Upendra has worms

I decided to put a small film together yesterday. We finally arrived in Mumbai and I think my body and mind need a rest. We lay in a cool room in Bentley's hotel, windows open and the drone of the city's traffic and chaos.

I met Upendra when I first started to think of the Source project. I stayed with Bubun who helps run WASCA a small orginisation based in Keonjhar, the north of Orissa, one of the richest areas of this impoverished state. That really shameless mining magnet Mittal is based there pulling millions of tons of sponge Iron out of the ground and giving nothing back. The truck mafia have a hold on the mineral transportation and from 6pm to 9am there is one massive 20 Km traffic jam of dirty lorries waiting to bring coal or take iron around the town. The region of Keonjhar is one of the most beautifully serene places...as long as you move a few kilometers out of the main town.Most of the community are landless subsistence farmers and live on what they are able to grow. A patch-work of small paddy fields and mud houses, all polished with deep red and black local clays, chickens, sheep and children scatter the road.

About two years ago I was working on a small project with Concern India and had been in Keonjhar for a week. While sitting on the back of a bike and visiting villages in the early morning, I noticed whole families out in the dry paddy, on their knees with hammers breaking what looked like rocks. I went out to have a look and realised that these were not rocks but pieces of soil, the size of small boulders, dead and baked in the sun. Before being able to plough the paddy, the family needed to spend days in the hot sun smashing the dead soil.

This is what had happened to Upendra, he was told by the government, the companies and many others that if he spent his money on agricultural chemicals he would make more money. He tried it and it worked.. for five years his yield increased, the more he spent, the more he used and the more he seemed to make. Little did Upendra know that the reason for this was the combined efforts of the natural richness of the soil and the chemical fertilizers' boosting effects. While this was happening nothing was being put back into the soil. The chemicals were killing his soil, the worms and other organisms... all the life of the soil. Soon there was nothing left and his yield went down, now he had nothing but the hybrid seed and chemicals to produce his crop and year after year he began to pay more and more to the companies while, now knowingly destroying his soil.

If we are to create a sustainable future we need to begin to come to terms with where our sources of information come from, who funds our research, drives our policy and controls our media. 

This is a two minute film on Umendra, a man who has joined the dots and now realises that everything was not as it should have been. There are some amazing people and organisations out there, doing work that truly empowers the farmers of India but they are few. As funding from some of the giant donors begins to dry up or becomes conditional, linked to foreign policy we are seeing a dramatic decline in genuine interventions.



India is now pushing through a totally non democratic second green revolution, in the driving seat are EU and US foreign policy mixed with a bit of Bill and Melinda Gates and their corporate partners at Monsanto.
For more information on  the Indian agriculture crisis please go to www.devinder-sharma.blogspot.com

Kollam and Coconuts

So this is it, the end of the trip. Cameron is on the long flight back to Canada and -36 and we are left in Trivandrum in 36 degrees. Almost three weeks of non stop travel and good food, beautiful people and places.

After going to sunday church we waited to meet some members of the fishing community in Kollam, a medium size fishing town. It had had lots of money spent on it, three story flats and concrete, bars on windows and locks on doors. Its strange how money and so called progress makes such fundamental changes to the community. We managed to track down a local activist Andrews Ambrose who we hoped would open all kinds of doors for us but he didn't, he just closed his and said he would need to discuss our work with the committee, so we got in a car and found the local fish market just north of Kollam.

Sardines, millions of them, boat after boat, crate after crate, noise, smell and movement. It was amazing to see just how much in one small port, by just a few fishing boats could be landed. On an average day about 5,000 baskets each weighing around 30-40 kg are bought in, on a good day 10,000. These are big commercial boats that trawl the seas all night, from the beach after the sun has set it looks like a far off city of twinkling lights.

In the morning on Kovalam beach, I sat and watched around thirty local fishermen land their beach nets, from sunrise to about 9am they move across the beach with their ropes, singing rhythmically as they draw in the nets. The whole community working together then sharing what they bring in. This time as is now more the case, their nets were empty. Just a couple of crab, an eel and some small and terrified mackerel. There is such a disconnect with the business man who owns the boat and the people who work it to the resource they are harvesting. It merely becomes a financial transaction and is bereft of emotion, culture and respect. But hey, the fishermen have those wonderful tourists to fall back on!

On our way to Trivandrum, stopping at one of the wonderful Indian Coffee Houses. Puri bhaji and sweet milky coffee pulled us all together and we ended up in the kitchen to see what they were putting in the rather strange colored bhaji… it was all a bit suspect but turned out to be beetroot.

Then again to the amazing Laurie Baker designed Indian Coffee House in front of the train station. This circular building has a spiral dinning hall and over thirty tables, cool air and natural light, a far cry from the normal "hotel" eating joints we end up in.. blacked out glass a squeaky old fan blowing hot smoke and chillie filled air around the room while eliminated by the wonders of strip lighting. How simple it could all be if we though about more than just how to make a bit of money.

Coconuts seemed to be a good start so we headed off the main roads and stopped at coir villages. The book we will put together will be a combination of recipes and stories on food, the people the culture and the environment and how they are part of a whole. What has taken us ten thousands years of toil, understanding and respect is true sustainability, what we are being sold as food security and sustainability is little more than a resource grab. Its only when you travel deep into the villages that you begin to understand how it all works and how it needs to work. 

So coconuts would be a perfect story for the book. From its religious, cultural significance, its water and milk, its flesh and its shell, for oil to cook and oil to burn, wood and leaves for building, fiber for materials and so we could go on. One tree with endless possibilities. So this is very much were we need to go with the project the connection to the source of our food and our cultures. Thank you Cameron for starting this up. And thank you Chintan, you've been amazing.  Its going to work!

 http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-coconut-revolution/

God's own country

So finally we arrived in beautiful Kerala and it really seems to be god's own country. We just hope it stays that way. Almost 100% of the population are educated...and it shows.

Upon arriving in Fort Kochi, we made our way down to the main waterfront where the fishermen bring in their catch to be weighed and auctioned.  Kingfish, pomfret, mackerel, and rather large cuttlefish appeared to be the species in demand. Much of the kingfish apparently makes its way to north India, Hong Kong or even the Middle East. 

While living in Delhi, many times I had been told about the wonderful food served at the Philipkutty home stay.  We decided to make the hour and a half journey from Fort Kochi to meet one of the owners, Anu Matthew. Philipkutty’s farm is situated on an island in the ‘backwaters’ - a unique fresh and salt water ecosystem- interconnected freshwater rivers and canals that feed towards the sea, through a couple of larger lakes, that seasonally get charged with saline water, when the sea backs up. A system of locks and sluices keep the salt from the freshwater. Initially the farm practiced ‘modern’ rice cultivation.

However, Anu’s deceased husband Vinod realised the challenges of single crop farming and over time moved the farm towards a more sustainable inter crop system. During the last 10 years the farm has been undergoing a transformation towards using greater organic methods to grow and harvest the coconuts, fruits, vegetables, and assorted spices such as nutmeg, mace, pepper and vanilla.

As we boarded the kettuvallom, the traditional boat of the backwaters maneuvered using a single long bamboo pole, the warm scent of drying coconuts welcomed us to the farm. It was later explained that the farm made its own coconut oil for cooking and cosmetic purposes. 

Anu introduced us to the culinary authority in their home, her mother in law, Aniamma Philip, aka Mummy. For the next couple of hours, in the courtyard under the shade of a large mango tree, Mummy divulged some of her kitchen secrets.” If you add the crushed spices too early to a duck curry the flavour and colour of the sauce will become cloudy”, she said.  

Similarly, as she made the beetroot pachadi (a lightly cooked vegetable or fruit mixed with grated coconut, yogurt, and spices) she described how the last minute tempering of fragrant curry leaves, chillies, mustard and fenugreek seeds provides a more complex layer of flavour. Anu shared with us her favourite thoran (stir fried vegetable with grated coconut and spices) recipe made from banana blossom. Mummy also showed us her version of a red snapper curry with lots of curry leaves and red chillies. The finished dish has a wonderful balance of heat and sourness from the local sour kokum fruit.

Over lunch, they said that we were quite lucky to be visiting while ducks were available in the market. Anu explained that after the harvest of rice farmers bring in ducks to clean up their paddy area by eating the remainder rice and in the process fattening them up to become a tasty seasonal treat. As we drove back to Fort Kochi we came upon a farmer who was selling some of his paddy-fed ducks by the side of the road.

We travelled southward to the community of Kollam. This coastal area of south Kerala is made up of small fishing hamlets of the three predominant faiths: Christian, Muslim and Hindu. Since it was the day of rest, there was limited fishing activities, we decided to visit the various churches within the communities.  We are looking forward to the next few days of being back on the water and in the kitchens learning more about the fishing families of Kerala.