The wheat mountains of the Indian Punjab

M. S. Swaminathan

The Hindu In this file photo workers cover bags of wheat at a godown in Fatehgarh Saheb district of Punjab. Farmers in Punjab contribute nearly 40 per cent of the wheat and 26 per cent of the rice needed to sustain the public distribution system.

The arrival of large quantities of wheat in the grain markets of the Punjab-Haryana region is a heart-warming sight, while poor storage is a matter of national shame.

It was in April-May 1968, that the country witnessed the wonderful spectacle of large arrivals of wheat grain in the mandis of Punjab like Moga and Khanna. Wheat production in the country rose to nearly 17 million tonnes that year, from the previous best harvest of 12 million tonnes. Indira Gandhi released a special stamp titled “Wheat Revolution” in July 1968, to mark this new phase in our agricultural evolution. The nation rejoiced at our coming out of a “ship to mouth” existence. Later in 1968, Dr. William Gaud of the U.S. referred to the quantum jumps in production brought about by semi-dwarf varieties of wheat and rice as a “green revolution.” This term has since come to symbolise a steep rise in productivity and, thereby, of production of major crops.

Wheat production this year may reach a level of 85 million tonnes, in contrast to the seven million tonnes our farmers harvested at the time of independence in 1947. I visited several grain mandis in Moga, Khanna, Khananon and other places in the Punjab during April 23-27, 2011 and experienced, concurrently, a feeling of ecstasy and agony. It was heart-warming to see the great work done by our farm men and women under difficult circumstances when, often, they had to irrigate the fields at night due to a lack of availability of power during the day. The cause of agony was the way the grains produced by farmers with loving care were being handled. The various State marketing agencies and the Food Corporation of India (FCI) are trying their best to procure and store the mountains of grains arriving every day. The gunny bags containing the wheat procured during April-May 2010, are still occupying a considerable part of the storage space available at several mandis. The condition of the grains of earlier years presents a sad sight. The impact of moisture on the quality of paddy is even worse. Malathion sprays and fumigation with Aluminium Sulphide tablets are used to prevent grain spoilage. Safe storage involves attention to both quantity and quality. Grain safety is as important as grain saving. Due to rain and relatively milder temperature, grain arrivals were initially slow, but have now picked up. For all concerned with the procurement, dispatch and storage of wheat grains in the Punjab-Haryana-Western U.P. region, which is the heartland of the green revolution, the task on hand is stupendous.

Farmers in Punjab contribute nearly 40 per cent of the wheat and 26 per cent of the rice needed to sustain the public distribution system. The legal entitlement to food envisaged under the proposed National Food Security Act cannot be implemented without the help of the farm families of Punjab, Haryana and other grain surplus areas. Farmers are currently facing serious problems during production and post-harvest phases of farming due to inadequate investment in farm machinery and storage infrastructure. The investment made and steps taken to ensure environmentally sustainable production and safe storage and efficient distribution of grains will determine the future of both agriculture in Punjab and national food security.

On the production side, the ecological foundations essential for sustainable food production are in distress. There is an over-exploitation of the aquifer and nearly 70 per cent of irrigated area shows a negative water balance. The quality of the water is also deteriorating due to the indiscriminate use of pesticides and mineral fertilizer. Over 50,000 ha of crop land in the south-west region of Punjab are affected by water logging and salinisation. Deficiencies of Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Zinc are affecting 66, 48 and 22 per cent of soils in Punjab respectively. No wonder factor productivity, i.e., return from a unit of input, is going down. Unless urgent steps are taken to convert the green revolution into an ever-green revolution leading to the enhancement of productivity in perpetuity without associated ecological harm, both agriculture in Punjab and our public distribution system will be in danger. Worried about the future fate of farming as a profession, the younger generation is unwilling to follow in the footsteps of their parents and remain on the farm. This is the greatest worry. If steps are not taken to attract and retain youth in farming, the older generation will have no option but to sell land to real estate agents, who are all the time tempting them with attractive offers. Global prices of wheat, rice and maize are almost 50 per cent higher than the minimum support price paid to our farmers. Our population is now over 1.2 billion and we can implement a sustainable and affordable food security system only with home-grown food.

A disturbing finding of Census-2011 is the deteriorating sex ratio in the Punjab-Haryana region. The female-male ratio among children has come to its lowest point since independence. Already, women are shouldering a significant portion of farm work. If the current trends of youth migrating from villages coupled with a drop in the sex ratio continue, agricultural progress will be further endangered. The prevailing preference for a male child is in part due to the fear of farm land going out of a family's control, when the girl child gets married. I hope the loss of interest in taking to farming as a profession among male youth will remove the bias in favour of male children. I foresee an increasing feminisation of agriculture in the green revolution areas. While the drop in the sex ratio should be halted, steps are also needed to intensify the design, manufacture and distribution of women friendly farm machinery.

Tasks ahead: The first task is to defend the gains already made in improving the productivity and production of wheat, rice, maize and other crops. For the purpose of providing the needed technologies, it will be advisable to set up soon a Multi-disciplinary Research and Training Centre for Sustainable Agriculture at the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. This centre can be organised under the National Action Plan for the Management of Climate Change developed under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister, which includes a Mission for Sustainable Agriculture. Such a centre should initiate a Land and Water Care Movement in the Punjab in association with the farming community. The other urgent task is the promotion of appropriate changes in land use. Over 2.7 million ha are now under rice leading to the unsustainable exploitation of the ground water. Our immediate aim should be to find alternative land use for about a million ha under rice. This will be possible only if farmers can get income similar to that they are now earning from rice. Possible alternative crops will be maize and arhar (Pigeon pea). Quality Protein Maize will fetch a premium price from the poultry industry which is fast growing in the Punjab. Arhar being a legume will also enrich soil fertility as well as soil physical properties. Other high value but low water requiring crops like pulses and oilseeds can also be promoted. At the same time, there could be diversified basmati rice production in over a million ha. In addition to Pusa Basmati 1121 which occupies the largest area now, Pusa Basmati-I (1460) and Pusa Basmati 6 (1401) can be promoted. These have resistance to bacterial leaf blight. Varietal diversity will reduce genetic vulnerability to pests and diseases.

For handling the over 26 million tonnes of wheat which will be purchased during this season, a four-pronged strategy may be useful. First, distribution through railway wagons could be expanded and expedited. One wagon can handle 2,500 tonnes. Currently 30,000 to 40,000 tonnes of wheat are being dispatched each day through wagons. With advanced planning, this quantity can be raised to over 1 lakh tonnes per day. They can be dispatched to different States for meeting the needs of PDS, Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), School Noon Meal Programme, Annapoorna, etc. Second, the present Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and godown storage systems can be improved with a little more investment and planning. In Punjab there are 146 mandis and 1,746 Purchase Points. They could be grouped and their infrastructure improved. Third, storage in modern silos, like the one put up at Moga by Adani Agri-logistics, and another one coming up in Amritsar, should be promoted. This will help to adopt an end- to-end system from the point of view of procurement, cleaning, quality assurance, safe storage and distribution. The cost of building silos to store a million tonnes of food grains may be about Rs.600 crore, if the required land is made available by state governments. An investment of about Rs.10,000 crore would help to establish a grid of modern grain storages with a capacity for storing, in good condition, over 15 million tonnes in the Punjab-Haryana-Western U.P. region. Lastly, export options can be explored after taking steps to make food available to the hungry, as suggested by the Supreme Court. Also, we should ensure that adequate food grains will be available for implementing the proposed Food Security Act. Export should be done only if the global food prices are attractive and if the profit made is distributed as bonus to our farmers, as suggested by the National Commission on Farmers.

It is time that we organise a National grid of grain storages, starting with storage at the farm level in well designed bins and extending to rural godowns and regional ultra-modern silos. Post harvest losses can then be minimised or even eliminated and food safety ensured. Unless the prevailing mismatch between production and post-harvest technologies is ended, neither the producer nor the consumer will derive full benefit from bumper harvests.

(M.S. Swaminathan is Chairman, MSSRF, and Member of Parliament of the Rajya Sabha.)

50 healthy foods for under $1 a pound

By Jeff Yeager, The Daily Green

(Photo: Robin Macdougall / Getty Images)

If you are what you eat, then I should weigh-in at under $1 a pound.
That's because, as a general rule of thumb, I try to only buy foodstuffs that costs under a buck per pound. Under $1 a pound, year-round -- that's my grocery shopping mantra.
It's not just because I'm a world-class penny-pincher and smart shopper; believe it or not, it's also about eating healthier. When you look at the USDA's "food pyramid," many of the things we should be eating the most of -- grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables -- happen to cost the least.
It's often the stuff that's bad for us (at least in large quantities) like red meat, fatty dairy products, and processed foods high in trans saturated fats, that cost the most, on a per pound basis.
To prove my point, I've put together this list of 50 healthy foods that I've purchased at least once in the last six months for under $1 a pound.
So rev-up your shopping cart, but be careful: There's a Green Cheapskate loose on aisle five!

• Apples - One a day keeps the cheapskate away.
• Asparagus - HUGE store special at 99 cents a pound during Easter week. I bought 10 pounds, blanched it, and then froze it.
• Bananas - Potassium for pennies.
• Barley - A tasty alternative to rice and potatoes.
• Beans - Canned or dried. Kidney, pinto, navy, black, red, and many more.
• Bok choy - Steam and serve with a little soy sauce.
• Broccoli - Yes, a store special. Usually closer to $2 per pound.
• Bulgar wheat - Try it in pilaf or a tabouleh salad.
• Cabbage - Green and red. I like mine fried.
• Cantaloupe - No, sorry, I can't; I'm already married.
• Carrots - Raw or steamed. Rich in carotenes, a healthy antioxidant.
• Celery - Stir-fry it for a change.
• Chicken - Whole or various parts, on sale.
• Chickpeas - AKA garbanzo beans -- mash 'em up as a healthy sandwich spread.
• Cornmeal - "Polenta" is all the rage these days, but I loved it 40 years ago when Mom called it "cornmeal mush."
• Cucumbers - Try peeling, seeding, and steaming with a little butter and salt.
• Daikon radish - My new favorite raw veggie.
• Eggs - Don't overdo them, but eggs provide high quality protein and still cost about $1 per pound. (Plus, there are many eggscellent things you can do with the shells.)
• Green beans - Frozen, but fresh are sometimes on sale for under $1 a pound in-season.
• Greens - Kale, mustard, turnip, and collard greens are rich in vitamins and a good source of fiber. Here's how I cook 'em.
• Grapes - Store special at 99 cents a pound.
• Grapefruit - Bake with a little brown sugar on top for a healthy dessert.
• Lentils - Perhaps the perfect food -- healthy, cheap, and versatile. Think soups, salads, sandwich spreads -- and those are only some of the "s" possibilities.
• Liver - Chicken livers usually cost under $1 a pound, and sometimes beef and pork liver can be found in the DMZ ("Dollar Maximum Zone").
• Mangoes - High in fiber and vitamins A, B6, and C.
• Milk - Yep, on a per-pound basis, milk still costs well under $1 a pound.
• Napa cabbage - Delicious steamed or raw in a salad. 
• Oatmeal - The good old-fashioned "slow cooking" kind ... that takes all of five minutes.
• Onions - Try baking them whole in a cream sauce.
• Oranges - Frequent sale price when in-season.
• Pasta - Store special at 89 cents a pound -- I nearly bought them out!
• Peanut butter - Special sale price, but stock up because it usually has a long shelf life.
• Pork - Inexpensive cuts of pork frequently go on sale for 99 cents per pound or less; sometimes even ham during the holidays.
• Potatoes - White and red, Baked, mashed, boiled, broiled, steamed.
• Pumpkin - Yes, you can eat the same ones you buy as holiday decorations, and they usually cost under 50 cents a pound.
• Rice - White for under $1 a pound; brown, a little more expensive but better for you.
• Rutabagas - Hated them as a kid; can't get enough of them now.
• Sour cream - 99 cents on sale, but long shelf life, so stock up. My cucumber awaits.
• Spinach - Frozen (but Popeye doesn't care).
• Split peas - Add a hambone and make the ultimate comfort soup. Try it in the crock-pot!
• Squash - Try baking acorn squash with a little brown sugar.
• Sweet corn - Canned or fresh on the cob, in-season. (Try this recipe for summer corn fritters.)
• Tomatoes - Canned are often better than fresh to use in cooking, and occasionally you can find fresh on sale for under a buck, in-season. 
• Turkey - A popular bargain-priced, loss-leader around the holidays -- buy an extra bird and freeze it for later.
• Turnips - Make me think of my grandparents, who always grew them.
• Watermelon - Whole, in-season melons can sometime cost less than 20 cents a pound if they're on sale and you find a big one.
• Wine - Well, at least the stuff I drink -- a 5-liter box (approximately 11 pounds) for about 10 bucks, on sale. (BTW, the beer I drink is even less expensive per pound.)
• Yams/sweet potatoes - One of the healthiest foods you can eat, and usually available year-round for under $1 a pound.
• Yogurt - 8-ounce containers on sale, two for $1.
• Zucchini - OK, they're a type of squash (above). But I love them so much they deserve their own place on the list. Plus they look great in pantyhose.

Here are a few disclaimers about my list-o-50:
No, I don't live on another planet or in a part of the country where the cost of living is deflated. In fact, I live and shop in the Washington, D.C., metro area, which has one of the highest costs of living (and groceries) in the country.
No, I'm not saying that all of these items are available in every store, at all times. But if you shop carefully, you can always find at least some variety of these foods around which to plan your meals.
Many of the items on the list (e.g., most root vegetables, bananas, beans, etc.) can usually be purchased for under $1 pound even when not on sale or in-season. Other items on the list were "store specials" and typically would cost more than $1 a pound, and/or they were in-season so cost less.
No, none of the items on my under $1-a-pound list are organically grown. The pros/cons of that debate aside, for most people with a limited budget, the choice isn't whether or not to buy expensive organic, it's whether or not to eat highly processed crap like fast food or eat inexpensive healthy foods like those on my list. (See the dirty dozen foods with the most pesticides to maximize organic purchases.)
No, I'm not saying that by eating only these foods you'll have a complete, healthy diet. But they certainly can be the backbone around which to plan healthy, inexpensive menus for your family.
No, I don't burn up a lot of time and gas by running around to a lot of different grocery stores, and I rarely use coupons. I shop only once every week or two, and I usually shop at only one or two stores.
I plan my meals around the-best-of-the-best weekly store specials (aka the "loss-leaders"), the sale items that are usually on the front page of the weekly circular most stores publish. If you're not a creative cook like me, try a website like Delish or Epicurious, where you can enter the ingredients you have to work with and get all kinds of recipes.
Now look at all the money you've saved! Jeff Yeager is the author of The Cheapskate Next Door and The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches.

Tragedy in Karachi

Bilal Qureshi

Tragedy stuck Karachi Pakistan the other day when about 20 women died from suffocation while attempting to collect wheat flour that was distributed by a charity. It isn’t the only time that poor Pakistanis have died tragically, but this one is especially awful because it started with very good intentions. Because the price of flour is very high in Pakistan during Ramadan, a rice trader decided to help the poor in the community by giving away for free what is scarce and expensive – wheat flour, but his desire to help the poor destroyed at least 20 families.

President has ordered an inquiry, but it is obvious that no body will be held accountable for these tragic deaths. Actually, from what I have heard and read about the incident, it really was an unfortunate accident. However, if the trader who was actually distributing free flour had a) informed the authoritarians and b) opted for an open venue (perhaps a park), we wouldn’t be talking about this tragedy. But, hindsight is always 20/20 and I know the man who was trying to help poor in Ghori Garden Karachi regrets his noble efforts.

Poverty forces people to take risks, and this too was a risk on part of these poor women who went to collect free flour. They knew very well that the place and the space designated for distribution is too tight and too small, but they went there anyway. Regretfully, 20 women will never come back – they are dead.

This should be a lesson, a tragic but a valuable lesson that right intentions are not enough – there has to be planning and everything has to be taken into account. This becomes more important when someone tries to distribute free food in a poor area. We have all seen images of people fighting with each other when the aid arrives, but this is the first time I have really understood what it means when people fight each other for food. It is just awful.

As always, everybody has started talking about ‘where is the government’ even though, this act of charity was conceived and organized by a trader working independently in Karachi without consultations or informing anyone in the government or the local authorities. But the anger is directed towards the government as always, because people need a villain and the government is always there for everyone to attack. No body would talk sense; no body would ask for calm, no body would ask for the people to understand what went wrong, no way. Instead, they are all talking about government’s failure in preventing this tragedy from happening, even though, the government didn’t even know about the event. But, government in Pakistan can’t do anything right as reported by the media and the government should have somehow figured out that this is going to happen.

Yeah, time to call in the physics!

At times, I do think that sanity has left Pakistan. . Everyone look for a reason to start firing verbal missiles towards the government, even though the society never takes responsibility either individually or collectively. For example, a famous singer in Pakistan was recently in hospital recovering from multiple problems and his family kept saying that the government is not doing anything to help him. When I asked someone why should the government help this man, I was told that this singer is an asset and he has served the country (by singing?) etc and therefore, it is the duty of the government to pay his medical bills. When I asked the same guy that the singer opted to be a singer because anyone in the government asked him to be a singer or he decided to sing on his own, I was told that it was his (singer’s) passion that helped him become a singer.

So, he decided to become a singer on his own, but now that he is sick, he wants the government to pay for his medical bills. Why? Because by singing, somehow he served the national interest of Pakistan. Yeah, I am not joking, this is what is implied whenever there is anyone associated with showbiz is sick here.

Welcome to Pakistan. Here, almost everyone wants a free ride, especially if it is from the government, but never wants to pay taxes or work for it. If you listen to Pakistanis being interviewed by the reporters for TV channels in Pakistan, you will hear the same thing. Government is not doing anything help us, but when you ask them to specify what is that the government should do, a very long list of things is cited that the government in Pakistan should do, but what would be missing from this list is the desire or the need to work for what they want, let alone deserve. Yeah, the overall message from the public in Pakistan is give me all and give me for free. But this mindset has to change if the country wants to become strong, better and independent. What people in Pakistan have to understand is that in order to become a independent nation, they have to first become independent individually without relying on hand outs from the government.

However, the unfortunate, poor and deserving women in Karachi lost their lives while waiting to get free flour won’t come back. It is also a fact that this tragedy was well, a tragedy. But, isn’t time, yet again, to re-think how Pakistanis approach acts of charity and being responsible when confronted with a challenge? The easiest thing today is to blame the government for everything, but is that the right approach? Isn’t it time to be objective, honest and serious about how to fix the problems that are resulting in chronic poverty, joblessness, and sense of doom and gloom in the society?

Food for the Soul

Op-Ed Columnist

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: August 22, 2009

YAMHILL, Ore.

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Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Nicholas D. Kristof

On a summer visit back to the farm here where I grew up, I think I figured out the central problem with modern industrial agriculture. It’s not just that it produces unhealthy food, mishandles waste and overuses antibiotics in ways that harm us all.

More fundamentally, it has no soul.

The family farm traditionally was the most soulful place imaginable, and that was the case with our own farm on the edge of the Willamette Valley. I can’t say we were efficient: for a time we thought about calling ourselves “Wandering Livestock Ranch,” after our Angus cattle escaped in one direction and our Duroc hogs in another.

When coyotes threatened our sheep operation, we spent $300 on a Kuvasz, a breed of guard dog that is said to excel in protecting sheep. Alas, our fancy-pants new sheep dog began her duties by dining on lamb.

It’s always said that if a dog kills one lamb, it will never stop, and so the local rule was that if your dog killed one sheep you had to shoot it. Instead we engaged in a successful cover-up. It worked, for the dog never touched a lamb again and for the rest of her long life fended off coyotes heroically.

That kind of diverse, chaotic family farm is now disappearing, replaced by insipid food assembly lines.

The result is food that also lacks soul — but may contain pathogens. In the last two months, there have been two major recalls of ground beef because of possible contamination with drug-resistant salmonella. When factory farms routinely fill animals with antibiotics, the result is superbugs that resist antibiotics.

Michael Pollan, the food writer, notes that monocultures in the field result in monocultures in our diets. Two-thirds of our calories, he says, now come from just four crops: rice, soy, wheat and corn. Fast-food culture and obesity are linked, he argues, to the transformation from family farms to industrial farming.

In fairness, industrial farming is extraordinarily efficient, and smaller diverse family farms would mean more expensive food. So is this all inevitable? Is my nostalgia like the blacksmith’s grief over Henry Ford’s assembly lines superseding a more primitive technology? Perhaps, but I’m reassured by one of my old high school buddies here in Yamhill, Bob Bansen. He runs a family dairy of 225 Jersey cows so efficiently that it can still compete with giant factory dairies of 20,000 cows.

Bob names all his cows, and can tell them apart in an instant. He can tell you each cow’s quirks and parentage. They are family friends as well as economic assets.

“With these big dairies, a cow means nothing to them,” Bob said. “When I lose a cow, it bothers me. I kick myself.” That might seem like sentimentality, but it’s also good business and preserves his assets.

American agriculture policy and subsidies have favored industrialization and consolidation, but there are signs that the Obama administration Agriculture Department under Secretary Tom Vilsack is becoming more friendly to small producers. I hope that’s right.

One of my childhood memories is of placing a chicken egg in a goose nest when I was about 10 (my young scientist phase). That mother goose was thrilled when her eggs hatched, and maternal love is such that she never seemed to notice that one of her babies was a neckless midget.

As for the chick, she never doubted her goosiness. At night, our chickens would roost high up in the barn, while the geese would sleep on the floor, with their heads tucked under their wings. This chick slept with the goslings, and she tried mightily to stretch her neck under her wing. No doubt she had a permanent crick in her neck.

Then the fateful day came when the mother goose took her brood to the water for the first time. She jumped in, and the goslings leaped in after her. The chick stood on the bank, aghast.

For the next few days, mother and daughter tried to reason it out, each deeply upset by the other’s intransigence. After several days of barnyard trauma, the chick underwent an identity crisis, nature triumphed over nurture, and she redefined herself as a hen.

She moved across the barn to hang out with the chickens. At first she still slept goose-like, and visited her “mother” and fellow goslings each day, but within two months she no longer even acknowledged her stepmother and stepsiblings and behaved just like other chickens.

Recollections like that make me wistful for a healthy rural America composed of diverse family farms, which also offer decent and varied lives for the animals themselves (at least when farm boys aren’t conducting “scientific” experiments). In contrast, a modern industrialized operation is a different world: more than 100,000 hens in cages, their beaks removed, without a rooster, without geese or other animals, spewing out pollution and ending up as so-called food — a calorie factory, without any soul.

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