Sambalpur, 7th December 2009 - The Fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Fifth Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP 15 and COP/MOP 5) begins today, just a day after the Orissa Legislative Assembly’s current session was wrapped up in a hush half way through. The otherwise strong and majority government of Orissa has been in tremendous pressure both from farmers and opposition parties for two reasons - one, for the serial suicides by farmers and; two, the huge mining scam running to hundreds of crores.
As it’s build up for the COP 15, Water Initiatives Orissa (WIO) (a network of civil society organizations and other concerned individuals including researchers, academia, media persons, working on water and climate change issues for about a decade now) met hundreds of farmers and rural population to collect their ‘agenda’ for the world leaders who would be negotiating the future of this world at COP 15. These included the widows and orphans of farmers who have committed suicide this year due to failure of agriculture owing to delayed and deficient rainfall. As expected, the people have set in an ‘agenda’ that would not only help Orissa fight food insecurity in a changing climate scenario but also teach the world some lesions on sustainable ways to adapt to climate change.
WIO team received thousands of interesting and heart touching suggestions, appeals and warnings from the farmers it met. This list is just a short one in which we have tried to capture the essence of what the people would like to convey to the world leaders. In doing this, WIO has taken care that people’s own language and way of communication is retained to the maximum extent possible.
1. We are climate’s widows and orphans. It is failing us more regularly and intensely than ever before. The recent suicides by our husbands/fathers/fellow farmers are because of the delayed and insufficient rainfall which increased the heat in the area so much that the insects like swarming caterpillars stayed for longer days and multiplied in thousands damaging our standing crops overnight. Our government is offering us peanuts in terms of ex-gratia payments and subsidies in sprayer machines. Ask our government to understand the real problem that is ‘climate change’ caused by its faulty policies and do something that will last.
2. We are poor farmers still depending on rain God for our farming. We gave our lands for the mighty Hirakud Dam but yet to get assured irrigation ourselves. The government is now giving away the water to industries which are as such taking all our ground water, polluting our rivers and increasing the heat of our areas further. Ask our government to stop this disparity and give us assured irrigation from small irrigation systems including farm ponds that we can manage ourselves.
3. We have been protecting our forests but the government is destroying it through mining and other industrial projects. The urban people are also using lot of our forests for their luxury. We have survived on the forests and organic agriculture. Ask our government to give us complete right over the forest resources and stop further destruction of the same in the name of industrial development that is causing further damage to the environment and contributing to climate change.
4. We have heard that there are Agriculture Universities in our state where agriculture scientists are there to support us in making farming a profitable affair. Do you know while at the time of independence, a teacher was getting 20 rupees as monthly salary, now they are drawing more than 20 thousand rupees. And this is further more for officers and the above agriculture officials and scientists must also be drawing several thousand as salary. We have heard that the President of India gets one lakh and fifty thousand rupees as salary. All of you call that India is a country of farmers and for farmers. Why then we get only 700 to 800 rupees per 100 kgs of paddy? At the time of independence of our country, two bags of paddy fetched 10 grams of gold. You better know the price now. Why is it only in our case that remuneration has not grown? What these agriculture officials and scientists have done then? Please ask our government to shut all these agriculture universities and offices. Also ask all those officials and scientists to return all the remuneration and other facilities they have derived over the last several decades.
5. As such also whatever knowledge we have got from these officials has damaged our ways of ecological farming. We were better off earlier with our ways of organic farming. Your officials taught us to switch to chemical farming. Our costs of production have grown to provide you food security and we are starving and committing suicide. Ask our government to promote institutions which could teach us farming that would not only be profitable but also protect the ecology. Establish these institutions in remote areas from the money recovered from your agriculture officials and scientists. And if that money falls short, recover the hundreds of crores from the mine owners that have not only cheated the public exchequer but also polluted the environment beyond damage. And one more thing, make the farmers owners and trainers in these institutions.
6. We had never seen farmers in rain fed areas committing suicide. As you may be aware more than 20 farmers have already ended their lives within a span of two months. This is all because of your faulty policies and the climate change caused by the industries, mining and other projects that you are promoting in our vicinity. The way you people are living your lives is all against the nature’s law of survival. You have caused climate change and we are bearing the brunt. Ask our government and your investors to dismantle all these projects and promote agriculture instead.
Provided your support we can feed the whole world from our crop fields. So, withdraw your support from polluting industries and invest in organic agriculture and remunerate us at par with the government and corporate employees. We will not commit suicide and you will not have to spend so much to discuss ‘food insecurity due to climate change’.
Post forwarded to Portal by:
Ranjan K Panda
Convenor, Water Initiatives Orissa
Sambalpur 768 005, Orissa, INDIA
Cell: +91-94370-50103