A Call to Join Jaivik Kranti (Living Revolution) for Anna Swaraj 2020

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A Call to Join Jaivik Kranti (Living Revolution) for Anna Swaraj 2020

Food is supposed to nourish us. Farming is the most important source of livelihood and sustenance in India. However, today farming has become a curse with more than 300,000 farmers committing suicide. Food has become a hazard and is the cause of the exploding epidemic of chronic diseases. We face a deepening agrarian, food, health and ecological crisis. Each of us is affected whether we be farmers or consumers, rural or urban, young or old, women or men. Each of us can be part of the solution. We can create a living revolution for life.
Join the Jaivik Kranti for a healthy, ecologically sustainably, just and free India.

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Launch of Jaivik Kranti (Living Revolution) – New Delhi, 21 May 2016

by Indra Shekhar Singh

Representatives of over 15 million Indian farmers, doctors, activists, researchers, policy makers from 25 states came together at the India International Centre, New Delhi to launch Javik Kranti, the living revolution for Bija and Anna Swaraj 2020.

This call to revolution for saving India from an agrarian, ecological and health and malnutrition crisis was answered by collective representation from Navdanya, Ekta Parishad, Azadi Bacchao Andolan, Ghanerao foundation, SEWA, Kudumbashree, Javik Setu, Richaria Society, KRRS, Annam/ CISSA, Bharat Krishak Samaj, Kisan Mahapanchyat. These groups were joined by doctors from IMA Meerut and AIIMS established the links between poisons in our foods and the cancer epidemic.

Dr Janak McGilligan from the Jimmy McGilligan Centre for Sustainable Development, emphasised on the importance of renewable energy, solar energy utilisation for local processing, skill development and employment generation. She added the call to Urja Swaraj to be embedded in Javik Kranti.

The meeting also saw participation from policy makers, government offices, such as Maharashtra special task force head Kishore Tiwari, Jaivardhan Singh, MLA from Raghogarh son of Digvijay Singh, Sanjay Dhotre, MP from Akola, etc who discussed the problem of their regions such as drought, climate refugees, rising farmers’ debt and suicide epidemic.

After an intense discussion about the state of the nation, all participants agreed that the agrarian, food and health crises in India has exploded in the last two decades because of globalisation and trade liberalisation which allowed corporations like Monsanto to establish seed monopolies, agro-chemical and agribusiness giants to increase costs of productions while driving down the prices of farm produce, displacing India’s rich biodiverse agriculture and diet with monocultures of globally traded commodities and imports of unhealthy pulses and edible oils.

Kishore Tiwari on the occasion said, “ The situation in Maharashtra is very grim. About 4 in 1000 bore wells have water. The abuse of land and water resources combined with non sustainable practices of growing killer crops such as sugarcane, soya bean and Bt Cotton have directly caused the crisis.”

The solution to these problems lay for us in the launch of Jaivik Kranti, a Food, agriculture, Ecology & Health movement for a PROSPEROUS, SUSTAINABLE, SOVEREIGN AND HEALTHY INDIA by stopping farmer’s suicide, creating resilience to drought and climate change and growing healthy, nutritious & safe food.

Dr Vandana Shiva, environmentalist, said, “ In present times, every second Indian child is stunned or suffering from malnutrition. This means that half of India’s future is already diseased and disabled. We need to rise to embrace Javik Kranti as our duty. It is the only way to protect our biodiversity, health, food security and traditions.”

Through the meeting we concluded to following targets for till 2020:

1 Reclaim Bija Swaraj (Seed Sovereignty) – Develop community seed banks to save, breed and multiply native seeds and prevent the biopiracy of indigenous seeds and plants. Join the Seed Satyagraha to stop Patents on Seeds and Patents on Life. Boycott GM seeds like Bt cotton.
Develop 1001 community seed banks with each saving local varieties of seeds.

2 Rejuvenate Biodiversity- through growing diversity and not monocultures. Revive the traditional crops like dals, pulses, millets and native varieties and promote mixed farming and not monocultures. Biodiversity produces more food and nutrition per acre by being climate resilient and pest resilient.

3 Practise and promote Jaivik Kheti (Organic Farming ) -Make farms and farmers free of external chemicals and move towards traditional methods of farming, that have sustained India for past 8000 years.
We will increase organic acreage by 250,000 acres by 2020.

4 Rejuvenate water through Organic farming – 0.5% organic matter in the soil con-serves 80,000 litres per hectare. We have to grow more water prudent millets which provide more nutrition per drop. We do not just need more“crop per drop” we need more “drop per crop”. Biodiverse organic systems rejuvenate water. Resist privatisation and commodification of water through Jal Satyagraha. Create Jal Swaraj (Water Democracy ) and restore water as a commons and a right for all Indians.

5 Rejuvenate Soil through Organic farming – Protect farmland from concentration and land grab. Create Bhu Swaraj (Land Sovereignty) to save our fertile soils from water logging, erosion, salinisation, et al.

6 Create Climate Resilient system with biodiversity and organic farming – Co-evolving climate resilience in native seeds and farms through organic farming and participatory biodiverse breeding is the only solution to climate change that will make our food system self sustaining and resilient.
Develop 111 climate resilient centers across the country.

7 Promote Health and Nutrition – Grow nutritious crops on farms and in Gardens of Hope everywhere-in schools, in panchayats , in communities , in terraces and balconies urban to be nutrition sovereign and keep our health through our food in our hands.

8 Promote local indigenous processing of food for health and sustainable livelihoods-Join the Mahila Anna Swaraj movement for promoting and defending the cultural diversity of our foods. Boycott junk food and industrially processed food with are laden with toxins and adulterants. We will create 5000 Mahila Anna swaraj groups all across India by 2020.

9 Create Anna Swaraj 2020 – Build food sovereign households, villages, cities and India through Annapurna Networks and Anna Swaraj Circles linking farmers as pro-ducers and co-consumers as co-producers. Decentralise and revive the fair price system so that trillions of rupees of subsidies can bring healthy, nutritious organic food to the poorest instead feeding them subsidised nutritionally empty toxic foods.
We will bring Jaivik Sanskriti into the lives of people documenting indigenous knowledge and traditions through our 1001 javik grams.
We will make 11 states, 101 cities organic along with 1001 Javik grams (villages).

Activists to launch Jaivik Kranti against GM crops

India Today, 21 May 2016