Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Nammalvar Consolidated Document
Nammalvar Consolidated Document
It
contains the following:
Nammalvar Bio
Fellowship Application
Fellowship Nomination
Talk (summary) at the Asha Fellows Conference, Timbaktu, Dec 2007
Minutes of conference call with Nammalvar, June 22, 2008
Asha Austin meeting minutes and answers to questions raised at the meeting
Minutes of conference call with Nammalvar, August 14, 2008 ]
BIO DATA
NAME
G NAMMALVAR
FATHERS NAME
S GOVINDA SAMY
NATIVE PLACE
PRESENT ADDRESS
10.05.1938 68
EDUCATIONAL
QUALIFICATION
B.Sc (Agri)
INSTITUTION STUDIED
ANNAMALAI UNIVERSITY
GOVERNMENT SERVICE
SOCIAL SERVICE
ORGANISATION FOUND
1979 Kudumbham
1990 LEISA Network
1990 Ecological Centre for Rain Fed Cultivation
- Kolungi Odugampatti Pudukkottai Distrct
YATRA CONDUCTED
SPECIAL TASK
BOOKS WRITTEN
ARTICLES
(G NAMMALVAR)
Curriculum Development
Environment
Teaching Methods
Appropriate Technology
Right to Information
Educational Reform
Computer Based Education
Income Generation
Food and Agriculture
Peoples Struggles
Civic and Human Rights
Adult Literacy
Land Reform
Institution
Location
Annamalai
University
Gandhigram
University
Chidambaram TN
India
Dindigul TN India
SECTION IV:
Organizational
Affiliations &
Memberships
Organization
Tamilnadu
Organic
Agriculturists
Movement
Your Role
President
Dates
From June 2006
SECTION V:
References
Name
Oswald Quintal
Durai Singam
Organization
LEISA Kudumbam
FEDCOT - Chairman
Address/Phone/Email
+91-98424-49125
+91-94433-81816
Clearly describe any background work done so far in the location of your work
that will help towards your work. I am at present 70 years old. I am the son of
a farmer parents. Till I complete my school studies I lived in the village often
attending to the farming activities. It was organic farming. I underwent
agricultural course in Annamalai University. My experience for six years in an
agricultural research station from 1963 to 1969 enabled me to compare both
chemical versus organic farming and I resigned my job in 1969. my work with
NGOs from 1969 to till date helped to have a wider net.
From 1996 I have been involved in national level organic networks and
environmental movements. My participation in seminars & workshops
conducted by educational institutions and farmers movement has helped to
spread the message. My articles are published in the magazines and I have
published a dozen books and a few booklets. All India Radio and Televisions
are broadcasting my presentations. Already 50 farms are being used as
learning centres by farmers of the region.
What activities will be undertaken for your work? Establishment of a
community based Ecological Research and Training Institute in the farm
maintained by Barathi Trust, in Thiruvallur district in Tamilnadu.
Publishing 30 booklets (related to eco farming) in three years.
Publishing one trainers manual in 2008 and one field workers hand book
in 2008-2009.
Producing 12 video films related to organic farming to be used in
curriculam and campaigning.
Clearly describe the expected impact of your work: - Transforming Tamilnadu
state into an organic state. Emergence of organic markets in each district,
farmers will have a broad based market system. Farmers will have access to
knowledge and seeds for organic farmers.
Describe any innovative ideas & approach: - 1. There is a plan to work on field
schools for farmers on integrated pest management in the cauvery River Basin
which covers 60% of irrigated land in Tamilnadu.
2. Initial steps are being taken to roof water harvesting.
3. Steps are taken to convert city solid wastes into vermin compost involving
women self help groups.
4. Indigenous cattle breeds and crop varieties are to be preserved.
5. An All India millet network is being initiated.
Clearly describe why you will succeed: - The Rodale Institute of United states
have come out with success out of farming systems trails conducted for 19
years. Indian press is publishing a number of success stories. In the year
2008, with the motivation from the district collector 12 thousand hectares of rice
fields have been cultivated in organic way.
India is still an agricultural country wherein 65% of population depends on
farming and 80% of the farmers own less than 1.0 hectare of land and they are
resource poor. In this back ground organic agriculture based on traditional
wisdom coupled with todays environmental condition alone will succeed.
How do you propose to track the impact of your work (data collection,
interviews, etc)
- We will document the proceedings supported by photos and videos.
What are the intermediate milestones: 1. Training of Trainers 180 youth and
women.
2. Upgrading existing organic farms 20 Nos.
3. Promoting organic farms 25 Nos.
4. Publications of 12 Booklets on organic farming case studies and principles.
What learning from this work can be applied elsewhere & where: - Nowadays
Environmental degradation like global warming and water scarcity is threatening
even meager existence of life on this planet. In this situation organic agriculture
is applicable to any place on earth.
List the current financial resources, including any other grants or fellowships,
available for the project/work: - At present expenses are met with honorarium
given by NGOs for training and travel allowance met by farmer groups.
He is full fledged resource person, where his role is very important to present
situation in India. He need to the farmers to bring back the system which was
existing in India. He is doing Noble service to the dying community. His role is
very important to bring changes in agriculture cultivation practice which brings
economically viable and sustainable organic farm.
Additional Comments:
Pesticides are called "Aushad", meaning medicine. But it is actually a poison. Didn't you know?
Why don't you try some! Grapes are dipped in pesticides, from flower to harvest they are dipped
14 times for 14 weeks. The white coating is actually poison! It is not fit for eating.
Technical difficult is more serious than the political one!
In Andhra, 3000 people committed suicide.
A retired person from Indian Council for Agriculture wrote a book called "Knowing the Insects".
There are 4 stages in the insect life. Eggs, caterpillar, pupa, adult insect - 28 days for a single
cycle. Only the caterpillar dies due to pesticides. After 28 days, the cycles continues. The insects
have become immune to the chemicals - pesticidal immunity. Indian Bollworm eats one part of
the fruit and comes out. American bollworm eats the whole fruit and moves onto the next fruit.
American Bollworm has acquired 300% pesticidal immunity. Bye bye fruit.
Sucking insect - only 3 stages. Only the adult insect sucks the sap. They have also developed
immunity. Kinda sucks.
Pestides are organo-phosphatic chemicals. If it enters into our body, it gets deposited in the fatty
areas in the brain. It leads to several forms of cancer, hearing disability, loss of memory.
Pesticides kill when consumed. But, when we take it indirectly, we get killed slowly.
All insects are not our enemies, there are more friends. To eat insects, there are four or five
predators. With pesticides, these are also killed. Don't believe my word? Try reading "Friends of
Cotton" by two American scientists.
The first milk is given by a mother to a child, it contains pesticides. Excessive spraying reaches
the land, the grass, the cow, the rivers, the cow's milk, into the mother's body. All these are
scientific facts, not just activist propaganda. All our agri subsidies are going towards these
chemical companies.
There are enough predators to protect our crop. Once a farmer sees these, he doesn't know. He
panics and sprays pesticides. Also, the predatory birds stop coming after pesticides are applied.
With such extensive use of pesticides, the net profit is reduced because the input costs are high.
Unscientific business!
Instead, all you need to do is to put a chair for the drongo (predatory bird) as a look-out point to
look-out for caterpillars! Dragon-flies, wasps are our friends. Even the ones that "Fly like a
Butterfly and sting like a bee" like Mohammed Ali. They prey on caterpillars.
75000 tonnes pesticides are thrown around into the environment every year. There is a picture
that shows the diff. between a fertilized soil and an organically grown soil. The soil that used
fertilizers is hard, water runs off it and erodes away the top soil. The soil under organic farming
is spongy, with plenty of aeration. This encourages the movement of water and the growth of
micro-organisms that release essential minerals for plant growth.
In nature, certain plants like beans and legumes have the ability along with the rhizobium
bacteria to do nitrogen fixation that helps produce urea naturally. There are 12000 such plants
that could be used as inter-crop or crop rotation.
Now, don't even get me started on the problems of fertilizer factories. Okay, you asked for it. I'll
just tell you a couple. The fertilizer factories dig borewells 1000ft deep and suck all groundwater.
The effluents cause huge environmental problems.
If you plant a single seedling of paddy, it produces a lot of root and branches. Each paddy grain
has capacity to produce 20000 grains. Take a new grain, not more than 15 days old. There should
be only a film of water. Flooding the field with water weakens the roots. The all India average
yield of rice is 2.5 tonnes/hectare. Madagascar, poor old Madagascar, undeveloped non-nuclear,
space technology deprived Madagascar, gets 21 tonnes/hectare. They use a system called System
of Rice Intensification. Some of the aspects are planting single single seedlings, rather than a
clump; not flooding the paddy fields.
Germany gives $2 per cow as subsidy. Skimmed milk imported here from Germany is sold at the
lowest price. Sri Lanka exports coconuts to us. Other countries give export subsidies to promote
export to India.
Farmers are taking to organic farming in a big way. Even the University of Agriculture is picking
up. Amruthpani - cow dung, cow urine and jaggery mixture that could be produced within 24
hours is an excellent fertilizer that could be applied topically and also along with the irrigation
water.
A company called WR Grace packaged neem extract. They crushed the neem seeds, and
processed it. The extract, when sprayed, is a good fungicide. They have a patent for the extract.
This is used extensively in India and in 2000, 5 people from India (along with Namalwar) fought
the case. Neem grows only in India, not growing anywhere. People have known this for a long
time. Its uses are common knowledge. 3 criteria have to be present for patent - novelty, invention,
industrial application. In India, we didn't have industrial application - i.e. not packaged neem
crushed seeds, not available in low-fat, non-cream varieties with no MSG. Our argument was
that they didn't have an invention. Case dismissed! Patent revoked! Same case with turmeric.
About Genetically Modified foods, farmers, NGOs are resisting. But, politicians, judges are
corrupt and all GM seeds have been allowed. Especially, the Bt-cotton seeds. Farmer cannot own
the seeds. GM plants produce sterile seeds. So, new seeds have to be purchased every time. Only
the mill owner can supply. The shops sell only GM seeds. There is a trap right there. Only field
trials are allowed for certain GM crops. The agitation is to destroy the trials.
The session ended in some humor and a health tip to drink Panchakavya (a mixture of cow dung,
cow urine, curds and jaggery. Apparently, it is distilled too, so it should be ok!) daily!
The food crisis is fueled by cash crop conversion. Every farmer wants some cash. So every farm
can have a component which can provide the cash part. The ecological farm will have multiple
areas with different crops.
How easily are folks changing to organic farming -- already some 10000 have converted, while
some 20000 are in the transition stage. Only during the last 5 years farmers are changing over
because the crisis is too hard, plus the prices of other commodity is forcing the farmers. If the
farmer is committed and well trained, within 3 months he can change over. There are some 20
aspects to this transition.
How is the fight against GM seeds? Bio-diversity leads to prosperity. GM seeds are eliminating
bio-diversity. Cotton is very prevelant and spreading. But the GM vegetables are being resisted
(brinjal, tomato), because of health risks, while cotton wont be eaten.
How different is this different from Subhash Palekar method? Not much. He says switch to ZeroBudget natural farming. He comes from the process side. Nammalvar comes from educating the
farmers side.
What is hard about asking farmers to switch to organic farming -- farmer is very worried about
economy. So ask him to work out what is the income and what are the costs. Natural farming is a
method which will regulate the cost of the inputs. Whatever you get in the field can be used for
farm need and home need. That argument alone works really well.
Are the organic products sold at a higher price? -- we have the green shops in many cities
(kumbakonam, chennai, trichy etc.). Where-ever we have green shops we sell through it. In the
green shop, the wholesale market price goes to the farmer, while 20% goes to the administration
of these green shops. So the farmer gets a very good deal on these.
Nammalvar is administrator for OFAI which recognizes the participatory guarantee system.
Regarding publishing: planning to publish a monthly newsletter in Tamil. It can be printed in
English also for the benefit of other states once in 3 months. It would be possible to translate
these manuals and booklets -- already they have some requests from Karnataka and Andhra.
The different aspects involved in converting a field from chemical fertilizers to organic farming
include:
1. vermiculture -- earthworm
2. green manuring -- composting or growing in the soil
3. amrutha paani -- cowdung, cow uring and jaggery. 24 hours tonic is ready and
Minutes of Asha Austin meeting of June 29, regarding Nammalvar's fellowship, and
follow-up Q&A in the Asha-Fellows weekly conference call.
(http://data.ashanet.org/datastore/data/Focusgroups/Fellowships/Proposals/Pending/Nammalvar/)
[NOTE: Questions from the meeting are in RED and answers to them are in BLUE]