$170-million British grant? No thanks, say Indian farmers

They say the aid for helping Andhra Pradesh state to set up large-scale mechanised farms growing genetically modified crops would hurt small farmers

By Alfred Lee
STRAITS TIMES EUROPE BUREAU

LONDON - A British government grant of £65-million (S$170 million) to fund farming development in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh (AP) will throw millions of farmers out of work, MPs in London have been told.

The massive grant is being given to the state government to consolidate small farms into large ones, buy huge machines to sow and harvest crops, introduce new pesticides to promote the growth of produce and to start the growing of genetically-modified (GM) crops.

But the funding for the project, known as Vision 2020, from Britain's Department for International Development (DFID), has provoked fury from farmers and international charities.

A delegation of farmers and agricultural scientists from the Indian state has flown to London and has already met scores of MPs, demanding that the grant be cancelled.

The powerful environmental and human rights organisations Greenpeace, Christian Aid, Friends of the Earth and the Small Farms Alliance are supporting the farmers.

The Institute of Development Studies and the International Institute for Environment are also supporting the campaign by the farmers' delegation against British interference in 'traditional' and 'family' farming in the huge, but poor Indian state.

Delegation leader P.V. Satheesh told The Straits Times: 'Vision 2020 is an aid package for big farmers and corporations who supply machines, pesticides and who want to promote untested GM crops.

'The British grant will result in huge corporation-owned farms, instead of hundreds of small ones which give a livelihood and jobs to millions of peasant farmers and their families.

'These farmers will be thrown off their land and in AP, there is no other work for them.'

Anjamma, a woman farmer who is a member of the Indian delegation, works 1.6 ha of land with her seven children, two bullocks and eight buffaloes in Andhra Pradesh.

She said: 'If Britain wants to give money, it should come to the farmers directly.

'That way we can keep our land, make farms more fertile, buy more seed and become completely self-sufficient.

'Instead, this is being denied to us in the name of modernisation.'

Ms Elizabeth Stuart of Christian Aid told The Straits Times: 'The British-funded project will mean the number of people making their living from the land in AP will fall from 70 per cent of the population to 40 per cent.

'This is a drop in the number of farmers of 20 million over the next 20 years.

'The vast majority will have no way of finding alternative income. We fear a calamity.'

Greenpeace said: 'There are widespread concerns among the people about possible dangers of pesticides.

'Britain is sanctioning the growth of GM crops, even though their safety has not been proved.'

A DFID spokesman told The Straits Times: 'Vision 2020 is going ahead after lengthy and detailed discussions with the government of AP.

'Our aim is to take farmers out of the poverty they and their families have been in for centuries.

'The only way to do so is by modernisation, commercial consolidation of farms and the introduction of up-to-date farming methods, including the use of pesticides and machines and GM crops.'