Purely out of interest, I decided to meet with a manager at Bank of India, who was admittedly only the stand-in for the actual head of Agricultural Finance of the Bank's Maharashtra branch. For purposed of anonymity, I will just refer to him as Kaka (Marathi word for Uncle).
I'm always amazed by how tiny a city Pune actually is. What looked on the map as a pretty good distance took me about 10 minutes in a rickshaw. So I was left to kill an hour outside the bank. Just my luck, there was nothing to do around there. Except walk, and walk, and walk, and I did. I think I walked around the entire city. And for some reason, on that particular day, I couldn't find ONE chai stall.
Anyways, back to the story. First of all, I trudge in to this bank, kinda sweaty from my hourlong chai-search. I did wear a collared shirt ...but on jeans. I had my backpack on, and even on a particularly unshaven day, I look 20 at best. So its understandable that this guy was not overly interested in giving me the time of day.
With that said, Kaka was the quintessential government employee. Hardly making eye contact with me, he shuffled papers back and forth on his desk to look busy, and made me wait a couple minutes at an adjoining desk. Then, when he was ready for me, he shuffled over. I think 'shuffle' is a good word for everything he did. Even his speaking was..shuffly.
Unlike others who I've spoken to in the field, Kaka answered each of my questions- intentionally open-ended- with curt answers. His suspicion was not hidden very well, he looked at my notepad with the kind of regard a US Immigration officer would give to a beard.
The conversation was largely disappointing, and it would be unfair for me to make any significant conclusions or generalization about Bank policy from it. However, the recurrent theme from the conversation which I managed to drag out for about 30 minutes, was that the bank basically executes policy from above- the RBI. There were some significant contradictions- on one hand, he said that there was no role for NGO's or groups closer the ground for determining agricultural finance policy- experts in the bank could handle it. On the other hand, he said the rural branches, and even local/state branches, did not determine criteria for loans/funding, but rather simply carried out central policy. Confusing, to say the least.
At the end of our conversation, as I offered him a smile, he finally figured out that I was no threat, and even extended an invitation for me to come 'whenever I wanted to ask more questions.'
Good touch, Kaka.
-Nikhil
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Department of Food
Here's an article I found interesting from the NYTimes, by one of my favorite editorialists Nicholas Kristof..
Op-Ed Columnist
Obama’s ‘Secretary of Food’?
| |
As Barack Obama ponders whom to pick as agriculture secretary, he should reframe the question. What he needs is actually a bold reformer in a position renamed “secretary of food.”
A Department of Agriculture made sense 100 years ago when 35 percent of Americans engaged in farming. But today, fewer than 2 percent are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat.
Renaming the department would signal that Mr. Obama seeks to move away from a bankrupt structure of factory farming that squanders energy, exacerbates climate change and makes Americans unhealthy — all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars.
“We’re subsidizing the least healthy calories in the supermarket — high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soy oil, and we’re doing very little for farmers trying to grow real food,” notes Michael Pollan, author of such books as “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food.”
The Agriculture Department — and the agriculture committees in Congress — have traditionally been handed over to industrial farming interests by Democrats and Republicans alike. The farm lobby uses that perch to inflict unhealthy food on American children in school-lunch programs, exacerbating our national crisis with diabetes and obesity.
But let’s be clear. The problem isn’t farmers. It’s the farm lobby — hijacked by industrial operators — and a bipartisan tradition of kowtowing to it.
I grew up on a farm in Yamhill, Ore., where my family grew cherries and timber and raised sheep and, at times, small numbers of cattle, hogs and geese. One of my regrets is that my kids don’t have the chance to grow up on a farm as well.
Yet the Agriculture Department doesn’t support rural towns like Yamhill; it bolsters industrial operations that have lobbying clout. The result is that family farms have to sell out to larger operators, undermining small towns.
One measure of the absurdity of the system: Every year you, the American taxpayer, send me a check for $588 in exchange for me not growing crops on timberland I own in Oregon (I forward the money to a charity). That’s right. The Agriculture Department pays a New York journalist not to grow crops in a forest in Oregon.
Modern confinement operations are less like farms than like meat assembly lines. They are dazzlingly efficient in some ways, but they use vast amounts of grain, as well as low-level antibiotics to reduce infections — and the result is a public health threat from antibiotic-resistant infections.
An industrial farm with 5,000 hogs produces as much waste as a town with 20,000 people. But while the town is required to have a sewage system, the industrial farm isn’t.
“They look profitable because we’re paying for their wastes,” notes Robert P. Martin, executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production. “And then there’s the cost of antibiotic resistance to the economy as a whole.”
One study suggests that these large operations receive, in effect, a $24 subsidy for each hog raised. We face an obesity crisis and a budget crisis, and we subsidize bacon?
The need for change is increasingly obvious, for health, climate and even humanitarian reasons. California voters last month passed a landmark referendum (over the farm lobby’s furious protests) that will require factory farms to give minimum amounts of space to poultry and livestock. Society is becoming concerned not only with little boys who abuse cats but also with tycoons whose business model is abusing farm animals.
An online petition that can be found at www.fooddemocracynow.org calls for a reformist pick for agriculture secretary — and names six terrific candidates, such as Chuck Hassebrook, a reformer in Nebraska. On several occasions in the campaign, Mr. Obama made comments showing a deep understanding of food issues, but the names that people in the food industry say are under consideration for agriculture secretary represent the problem more than the solution.
Change we can believe in?
The most powerful signal Mr. Obama could send would be to name a reformer to a renamed position. A former secretary of agriculture, John Block, said publicly the other day that the agency should be renamed “the Department of Food, Agriculture and Forestry.” And another, Ann Veneman, told me that she believes it should be renamed, “Department of Food and Agriculture.” I’d prefer to see simply “Department of Food,” giving primacy to America’s 300 million eaters.
As Mr. Pollan told me: “Even if you don’t think agriculture is a high priority, given all the other problems we face, we’re not going to make progress on the issues Obama campaigned on — health care, climate change and energy independence — unless we reform agriculture.”
Your move, Mr. President-elect.Sunday, November 30, 2008
Dehradun
I'm now in Dehradun at an internet cafe! Wow its really hard to be away from facebook and gmail for too long. Will post when I get back to Pune on the 8th.
-Nikhil
-Nikhil
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Youth
Yesterday, in one of those unexpected little political victories, Rahul Gandhi jabbed back at Rajnath Singh- who had called Mr. Gandhi a 'baccha' in a recent interview.
"I may be a baccha, but 70% of India are bacchas. That's the change they want"
Now I'm no big fan of the Congress Party, nor a huge supporter of Rahul Gandhi, but I gotta admit that what he said was both clever as well as pretty gutsy. And from the media coverage that quip has received, I think it was a pretty successful maneuvre.
The fact is, it's true. India is an extremely young country! And yet, it has been ruled by a succession of dinosaurs- some of whom were relatively competent dinosaurs, but dinosaurs nonetheless. Even in the reform period, we've seen Narasimha Rao, IK Gujral, Deve Gowda, AB Vajpayee and now Manmohan Singh. All depressingly antique.
The other day, I was talking to a rickshaw driver, who after some slightly slanted questioning, figured out that I was American. Of course, the immediate leap in conversation was to Obama, and we started talking about the election. As I tried to explain to him why it was so amazing that we had elected a black man into the office for the first time, I realized that he wasn't really interested in the race issue. Instead, he kept repeating over and over again, "But he's so young!! Such a young man as the president!"
It's true, while much of our presidential race was focused on the fact that we could be electing an African-American to the presidential post for the first time, the reason why his message of change really stuck with us has gotta be largely due to his age. We could relate to the guy, his humor was kinda like ours, his interests were similar to ours, it explains the cult following. And its something that has been somewhat overlooked.
In India, where the population is even more concentrated in the 20-30 age range, I feel like the parliamentary democratic system is robbing the citizens of something huge. Without any primaries for the political parties, PM choices are largely political maneuvres, with much less effect on the final outcome of the election. Yes, often local MLA's are younger and closer to the people, but if there's one thing that this US presidential election has taught us, it is the importance of an inspirational leader at the helm.
To really move the country forward, India deserves a young leader. Today there's much talk about Mayawati, the Dalit leader who is challenging for the position of prime minister. While impressive and somewhat progressive that there's a prime ministerial hopeful from this historically maligned group, the truth is that she has run a campaign of divisiveness and hate, and there is little indication that this would abate if she won the post.
This at a time where the country is being pulled at its seams. Sectarian conflict, secessionist groups and terrorist activity seems to be constantly ravaging the country, and every couple months, a new party forms to greedily grab a piece of the crumbling vote bank pie. And then every five years, these parties cobble together a coalition with lots of duct tape, making a mockery of the term majority.
No, what this India deserves is a real majority, a real unifier, and in particular a prime minister who is young and who comes with a message of change. But the likely truth is, it won't happen until the entire political system is overhauled.
We can't wait!
- Nikhil
"I may be a baccha, but 70% of India are bacchas. That's the change they want"
Now I'm no big fan of the Congress Party, nor a huge supporter of Rahul Gandhi, but I gotta admit that what he said was both clever as well as pretty gutsy. And from the media coverage that quip has received, I think it was a pretty successful maneuvre.
The fact is, it's true. India is an extremely young country! And yet, it has been ruled by a succession of dinosaurs- some of whom were relatively competent dinosaurs, but dinosaurs nonetheless. Even in the reform period, we've seen Narasimha Rao, IK Gujral, Deve Gowda, AB Vajpayee and now Manmohan Singh. All depressingly antique.
The other day, I was talking to a rickshaw driver, who after some slightly slanted questioning, figured out that I was American. Of course, the immediate leap in conversation was to Obama, and we started talking about the election. As I tried to explain to him why it was so amazing that we had elected a black man into the office for the first time, I realized that he wasn't really interested in the race issue. Instead, he kept repeating over and over again, "But he's so young!! Such a young man as the president!"
It's true, while much of our presidential race was focused on the fact that we could be electing an African-American to the presidential post for the first time, the reason why his message of change really stuck with us has gotta be largely due to his age. We could relate to the guy, his humor was kinda like ours, his interests were similar to ours, it explains the cult following. And its something that has been somewhat overlooked.
In India, where the population is even more concentrated in the 20-30 age range, I feel like the parliamentary democratic system is robbing the citizens of something huge. Without any primaries for the political parties, PM choices are largely political maneuvres, with much less effect on the final outcome of the election. Yes, often local MLA's are younger and closer to the people, but if there's one thing that this US presidential election has taught us, it is the importance of an inspirational leader at the helm.
To really move the country forward, India deserves a young leader. Today there's much talk about Mayawati, the Dalit leader who is challenging for the position of prime minister. While impressive and somewhat progressive that there's a prime ministerial hopeful from this historically maligned group, the truth is that she has run a campaign of divisiveness and hate, and there is little indication that this would abate if she won the post.
This at a time where the country is being pulled at its seams. Sectarian conflict, secessionist groups and terrorist activity seems to be constantly ravaging the country, and every couple months, a new party forms to greedily grab a piece of the crumbling vote bank pie. And then every five years, these parties cobble together a coalition with lots of duct tape, making a mockery of the term majority.
No, what this India deserves is a real majority, a real unifier, and in particular a prime minister who is young and who comes with a message of change. But the likely truth is, it won't happen until the entire political system is overhauled.
We can't wait!
- Nikhil
Monday, November 17, 2008
Nanegaon
I visited Nanegaon for the first time last week- not too far from Pune, its a village nestled in the Kolvan Valley of rural Maharashtra. It's a beautiful area, no lush green or snowcapped mountains, but just rugged growth. As I was introduced to the projects being run by Gomukh in the area, for the first time, I started to see for my eyes some of the challenges facing agricultural and rural policy in India.
Although I was visiting the area to get a feel for the site of the renewables project, I assisted on surveys that Gomukh was conducting for a soil conservation project.
A couple notes on background. Thanks to good soil, decent rainfall, and NGO assistance, much of rural Maharashtra, particularly close to Mumbai and Pune, is moderately well-off, particularly compared to rural areas in other states. (It is also thanks to a sugar boom in recent years, but we'll get to that later). In general, farmers were growing sugarcane or rice, had some livestock, and sold their produce to markets in Pune.
As we sat with some of these farmers, in their small but well maintained homes (side note- its amazing how much effort these families put into their homes. The ground is always swept clean and dung washed for sterilization, the bed is always made, the few pictures on the wall are straight...even when the area inside the house is too small to even stand upright, the pride with which they maintained their homes really struck me), I started to realize some of their severe budgetary issues. It's a life with no margin for error.
When we prodded further, we found that their income never seemed to match up with their spending, sometimes not by a long way. It seemed that many of these farmers were playing a game of juggling loans, going from a Union bank, to a rural commune, to a community savings group- attempting to make minimum repayments so that they did not default, but never quite staying afloat.
Often, in truly dire straits, these farmers would be forced to sell their soil- a fact that they admitted with their voices low, their heads bowed. I did not catch on at first but when I saw one of the farmers, Santosh, glance nervously at a picture of a god on the wall as he spoke about it, I that for a farmer, his soil is his mother; it is everything that has nurtured him and provides for him. Selling soil is a good way to make a quick buck, especially because the valley is close to Pune where the construction business is booming, and brickmakers are constantly looking for cheap and plentiful soil. So the bricklayers come into rural areas, carting away trucks of fertile topsoil, at hardly a pittance in comparison to its real rate. But for the farmers, this is big money.
This raises a number of questions- 1. How do you protect the farmer against a punishing sale like that, and 2. How do you prevent them from selling the soil in the first place, which is severely hurting the agriculture in the area, not to mention their own sense of self-respect?
The answers are difficult because, like I mentioned, of the margin of error. Running a constant deficit, if any of these farmers have a marriage, or a festival (often taking up about 30% of the annual budget), or in a worst case scenario- an injury..then the bills throw the budget into havoc. Then its time to start selling high value assets, such as soil, livestock and even trees. That was the problem that Ankush faced. He had a relatively balanced budget, but a motorcycle injury followed by what seemed like endless medical bills up nearly 70% of his annual income. This meant that in all honesty, there was absolutely zero savings for little Vikrant who was running around the hut as his mother tried to get pants on him. Forget savings, there would almost certainly be a pretty significant debt.
How did they get into this kind of budgetary crisis in the first place?
Well part of the problem..the majority of the problem, is planning.
You see, a while ago, sugarcane was seen as a huge cash crop in the state of Maharashtra. It was easy to grow, needed hardly any maintenance, and you could make a lot of money off of selling it to the sugar mills. Farmers unionized, ran their own sugar factories so that rates were equitable, the entire situation was relatively peachy.
Then a couple things happened. Firstly, the larger farmers began taking control of the unions and factories, leading to corruption, and crowding out of the smaller farmers. Then, the price of sugar fell, and fell hard.
Many farmers, whose plots were completely invested in sugarcane growth starte dmaking huge losses. But the cycle was created, many of these farmers had become used to an easier life- sugarcane does not require much hard work- so they had resorted to relaxing, often drinking. The huge government subsidies continued to encourage sugarcane planting, as it was a cash crop, but the system was stacked against it being profitable anymore.
Had some of these farmers diversified their crops, been able to watch prices, looked into rural savings accounts, and/or received subsidies for other crops, the situation may not have been the same.
Ironically, the second farmer we surveyed, who had a much smaller plot of land than the first one, and much fewer assets, actually had a balanced budget- not just because he seemed younger and more clever, but also because he was cultivating rice, a proven crop which is work intensive if you want high yields.
Man, life just isn't easy when you can't make a mistake.
-Nikhil
Although I was visiting the area to get a feel for the site of the renewables project, I assisted on surveys that Gomukh was conducting for a soil conservation project.
A couple notes on background. Thanks to good soil, decent rainfall, and NGO assistance, much of rural Maharashtra, particularly close to Mumbai and Pune, is moderately well-off, particularly compared to rural areas in other states. (It is also thanks to a sugar boom in recent years, but we'll get to that later). In general, farmers were growing sugarcane or rice, had some livestock, and sold their produce to markets in Pune.
As we sat with some of these farmers, in their small but well maintained homes (side note- its amazing how much effort these families put into their homes. The ground is always swept clean and dung washed for sterilization, the bed is always made, the few pictures on the wall are straight...even when the area inside the house is too small to even stand upright, the pride with which they maintained their homes really struck me), I started to realize some of their severe budgetary issues. It's a life with no margin for error.
When we prodded further, we found that their income never seemed to match up with their spending, sometimes not by a long way. It seemed that many of these farmers were playing a game of juggling loans, going from a Union bank, to a rural commune, to a community savings group- attempting to make minimum repayments so that they did not default, but never quite staying afloat.
Often, in truly dire straits, these farmers would be forced to sell their soil- a fact that they admitted with their voices low, their heads bowed. I did not catch on at first but when I saw one of the farmers, Santosh, glance nervously at a picture of a god on the wall as he spoke about it, I that for a farmer, his soil is his mother; it is everything that has nurtured him and provides for him. Selling soil is a good way to make a quick buck, especially because the valley is close to Pune where the construction business is booming, and brickmakers are constantly looking for cheap and plentiful soil. So the bricklayers come into rural areas, carting away trucks of fertile topsoil, at hardly a pittance in comparison to its real rate. But for the farmers, this is big money.
This raises a number of questions- 1. How do you protect the farmer against a punishing sale like that, and 2. How do you prevent them from selling the soil in the first place, which is severely hurting the agriculture in the area, not to mention their own sense of self-respect?
The answers are difficult because, like I mentioned, of the margin of error. Running a constant deficit, if any of these farmers have a marriage, or a festival (often taking up about 30% of the annual budget), or in a worst case scenario- an injury..then the bills throw the budget into havoc. Then its time to start selling high value assets, such as soil, livestock and even trees. That was the problem that Ankush faced. He had a relatively balanced budget, but a motorcycle injury followed by what seemed like endless medical bills up nearly 70% of his annual income. This meant that in all honesty, there was absolutely zero savings for little Vikrant who was running around the hut as his mother tried to get pants on him. Forget savings, there would almost certainly be a pretty significant debt.
How did they get into this kind of budgetary crisis in the first place?
Well part of the problem..the majority of the problem, is planning.
You see, a while ago, sugarcane was seen as a huge cash crop in the state of Maharashtra. It was easy to grow, needed hardly any maintenance, and you could make a lot of money off of selling it to the sugar mills. Farmers unionized, ran their own sugar factories so that rates were equitable, the entire situation was relatively peachy.
Then a couple things happened. Firstly, the larger farmers began taking control of the unions and factories, leading to corruption, and crowding out of the smaller farmers. Then, the price of sugar fell, and fell hard.
Many farmers, whose plots were completely invested in sugarcane growth starte dmaking huge losses. But the cycle was created, many of these farmers had become used to an easier life- sugarcane does not require much hard work- so they had resorted to relaxing, often drinking. The huge government subsidies continued to encourage sugarcane planting, as it was a cash crop, but the system was stacked against it being profitable anymore.
Had some of these farmers diversified their crops, been able to watch prices, looked into rural savings accounts, and/or received subsidies for other crops, the situation may not have been the same.
Ironically, the second farmer we surveyed, who had a much smaller plot of land than the first one, and much fewer assets, actually had a balanced budget- not just because he seemed younger and more clever, but also because he was cultivating rice, a proven crop which is work intensive if you want high yields.
Man, life just isn't easy when you can't make a mistake.
-Nikhil
The Blog and the Explanation
The blog is created because I can't keep my thoughts to myself, and I enjoy hearing inputs and comments on my opinions. It's also created because the last time I traveled, I did not get much love for my textbook-sized emails. So hope to hear from you guys on here.
- Nikhil
- Nikhil
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