It is time for second Green Revolution

After a gap of a few weeks I venture into my nearest grocery cum vegetable shop. Looking at the price tags of various pulses and vegetables, I am terrified. I remember days when I used to buy a kilo of chilli for Rs eight, now it costs me around Rs 150. The pulses are all above Rs 100, not to mention about onions and potatoes. I limit the number of items as well as quantity of my purchase and still end up checking the bill twice and thrice in disbelief. They have not made a hole in my pocket, but have actually burnt it.

The food inflation is at 10-year high and they say it is due to supply shortage. The cultivable lands have shrunken and degraded due to overuse of pesticides and fertilizers, water bodies are mismanaged and groundwater depleted and the effects of climate change too is hampering crop, but what about the wastage and defective food supply system.

I was talking to a member of the Cold Chain task force set up the Union government, the other day. He tells me the horticulture wastage in the country is 30 per cent when the permissible limit in major economies is five per cent. What does that mean, when the government cries about supply shortage we are wasting 30 per cent of the fruits and vegetables at the farm, while transporting, at the warehouses and the wholesale as well as retail shops. What about wheat and other cereals that lay rotten at farms and warehouses?

When I pay 10-year-high prices for the food materials I buy, how much has the revenue of the farmer gone up. Logically thinking, that too should be highest in 10 years. On the other hand you hear about farmer suicides and demands for crop loan waiver. So the trade is still in the hands of the middlemen.

There have been some initiatives like ‘farmers market’ in some states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The farmers bring their produce to the market and sell themselves. A fair price for his produce not only motivates the farmer to increase his production, but checks other wholesalers and retailers in the town from charging exorbitantly. But it is not a viable option when the produce is large and where the farmer has to travel hundreds of kilometers to the nearest town.

For a country like India, where 40 per cent of farmers wish to quit cultivation due to unprofitability, ensuring them technology, good price, marketing facilities and adequate funding should be the priority of the government. Why government alone, why cannot the private sector explore ways to make agriculture profitable?

Better education about newer and eco-friendly technologies, accessibility to funding channels, effective management of the produce to minimize wastage and better profits to the farmer ---- when is the second Green Revolution coming?

Democracy-- the rule of majority

Mankind and his societies have come a long way through different forms of leaderships. As a group, the tendency to lead and be led is innate with not only human beings but animals too. Apart from real and natural leaders emerging out of the unknown and unexpected corners only at very few instances of history, man was forced to follow some sort of system that he thought would establish truth and justice in the society.

We had monarchy in which truth was what the King believed. We study about good kings in history who were married to justice, but what about hundreds of them for whom life was an indulgence in excesses. People had no choice other than moving along with the whims and fancies of the ruler. There was oligarchy where law meant what a handful of prominent heads in the society thought.

We also have seen theocracy or the rule of the religious authority. If God is the supreme authority of truth, religion is a path towards God. Obviously people who followed one path belittled those following other paths. In an intolerant theocracy justice is a far cry.

Socialism claims to be inclusive. It is a form of rule where the state has the control over the classless society. But what if one wants to be different for the good? How tolerant is the system for the odd one?

Then we have largely acclaimed democracy—a system where the majority rules. If two out of three claim it is night, it should be night. If the three happen to be blind and claim that it is night, is there a way out? Democracy has some fanciful instruments like referendum which seeks to arrive at a decision on major reforms and policy changes through vote of the people concerned.

What if, all the people residing near a forest land agree to clear the vegetation and drive away the animals for cultivation? Who will vote for the animals and the trees?

In democracy we have a system to ensure justice—the court of law. The court judges individual situations of the basis of a pre-set tenet. The tenet has been formed by experts who thought about the well-being of the people, precisely the majority population. So what happens when a eunuch or a gay stands up for his rights? For the largest democracy in the world it took over 60 years to hear the voice of this minority.