A message from Bangladesh Densely populated and threatened by floods and storms – Bangladesh is one of the poorer countries of the world. But there are seeds of hope: farmers bring in better harvests and live better since they use the methods of “nayakrishi andolon” – new agriculture. This revolutionary, simple model finds more and more supporters and can become an example for a whole region Korshed Alam is part of a revolutionary movement, but he doesn’t carry a gun. His day begins at 4am, but he works for no boss except himself. His mission is political, yet it springs from the very soil itself. He farms a mere 3.5 acres in one of the world’s poorest countries, yet the movement he is a part of has the potential to strike at the very heart of modern industrial agriculture. Korshed’s revolution is an ecological one. Like tens of thousands of farmers all over Bangladesh, he has abandoned the chemicals and hybrid seeds of ‘modern’ agriculture for something, well, even more modern. It’s a shift that he’s made not just because he is committed to the principles of organic agriculture, but because it simply makes sense. “It’s changed my life,” he declares, squatting with other farmers in the shade of a large jackfruit tree in Nandoria village. “Before we changed, everyone had skin diseases from the chemicals. We couldn’t even take the fish because they were poisonous, and there were no wild plants to eat because they were either dead or very bitter. Now we’ve got good food, and it even tastes different - it’s healthier and there are more vitamins.” Conventional farming wisdom preaches the value of efficiency, of maximising the yield of a single staple crop like rice or corn. This is how Korshed used to farm. He would buy the latest ‘high yielding variety’ seeds at the local market, and spread artificial fertiliser on the soil. Obediently following the doctrines of governmental extension agents, he would spray his crop several times to keep pests under control. But even as the poisons began to contaminate the soil and water all around him, he saw no alternative. He explains: “Before we started using chemicals our soil was good, and just adding a little bit of fertiliser gave us a huge boost in productivity. But the yield soon began to go down, and we had to put on more and more fertiliser per acre. The amount of fertiliser we had to use went up a hundred times over thirty years. To make things worse, the price tripled over the same period. So everybody was losing – but they had to keep pumping in chemicals to try and get enough yield to pay for next year’s seeds and to buy enough to eat.” Locked into a vicious chemical treadmill, farmers all over the country started to go bankrupt. Many had to sell their land and move to the cities in a desperate search for work. And all the while no-one thought to question the basic economics of conventional agriculture. Corporate adverts for new hybrid seeds and ever-better chemicals flooded the billboards and the airwaves. Everyone thought there was no alternative. Then came the 1988 flood. Floods are a regular occurrence in Bangladesh, and far from being the disasters they are often portrayed as, regular flooding is essential to renew soil fertility and fish stocks. But the 1988 deluge was unusual – it lasted for weeks, and many farmers lost everything. It hit particularly hard around Tangail, a small town three hours north of the capital Dhaka, where a small, radical NGO called UBINIG was conducting a research program with handloom weavers. “We had no experience in agriculture even” remembers Farida Akhter, now Executive Director of UBINIG, whose name is the Bengali acronym for ‘Policy Research for Development Alternatives’. “But we felt we had to do something. So we gathered together a medical team, took care of drinking water and helped buy people clothes.” But as soon as the water started going down, UBINIG – which had a strong environmental background – found itself in a quandary. A group of farmers approached Farida asking for financial support so they could buy chemicals and seeds to start farming again. “We thought it would not help to supply them chemicals” says Farida. “Instead we said if they wanted to talk about doing something else, we could.” So UBINIG called community meetings, and discussed with the farmers the alternatives to chemical-dependent farming. “It was the women who responded most positively” she recalls. “Most of the men, especially the younger generation, could not see any alternative to chemicals.” Then at one particular meeting an elderly midwife stood up. “We should not be using pesticides at all, because it destroys our bodies” the woman declared. She told the meeting about all the miscarriages she’d seen, and blamed chemicals for ruining the health of both people and animals. It was a breakthrough. Other farmers chimed in, telling stories of terrible diseases, of spiralling debts, and of soil that although once reknowned for its softness had become more recently as hard as cement. “Now our number one principle is no pesticide” says Farida proudly. “We got that first principle from that woman.” That one meeting didn’t just change the farming practices of those who attended, it sparked a nationwide movement – now called the nayakrishi andolon. ‘Nayakrishi’ means ‘new agriculture’. It’s a name that was chosen to show that the practitioners of ecological farming were not going backwards towards traditional agriculture, but forwards to something new and better – having learned from the mistakes of the ‘green revolution’. And the results were staggering. Korshed is now proud of his fields. “Using modern agriculture in this field here I only used to get one crop - of sugar cane” he says, pointing across a stream to a small plot full of lush growth. “Now, because we’ve started inter-cropping I get seven – onions, garlic, potatoes, radish, lentil, pumpkin and sweet potato. And I still grow sugar cane in between. I don’t have to buy any chemicals, and I can sell the surplus at the local bazaar.” Instead of artificial fertiliser, nitrogen is fixed in the soil by leguminous crops like pulses and okra (‘lady’s finger’). Korshed pulls up an okra plant, and shows how the root clump is clustered with white nitrogen nodules. Compost is made from water hyacinth (which grows ferociously on all the ponds, and used to be considered an invasive weed), banana leaves, rice paddy straw and cow dung. In Bangaldesh’s steamy climate it rots down in less than a month. The soil is soft and covered in worm casts. “They are nature’s plough” he says. Seeing this example in Nandoria village, ten villages around have declared themselves Nayakrishi, and eighteen more have expressed interest. Throughout Bangladesh a total of 65,000 rural households have now converted to practising Nayakrishi. UBINIG has established five Nayakrishi centres in different parts of the country, which hold workshops for farmers and co-ordinate the sharing of knowledge between different villages. The centre at Tangail now employs 40 people, many of them extension workers who travel by motorbike between the nearby villages to hold the weekly Nayakrishi meetings within the communities. One of these co-ordinators is Abu Bakar, a 25-year-old former farmer. Sitting cross-legged on a mat in Nallapara village, he is joined by 20 local farmers and their wives, as well as a crowd of eager children. Puffed rice is handed round as he works through the various agenda items. This week the discussions focus on making an inventory of seeds. Now is the time to plant paddy rice seedlings in well-tended seedbeds, to be planted out later in bigger fields after the rains. In addition, new banana trees can be put in, and the bamboos which grow in profusion throughout the village – and are used for everything from buildings to bridges – are ‘pregnant’ and so should not be cut. It’s very detailed and very practical. Abu Bakar runs two to three of these meetings per day, covering 13 villages and 17 hamlets in total. “My main concern is to involve more farmers and to listen to their concerns,” he says. “More people keep coming to meetings because they’re curious to see how it works, and the number of Nayakrishi farmers is increasing rapidly.” One of those attending the meeting is 58-year-old Hayet Ali. “Before I started Nayakrishi the water was so poisonous you could not put your feet in” he remembers. “We had lost many of our local varieties of seed because the government was promoting hybrids. The soil condition was hard, and we were all losing money on chemicals and buying seed. Then after the 1988 floods we started talking with UBINIG about alternatives. We found immediately that with mixed cropping rather than monoculture we were eating better than before. We were eating our own varieties of rice and vegetables, and soon we had some left over to sell so we were gaining financially too. And our health was improving – skin diseases, stomach problems and even cholera had all gone.” Perhaps the central thrust of Nayakrishi is the promotion of diversity – not just in the varieties of seed but in the whole ecosystem they are grown in. Nayakrishi fields are teeming with life – birds, insects, frogs and fish splash, plop and flit about in between the crops. It couldn’t be more different to the many European fields, where fields of the same crop stretch into the distance and biodiversity has been severely reduced by modern farming practices. “See this fence – it has fifteen varieties of tree growing in it” says Raiqul Haque, universally known as ‘Tito’, the energetic director of the coastal Nayakrishi centre near Cox’s Bazaar. “Birds are coming in and making nests. Fallen leaves are decomposing on the soil, so that’s food for micro-organisms, and we’re getting some grass and other uncultivated plants coming. That’s diversity for you – it’s all over the place.” Touring the centre, his enthusiasm is infectious. “See that pond?” he indicates over to a green patch of water, the surface of which is continually rippled by fish coming up to catch flies. “The droppings from the ducks are the best feed for fish. And those chickens over there – we’ve got 31 varieties of chicken. We’re not even ploughing here - the soil is so fertile you can just stick seeds in with your finger.” He turns round again: “Look – if I use pesticides, I’m destroying all the life-forms, friendly insects too. If I use fertilisers I’m destroying micro-organisms in the soil. If we leave the insects they become food for the chicken. Only by ensuring biodiversity can we ensure food security for everyone.” Partly because of this commitment, the Cox’s Bazaar centre has been running a programme to replant the area’s lost mangrove jungle – once the home of tigers, elephants, monkeys and crocodiles – which was destroyed by commercial prawn farming during the 1980s. This philosophy turns the conventional view of farming on its head. In Europe many farmers and politicians still think they have to abandon biodiversity altogether, by turning their fields into industrial operations. Mountains of food ‘commodities’ pile up – is this the way to ensure food security? Tito shakes his head vigorously. “No, you don’t understand. I’m talking about food security for all life forms, not just for humans. That’s not possible without biodiversity. I might be getting one crop for me, but what about the trees, the insects, the grass and the chickens?” Put simply, the Nayakrishi view is not to see humans as separate from nature, dominating it. Instead, humans are part of a much larger cycle of life, all of which has a value. It’s a much more expansive concept than straightforward organic agriculture, which sees abandonment of chemicals as the major goal. Instead Nayakrishi sees the protection of the entire ecosystem as central to the human role. Farhad Mazhar, Farida’s partner and co-director of UBINIG, has a story that illustrates the concept well. “When I go into a village to do training, the first thing I do is to give a farmer a stick, and tell him to hit the nearest child with it. He says: ‘No, I won’t do that.’ I say: ‘Why not?’ and the farmer says ‘Because it would hurt him.’ Then I ask the farmer ‘So why do you put pesticides on the land, which hurt the other life?’ This is an ethical principle. Insects and birds all have a right to food. So why cut a plant when it is food for another animal?” It’s perhaps a consequence of this approach that makes Nayakrishi farmers have a rather different concept of the ‘household’ than is usual in the West. In Europe, a rural household might include a farmer and his wife, their children, and occasionally an older relative or two. In Bangladesh, cows, goats, chickens, even trees and wild plants that grow around the homestead are all considered part of the ‘household’. Trees help shade the huts and beaten-earth courtyard from the glare of the tropical sun, whilst also providing building materials, fuel and fruit. Wild plants - so long as they’re not contaminated by chemicals – have all manner of medicinal uses and food value too. As the evening draws on in the Cox’s Bazaar centre, a flock of doves gathers on the roof of one of the huts, cooing gently. Tito scatters them some seed. “They too are Nayakrishi members” he beams. The focus on community life is no accident. It’s one of the key pillars of the Nayakrishi approach that farmers should work together – especially on saving seed. Every household has its own seed bank, and every community has a shared seed centre where resources are pooled. And as a third backup, each regional Nayakrishi centre has a ‘seed preserving centre’ from the whole area, storing literally thousands of local varieties of crop. Each seed centre is specially designed so that it’s kept cool and the air circulates. In the Tangail centre, hundreds of glass bottles hang from the beams of a wooden hut – each with a different colour according to the amount of light that the seed prefers. Each is carefully labelled with name, place of origin, scientific name and number. Altogether this seed centre contains a staggering 1400 varieties of crop. There are 298 varieties of rice, 68 varieties of bean, 16 of corn, 31 of wheat, 36 of chillies, 113 of jackfruit, seven of potato, four of mustard and many more. Each variety grows best in a particular type of soil and at a particular time of year. There’s an immense skill in keeping seed – in knowing exactly which conditions to keep it in, and how many times to dry it in the sun after harvesting. It’s knowledge that was traditionally kept by women, increasing their status in the community and the household. “We get much more respect because we are the ones keeping the seed” says Sharbanu Banu in Nallapara, wrapping a bright red sari around her shoulders. “It really binds the family and the community together.” She smiles. “‘Sisters keep seeds in your hands’. That’s our slogan.” “I’m not against the market, or even international trade. It’s just that trade should be non-exploitative, and local needs should come first."“ These may be household concerns, but Sharbanu doesn’t just see herself as part of a local or national movement. “It’s global” she says. “Last year we had a three-day gathering of farmers from all over, including from abroad. The biggest issue was about the patenting of seeds – foreign transnational companies steal our seeds so they can make a profit. If some company comes round here, we don’t tell them anything.” Several farmers from nearby villages have been been to protests in Dhaka, and some went on an international ‘people’s caravan’ all over Asia in 2000, meeting other farmers and spreading the word. “If we go for ecological agriculture then we are really fighting transnational corporations” says Farhad Mazhar. “We’re not just saying ‘We don’t want Monsanto’, but we can actually show that we’re much better off without Monsanto.” It’s not a dogmatic position. “I’m not against the market, or even international trade. It’s just that trade should be non-exploitative, and local needs should come first. Now we’ve found that Nayakrishi agriculture is more economically viable than conventional modern farming, many households are beginning to go into cash crops for the market too.” But even as one battle seems to be going well, new storm clouds are gathering on the horizon. Genetic engineering is the new buzzword amongst the seed and chemical corporations – and Asia is being targeted by companies like Syngenta, who are eager to sell patented GE seeds to farmers across the continent. Syngenta has hit upon ‘golden rice’ as a key promotional too. The new rice is genetically enriched with vitamin A, supposedly as a way to combat malnutrition. Haroun Rashid, who farms 2.5 acres around Baratia village near Tangail, is unimpressed. He hasn’t heard of ‘golden rice’, but he understands immediately what the game is. “In that rice we’d get only one kind of vitamin,” he counters. “What about the other kinds of vitamins.” Another farmer adds: “Imagine if one person out of a family of seven is vitamin A deficient. If you feed them all ‘golden rice’ then the other six will get sick!” Everyone laughs, and the decision is clear. “No, we’re not interested in golden rice” confirms Haroun. “We’ve had enough of these chemical things. Enough is enough.” Instead of importing yet more innovations from the corporate laboratories of Western agribusiness, the practitioners of Nayakrishi are intent on exporting some of their ideas into a farming system they see as destructive even for those who seem to benefit from it. “Western farmers have a miserable life” says Farhad. “I know, because I have lived with them in Canada. People are very unhappy, and there are many cases of suicide.” But surely Europe at least is self-sufficient in food. “That’s a myth” replies Farhad. “Europeans produce 1 calorie of food by spending 9 calories of energy. In Bangaldesh we get 3 calories of food with 1 calorie of energy. All the oil and fertiliser come from pirating the resources of other countries using military and trade power. It’s not an argument to say that Europe is self-sufficient in food.” “Last year I also visited some farmers in Canada, and it made me realise just how much better off we are in Bangladesh,” agrees Farida. “One farmer had 7000 acres and several huge tractors, but only his son there with him. He was lonely and I felt so sorry for him.” But surely she’s not suggesting that life is better in a Bangladeshi village than, say, a German village? “Yes I am” she replies calmly. “Life is far better in a Bangladeshi village than a German village because people there cannot lead a normal life. The government is paying them not to cultivate. It’s like a museum. But in our villages there’s a community – there are living people there.” But what about poverty? “People in Northern countries suffer from a poverty of happinness” she says. “It’s difficult for them to see that they don’t have certain things we have.” And as for famine? Well, here’s a typical menu for an evening meal at the Tangail Nayakrishi Centre: Local paddy rice (speckled brown, not sticky, with a subtle nutty flavour), dhaal (lentils with onion, garlic, ginger, oil and water), green beans with jackfruit seeds (like soft nuts) cooked with amaranth, fresh-water prawn and pumpkin leaf (cooked like spinach with a hint of chilli) and fresh fish (cooked with onion, turmeric and other spices in a mouth-watering sauce). Followed by fresh, sweet mangoes and cow’s milk. “Anyone for a bowl of genetically engineered vitamin A rice? Thought not!“ << country/story review