on transparency and honesty should be established to implement such initiatives. Such work is best achieved by grants, not by loans. Hence, climate funds also should be based on grants, not on loans. Unfortunately, the trend in the recent past has been rich countries providing a much bigger share of climate funding for the Global South in the form of loans. This must change to favor grants.
Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener of the Campaign to Save Earth Now. He has been involved with several social movements in India. Dogra’s most recent books include Man Over Machine and Planet in Peril.
The United Nations General Assembly in September 2022 / credit: United Nations
Editor’s Note: The following represents the writers’ analysis.
We have spent the past week reading and listening to speeches by world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York. Most of them condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a violation of the UN Charter and a serious setback for the peaceful world order that is the UN’s founding and defining principle.
But what has not been reported in the United States is that leaders from 66 countries, mainly from the Global South, also used their General Assembly speeches to call urgently for diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine through peaceful negotiations, as the UN Charter requires. We have compiled excerpts from the speeches of all 66 countries to show the breadth and depth of their appeals, and we highlight a few of them here.
African leaders echoed one of the first speakers, Macky Sall, the president of Senegal, who also spoke in his capacity as the current chairman of the African Union when he said, “We call for de-escalation and a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, as well as for a negotiated solution, to avoid the catastrophic risk of a potentially global conflict.”
While NATO and EU countries have rejected peace negotiations, and U.S. and U.K. leaders have actively undermined them, five European countries—Hungary, Malta, Portugal, San Marino and the Vatican—joined the calls for peace at the General Assembly.
The peace caucus also includes many of the small countries that have the most to lose from the failure of the UN system revealed by recent wars in Ukraine and West Asia, and who have the most to gain by strengthening the UN and enforcing the UN Charter to protect the weak and restrain the powerful.
Philip Pierre, the Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, a small island state in the Caribbean, told the General Assembly,
“Articles 2 and 33 of the UN Charter are unambiguous in binding Member States to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state and to negotiate and settle all international disputes by peaceful means.…We therefore call upon all parties involved to immediately end the conflict in Ukraine, by undertaking immediate negotiations to permanently settle all disputes in accordance with the principles of the United Nations.”
Global South leaders lamented the breakdown of the UN system, not just in the war in Ukraine but throughout decades of war and economic coercion by the United States and its allies. President Jose Ramos-Horta of Timor-Leste directly challenged the West’s double standards, telling Western countries,
“They should pause for a moment to reflect on the glaring contrast in their response to the wars elsewhere where women and children have died by the thousands from wars and starvation. The response to our beloved Secretary-General’s cries for help in these situations have not met with equal compassion. As countries in the Global South, we see double standards. Our public opinion does not see the Ukraine war the same way it is seen in the North.”
Many leaders called urgently for an end to the war in Ukraine before it escalates into a nuclear war that would kill billions of people and end human civilization as we know it. The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, warned,
“… The war in Ukraine not only undermines the nuclear non-proliferation regime, but also presents us with the danger of nuclear devastation, either through escalation or accident … To avoid a nuclear disaster, it is vital that there be serious engagement to find a peaceful outcome to the conflict.”
Others described the economic impacts already depriving their people of food and basic necessities, and called on all sides, including Ukraine’s Western backers, to return to the negotiating table before the war’s impacts escalate into multiple humanitarian disasters across the Global South. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh told the Assembly,
“We want the end of the Russia-Ukraine war. Due to sanctions and counter-sanctions … the entire mankind, including women and children, is punished. Its impact does not remain confined to one country, rather it puts the lives and livelihoods of the people of all nations in greater risk, and infringes their human rights. People are deprived of food, shelter, healthcare and education. Children suffer the most in particular. Their future sinks into darkness.
My urge to the conscience of the world—stop the arms race, stop the war and sanctions. Ensure food, education, healthcare and security of the children. Establish peace.”
Turkey, Mexico and Thailand each offered their own approaches to restarting peace negotiations, while Sheikh Al-Thani, the Amir of Qatar, succinctly explained that delaying negotiations will only bring more death and suffering:
“We are fully aware of the complexities of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the international and global dimension to this crisis. However, we still call for an immediate ceasefire and a peaceful settlement, because this is ultimately what will happen regardless of how long this conflict will go on for. Perpetuating the crisis will not change this result. It will only increase the number of casualties, and it will increase the disastrous repercussions on Europe, Russia and the global economy.”
Responding to Western pressure on the Global South to actively support Ukraine’s war effort, India’s Foreign Minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, claimed the moral high ground and championed diplomacy,
“As the Ukraine conflict continues to rage, we are often asked whose side we are on. And our answer, each time, is straight and honest. India is on the side of peace and will remain firmly there. We are on the side that respects the UN Charter and its founding principles. We are on the side that calls for dialogue and diplomacy as the only way out. We are on the side of those struggling to make ends meet, even as they stare at escalating costs of food, fuel and fertilizers.
It is therefore in our collective interest to work constructively, both within the United Nations and outside, in finding an early resolution to this conflict.”
One of the most passionate and eloquent speeches was delivered by Congolese Foreign Minister Jean-Claude Gakosso, who summarized the thoughts of many, and appealed directly to Russia and Ukraine—in Russian!
“Because of the considerable risk of a nuclear disaster for the entire planet, not only those involved in this conflict but also those foreign powers who could influence events by calming them down, should all temper their zeal. They must stop fanning the flames and they must turn their backs on this type of vanity of the powerful which has so far closed the door to dialogue.
Under the auspices of the United Nations, we must all commit without delay to peace negotiations – just, sincere and equitable negotiations. After Waterloo, we know that since the Vienna Congress, all wars finish around the table of negotiation.
The world urgently needs these negotiations to prevent the current confrontations—which are already so devastating—to prevent them from going even further and pushing humanity into what could be an irredeemable cataclysm, a widespread nuclear war beyond the control of the great powers themselves—the war, about which Einstein, the great atomic theorist, said that it would be the last battle that humans would fight on Earth.
Nelson Mandela, a man of eternal forgiveness, said that peace is a long road, but it has no alternative, it has no price. In reality, the Russians and Ukrainians have no other choice but to take this path, the path of peace.
Moreover, we too should go with them, because we must throughout the world be legions working together in solidarity, and we must be able to impose the unconditional option of peace on the war lobbies.
(Next three paragraphs in Russian)
Now I wish to be direct, and directly address my dear Russian and Ukrainian friends.
Too much blood has been spilled – the sacred blood of your sweet children. It’s time to stop this mass destruction. It’s time to stop this war. The entire world is watching you. It’s time to fight for life, the same way that you courageously and selflessly fought together against the Nazis during World War Two, in particular in Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin.
Think about the youth of your two countries. Think about the fate of your future generations. The time has come to fight for peace, to fight for them. Please give peace a real chance, today, before it is too late for us all. I humbly ask this of you.”
At the end of the debate on September 26, Csaba Korosi, the president of the General Assembly, acknowledged in his closing statement that ending the war in Ukraine was one of the main messages “reverberating through the Hall” at this year’s General Assembly.
You can read here Korosi’s closing statement and all the calls for peace he was referring to.
And if you want to join the “legions working together in solidarity… to impose the unconditional option of peace on the war lobbies,” as Jean-Claude Gakosso said, you can learn more at peaceinukraine.org.
Hundreds of thousands around the world marched on November 6 as COP26 was underway, including this march in Glasgow, Scotland, where the conference is taking place / credit: Oliver Kornblihtt
GLASGOW, Scotland—Speaking at the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) on November 1, U.S. President Joe Biden said he wants the United States to commit $3 billion toward helping vulnerable countries adapt to climate change. But the administration’s climate negotiators in Glasgow are pushing to keep adaptation financing inadequate.
Delegations from more than 190 countries are deliberating on issues that weren’t resolved in the first week of COP26, the largest annual climate-change conference organized under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Climate finance to assist developing countries adapt to a changing world and carbon markets to trade emission reduction credits remain on the table.
At a November 9 closed-door negotiation meeting, the United States asked for a revision of references on adaptation finance’s inadequacy, as well as the request to double adaptation finance. This comes despite Biden having publicly spoken of quadrupling U.S. climate-finance contributions.
Early this year, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) noted adaptation costs in developing countries are “five to 10 times greater than current public adaptation finance flows.” The UNEP also said the adaptation finance gap is “widening.”
But developed countries like the United States, Canada and those in the European Union resisted the adoption of language that would have called for doubling adaptation finance.
Developing Countries Take Offense
According to an observer who was present in the negotiation room, Egyptian negotiators expressed they found it difficult to understand why developed countries find the term “doubling” offensive. Meanwhile, Bangladeshi delegates said in the same meeting that doubling should be replaced with “quadrupling.” Bangladesh is uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, given how sea-level rise threatens to drown large sections of the country.
Plus, a few days ago, the chair of the UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Body for Implementation allowed informal consultations on the composition of the Adaptation Fund’s board at the behest of the United States.
The Adaptation Fund was formed under the Kyoto Protocol, an international climate treaty designed to help developing countries adapt to a quickly warming world.
According to delegates of developing countries and observers in negotiation rooms at COP26, the United States plans to make a pledge to the Fund on the condition that non-Kyoto Protocol parties are allowed to be elected to the Board and that the Board composition be changed to equal representation between developed and developing countries.
A U.S. State Department representative who speaks on behalf of U.S. negotiators at COP26 declined to comment.
Liane Schalatek, associate director of Heinrich Böll Stiftung, a German foundation based in Washington, D.C., noted how the Adaptation Fund is the only climate fund that has “equitable representation” on its board. Currently, developing countries hold two-thirds of board seats.
Tarun Gopalakrishnan, pre-doctoral fellow at the Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts, said the Adaptation Fund’s board comprises strong representation from developing, least developed and highly vulnerable countries.
“More finance should be welcome, but [the board’s] uniqueness should not be diluted,” Gopalakrishnan added.
Other dedicated climate funds like the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Climate Investment Fund (CIF) have equal representation between developed and developing countries. Because decisions are made by consensus, opinions of both groups carry equal weight.
Even with respect to multilateral development banks’ climate funding, developed countries have decision making power, Schalatek explained. Multilateral development banks include the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
Schalatek said it is clear the “Adaptation Fund is a better option”, adding that developing countries have a better sense of their needs and priorities and how funding could be channeled to local communities and organizations in the most effective manner.
‘Money As the Stick’
The other issue is the United States only wants control via the Kyoto Protocol, but not the responsibilities.
Since the United States failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, it is currently not eligible to hold a board seat. But now, it wants a board seat without committing to the emission reduction that Kyoto parties had agreed to undertake.
“The U.S. is using the money as the stick,” said a delegate from a developing country. The delegate chose to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal. They added the United States is offering a one-time contribution of $50 million, which is about half of what Germany gives every year to the Adaptation Fund.
Delegations from developing countries worry if the United States gets a seat on the Adaptation Board, approvals for climate projects in countries like Cuba could be withheld because of geopolitical reasons.
This reporter sent questions to the Adaptation Fund, but they did not respond.
More broadly, Gopalakrishnan noted adaptation finance has been inadequate because of political and technical reasons.
“Recognizing this in a [COP26] decision is the first step to fixing the problem.”
This article was developed with support from Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security as part of the Climate Change Media Partnership (CCMP) Program.
Rishika Pardikar is a freelance journalist in Bangalore, India.
Indigenous cereals and pulses grown by Shakila and Gulab Mullani. Top row from left: Udid (black gram), tur (pigeon pea). Bottom row from left: Kala pavtha (black beans), chavali (black-eyed pea), and kar jondhala (indigenous sorghum) / credit: Sanket Jain
Eighty-eight-year-old Sakharam Gaikwad never anticipated that farming sugarcane would become a bittersweet endeavor.
In 1972, a drought hit the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Considered one of the most devastating disasters of the last century, it affected 20 million people (57 percent of the state’s rural population) and 5.6 million—or 40 percent of—cattle.
The disaster prompted Gaikwad to move in the direction of his fellow villagers toward sugarcane cultivation. At the time, the young farmer had been growing indigenous rice varieties, and a wide collection of nutritious millets, including sorghum, finger millet, pearl millet, and little millet.
Starting in the late 1960s, he began using chemical fertilizers to cultivate hybrid sugarcane and sorghum varieties. Seeing bumper harvests in shorter periods of time, he said, “Farmers abandoned the traditional millets and moved rapidly toward sugarcane.” Year after year—during the 1970s—farmers began cultivating sugarcane in his village of Jambhali until an overwhelming majority were involved with the fast-growing plant.
Everything went well for Gaikwad until climate change disasters started destroying his crops. For instance, a 200 percent increase in rainfall in one week in October destroyed the majority of his sugarcane. In 1.5 acres, he managed to harvest 70 tons. He has noticed a drop over the last five years by almost 50 tons, costing him $1,830 per year.
However, stories like those of Gaikwad are increasing across India, with most farmers moving either toward commercial crops, like soybean and sugarcane, or hybrid varieties of indigenous crops. Last year, India reported producing 500 million metric tons of sugarcane worth 1.18 trillion Indian Rupees ($14.26 billion).
Meanwhile, in 2019, India cultivated 80 percent of traditional and hybrid millet in Asia and 20 percent of the world’s production. Grains like traditional millets that can withstand rapidly changing weather are on the decline in India. With India now having convinced the United Nations to declare 2023 the International Year of Millets, what does it mean for Indian farmers?
Farmer Vasant Kore from Sangli district’s Dongarsoni village said his family has been cultivating kar jondhala for over 120 years / credit: Sanket Jain
Farmers Say UN Designation Isn’t Enough
“Just announcing that this year is dedicated to millets doesn’t change things for the farmers,” said Amol Naik, a farmer, activist, lawyer and a member of the All India Kisan Sabha, the farmers’ wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He and farmer Narayan Gaikwad, the younger brother of Sakharam Gaikwad, suggested a series of reforms to ensure fair prices to farmers.
“In several villages, we can’t even find the seeds of traditional millet varieties,” said Narayan Gaikwad, a 77-year-old activist and a farmer from Jambhali. “The government should conduct awareness sessions in villages and help farmers by ensuring a better price for millet and making traditional seeds more accessible to farmers.”
Gaikwad added that traditional seeds have become so rare that many farmers need help understanding the difference between a traditional variety and a hybrid variety.
“Just declaring a year dedicated to millets is not going to help.”
A 4-month-old kar jondhala panicle. A panicle is a loose branching cluster of flowers / credit: Sanket Jain
Why Millet Cultivation Declined
Traditional millet once was a staple food in India, helping people remain healthy. India, the sixth-highest sorghum-producing country globally, produced 4.2 million metric tons of sorghum last year, almost a 40 percent decline since 2010. Some reasons for the decline include fluctuating local climatic patterns, changing eating habits, rising heat waves, and a shift to non-native remunerative commercial and food crops.
Starting at age 17, the first crop 76-year-old Vasant Kore learned to cultivate was kar jondhala (indigenous sorghum). However, retaining the heirloom seeds wasn’t lucrative enough for many farmers. “The hybrid sorghum varieties yield double the produce as compared to traditional ones in almost half the time, whereas kar jondhala takes five months to grow,” explained Kore, who recalled hybrid sorghum varieties were introduced in his region in the 1970s.
Farmer Sambhaji Shingade, 61, from Sangli’s Garjewadi village, recounted the start of the commercialization of farming. “Many multinational corporations bought seeds from poor farmers at a meager price, developed hybrid varieties, and started selling them to the same farmers at much costlier prices. We were robbed of our traditional wealthier seeds.”
Farmer Sakharam Gaikwad, who once cultivated millets, spoke of how farming was systematically destroyed over several decades under the guise of development / credit: Sanket Jain
The rapid commercialization didn’t happen in a day. “Every government has systematically destroyed farming,” Gaikwad said. “Farming now relies on multinational companies who make these hybrid seeds and fertilizers.”
Despite the benefits of growing traditional varieties, farmers have been forced to move toward commercial crops.
“Farmers are encouraged to grow sugarcane and are rewarded by assuring them that the sugar mills will buy it,” Gaikwad said. “On the other hand, farmers are rarely given subsidies for cultivating traditional varieties that keep everyone fit, and there’s no market for such crops, forcing farmers to move toward sugarcane.”
“Also, most millets cultivated today are genetically modified hybrid varieties that promise a higher yield, but aren’t climate resistant. So, preserving the traditional varieties becomes even more critical, as they will completely vanish in a few years,” warned Vijay Jawandhiya, an activist and farmers’ leader from Maharashtra.
Gaikwad added chemical fertilizers and pesticides are now a must.
“Over the years, more and more hybrid varieties were developed and as farmers got used to them and fertilizers, the prices [of hybrid seeds and chemical fertilizers] eventually skyrocketed, making farming unaffordable.”
Shivaji Kamble said his family has been cultivating the traditional finger millet variety for over 160 years / credit: Sanket Jain
Plentiful Water and Fertilizers
When irrigation facilities started reaching Gaikwad’s village in 1964, he said everyone thought their problems had ended. “Little did they know it was the beginning of the troubling times.”
With water becoming readily available, everyone shifted to sugarcane. “Back then, there was not a single sugar mill in the region,” he said. By 2020-21, India had 506 operating sugar mills. Moreover, sugarcane requires tremendous use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The amount used varies based on soil conditions and climatic changes, among other factors. Also, it takes 1,500 to 2,000 liters of water to produce a kilogram of sugar. An Indian government report warns, “Most of the country’s irrigation facilities are utilized by paddy and sugarcane, depleting water availability for other crops. Pressure on water due to sugarcane cultivation in states like Maharashtra has become a serious concern, calling for more efficient and sustainable water use through alternative cropping pattern.”
Despite its problems, farmers say they aren’t left with an option. “Cultivating the traditional variety is unaffordable. It takes a lot of time to grow, and even the production is less,” Gaikwad explained.
Today, Shivaji Kamble and his wife, Draupadi Kamble, remain the handful of farmers who have managed to preserve the traditional maize variety / credit: Sanket Jain
Traditional sorghum varieties don’t require chemical fertilizers and are resistant to extreme climate events like heat waves. In addition, they can grow in drought conditions and water-logged soils, withstand salinity and alkalinity, and they are resistant to pests. Saline soil has excessive amounts of soluble salts, which hamper plants’ ability to absorb water. Meanwhile, alkaline soil contains high levels of sodium, calcium and magnesium.
Most farmers face this dilemma of losing their hybrid crops to climate change disasters or reporting lesser produce with traditional crops.
Dongarsoni farmers found a workaround by growing a lot of grapes, which unfortunately require tremendous use of insecticides, herbicides, and other toxic pesticides. “The farmers here earn a lot of money from grapes by exporting them. So they can retain the traditional crops in their vacant land,” explained farmer Gulab Mullani, 41, who follows the same approach.
However, a significant challenge for farmers like Gaikwad, who long ago abandoned the crops, comes from birds and animals eating produce. “One farmer cannot report sustainable profits if other farmers predominantly cultivate cash crops. This is because the majority of the millet produce remains a feed for birds and wild boars,” Jawandiya explained. “When there are large patches of farmland with the same traditional crop, the loss caused by birds and animals isn’t felt much.”
Another reason for abandoning millet is its lower price and lack of a regulated market, often pushing farmers into losses. “With the rise of cash crops, the labor cost increased, but the prices of traditional grains haven’t increased much. Hence, agricultural laborers aren’t paid enough for harvesting millets, forcing farmers to shift to other crops,” Jawandhiya added.
Farmer Gulab Mullani holding a kar jondhala stalk, which grows up to 15 feet and is nutritious fodder for cattle / credit: Sanket Jain
Building Sustainable Food Systems with Millet
Millets, especially sorghum, were once a staple food in India and Africa. About 500 million people in more than 30 countries depend on sorghum as a staple food, according to the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics. The study found that over two-thirds of Indians consume foods deficient in protein and essential micronutrients, such as zinc, iron and vitamin A.
Cultivating indigenous millets has been lifesaving for drought-affected farmers like Kore. They help control blood sugar levels, are rich in iron, fiber, and proteins, and improve heart health, among other benefits, over the hybrid varieties. In addition, their pest-resistant ability, tolerance to higher temperatures, and need for minimal rainfall make them an environment-friendly crop.
Moreover, traditional millet varieties don’t require chemical fertilizers. “Even if you apply chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the crop will still grow in their natural timing only,” Kore said with a laugh, “so there’s no point wasting money.”
Gaikwad uses a simple observation to predict the rising cases of several lifestyle diseases. “Just look at what people eat.”
Earlier, eating flatbreads made of traditional sorghum, finger, and pearl millet was the norm. Finger millet, compared with other millets, remains a rich source of minerals and protein, as well as calcium. In addition, it has been used to raise iron levels in anemia patients.
Now, they are replaced with hybrid wheat or rice varieties. Today, 3.5 billion people globally are at risk of calcium deficiency, with more than 90 percent of them from Asia and Africa.
Plus, millet stalks remain an excellent cattle feed. “Many farmers have retained the traditional millets only for their cattle,” Gaikwad said. Cattle dung, a much cheaper source of organic fertilizer, keeps the soil nutrient-rich and helps build sustainable farming cycles.
“With millets gone, this entire cycle has collapsed,” Kore said.
Kar Jondhala (indigenous sorghum variety) is now grown only in the drought-prone regions of Maharashtra’s Sangli district / credit: Sanket Jain
Spike In Chemical Fertilizers
While the hybrid varieties promise a higher yield in lesser time, they require maintenance through the application of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Kore added he has found it difficult to cultivate crops without using chemical fertilizers on the field where he grows hybrid varieties, commercial crops or grapes. “The soil is now used to chemicals and hybrid varieties. I think it will take several years to reverse this.”
His observation is a stark reality as globally, the consumption of nitrogen fertilizers reached 190.81 million metric tons in 2019, a 312 percent rise since 1965. Also, chemical pesticide usage has surged over 57 percent since 1990, as its consumption has now reached 2.7 million metric tons.
While this helps a crop survive to a certain extent, it has been found to provoke oxidative stress that causes Parkinson’s Disease, respiratory and reproductive tract disorders, Alzheimer’s Disease, different types of cancer, and much more, according to a 2018 study in the journal, Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology.
Looking at the younger generation’s experience with chemical farming, Kore’s brother, Shivaji, 67, of Dongarsoni village, never cultivated the hybrid sorghum. “Of the three acres of land I own, I have reserved an acre only for kar jondhala,” he says.
Farmers Shakila and Gulab Mullani have been preserving the kar jondhala seeds for more than 30 years / credit: Sanket Jain
Preserving a Heritage
While kar jondhala fetches almost double the price of hybrid varieties, it has much less demand. “The younger generation doesn’t know its importance,” Kore said. He recalled the 1970s when traditional sorghum was treated as a currency. “People would exchange it for buying daily items.”
Farmers, like Kore, have now taken it upon themselves to help preserve this crop. In villages like Dongarsoni, farmers still use the traditional barter system to exchange heirloom seeds.
Gaikwad, however, said not all hope is lost. “It’s not that all the traditional varieties have completely disappeared. They are still there, but one will have to travel a lot to find them because very few farmers have preserved them.”
Farmers like Kore and Mullani have now taken it upon themselves to preserve the traditional millets. “I will keep cultivating traditional sorghum until the time I die,” Kore said, smiling as he gestured to his field.
Sanket Jain is an independent journalist based in the Kolhapur district of the western Indian state of Maharashtra. He was a 2019 People’s Archive of Rural India fellow, for which he documented vanishing art forms in the Indian countryside. He has written for Baffler, Progressive Magazine, Counterpunch, Byline Times, The National, Popula, Media Co-op, Indian Express and several other publications.
