The
'Nagpur Seed Festival', which is taking shape with the desire to
break the traditional form of discussions and lectures, and be an
event that is more problem-oriented and connecting the actual
stakeholders, took place at Vinoba Vichar Kendra, Nagpur during 19,
20 and 21st February 2016.
We
know about Nagpur seed festival since last three years for some or
the other reason. On one hand, the agro-industry giants like Monsanto
are looking forward to take control of our food by monopolizing food
market. Monsanto is looking forward to spread it's arms in India by
initiatives like proposed giant seed hub in Vidarbha region. At the
same time the common people are coming together and trying to build a
people's movement to reiterate their food sovereignty by means of
conservation of local seeds, creating awareness about agro-toxics and
asking for safe food. One of those small efforts is 'Seed Festival'
that is taking place in Nagpur since last four years. This is the
brief summary of the happening in this festival.
Dialogue
with people
One
of the important decision people involved in seed festival took this
year was that we will gather not just to do philosophical debate on
the issue, but we should actually do some work related to the cause
for which we are coming together. Accordingly, we decided that if the
purpose of this event is to increase awareness about safe food and
agriculture in general, then one actual work we can do is go to
laymen around in Nagpur and try to understand from them how far is
the awareness about safe food and agriculture in normal population.
We tried to understand these aspects with simple questions like, what
do you believe to be most important job? Where does your food come
from? What oil do you use at your home? How do you evaluate 'safe
food'? Importantly, all participants took care of the point that we
do not want to make it a one way communication, preaching people
about safe food, but keep it as a dual way communication. On the day
two morning, the participants shared their experiences about this
dialogue with fellow participants. This sharing helped us all to get
an idea about how much work is yet to be done to
bring about a
general consensus on poison-free food and
agriculture.
In
following sessions, different farmers, consumer
groups, vendors or
activists who are actually working for
poison-free food and
exploitation free agriculture shared
there experiences they have
been through while working on
these issues.
By
farmers, for farmers
'Center
for Sustainable Agricultural (CSA)' in
Wardha is working to develop
indigenous seed varieties and
provide it to farmers. The special
thing about CSA is that it is not some multinational profit-oriented
giant, but a producer company run by farmers group. Mr.
Chandrashekhar Dorlikar
made a presentation about this journey of
CSA and how it is
important in current agricultural context. The
organization is
currently working in 35 different villages with
farmer groups
Janmanch
– Keeping eye on irrigation projects and organizing farmers
Mr.
Amitabh Pawade presented the work of Nagpur based
organization
'Janmach'. 'Janmach' is working to investigate
into the development
of irrigation project, see if they are
being properly implemented
and spread awareness about it
in masses. Also recently 'Janmanch'
have began to work on organizing farmers and build movement on
farming issues.
The 'policy' aspect of the issue
Dr.
Hemant Chavan from Maharashtra Agriculture Department shared
information about
Government’s organic farming policy with people.
Discussion on implementation of these policies
also took place later
on. Importantly, Dr. Chavhan
himself have been a keen supporter of organic farming practices. He
is working with a group of 400 farmers.
The
traditional art of making 'Zadu'
One
of the important emphasis of seed festival is to promote traditional
small scale industries and artisans, with the aim of decentralization
of production of goods. Keeping that goal in mind, the third day
started with
people making brooms, or locally called 'zadu',
from leaves of the 'Shindi' tree. Rajesh Khare and Tarachand
Telange,
traditional broom-makers of Walni village, shared their
experiences about the job and demonstrated the art of broom-making as
well.
'Khadi'
- the symbol of decentralized
fabric production
Smt.
Karuna
Futane of a Wardha based organization 'Gram Sewa Mandal'
explained about the work of this organization. This
organization is
working on production and marketing of
Charkhas and Khadi, creating
contacts with farmers who are
growing indigenous cotton varieties.
This work is focused at
the decentralization of 'cotton to cloth'
process, which is very essential in order to make this process
exploitation free for farmers, workers and for the nature.
For
safe edible oil
Today,
there is no assurance of getting unadulterated edible oil anywhere in
the market. The oil produced in centralized system and imported from
other countries is responsible for the exploitation of farmers to
great extent. Some individuals and organizations are working to break
this system based on exploitation and adulteration. One such
individual is Mr. Harshal Avchat from Nagpur. He
explained journey towards an attempt to provide unadulterated oil
produced with small-scale oil-expeller. With that he also explained
the economics of oil production, the challenges in front of
small-scale oil producers and how the challenges can be overcame.
Let
us go back to farming
Many
urbanites who are shifting back to the land and have started
farming
were also present at this occasion. Why did they feel like taking up
farming, what have
been their experience was shared by neo-farmers
like Ashwini Aurangabadkar, a Chartered
Accountant, Kirti
Mangrulkar, a Computer Science Professor, Mohan Kothekar and Hemant
Mohrir.
City
farming
Smt.
Rupindar Nanda
made a representative talk on behalf of some citizens
whoare doing city/terrace farming at their houses. This group of
people in Nagpur came together due to some or the other
events, and
then started to grow some food on their own
with the help of each
other. These sessions proved to be
very stimulating for those who
are willing to start something
similar in regards with safe food and
exploitation free
agriculture.
Evaluation
The
most important part of the seed festival was the session of review
and reflections.
More importantly, it was taken care that the time
was spent on proposing what each individual
can contribute and
taking the responsibilities instead of discussing what all things
need to be
done to address the issue. Accordingly some people took
different responsibilities of the things
they can do at their level
and we decided to keep regular follow-up of these activities. The
festival
ended
with this session of review.
Yours'
Beejotsav
Group
For
more information : Nikhil Lanjewar - 9372475025, Akash Naughare -
9766912745, Kirti Mangrulakar - 9552556465, Rupindara Nanda -
9860731666, Prachi Mahurkar - 9823612468, Anant Bhoyar - 9049641474.
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