The Future of Farming: To What End and For What Purpose?

Abstract

In this conversation, Bharat Bhushan Tyagiji, national award winning farmer from western Uttar Pradesh, and social anthropologist Richa Kumar, together attempt to analyse the alternative perspective of Tyagiji on the current crisis of farming in India, especially Punjab. Unlike typical alternative perspectives that uncritically glorify ‘tradition’, romanticise nature, and dismiss science and machines, Tyagiji’s views are refreshingly different. His focus is on the present; he is not enamoured by tradition or by so-called traditional knowledge. At the same time, he seeks to put science back in its place—within a larger discourse and appreciation of the knowledge of living in this world with meaning and purpose. He argues for working with scientific knowledge rather than dismissing it entirely, and he wants to use technology as part of a system that also centrally values human labour. But before we can change agriculture, he argues, we have to first contend with questions of how we want to live, and what we want to value. This conversation is a small contribution towards helping us think through some of these vexing questions in the context of the future of farming.

In Conversation: Bharat Bhushan Tyagi and Richa Kumar

I (Richa Kumar) first met Bhaarat Bhushan Tyagiji (BBT) when he came to IIT Delhi to attend a conference on India’s soils. Almost gaunt, with sunken cheeks, a white stubble and spectacles, he was in his trademark white kurta pajama. I tried to arrange for someone to translate the proceedings for him, little realising that this Delhi University science graduate from the 1970s, already knew more about soils than most people in the room. When he got up to speak, it was a surprise—here was someone not stuck in the thralls of tradition, nor swept away in the spectacle of modernity.

Subsequently, we were both invited to participate in the conference on ‘Burning, Biofuels and Bettering Farm Life: Pursuing Responsible Research and Innovation Through Mutual Learning’ organised by Maastricht University at IIT Delhi, and then asked to write about our joint perspective on the issue. Since then, we have had multiple conversations about farming, farmers and what do we see as possibilities for the future. We have chosen to present a summary of those ideas, not in the form of a traditional article with joint authorship but as an interview, with Tyagiji as the proponent of a particular world view about farming that he has been practising, and propagating, for the last twenty years, and I, as an interlocutor, based on my academic training and fieldwork as an anthropologist of agriculture. ¹

Tyagiji grew up in Beehta village in Bulandshahr district, which is in the heartland of the Green Revolution in India. His father insisted that he come back to the village after earning a BSc degree, and he began farming in 1975 using Green Revolution techniques learnt from scientists at the research centre nearby. Within a decade, he was disillusioned and started looking for alternatives. It took another decade for him to develop an alternative understanding of farming based on the ideas of the mystic-philosopher Shri Agrahar Nagraj. ² These ideas have been implemented on his farm over the last two decades, which has also been formally associated with the National Centre for Organic Farming, Ghaziabad. He has shared his alternative world view with many other farmers over the years, and even been interviewed on national television. He received a Padma Shri (India’s fourth highest civilian honour) for his work in 2019.

In the following interview, I critically engage with Tyagiji’s ideas based on conventional critiques of the alternative agriculture movement in India—uncritical glorification of tradition, romanticisation of nature, dismissal of technology and machinery, dismissal of science and a focus on the responsibility of the farmer for his/her situation. It is interesting to note that his response is contrary to the typical alternative agrarian framing that has become popular in recent years in India.

His focus is on the present; he is not enamoured by tradition or by so-called traditional knowledge. At the same time, he seeks to put science back in its place—within a larger discourse and appreciation of the knowledge of living in this world with meaning and purpose. He argues for working with scientific knowledge rather than dismissing it entirely, and he wants to use technology as part of a system that also centrally values human labour. ³

Our discussion begins with a diagnosis of the ills of farming today. Farmers have been incentivised to destroy the environment, to damage their own health and that of others, and to compromise on their ability to farm in the future. Many farmers have willingly taken the bait, seen short-term gains, but are now rueing their fate, whether in Punjab or in Vidarbha. In the process, they have also become disempowered—their understanding of farming and of how to work with nature has been reduced to nought—they are at the mercy of the agro-chemical intermediary and dependent on the scientist.

Tyagiji then presents his alternative world view which seeks to understand the working of the natural system and to do farming in collaboration with it. This requires farmers to throw away the yoke of the Green Revolution, which made them into mute implementers of technology from outside. There are no techniques, nor a package on offer, but a set of principles about how nature works, and a set of rules derived from those principles, all based upon the observation of the natural world. Farmers (and anyone else wanting to understand this) are invited to observe the natural world for themselves to grasp these principles and to figure out how to translate these principles into activities on their farm.

In the course of this discussion, we both agree that there needs to be a change in the broader socio-economic and cultural frame through which farming is understood and evaluated before farm practices can change meaningfully. But he believes farmers are responsible for their own situation (why have they taken the bait?), and they need to develop their own understanding about why they are farming, what is it that they want out of it. Once they gain an understanding, things will begin to change on the farm. Having successfully practiced what he preaches for the last two decades, and having talked to thousands of farmers during this time, Tyagiji believes farmers are not as disempowered as it may appear.

I, on the other hand, believe that farmers have been systematically pushed into a corner, and even if they, individually, want to change their farms, the odds are stacked against them—the monoculture model, the treadmill of agro-chemicals, the inevitability of debt, the caste, class and gender relationships framing their lives, and even the aspirations of urban life. Unless broader discursive frames are challenged in agrarian policymaking and research, most farmers will find it an uphill task. This piece, then, is meant as a contribution towards helping us figure out what are the questions to be asked, who should be doing the asking and what are the possibilities for the future of farming.

Richa Kumar: Tyagiji, we have been discussing about air pollution across northern India resulting from crop residue burning, especially in Punjab and Haryana. When rice farming began in the region in the 1980s, farmers did not burn the stubble after harvesting their crop manually. Today, the practice has become indispensable—it is no longer stubble but 1.5 to 2 feet of straw left behind by harvesters that is very hard to plough in; since farmers need to plant wheat quickly before the sowing window ends, there is not enough time or labour available to collect the straw and dispose it off. The harvest is a function of when farmers are able to sow the rice crop—the government has mandated that it cannot be sown before 10 May or transplanted before 10 June, to conserve groundwater and utilise the monsoon rains. But that delays harvest and provides a very short window post-harvest. With all these constraints, what are farmers supposed to do?

BBT: There are many interconnected questions here—of productivity, of labour, of fertility, of time. Let’s begin with the question of productivity. Through the Green Revolution model, we increased the productivity of one thing using water, machines and chemicals. Punjab is the heartland of this model. But why did we want more of one thing?

RK: Punjab’s farmers were exhorted to increase productivity to feed India. They became our food bowl.

BBT: But how much more was enough? The language called for ‘maximising productivity’. What did we mean by maximum? Farmers were incentivised to grow rice in a region where rice had never been grown. And growing rice monocultures could only happen at the cost of other things. We wanted most output at least investment. But how is that possible? Increasing one thing is bound to create imbalance. Through science we have speeded up the system, but done so without a goal.

RK: But the goal of the state was to increase wheat and rice production to feed a starving nation.

BBT: Did we ever ask what kind of output is to be increased? Why only wheat and rice? And how much of it is needed? Does maximum output have an upper limit? Did we ever ask this question?

RK: But we cannot blame farmers for going along with what the state incentivised them to do. The state provided free electricity, subsidised the growth of tube wells, and purchased rice at increasing MSP year after year. And then for years, the Punjab agricultural department recommended the burning of fields—until ten years ago. Farmers cannot be held liable for the health of the people of Delhi. With all that stubble burning, their own health is at stake too.

BBT: It is time that farmers realise this. That their own lives are at stake, too. Once farmers realise that the straw is not garbage (kooda) or residue, that it is the most important input to improve their soil’s fertility, once they realise that they don’t need inputs from outside, they will automatically not burn it.

RK: Even if they realise it, how do they implement it? Burning it is the price of a match stick compared to the costs involved in collecting it, even if farmers can sell it to someone who makes biofuel or some other product with it. Farmers need to make money to survive.

BBT: We need to go back to the fundamentals of farming. How do things grow in nature? Have you observed what happens in an empty patch of land? The minute there is enough moisture, weeds come up. The earth’s process of growth (dharti ka vikas kram) is to maintain its fertility—wherever you see nature, it works that way. Whatever the earth produces, it does so for its own fertility—the grass, the insects. As the seed grows into a plant, its overall product or residue—the roots, leaves, stalks—goes to the soil and that increases soil fertility. Burning the residue deprives the soil of nutrients. All the carbon goes into the air. The microorganisms are destroyed. The moisture holding capacity of the soil is compromised.

You see, soil fertility is not a result of chemical elements alone. The physical and biological structure of the soil is critical. There is a set of activities that take place between the soil and the seed. The roots of the seed produce a sap in the soil, through which there are reactions in the soil. Microbes are attracted to this sap with its scent. They help solubilise materials that are available in a static form in the soil enabling the root to absorb it. The physical and chemical structure work in tandem with each other from the very beginning and create a balance.

Monocropping has created disorder in the chemical balance (ras santulan) ⁴ of the soil and external inputs have further aggravated this. The work of microbes is now relegated to companies. Only a single type of biomass is available to the soil. External chemicals create a chemical imbalance and stop the microbes from working.

RK: But we are able to use techniques like soil testing to tell us what is deficient in the soil, and by adding those specific nutrients, we can maintain the soil’s fertility and ensure the nutrients are being directed to the desired monocrop.

BBT: Let us understand the soil test. It gives us twelve types of indicators, including information on specific elements. Regarding the pH, electrical conductivity and carbon level, the test can give a good approximation of their levels. But the information regarding chemical elements will not remain valid if it rains, or if you irrigate or grow something. Immediately, the chemical properties of the soil will change. Also, the recommendations are given based on the crop you will grow. But you can never accurately predict the levels that are needed for your specific variety. By the time the recommendations are given, the chemical levels in the soil may have already changed. We are stuck in the discussion of major elements or micro elements, but ultimately, soil fertility can be improved by fixing the method of cropping (phasal pranali) without worrying about the exact levels of elements. As you increase mixed cropping, weeds disappear.

RK: Does mixed cropping mean going back to the traditional way of farming? Doing things the way our parents or grandparents did?

BBT: No, my parents did multicropping for our family needs based on their personal circumstances and the environmental situation. They had no means of irrigation, no resources for ploughing. Land in the village had been divided according to the four types of soil, and people grew a different combination of crops on each.

But my parents did not know why they were doing these things. I asked my father, ‘Why are we weeding again and again?’ My father replied, ‘My father also did it all his life; I, too, have been doing it all my life. But you are educated. There must be something in this grass. It is worth thinking why the soil even produces it. Why is there this battle, this antagonism, between grass and humans?’

Once you grasp the principle that all existence is mutually beneficial existence (sah astitva), ⁵ then it becomes easy to understand that there are no weeds. All that grass is simply an indication that the soil is trying to improve its fertility in that climatic zone. My parents did not know about the principle of mutually beneficial or symbiotic existence.

RK: Can you explain this principle?

BBT: There are four principles that I have observed from the working of the natural system: mutually beneficial or symbiotic existence (sah astitva), diversity (vividhataa), space utilisation (ghanaakaar) ⁶ and agroecology (naisargikta). The first is about realising that nothing exists in and of itself. Everything exists in a mutually beneficial or symbiotic relation to other things and those relationships arise on the basis of a natural order.

The soil gives nutrients to the plant, the plant gives back to the soil. Both work in complementarity to each other and support each other’s growth in a symbiotic way. This relationship is framed by the principles of complementarity (poorakta), usefulness (upyogita) and prosperity (samriddhi). There is no antagonism between soils, plants, animals, humans in the natural system—they are complementary and they support each other’s growth. We have created conflict by growing monocrops.

For example, we have broken the mutually beneficial existence of maize with four other crops—that would have left no space for weeds and insects/diseases would become balanced (keede aur bimariyon ka santulan ho jata). The scent of various plants, the sap from their roots, the microclimate, this would ensure no insects came.

RK: Is this related to the principle of biodiversity?

BBT: Yes, diversity is the second principle of nature. Grains, pulses, oilseeds, fruits, timber, vegetables, spices, medicinal plants, fodder, roots and herbs, scented plants are all to be found in nature. When nature provides all of them, why should we grow only one monocrop? Why are our policies promoting only cereals or sugarcane? Or even a pigeon pea cluster?

The third principle of density or space utilisation (ghanaakaar) is important to understand how this diversity can be recreated on the farm. Between the height of the atmosphere and the depths of the earth, only some portion of it is habitable. ⁷ From just below the ground to almost 40 feet above the ground is the spectrum on which we see most of the flora. We have this entire three-dimensional space that we can utilise, but we are growing plants only in a single layer. We need a multilayer system—not vertical farming but multiple cropping with diversity. This is the secret behind the productivity of the system and this directly feeds into the economics.

Underground crops such as potato, radish, turnip, carrot and beetroot improve the physical and chemical properties of the soil. They take away chemicals from the soil and dilute it, in the process greatly improving soil fertility. Next come the pulses which grow up to 2–3 feet. Cereals grow from about 4 feet (rice) to 5–6 feet (maize) to 7–8 feet (bajra). Then you have sugarcane at 10–12 feet, horticulture crops such as banana, papaya, guava and then mango trees.

To implement this requires not only space management but also time management, to ensure that something is being harvested from the field at any given time in the year. Every plant has a given spatial spread horizontally and vertically (phailav, vistaar). The rule of spacing is such that no plant should be affected by another’s spread (vistaar). This will help decide the spacing and seed rate and give an estimate of productivity.

The rule of time takes into account how much time is required for a plant to complete its activities related to its productivity and nutrition. Early varieties, which are popular because they allow you to produce more for the market (by enabling the taking of a second or third crop in the same field) will have less nutrient value because they don’t get enough time to complete the required activities for complete maturity. They are also unseasonal crops. Further, when you increase the quantity you end up decreasing the quality, in terms of its nutritive value.

RK: Don’t you need adequate water to be able to grow many of these crops you have described?

BBT: That brings us to the last principle of agroecology or understanding what the natural endowment of a region (naisargiktaa). The choice of plants should be made according to the local climatic zone—the temperature, the rainfall patterns and the changing of the seasons. ⁸ The structure of the human body and the flora is shaped by the climatic zone. The fertility of a region is influenced by the seed characteristics (beej sutra) of that region and the properties of the soil. For mixed cropping to be successful, all four principles need to be understood for a given region and choice of crops made accordingly.

RK: Does this mean you propose taking up desi (indigenous) seeds, desi animal breeds, etc.? Like that proposed by Subhash Palekar’s zero budget natural farming system (Münster, 2017)?

BBT: The principle of agroecology (naisargitkaa) insists on familiarity with the plants that are local varieties. The local is defined according to the temperature, rainfall pattern and season changes. And this changes every 500 km or so. It is not a question of desi or videsi (indigenous or foreign). The definition of desi or local is applicable only to a given agroecological region. The Gir cow is not native to all parts of India and there are hundreds of local breeds. It is humans who are making efforts to ensure higher milk yields through cross-breeding of cows. If you stop the process of artificial insemination, after three or four reproductive cycles, the native animal comes back into its original form as suited to the local agroecology. There could also be non-native plants or animals that have become a part of the local agroecology.

RK: Most people are surprised to know that tomato and potato are not native to India, but they form the basis of the North Indian diet. They were brought from Central and South America more than 400 years ago. But what about encroaching species such as gajar ghas and eucalyptus, which have become an inseparable part of the local landscape? It is claimed that these have had detrimental effects on the local agroecology.

BBT: Even in nature, there is constant transfer of seeds through birds, through animals and even cross-breeding (sankarikaran). When a non-native variety takes root and survives in a given agroecology, it becomes a part of the landscape. If it is unable to cope with the local environment, it gets diseased and loses its power of resistance, eventually dying out. There are now grasses that are competing with gajar ghas and insects eating it away. But eucalyptus is being promoted for timber. That is not the fault of the eucalyptus.

With the coming of the Green Revolution, for all the four types of land in our village it was said add water, chemicals and everyone can grow rice and wheat as monocrops. Ignoring the fact that different types of land had different types of soil that was useful for growing a different, but complementary set of crops, we were told that through technology it can all become ‘productive’. With machines, tractors, small farms increased in size, trees were cut down and people shifted wholesale to the new system. But in this, productivity was defined very narrowly as the grain output of the monocrop. Everything was put at stake for the grain. The grain’s thirst for water was quenched through canals and then through tube wells. And in the process, we have created imbalance not only in the fields but also in the larger climatic system.

RK: You mean the carbon footprint of agriculture contributing to climate change?

BBT: Not just the increase in temperature. That, of course, is a problem with its destabilising impact on the wind patterns and on the ability of plants to survive in their current ecosystems. But what I want to emphasise is another kind of imbalance resulting from groundwater mining. With the heat of the summer on the subcontinent, the hot earth would send a signal of thirst for the monsoons to arrive and quench this thirst. But now, as we have drawn more water out from the ground, there is too much moisture/humidity in the air. That signal has become distorted; in some cases, it is no longer sent (dharti ki pyaas ka sanket khatam ho gaya hai).

Excess moisture has led to fungal diseases, bacterial diseases and insect pest attacks. These are all a result of unseasonal moisture (bina mausam ke nami). The mango belt of western Uttar Pradesh was unaffected by pests and diseases (sabse nirogi paudha) as long as the groundwater level was at 10–20 feet. As soon as we pulled out the water, the mango started getting diseased. Both desi and grafted (kalmi) mango trees were affected. The groundwater was essential for the orchard’s health.

RK: This seems to take us back to mutually beneficial existence. We have failed to understand the logic of the water being underground or even the minerals and metals being underground. You may have heard of the water retention capacity of bauxite and all the devastation taking place because of bauxite mining in the forested hills in eastern India. Our model of development presumes that mining of water and other materials is inherently a good thing. Before the climate fiasco, the only critique was that they are non-renewable resources (much of the water mined in dryland areas can never ever be replenished), so they should be used judiciously. What you are suggesting is that water mining is also creating a different kind of climatic imbalance.

BBT: Yes. And the climate imbalance is mirroring the imbalance of our bodies. Mangoes are now part of long value chains, which is making things available even in off season, all for the sake of profit. There is extra expense on transportation—mangoes from Delhi go South and those from the South come to Delhi. They eat our stale mangoes and we eat their stale mangoes (unka baasi humne khaya, apna baasi unko khilaya). Constipation, cancer, blood pressure, these are all the diseases of eating stale food. Health is not on the horizon in agriculture at all, only profit is.

RK: Nowadays, no mango is consumed in urban India without it having gone through a carbide diet. It will not survive the journey to our plates without it! This is very similar to the notion of the ‘metabolic rift’ suggested by food regime theorists Harriet Friedmann (2005) and Phillip McMichael (2009). Drawing upon Karl Marx, who coined the term, they argue that the commodification of agriculture through the process of conversion of organic resources to inorganic commodities has broken the cyclical nature of the relationship between nature and human beings.

BBT: Farmers have forgotten their own available inputs because all inputs are supposed to come from the market. Because of standardised inputs, not only are you dependent on the market but your skill, your craft, your expertise in converting variability into standardised output is also lost. This is the story of Punjab, why farmers are burning their fields. Agricultural sciences are conducting research only through the lens of business. Regardless of consequences, nature is being shaped into arbitrary designs (manmani karke design mein dhal dein). The only metric is money, in the process ignoring the larger principles of the natural system, health and the environment.

RK: But isn’t there some form of a romanticising of nature in your framing? ⁹ What about the wild animals, the jungle, the hardships, the pestilences, the back-breaking labour that our ancestors dealt with—not to mention many communities having to deal with it today. All those elephant raids on the crops? Hasn’t mechanisation and chemicals like DDT tamed this wild nature, helped firmly establish the benign agricultural landscape, which is now being taken for granted by natural farmers, when they make a call to mimic nature?

BBT: The call is not to mimic nature. It is to understand the working of the natural system and to work with it. We need to distinguish between the natural system (vyavastha), which is a set of principles that regulates events in nature, and the events (ghatnakram) themselves. The jungle is also part of nature, humans are also part of nature. That part of nature where humans have made efforts along with the natural system is known as agriculture. The events that we see in the jungle and in that part of nature which has been changed by human effort are all shaped by the same set of principles.

Humans have not made the natural system. The relationships between microbes, plants, the elements, the wind, water, oceans, mountains—it exists regardless of whether we humans exist or not. Whether it will exist in the future one cannot say and in what form it existed in the past is also based on conjecture or theory (anumaan). But for the present, we can say that the natural system works to support life on the earth. It functions based on a set of principles which regulate the various parts of the system and create a balance that supports life.

RK: The theory of homeostasis similarly talks about the maintaining of life through dynamic interacting processes on earth.

BBT: The lion is not the enemy of the deer. It will kill for satisfying its hunger. It won’t kill all the deer. Every element or living thing stays within its own boundaries. It doesn’t interfere in the existence of another element or living thing. But humans are the only species that can, and have, wilfully interfered with the workings of the natural system. We have made our own principles, we are attempting to regulate the system and we are trying to create our own balance. But, instead, we are creating imbalance.

The natural system strives to maintain itself to support life. Plants continue to produce seeds that turn into plants. Animals continue to reproduce themselves. Humans are also a part of this natural system, but through their knowledge, they are also able to interfere in its working. Through the process of development, medicines and hospitals, we have kept more sick people alive for longer. We have reduced the mortality rate. But through the same process, we have created more sickness—cancer, heart disease, etc. We may have saved ourselves from smaller problems, but are now staring at much bigger problems—we may have brought irrigation, but climate change can be devastating in its impact. Imagine what diseases might be awaiting us with the imbalance in the earth’s temperature, changes in wind patterns and the impact on plant life.

RK: Are you against all development?

BBT: When humans began saving seeds, levelling land and practising settled agriculture, they began to significantly transform the natural world. Humans have used their knowledge and skill to create a world different from the jungle. Human innovation is worthy of respect. There is nothing wrong with innovation per se. The problem arises when we innovate in opposition to the principles of the natural system. These principles are applicable in the jungle and in that part of the world which is inhabited by humans (both of which have been transformed by human action). But today’s farming practices and style of living means going against nature. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, we have failed to understand its functioning.

If we want to get out of the mess we have created, we have to understand the principles of the natural system and live along with it. We cannot go back to living in nature—that is an extreme position. But we cannot create our own system in opposition to it. If we are hot, then we should search for a way to cool ourselves, but through some natural means.

RK: So you are not against technology or machines?

BBT: I am not against machines per se. But when we gave importance to machines, we devalued human labour in the process. The use of machines ended up in the exploitation of people, by taking away employment.

RK: Wendell Berry (2009), a farmer and activist in the USA, has written about the simultaneous production of unemployment and belly fat through the coming of machines. In India, caste has played an important role in shaping attitudes towards physical labour. Youth from historically farming castes (typically other backward classes) consider physical labour as beneath their social status. Their aspirations are for white-collar jobs (mental labour) in an urbanising India. Many of the caste-based agitations of the Patels, Marathas and Rajputs are linked to this question of labour and employment.

BBT: The only thing that is produced without much expense every day is the possibility of labour through the body. Unless we pay respect to labour, unless we establish the systems to promote labour, we will continue to promote unemployment and poor health. Labour and intelligence are our assets. We cannot allow machines to entirely replace them.

RK: You are reminding me of the example of the tomato that was bred by agricultural university scientists in the USA so that it was hard enough to be harvested by mechanical arms and would ripen all at the same time using ethylene gas so that it could be grown on a larger scale. The problem they were trying to solve was the perpetual shortage of agricultural labour in the USA (Hightower, 1972). We’ve adopted that same model in a country which is labour surplus. But even then, there is something to be said for efficiency that comes from using machines.

BBT: Why is labour evaluated only in relation to time or profit? Can it be linked with usefulness also? Do we need it for profit or do we need it to live? Who gets to decide? Human beings need relationships to live and to fill those relationships, machines are no substitute. Can machines be a source of trust, relations, love and justice between people?

Like the rules of distance and time, the rule of organising labour in agriculture requires establishing a balance between the use of machines and the use of human labour—maintaining the appropriate distance between the labour of machines and the labour of humans.

RK: Are you suggesting that efficiency in and of itself is of no use?

BBT: To what end are we speeding up things? With machines more land can be farmed by fewer people. Why is that better in and of itself? We gave importance to machines and created unemployment. To get rid of unemployment, we cannot get rid of machines. I don’t contend that machines are bad in and of themselves. But what should be the size of machines, how much should they be used? These are the questions that need to be asked and decided upon.

RK: You are emphasising that agency lies with the self. Your approach is that farmers can become responsible for themselves; they don’t need to rely on anyone else from outside. Once they change their mindset, they will value things differently and then act according to the new set of values. They will innovate while working in tandem with natural system and within the four principles. That is the pathway to productivity, good health and a workable livelihood. While all this seems logical, what about the larger structural constraints that farmers find themselves in? You may recall at the soils conference we discussed how an individual farmer will find it impossible to change his/her farm unless region-level changes take place. One mixed farm in a sea of monoculture will not be able to last very long.

BBT: The system created by human beings has not been made by a single person alone. Everyone has contributed to it. Even if the research may have been done by one, or the technology made by a few, everyone else has accepted it, or not gone against it. That is why it is working.

But that one person is never an ‘individual’. He or she is always embedded in family, in relationships, in society. The day that one person makes an effort to understand the world around us, the day they start thinking about the natural system and talking about it, then conversations can begin. That person can begin to live based on understanding, and not just circumstances. We can continue to live in the same society in the same way. But our views will have changed and we will accept what is correct, we will talk about what is correct.

RK: But how can one farmer in Punjab stop the burning and survive economically when there is little support to him/her in mulching the straw into the ground or even taking it away in the time frame required? Even if she thinks differently, where would she even begin? If she wants to grow something other than paddy and wheat, where is the market for it?

BBT: Let me tell you my own story. For ten years, from 1987 to 1997, I remained very disturbed with the state of my farm. I had adopted the ways of the Green Revolution under guidance from the Agriculture Research Centre starting in 1975, and within a decade I could see that everything had gone out from my hands into the hands of the market—inputs and output. My land was suffering. Soil fertility was going down. There was misuse of groundwater, the quality of food was not good. I tried to look for alternatives in India and elsewhere. I spoke to many scientists, many farmers around the country. Everybody had techniques, but no one explained the fundamental principles. I wanted to set up an orchard and people told me different measurements in feet, in meters. But no one explained to me the rule of spacing or distance—ensure that no plant is overshadowed or comes in the way of any other plant.

Should I listen to scientists? Or should I listen to farmers who were using new techniques? NODAP farming, zero budget farming, saindhriya farming, sajeev farming? Which made sense? Some places emphasised the cow, some highlighted the stars (nakshatra), some focused on seed rates. Each of them had some aspect that was useful, but they were not complete in and of themselves. And the techniques also changed with location. What worked in Maharashtra didn’t work in Uttar Pradesh. Techniques of the hills didn’t work in the plains.

All these new techniques, while they may have reduced the input cost of farmers, did not improve the economics or the income prospects. There was only marginal improvement, and initially, there was greater risk as the output might fall. I tried bee keeping, animal rearing, processing. But all this was done piecemeal. There was no integrated model.

In 1997, I met Shri Agrahar Nagraj, who had spent many years in contemplation in Amarkantak, Chattisgarh. He explained to me the principle of mutually beneficial or symbiotic existence as the basis of the working of the natural system (vyavastha). He said, you go out and see it for yourself. When I started observing nature, I understood that the basis of life is symbiotic existence (sah astitva). I realised by listening to nature, I could get out of my problems.

This was not only about understanding relationships within nature but also my own place in this natural world—my own relationship with nature and with others in society. I had to first answer the question why I was farming. What did I want to get out of it? The answer was not about fulfilling my physical needs alone. The processes of life (jeevan) were not only about sustaining the body but more importantly about fulfilling our innate needs for respect, justice and trust. I was part of a family, part of a society and my actions were always embedded in this realisation. I had to learn to take responsibility for myself—and the web of social and natural relationships I was a part of (sah astitva)—and work with this understanding to determine and fulfil ‘my’ needs.

Through an understanding of the four principles based on observing the working of the natural system, I began to remake my farm. My production increased in quantity, improved in quality and grew in diversity. Today I grow 9–10 crops in my farm at any point of time. But I soon realised that it was not enough to see production alone. I had to understand and remake the entire system from production (utpadan) to use (upyog) (not consumption [upbhog])—and I had to take it up with responsibility and integrity. To improve the economics I needed to reach the consumer directly, making it necessary to move into processing. I needed to get a grasp on what kind of processing is possible, what market linkages may need to be built. I began to see the relationship between production, processing and marketing, and have undertaken a certification process (Participatory Guarantee Scheme of India, organic certification programme by the government) to ensure trust in these relationships.

RK: Reducing it to the level of each individual’s own responsibility is similar to the neoliberal perspective that has become prevalent over the last 30–40 years. With the decline of the welfare state, people are now supposed to be responsible for their own development.

BBT: This is not about an individual. We are not individuals—we have to begin by understanding this—by recognising our relationship with others in society and with nature. By viewing those relationships through the lenses of respect, of justice, of trust. Our actions are always embedded in society, in nature. Once we develop this understanding and talk about it with others around us, we begin to realise the possibilities of what can be done.

RK: What you are describing might work for large, capital-rich, upper-caste farmers who can afford to handle the transition period. What about the ordinary one acre farmer with poor quality land? Is there a pathway for such a farmer?

BBT: The ability to labour (shram) and the ability to understand (samajh) is in everyone’s hands. These are our assets. Instead, we are assuming assets to be land, machinery, money. These are all conveniences or facilities (suvidhayein). If there is understanding, the big farmer will on his own join together with the small one. The big one has land, the small one has labour. There is no labour problem—rather, the farmer has no money to pay for labour. Instead of labour, he has got machines. He is in debt due to the tractor loan. The labour was used when it was needed, now the tractor is sitting there all the time. How to make it useful all the time? You have to pay for it even if you don’t use it.

By giving big machines to the big farmers, we have destroyed the big farmers and the small ones. If all farm work will be done by drones, what will people do?

RK: But historically, it is the big who have exploited the labour of the small. Labour has never been valued properly.

Lack of understanding of our place in this world, of the relationships we are embedded in—lack of appreciation of the process of life, that the need for respect, trust and justice is the same for all—is at the root of exploitation. A farmer with half acre land, a farmer with no resources, a farmer without any means of irrigation, they can all begin to understand these relationships entwining their lives. With this understanding emerges a whole series of options. Ultimately, it is a matter of understanding, not just seeing a working model somewhere else but grasping the principles of nature and of our own place within it—and of figuring out what are the possibilities based on one’s own circumstances. The farmer does not need the agricultural research system or even a tractor. There is no need of scientists. Farmers can become empowered to do this on their own with the support of other farmers.

RK: Farmers may not need scientists. In any case, over the last several decades there has been a call to destabilise the certainty of scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge produces a set of claims about the natural world that are broadly accepted. Scientists do research, they make propositions, others evaluate it and once there is agreement, those ideas are published, and perhaps gain general acceptance. But that is true of all knowledge—even the four principles that you are suggesting are one set of claims about nature. Farmers may choose to accept the claims of scientists or they may choose to accept your claims—you are the expert here in place of the scientist.

BBT: The agricultural sciences, unfortunately, have looked at the world through partial eyes—the botanist doesn’t know about microbes, the entomologist doesn’t know about soils or minerals—our entire education system, agricultural sciences, medical sciences suffers from this specialisation. No one is looking at the whole farm. The day scientists start understanding the natural system in its entirety and begin working with it, not against it, then they become important allies.

At the same time, science (vigyan) is not enough. Science can only tell us about the natural system and what can be done to work with it. But it cannot tell us why we are farming? What is the purpose of living, of farming? That is in the realm of a different kind of knowledge (gyan), but it is essential to begin there. I farm because my body remains healthy and my bodily needs are fulfilled. But I still need to ask the question: What are my needs? It is only through a process of discernment (vivek) that I can answer this question.

The approach of least input and maximum output is bound to be exploitative of something or someone—the earth, humans, the environment. This is a result of not discerning our needs. If we understand the purpose of our actions and discern our needs, then it is possible to make money and save the environment.

RK: Those are fundamental questions you are asking about the purpose of human life itself. How do we begin to have conversations about our limits? But at the same time, there are systemic processes that generate inequality and lead to exploitation.

BBT: Once there is understanding, these systemic processes can begin to be challenged. Where there is lack of understanding of the natural system and how to live in it and with it, there is bound to be exploitation. Farmers in the past grew many crops, worked with the seasons, they didn’t have many resources. But that doesn’t mean they understood the working of the natural system. Earlier there were fewer opportunities to make mistakes. But when the opportunity arose to make mistakes, the farmers of the past made them. Why did the astrological sciences, the mixed cropping all disappear? Was any of it not correct? If it was correct, it would have stayed, it would not have been nullified so easily. Agnihotra farming, biodynamic farming, goat farming—they are all saying that earlier knowledge was correct. But if it was correct, how have we reached where we have today? No farmer is willing to go back to the past. No farmer wants to use the plough.

RK: I understand that no farmer wants to use the plough. But we cannot wish away the colonial past and simply put the blame on farmers and say their knowledge was incomplete, hence it got replaced by something else. It was not a question of knowledge alone. The institution of the zamindari system; the exploitation of the majority by the local elite in collaboration with the British; the forced cultivation of cash crops such as jute, indigo and opium, even wheat; the systematic destruction of the agrarian environment including water harvesting systems; privatisation and over-exploitation of the commons, not to mention the horrific man-made famines that killed between 13 and 30 million people between 1870 and 1910. We cannot forget that. There is a crucial link between knowledge and power. Certain forms of knowledge related to farming were systematically devalued in the face of science.

BBT: But what happened after Independence? No one stopped us then. And for the last twenty years at least, people have been talking about organic. Still why is agriculture in such a deep crisis?

Our privileging of science as the ultimate form of knowledge has been deeply problematic. Science can only tell us how things work. It cannot answer the question why things are the way they are. Why do I live? Why do I farm? It also cannot tell us how much we need to fulfil our needs. Unless we understand our place in the natural world and then figure out what do we need to live in this world, we are aimless. We are maximising everything, speeding up everything without any end. If I haven’t decided my needs, and my limits, I have become the all-destroying demon (Bhasmasur), so I end up destroying everything. Everyone can’t become Ambani (the business tycoon).

Before we can fix agriculture, our own ‘culture’ has to be fixed. We have to understand the workings of the natural system and our place in it. That is all the knowledge that we need.

Postscript

My conversations with Tyagiji over several months in 2018–2019 on this topic have been critical in reshaping my own thinking about the ‘problem’ of agriculture. When we began discussions, I was focused on interrogating his claims about the natural world and its working—especially his claims about their self-evident nature—given my training in science and technology studies. I argued that all knowledge is claim-making, some more successful than others. We can never ever really ‘know’ anything.

Yet, as we debated, I realised that when he was talking about the natural world, he was also talking about human beings and their behaviour as an integral part of that world. As he was challenging the divide between nature and humans and between nature and society, he was also putting humans in their place—challenging our hubris. We can never hope to replace the natural world, we can only attempt to understand it. And to change our farms we have to first take on the responsibility to change ourselves—the way we think.

For some time, I misunderstood his emphasis on taking responsibility as individuals. I was interpreting this to be the rational, utility maximising individual of economics and thinking of the neoliberal framing of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. For him, such a being did not exist. Human beings could only be understood relationally—they were embedded in nature and in society. He drew attention to the universal human need for respect, trust and justice—all relational—and which does not change with time, place, gender, age, caste or religion. He argued that we had to first learn to live—with ourselves and others and with nature. Only then could we learn to farm.

For a researcher who has been struggling with transforming my own ‘consumption’ patterns towards more environmentally benign (if not, friendly) choices, his call to change our vichaar (ideas), before we change our vyavahaar (behaviour), made eminent sense. As long as I valued convenience and comfort, my companion would be ill health and the consequences would not be good for the environment! More importantly, he underlined the fundamental divide between what we call knowledge about the world—from science—and knowledge about how to live in this world, which may fall in the realm of philosophy. Yet, if we want to change anything in this world, we have to contend with questions of how we want to live, what we want to value—we need to have those conversations, first.

This initiative on responsible research and innovation has provided the space to begin having such conversations—at least between Tyagiji and myself. I hope that more such spaces can be created by researchers and practitioners where we do not shy away from asking these difficult questions.