Home Garden: President’s Remedy for cheaper Vegetables
February 27, 2011, 8:47 pm
By.Dr. M. A. Mohamed Saleem & Arjuna Hulugalle
(The Mahatma Gandhi Centre, Colombo, Sri Lanka)
One million home gardens to force vegetable prices down and attain self-sufficiency is what President Mahinda Rajapaksa recently prescribed during one of his in-country tours, this time to Deyata Kirula at Buttala. What makes it sound a political gimmick is the pronouncement that "Government will establish one million gardens..." although all along everyone in this country should have internalized ‘home gardening culture’ as an important voluntary food security back up. "Home garden" is not a new concept. Labeled also as back-yard garden, pleasure garden, small-holder garden, nature living, home remedy garden etc. people all over the world grow plants of consumable and ornamental value near their homesteads but, nowhere it is a government ‘directed’ programme.
In this country anything perceived to have government backing is a windfall for many, and profiteering schemes go into action immediately with political patronage. Following President’s call we expect a proliferation of ‘home garden pushers’ posing as helpers to achieve government’s target of one million home gardens. There may even be suggestions for government subsidy on imported mineral fertilizers, hybrid seeds, garden tools etc. to entice people into home gardening.
We are reliably informed that already there are more than one million ‘home gardens’ in the country but, in most cases, they are in a state of neglect as people’s interests over time had changed. People take up home gardening as a hobby and to keep occupied, save money, eat healthier food, relax and relieve stress and beautify yards and homes with colourful plants. Home gardening is not a gender specific vocation but, in Sri Lanka, women take more interest in aesthetic home gardening while men get interested if gardening has commercial prospects. In the major metropolitan areas, interest in gardening is now increasing in spite of shrinking land space. In the rural areas, although every compound still has something growing there seems a waning interest for gardening and, whatever harvested from home compounds invariably comes from self propagated plants with little or no care. Produce from home gardens are seasonal and in surplus of domestic needs which cannot be stored or processed and therefore sold at rock bottom prices to middlemen. In the rural areas therefore, there is no incentive to increase production by proper gardening practices, and health considerations are not attractive enough as people live an active life and breathe clean air. Sharing from the home produce was used to strengthen societal bonds but, this is a vanishing practice as more people adopt the TV viewing culture that now fills most of the spare time (particularly of women) and it is now taken as priority past time than tendering plants.
Should Sri Lanka be a food importer: - For a cynic the President’s home gardening spurt at Buttala is a vote catching ploy to give people subsidies. Increasing living cost no doubt will be a hot issue for the voters, as someone’s monthly earning of ten thousand rupees is equated with 17 kilos of green chilies now priced at Rs600/kg. Recent unusual rains and floods in many areas of the country have caused vegetable shortages but, what cannot be understood is why Sri Lanka with all the favorable agro-climes continues to be a food importer. Food production is climate dependent, and therefore, year to year production and supply variations are not unnatural but, much more is desired to the manner by which the country’s food security is handled.
Government at various times had based food security on the need to maximize country’s capacity to grow whatever food crops possible. In this national ‘Grow More Food’ effort every citizen was urged to join in. Although grudgingly at the beginning, people came to adjust to the slogan "what we eat is what we produce" and, with it, there was also a national pride towards reaching self sufficiency but it fizzled out by open market policies of the succeeding governments which allowed imports to make up food short falls.
Food crises is real:- Food deficit countries can no more live in the illusion that food will continuously be cheap, and required amounts can be secured from the world market. Most traditional food exporters have been hit by natural disasters, and therefore, those countries are not in a surplus position to put food in the global market. In addition to traditional food importers, China, with its 1.4 billion people to feed and affected by the worst drought in 200 years will go to the open food market this year to make up for its domestic food deficits. Sri Lanka will be outcompeted in the global food markets, and it will be very vulnerable with unmet food demands unless measures are taken to increase its food production capacity locally.
Self reliance: - Since inception the Mahatma Gandhi Centre has been advocating food and energy self reliance as one of the principle pathways to empower people. The Mahatma Gandhi Centre is also of the view that unsustainable food production (and energy generating) measures can never lead to food (or energy) security. Economists argue that people are food insecure because they lack the means (cash) to buy food from the market. That may be true in situations of surplus global food stocks but not in today’s context where there is scarcity of food in the market.
The food (and energy) self reliance programme of the Mahatma Gandhi Centre rests on the following principles:- (1) Grower control of production means and management (b) Grower control product use and value additions (c) Grower control of marketing decisions. These principles are also strictly adhered to in the Home gardening encouraged by the Gandhi Centre.
Grower control of the means and management of production: - Chemical fertilizers, pesticides, weedicides etc, are imported and some are heavily subsidized. Various hybrid seed types are fast replacing the traditional and time-tested crop varieties. Unfortunately, the crop grower is not in control of any of these production inputs. Price, supply and access fluctuations of these inputs and their unreliability associated with health risks by continuous use make the whole production system unsustainable. The Mahatma Gandhi Centre encourages a system of production in which the grower is in control of all these. Research and field testing of growing techniques by the Movement for Land and Agricultural Reforms (MONLAR) using local resources (without artificial inputs) have proved that improved production benefits can be sustained for a number years. This method simulates a growth medium (of an aggressive forest cover) that holds in a natural equilibrium space, nutrient release to meet the varying requirements of plants growing in complex associations and safeguards against predators and diseases. In such a balanced crop growing situation, a number of varieties (cereal, pulses, vegetables, tubers, fruits, fibers etc) are included and different crops mature at different times, and therefore, it guarantees food of some kind throughout the year. Required nutrients to the various crops in the mixture is ensured through biological fixation (by leguminous plants in the mixture) and release of nutrients though enhanced bacterial decomposition of degradable waste products periodically recycled. Thus, chances for free nutrients moving out of the growing environment and be polluting the water bodies (as the case when chemicals are used) are negligible.
Grower control of use, processing and product marketing: - In the farming methods described above the grower has a number of crops to meet varying domestic needs. Therefore, the grower is not under compulsion to sell one crop to purchase another. What crops to grow, in what proportion and combination will entirely be under the control of the grower depending on the seed type saved from previous harvest and domestic needs for various commodities. This not only ensures balanced and good nutrition for the family but also gives the grower a better option of choice for processing or disposing the surplus.
Home Gardening:- The Mahatma Gandhi Centre considers Home Gardening as a major activity under its Food and Energy Self Reliance Programme, and therefore, any step that adds towards encouraging a home garden culture is welcome. Home gardening that the Mahatma Gandhi Centre advocates is based on the above principles but anticipated success from it boarders on the assumption that there will be an attitudinal change in this country to enthrone the food grower from his present status of a ‘poor or a peasant farmer’ - referred to and treated in that fashion by the ‘privileged’ consumer. This has contributed to a major social divide and mass rural to urban migration sparked by an aversion for any sort of land-based carrier development. The impending food crises is an opportunity to re-evaluate food policy of this country, which should lead to:- (a) all available free space be put to productive use: contribution even from home gardening can be enormous given that even at a barest average production of 20 kg/household/year of one or a combinations of crops 1 million home gardens will put an additional 20 million kilos on the table (b) everyone’s participation in growing something so that they will be both producers as well as consumers which will make farming a dignified profession for anyone (c) a food security system laid on a stronger and sustainable production base.
It is on these premises that the Mahatma Gandhi Centre recently conducted a home garden demonstration with the help of MONLAR. Gardening connotes the need of a land space, and it was demonstrated that even those with no access to land can grow food crops utilizing aerial space available if they are dwellers in high rise buildings. Any form of home gardening is also the most effective way to recycle any form biologically degradable materials as a useful nutrient source for plants, and therefore to minimize production cost. Those who have adopted home gardening recently are surprised by the reduction of garbage that had to be disposed than before.
End note: - The global crisis is real and the situation of the food-deficit poorer countries is very grim. Sri Lanka is a poor country but its food deficit is self inflicted as result of myopic policies. Sri Lanka has assorted climatic and soil conditions. It is also one of the few water sufficient countries. Thus, it has no excuse to be food importer and the country will remain so unless food production is considered a responsibility of all. Promotion of home garden by the Mahatma Gandhi Centre is a small effort in this direction, and in the future it intends to set up a free home garden advisory unit in collaboration with MONLAR. Home gardening is an opportunity for everyone, young and the old, to make this country food-secure. No one, even the legislators should be entitled to free or subsidized food coming out of someone else’s hard labour. Conventional wars are fought on ideological differences but the impeding food war cannot be stopped by finding an ideological confluence. Food security of a country is not a vote catching ploy. It is a serious strategy that needs cooperation of all.
(For information on the Mahatma Gandhi Centre please refer www.gandhiswaraj.lk
The Centre can be contacted through email: gandhicentre.lk@gmail.com or at + 94 112 501 82
/ 071 8280021 (Subash Ranasinghe, Administrative Officer).
Island.lk
UPALI NEWSPAPERS (PVT) LTD
Copyright © Upali Newspapers (Pvt) Ltd.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment