US Farm Bill 2018 -- time to link tariff reduction with subsidy elimination

This map tells us of US farmers who received more than one million dollar in farm subsidies in the ten year period between 2008 and 2017

 -- Pic courtesy Forbes

At a time when the US President Donald Trump has slammed India for its “high tariffs” even going to the extent of calling it a “tariff king”, which in other words is a pointer to the protection being accorded against cheaper imports, the massive American and European farm subsidies that not only distorts global trade but in the process hit millions of farm livelihoods as well as food security of the majority world have remained far away from the political glare.  

Farm subsidies have remained a bone of contention ever since the World Trade Organisation (WTO) came into existence. But the rules of the game for domestic support have been so well defined by the rich countries, by very cleverly packing most agricultural subsidies under the ‘green box’ in trade parlance.  Green box subsidies are considered to be non-trade distorting. Nearly 88 per cent of the US farm subsidies and 85 per cent of EU subsidies are bracketed under the ‘green box’ and therefore remain unchallenged. Except for the celebrated case wherein Brazil had taken to the US to the dispute panel on cotton subsidies (which US lost), there have not been any serious attempt to open up green box subsidies to fresh scrutiny. The US/EU remains stubborn on renegotiating the Agreement on Agriculture, wherein the subsidy issue falls.   

With the farm subsidies issue in limbo, and amidst the US-China trade war, the US passed the 2018 Farm Bill making a budgetary provision for $ 867 billion support in the next ten years for farm subsidies, Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Programme (earlier called as ‘food stamps’ programme), crop insurance and conservation programmes among other specified categories like international trade, rural development, local food systems, beginning farmers and farm research. Roughly 80 per cent of the support is for the supplementary nutrition programme, which in 2018 had ensured that food be made available to 42 million Americans who couldn’t afford it.

The US Farm Bill is a comprehensive piece of legislation enacted every five years. It was introduced in 1933 in the backdrop of the Great Depression, and is aimed at providing financial support to farmers to stay economically viable. Since 1965 the Farm Bills have been passed with regular frequency, mostly confining to five years period. In Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was introduced in 1962 and like in the US it is aimed at supporting farmers through a mechanism of income support, market measures and rural development initiatives. Admitting that farmers generally get 40 per cent less income than the average household, the CAP programme in 2018 provided Euro 41.74 billion for income support and another Euro 17.07 for market interventions and rural development.

Broadening the definition of a family farm, the 2018 US Farm Bill has included not only children and their spouses but also nephews, nieces, cousins and other members of the extended family of a farmer as recipient of agricultural subsidies. All they need to do is to establish their participation in farm management and that can be even without these members being actually on the farm. Although the stated objective is to attract the younger generation in farming, the move has evoked strong reactions. While India has questioned the rationale behind the new definition, many experts believe that it is designed to help the bigger players stay big.

While high tariffs remain under attack, over the years a complicated and veiled system of subsidies and non-tariff barriers have kept US/EU farmers protected. Writing in the Forbes magazine, Adam Andrazewe detailed how since 2008, for over 10 years now, top 10 recipients of US farm subsidies have pocketed an average of $ 18.2 million, which comes to $35,000 a week. There are 6,618 farmers, corporations and agri-business that have made $ 1 million or more in farm subsidy support since 2008. While the rich have got richer, surprisingly a large number of recipients were people living in the cities. In addition, 12 members of the Congress too walked away with $637,059 as subsidy in 2017 alone. A subsidy of $1.08 billion in 2017 went to farmers for not producing anything under the Conservation Reserve Programme.

How the richest US farmers are becoming more rich.

Under the CAP reform in Europe, between the period 2021 and 2027 farmers will receive a total of Euro 365 billion ($438 billion), a reduction in support by 5 per cent, over the current level of funding. In 2016, the EU provided on an average a direct income support of Euro 259 per hectare, with a low of Euro 118 to a high of Euro 622 per hectare. Based on the farm structure, nearly 80 per cent of direct income support goes to 20 per cent of farmers. In addition there are basic payments targeting specific types of beneficiaries. Another Euro 365 million was earmarked for the young entrants in farming, below the age of 40 years. In India, on the other hand, farmers receive an average of $ 250 as subsidy, much of it by way of indirect support.

While India’s miniscule farm subsidies are under consistent attack from the US/EU as well as from some other countries, the rich countries are not willing to reduce their farm support. Even when the WTO Dispute panel had ruled against the US on cotton subsidies, a case that was filed by Brazil, the US didn’t reduce the subsidy support being given to its farmers. It instead reached an agreement with Brazil to provide a support of $ 147million over a period of ten years to Brazilian cotton growers. Such are the high stakes involved that without reducing its own subsidies, the US (along with EU and others) is building pressure on India to do away with support for public stockholding of foodgrains, primarily targeting the MSP regime for wheat, rice and pulses. What needs to be understood is the continuing massive support to US cotton farmers depresses global prices as a result of which the Indian cotton farmers are priced out. This is true for other agricultural commodities as well.

With the US-China trade war is expected to escalate, the time is ripe for India and other emerging economies to shift the focus to the more pressing need to cut back farm subsidy support in the rich countries. As long as these subsidies (both explicit and implicit) remain, there can never be a fair and equitable trade. #

Staking it on subsidies. The Tribune. July 4, 2019

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/staking-it-on-subsidies/796771.html?fbclid=IwAR11RDOyqLj7cxJdFgKfvfzYv6evLgdjMIFvmnf-wRkyv7wRAfy1iiDrxf0

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The Mighty Himalayas Are Shrinking

Himalayan glaciers are retreating at an alarming rate 

-- Pic Al Jazeera

An ode to a dead glacier. Well, that’s exactly what scientists in Iceland plan to do. On Aug 18, scientists from Rice University and Iceland are planning to put up a memorial for the first glacier – called Ok glacier -- that has disappeared in western Iceland. The poignant message on the memorial plaque states: “Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and know what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.”

Ok glacier in Iceland is the first glacier to disappear but will certainly not be the last. As the plaque states all its glaciers are expected to disappear in another 200 years. But thirty years from now, in 2050, I am sure many people who read this message will curse the present generation for the disappearing act, for the extremely hot and dry planet we left for them, depriving them of their share of a happy world to live in. They certainly would know what wrong we did.

I think it is an excellent idea to set up memorials for our dying glaciers. But if that be so, the Himalayas would be inundated with memorials all across the Himalayan mountain range extending from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bhutan and to China. Termed as the water tower, Himalayas carry nearly 40 per cent of the earth’s fresh water. But with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimating that more than 50,000 glaciers are rapidly shrinking, the pace at which these glaciers are disappearing will leave behind a trail of destruction for almost 1.3 billion people living on either side of the highest mountain range.

The Himalayas have also been called as the third pole since they carry the third largest volume of ice after Antarctica and the Arctic. So it is not only that the two poles of the planet – Antarctica and Arctic those are melting, Himalayas too are equally vulnerable.  Although not as fast as the European Alps, which have seen many glaciers dying in the past decade. Perhaps one reason for this is that the temperatures had started rising in Europe much earlier than in South Asia.

 

Nevertheless, I was expecting a kind of an outrage in India when a recent comprehensive study conducted at the Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory concluded that the Himalayas are losing more than one and a half foot of ice every year since the year 2000.  Prior to that, the Himalayan meltdown between 1975 and 2000 was to the extent of 10 inches every year. Interesting this study does not include the high-mountain ranges of Asia – Pamir, Hindu Kush and Tian Shan. The cumulative impact of meltdown would certainly be disastrous for the entire Asian region. However, this alarming meltdown in the Himalayan ice cover should have shocked the nation; after all it will eventually strike a deadly blow to people living in the Hindi heartland. But except for a few headlines here and there, I did not see any public outrage. Newspapers didn’t even think it fit to raise this issue in its editorials, and the TV channels were busier with political statements without much relevance.

Based on declassified photographic images taken by US spy satellites as well as routine satellite images spanning 650 glaciers across the region, this study showed how the Himalayas are on a yearly basis losing up to 8 billion litres of water every year. This equals 3.2 million Olympic sized swimming pools being drained out every year. For a country emerging out of a water shock that Chennai in coastal south India went through recently, the shrinking of ice cover in the Himalayas should have made us sit back and think. After all, it is everyone’s future that is at stake, and people must start worrying about the state of water-less economy that we are leaving behind for our children. A strong public opinion could have jolted the nation, and I was hoping Parliament would sit for an impromptu mid-night session.

But nothing like this happened. Except for blaming agriculture for (mis)utilising 78 per cent of the available irrigation water, life went on as usual. So much so that another news report quoting a study by the Central Water Commission and pointing to a decline in water availability from the three major river basins – Indus, the Ganges and Brahmaputra – all emanating from the Himalayas, and serving as a lifeline for the entire northern region and extending up to central India, went unnoticed. The average water potential in the three river basins has declined by almost 40 per cent. A State of Forest Report 2015 had earlier shown that the decreased river flow is on account of cutting down of 628 square kms of forest cover in north and eastern Indian region.    

Under such circumstances, where billions of people living downstream face prospects of river drying up, and thereby acerbating the water crisis hitting agriculture, industry as well as drinking water supply, shouldn’t the Himalayan states – Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland – come together to collectively formulate a policy framework for protecting the hills? Why suitable policies can’t be put in place to ensure the repeat of Kedarnath devastation does not happen, and why riparian states can’t join hands and collectively invest to protect the river catchments? Ascribing an economic value to the eco-system services that mountains provide, and that includes the services that come from water, maintaining the tree cover, protecting soil erosion, wildlife etc and incorporating it in the state GDP calculations is surely a way to measure economic wealth that mountains provide. Reckless exploitation of hills in the name of development has to stop. This may require a new and distinct development paradigm for the hill states, which rely more on protecting nature and environment. Research programmes too need to suitably modify. I don’t see any logic in agricultural universities in the mountains doing farm research which is exactly a copy of research being done in the plains.#

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Will agro-ecological farming usher in the fourth agricultural revolution?

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s mention of “zero budget” in farming when she announced the focus areas in agriculture while presenting her first budget has come at a time when a major report – Our Future in the Land – by RSA Food, Farming and Countryside Commission (FFCC) set up in the UK has called for ‘unleashing a fourth agricultural revolution driven by public values’.

This is time for a historic drive to put health at the heart of our food system, the Commission observes, and adds: “All effort, policy, legislation, money and resources must be directed towards implementing and accelerating a transition plan for climate, nature, public health and wellbeing.” Reading the report, I realise it is also time for a historic transformation in India, to move away from intensive farming, which has led to soil degradation, water depletion, increasing desertification, environmental contamination and soaring diet-related illnesses. I am grateful to Nirmala Sitharaman for flagging a crucial issue which in all probability should assume a central role in the growth pathway that new India is trying to enact. If it fails, we as a society too fail to bring in a new agricultural revolution in harmony with nature and human health.

“Zero budget” as the name implies, is actually a system of agro-ecological farming that relies on locally available inputs, including urine and dung from local cow breeds, with emphasis on mulching and multiple cropping, thereby reducing the cost of production. Travelling through Andhra Pradesh where Subhash Palekar’s Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) is being practiced, I see healthy soil, healthy crop and healthy people. But that's wjhat I see everywhere agroecological farming practices are being followed. Let us also not forget there have been no farm suicide reported so far from areas where agro-ecological farming practices are being followed. The productivity of crops in the areas that have already been converted to ZBNF has not gone down, it remains more or less same and in many crops the yields have increased.

However, despite the claims, ZBNF is a collection of small farmer innovations that have evolved with time. As I said earlier, ZBNF is one of the effective ecological farming systems that have been developed. Agro-ecological farming in reality is a time-tested approach based on the location-specific technological innovations that small farmers have developed and perfected over the years. The late G Nammalvar from Tamil Nadu, Narayana Reddy from Karnataka, Bhaskar Save from Gujarat too have earned international recognition for their pioneering work. At the same time, there are scores of organic practitioners in different parts of the country who have successfully shown the non-chemical way in farming. Subhash Sharma (Yavatmal), Sarvadaman Patel (Anand), Manohar Bhau Parchare (Nagpur), Deepak Sachdev (Indore), Suresh Desai (Belgaum), late Surender Dalal (Jind), Amarjit Singh Sharma (Punjab), to name just a few. It is time to learn from all of them, and any research evaluating the performance of agro-ecology must include their work. Pushing in a monoculture in agro-ecology will be eventually regressive. Nor do I favour any cult building.  

Earlier, Andhra Pradesh had experimented with non-pesticides management (NPM) which led to the formation of Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA). I thought it was a very successful agro-ecological model that extended to 36 lakh acres. As a result, pesticides consumption in Andhra Pradesh (before its bifurcation) had come down by 60 per cent. Surender Dalal’s innovative Keet Pathshala (Insect Classroom) had also reduced pesticides consumption in Jind district in Haryana. Similarly, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has vetted hundreds of such technological innovations in a series of printed volumes that continue to gather dust. Agricultural universities do have short term as well as long term studies on the efficacy and viability of agro-ecological farming systems, largely lying unnoticed, and the immediate need is to mainstream it.  

Former AP chief minister, Chandrababu Naidu, remains a first in seeing the potential of agro-ecological farming. Beginning with CMSA, he was later drawn to the idea of zero budget, and had adopted ZBNF as a flagship programme, supported initially by a Rs 100-crore grant from the Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiative. Naidu had promised to bring the entire farming community, roughly 60-lakh farmers, under its fold by 2024. A laudable objective indeed, considering that shifting farming from chemical-intensive systems to climate resilient agro-ecological methods is the need of the times. I am sure if AP can make an attempt, the rest of the country too can. Himachal Pradesh is already on the path to agro-ecology. But as any programme grows in size, it does need additional finances. The point I am trying to make is that except for the name, there is no zero budget in farming. Even the farmers have to incur cost on raising cows, investing on farm labour required to undertake various farming operations and so on. But with no chemical fertiliser and pesticides being applied, the cost of production certainly is far less. This will certainly hurt the commercial interest of agri-business industry but I guess the fate of present and future generations is more important than the profit margin to people investing in stock market.

To say that agro-ecological farming systems do not need any price incentive is nothing but romanticism. As per the FFCC the era of cheap food has already led to a devastation of environment, human health and acerbated climate change. There is a cost for protecting the eco-system services, which has been denied to farmers all these years. In fact, the 2009 report of the International Assessment for Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), to which India is a signatory, clearly warns against business as usual approach.   

But let’s not forget. When the high-yielding varieties of wheat were introduced it was accompanied by a package of policy initiatives, including adequate infrastructure and subsidy for fertiliser, pesticides and machinery application; making available cheap credit; creating market avenues through APMC regulated mandis, MSP and public distribution system, setting up of FCI and the National Seeds Corporation to name a few. Agro-ecological farming systems too need a different set of policy framework, new pricing and marketing structures, and of course appropriate investments to make it successful. Farmers would do the rest. Government certainly holds many of the key levers, and should be willing to accord priority to the speedy transformation to agro-ecological farming. Last week, in a tweet even the FAO has acknowledged: ‘Agro-ecology can support food production and food security and nutrition while restoring the ecosystem services and biodiversity that are essential for sustainable agriculture’. This is exactly what India needs. #

Zero-budget farming. The Tribune. July 22, 2019
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/zero-budget-farming/805658.html

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Do we call Trump a racist?
I've been reading a number of thought-provoking articles this week about the appropriateness of using the term "racist" to describe the president and/or his tweets.

In a thoughtful piece on NPR, Keith Woods recommends foregoing labels like "racist." He writes, "That's an alternative to labels: Report. Quote people. Cite sources. Add context. Leave the moral labeling to the people affected; to the opinion writers, the editorial writers, the preachers and philosophers; and to the public we serve."

In the other corner, Issac Bailey writes on Nieman Reports that journalists should use the term since we are in the business of calling things by their names. He said, "In a moment in which clarity is worth its weight in gold, media once again stumbled down the confused path when most Americans are desperately looking for some direction so they can figure out what the heck is going on and what the heck they should think and do about it. ‘Yes, this is what racism looks like,’ we should be screaming to them—not as an editorial opinion, but as a fact."

I frame this debate in terms of peace journalism, and the notion that journalists should lead substantive societal discussions without deepening divisions and falling into the “us vs. them” narratives that many politicians seek. In a previous column, I wrote about the inadvisability of using the term “concentration camp” to describe immigrant detention centers. I oppose this term because I think it further divides us, and makes discussion across political boundaries even more difficult. The same can be said about the term “racist.” When we call Trump racist, are we tarring his supporters with the same brush? And if we are, aren’t we making it more difficult to have an adult dialogue with them about important issues like race and immigration?

I prefer using phrases like, “a tweet widely considered racist” and “comments echoing those of racist segregationists of the 1950’s.” Point out the historical similarities between Trump and the George Wallaces of the world, and between Trump's language and that used by white supremacists, and let readers apply their own labels and judgments.

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Make no mistake: Only agriculture has the potential to reboot the economy

Paul Krugman shared this graph on Twitter how ineffective Corporate tax cuts have been in America. 

At a time when Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz says that neo-liberalism is ‘dead and buried’, and the world as a result is increasingly grappling with the gigantic problems of rising unemployment, gnawing inequality and climatic change reaching a tripping point, agriculture alone has the potential to reboot the economy. While the accumulation of wealth in the western countries is essentially built on greenhouse gas emissions, as author Amitabh Ghosh would say, the former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had the courage to acknowledge: “The world’s current economic model is an environmental suicide. Climate change is showing us that the old model is more than obsolete. We need a revolution on how best to make the global economy sustainable.” His clarion call at the World Economic Forum 2011 however went unheeded. No media even thought of initiating a discussion on this grim portrayal of the global economic future.

While the current economic model has outlived its utility, more of the same will only exacerbate the destruction of natural resources, advancing the climatic catastrophe the world is staring at, and lead to unimaginable socio-economic disruptions. Already with the Himalayas melting at an alarming rate, reducing the snow depth by one-and-a half foot every year, with river flow shrinking, lakes and water bodies disappearing; and with oceans polluted and rising, the environmental consequences of economic growth have been dastardly. As if this is not enough, look at the environmental fallout of industrial agriculture. Soil fertility has declined to almost zero in intensively farmed regions; excessive mining of groundwater sucking aquifers dry; and chemical inputs, including pesticides, becoming extremely pervasive in environment, the entire food chain has been contaminated.

As soils become sick, forests are logged for expanding industrial farming, soil erosion and water depletion takes a heavy toll leading to more desertification. Not drawing any lessons, Brazil's new president, Jair Bolsonaro, has launched an assault on the Amazon rainforests. Within hours of assuming office he issued an executive order that practically spells a death-knell for the pristine forests, considered to be a global lung. In Punjab, the Chief Minister has time and again warned of creeping desertification if the present rate of ground water withdrawal is not corrected. A report by the Central Ground Water Board has warned that Punjab and Haryana will turn into a desert in another 25 years if it continues with the current rate of exploitation.

And yet I find expectations on economic reforms have risen significantly. In the second tenure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, corporate-backed think tanks, credit rating agencies, and economic writers without exception have called for more reforms, going to the extent of seeking bold reforms. I fail to understand that if a higher GDP in the ten years of UPA-1 and UPA-2, an outcome of economic policies driven by the ideology of economic reforms, had failed to translate into jobs, how will aggressively pursuing more reforms create more jobs now. That’s a question no one wants to answer. More so at a time when we are fast moving from jobless to job-loss growth. Recent studies show that besides the urban centres, huge job losses have taken place for the rural farm and non-farm workers as well. 

Similarly, the growing demand for reducing corporate tax to attract investments and provides jobs has come at a time when globally there is no empirical evidence for it. Just because the corporate need it, credit rating agencies and think-tanks are going overboard justifying it.

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has in a tweet questioned this flawed thinking saying how wrong it was to imagine that slashing corporate taxes would lead to a huge surge in investments. In a graph he tagged (presented below) sourcing US Bureau of Economic Analysis he showed clearly that there is no relation between corporate tax cuts and rising investments. Nor does it lead to more job creation. In fact, he further explains that the tax cuts had only enabled the rich to invest more in the stock markets. Another bold reform that the industry associations are crying for is reforming the labour markets, which essentially means the privilege to ‘hire and fire’ workers. Again, Paul Krugman has in a tweet said “basically very little evidence that we gain anything from the brutality of our labour markets”. In simple words, the ‘brutal’ labour reforms in the US haven’t worked. If it didn’t work in the US, from where we copy and paste economic policies, I wonder how will the same labour reforms work in India. 

This has to change. Not an easy task, but considering the realisation that agriculture needs structural reforms; I see a ray of hope. In the given economic scenario, my understanding is that only agriculture can reboot the economy, sustain millions of livelihoods, and at the same time substantially reduce global warming. The first and foremost requirement is to accept the yeoman role agriculture can play in revitalising the economy in the years to come. The economic thought that encourages farmers to be forced out of agriculture to the cities where cheaper labour is needed has to first change. If agriculture becomes economically viable, the rural economy too undergoes a rapid transformation thereby drastically reducing the rural-urban migration. While the villages will become pivot of economic growth, the cities will be saved of a huge migratory influx protecting them from an impending collapse. With farming becoming viable, it will also reduce the pressure on creating more jobs in the cities. Agriculture therefore is the saviour.

Addressing the fifth meeting of the governing council of the Niti Aayog recently in New Delhi, the Prime Minister had announced the formation of a high-level task force for suggesting structural reforms in agriculture. This is a positive development, and if curated properly has the potential to propel the much needed agricultural transformation by the year 2024. This requires fresh thinking, and banking on approaches that are ecologically sustainable and conform to the location-specific needs of the country. For instance, the Prime Minister’s focus on water harvesting and conservation is driven by the desire to reactivate traditional water harvesting technologies, and make water conservation an important factor in farming strategies. Instead of intensive farming, the emphasis has to shift to agro-ecological farming systems requiring less water, with the focus diverted to local production, local procurement and local distribution. What India needs is a series of desi reforms in agriculture, ensuring that growth in agriculture is so entwined with food policies that hunger and malnutrition is relegated to the past.    

Meanwhile, a high-level task force of chief ministers headed by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has been formed. The task force would do well if it does not copy the failed agricultural reforms from the United States and European Union. To illustrate, Indian economists are building up pressure to open up agriculture to foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail trade as well as in preparing the farm markets for commodity trading. If this had worked, I see no reason why the average farm incomes in the US should have nosedived in 2018. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had estimated the ‘median’ farm income to be in the negative at minus $ 1,553 (or minus Rs 107,739). In other words, the average farm household in the US was living in debt, with the debt margin increasing substantially for half the households existing below the ‘median’. In fact, the Chief Economist for USDA had admitted that real farm incomes have been declining since the 1960s, thereby necessitating huge farm subsidies to keep farming viable. This is happening at a time when the world’s biggest commodity trading centre, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is located in the US, and the world’s biggest organised retail chain the US-based WalMart has completed more than half a century. But neither commodity trading nor the entry of private markets could rescue agriculture. 

Instead of borrowing failed agricultural prescriptions what India needs is a revolution on how best to make farm economy viable and sustainable. To me, this is a great opportunity. The Prime Minister has already set the ball rolling when in the interim budget in February made a provision for providing a direct income support of Rs 6,000 per year to small farmers, which was extended later to all land-owning farmers. In my understanding it was a tectonic shift in economic thinking, moving away from ‘price policy’ to ‘income policy’. Gradually, I am sure the direct income support in the years to come will one day increase from Rs 500 a month to as much as Rs 5,000 a month. And I am hoping that PM-Kisan scheme is followed by setting up a National Commission for Farmers Income & Welfare, incorporating the existing Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), with the mandate to provide an assured income of Rs 18,000 per month per farming family. This has to be provided by way of topping-up on the average incomes in each of the districts. The date for assessing farm incomes district-wise is available.

Considering that the average farm income in 17 states of India or roughly half the country stands at a mere Rs 20,000 a year, the importance of direct income support can be easily gauged. At the same time, public sector investment between 2007 and 2017 being in range of 0.4 per cent of GDP, the reason why agriculture is faced with a terrible agrarian crisis becomes obvious. With low investment and low incomes, no miracles can be expected. Agriculture therefore needs massive infrastructure investments, including expanding the existing APMC regulated markets infrastructure to reach 42,000 mandis in 5 kms radius, linking these mandis with a network of village link roads, strengthening the MSP delivery system, and providing for a network of godowns, foodgrain silos and warehouses. This has to be accompanied by formulating Ease of Doing Farming initiatives on the same lines as ease of doing business. Ease of Doing Farming will be a governance reform removing bottlenecks and hurdles farmer’s encounter during crop production, harvesting and marketing operations.     

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Transforming agriculture is only possible provided policymakers get out of the dominant mindset that considers agriculture to be a burden on the national exchequer. It has to be acknowledged that the path to future economic growth definitely passes through agriculture. Given the right kind of policy push, farming can turn into an economic activity thereby not only strengthening the livelihood security for 600 million people directly or indirectly dependent on farming but in addition creating a huge demand that will reignite the wheels of economic growth. This is the probable image of a sustainable future that the world awaits eagerly, where an ecologically sustainable agriculture corrects the climate imbalances, reduces income inequality and helps builds up sustainable livelihoods. #

Make no mistake: Only agriculture has the potential to reboot the economy. National Herald. July 13, 2019. https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/make-no-mistake-agriculture-alone-has-the-potential-to-reboot-the-economy

 

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Horrifying photos sometimes necessary
“The first time I saw the picture, I looked away quickly, shocked. The second time I saw it, tears welled up in my eyes.”

While these words accurately describe my reaction to seeing the awful photo of Óscar Alberto

AP photo of area where Oscar and Valeria Ramirez were found.

Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, whose bodies had washed up along the Rio Grande’s shores a few weeks ago, they were in fact written in 2015, and chronicled my reaction to the photo of Alyan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian refugee who drowned and washed ashore in Turkey.

Our humanity, and our journalistic principles, are continually being challenged by the plight of migrants. As journalists, we must incessantly, vigilantly question whether (and how) to use shocking, horrifying photos like these.

In hindsight, in Alyan’s case, the right thing may have been to publish the photo, which generated a mountain of both increased interest in and donations for Syrian refugees. For example, Reuters reported, “The average number of daily donations to a Syrian refugee fund run by the Swedish Red Cross rose 100-fold. Before the photo circulated, the charity received fewer than 1,000 donations in a day; afterwards, it rose to almost 14,000.”

Before any of this was known, Alyan’s photo ignited debates in newsrooms about the appropriateness of using the image. Robert Mackey, writing in the New York Times (September 25, 2015) said, "A number of reporters argued forcefully that is was necessary to confront the public with the human toll of the war in Syria, and the impact of policies that make it difficult for refugees to find asylum in Europe. But many editors were concerned about shocking their readers and wanted to avoid the appearance of trafficking in sensational images for profit."

Those same issues frame the debate about the Ramirez photo. On one hand, there’s an understandable desire to shock complacent readers about the grim reality on the U.S. southern border. On the other, there’s the concern about sensationalizing the story and exploiting its victims.

A strong case can be made for using the photo. “It’s irresponsible for a news organization to shield its audience from hard truths,” Kelly McBride wrote at Poynter.org. “…No matter what your political views on immigration are, the fact that so many children are suffering because of decisions made by the U.S. government is something every American should take note of.” 

The counter argument is primarily concerned about how the picture was used. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) slammed the Associated Press for tweeting the Ramirez photo, which it called “exploitative and dehumanizing.” A NAHJ statement said it was especially egregious that it was used on Twitter, which means that users could just stumble upon the image which was “thrust into news feeds without discretion for the viewers or the migrant family the Associated Press exploited.” 

The NAHJ and McBride are both right.

If accuracy is our bedrock principle, then how can this tragedy be told without the photo? If responsible peace journalism gives voice to the voiceless, the photo is necessary to animate the tragedy of the Ramirez family and of the other 6,915 migrants who died along the border between 1998 and 2016. (https://www.nnirr.org/drupal/stopping-migrant-deaths )

That said, NAHJ’s is correct that slipping the Ramirez photo into people’s social media feeds without letting them decide if they want to see it is irresponsible. Many news outlets were more careful with the Ramirez photo.  “NPR didn't lead with photo, but website readers see the image as they scroll down…(Also), The Los Angeles Times didn’t use the image on its homepage, but it runs at the top of the story." (Poynter.org)

News organizations must first decide if photos like Alyan Kurdi and Oscar and Valeria Ramirez are needlessly sensational, or are instead necessary for a complete understanding of the story. Then, journalists must decide if the photo accurately reflects the story, or instead relies on or reinforces stereotypes, racism, sexism, or xenophobia. If the photo is accurate and necessary, then it should be used, though readers must be allowed to choose for themselves if they want to see it.

--For another interesting take on this, see: https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-06-26/what-difference-does-one-photo-make-lot-first-then-nothing

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Summertime Expulsion Timelines- How Long Can A District Wait To Hold A Summer Expulsion Hearing And The Hearing Still Be Legal?

By Michelle Ball, California Education Attorney for Students since 1995

Have you ever wondered if your child may escape expulsion if he or she does something just before summer vacation?  Maybe they can skate by and the discipline will be forgotten?  What are the timelines during summer break?

Most parents probably think that if a child does something expellable 5 days before school ends that any discipline hearing will not be held until the fall semester, months later.  Not so, at least not if the
hearing is legal.  Per California Education Code §48918(a) expulsion hearings must be held within 30 schooldays.  

But aren't there no schooldays during the summer?  Good question.  

Per California Education Code §48925(c), 

(c) “Schoolday” means a day upon which the schools of the district are in session or weekdays during the summer recess. [emphasis added]

What this means is, although school may end on May 25, the "schooldays" for purposes of expulsion hearing timelines are still running Monday- Friday during the summer.  This count would likely exclude any major holiday such as July Fourth.

So, no expulsion hearing will wait until the fall semester if the act occurred the prior school year, at least not without a parent waiver or the student being in a year round school.  

This can be positive for the student as Districts can miss summer timelines and be forced to drop an expulsion recommendation.  Administrators may also have limited summer staff they don't want to pull away from summer break for a hearing, so may be slightly more willing to make a deal.  This is not always the case, but we can

all hope.

Much of the time, alert district administrators are aware of the summer issues.  However, if a parent is also alert, and calculates the time, finding that the hearing was not convened timely (e.g. it was convened after 30 "schooldays"), that parent may then stop the hearing from proceeding at all.  If the district moves forward regardless, this error could give a parent the right to appeal and overturn any discipline that results from the untimely expulsion hearing.

So, if your kid did something at the end of last schoolyear and is facing an expulsion hearing in the fall, or late summer, you may want to check your calendars and count the days to see if maybe the expulsion hearing is now untimely, and even better, illegal for the district to pursue.  

Best,

 

Michelle Ball

Education Law Attorney 

 

LAW OFFICE OF MICHELLE BALL 

717 K Street, Suite 228 

Sacramento, CA 95814 

Phone: 916-444-9064 

Email:help@edlaw4students.com 

Fax: 916-444-1209

Website, Blog, Twitter, Youtube, Facebook

 

Please see my disclaimer on the bottom of my blog page. This is legal information, not legal advice and no attorney-client relationship is formed by this posting, etc. etc.!  This blog may not be reproduced without permission from the author and proper attribution of authorship. This blog may not reflect the current state of the law.

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Budget 2019: Ease of Doing Farming

Considering that nearly 50 per cent of the country is reeling under a serious drought, with June being one of the five hottest months in the past 100 years, and with growth in real farm incomes remaining almost ‘near zero’ in the past seven years, the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has a difficult task cut out when she presents her maiden budget on July 5. But expectations are riding high.

There is no denying that agriculture is in a desperate need for reforms but the bigger challenge for the new government will be on how to increase real farm incomes. Economic Survey 2016 had estimated the average income of a farm family in 17 States of India, which means roughly half the country, at a paltry Rs 20,000 a year, and with a major study conducted by OECD-ICRIER pegging the loss farmers suffered on account of being denied the rightful price, between the years 2000 and 2017, at a whopping Rs 45-lakh crores, farmers have been at the receiving end. As if this is not enough, recent studies show farm incomes plummeting to the lowest level in 15 years, and huge job losses for the rural farm and non-farm workers as well. 

Farmers have toiled hard to produce bumper harvests. And yet, with each passing year, the plight of a farming family has only worsened. Agriculture in reality has been a victim of macroeconomic policies which aim at keeping food inflation low, provide cheaper raw material for the industry, and meet the obligations of international trade. While the terms of trade were against agriculture, public sector investment between 2011-12 and 2016-17 declined to 0.4% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Private sector investment too dipped to 1.8% in the same period. With public and private sector investment on the decline, coming down to a low of 2.2% of the GDP in 2016-17, the neglect of agriculture was all too apparent. 

There is hardly a day when farm suicides are not being reported from one part of the country or another. Take the case of Punjab, where even after the loan waiver of Rs 2-lakh per farmer was initiated in January 2018, as per Bhartiya Kisan Union calculations there have been 430 farm suicides reported in the year gone by. Between 2000 and 2017, a house-to-house survey by three public sector universities had calculated a total of 16,600 farm suicides. If such is the depressing farm scenario in the frontline agricultural state, the agrarian distress prevailing in the rest of the country can be easily imagined.

The launch of Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojna (PM-Kisan) in Feb 2019, which provides all landowning farmers with a meagre direct income support of Rs 6,000 a year, or Rs 500 per month, the government made its intent clear that it is keen to revive agriculture. It also is an indication of government’s willingness to provide direct income support. The scheme has been now extended to all 14.5-crore landowning farmers , and it now needs to be further extended to 14.4-crore landless farmers. Already a budget provision of Rs 87,000-crore has been made and to include another 14.4-crore landless farmers the total budgetary allocation would be around Rs 1.6- lakh crore. To the question where will the money come from, the best and easy instrument available for the Finance Minister is to immediately scrap the annual fiscal stimulus package of Rs 1.86-lakh crore being doled out to the industry, in operation since the global economic meltdown in 2008-09. There is no economic justification for the package. It continues to be paid for ten years now.

In 2018-19, farm credit to the tune of Rs 11.68-lakh crore was extended to agriculture. This may further be revised to Rs 12-lakh crore in this budget. But the bigger challenge remains on how to reach this to the small and marginal farmers. Economic & Political Weekly had recently estimated that not more than 15 per cent small farmers have access to institutional credit, and that’s the reason why farm loan waivers have not been able to stem farmer suicides. The task therefore should be on how to bring more farmers under the ambit of institutional credit. In addition, among the foundational reforms that the country is crying for the government should announce setting up of a National Commission for Farmers Income & Welfare with the mandate to provide every farming family with an assured income of Rs 18,000 per month. This should be provided by way of top-up approach over the average income that farmers get in each district. That data for this is available.  

Expanding the network of Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) regulated markets, from the existing 7,000 mandisto a probable target of 42,000 mandisin 5 kms radius, should be accorded top priority. This should be accompanied with a budgetary provision for setting up grain silos and warehouses across the country. Since the BJP manifesto had committed to provide Rs 25-lakh crore of investment in agriculture in the next 5 years, a beginning should be made by investing at least Rs 5-lakh crore this year on setting up mandis and godowns.

But more importantly, much of the problems farmers confront are related to governance. Like the ease of doing business for the industry, agriculture too needs Ease of Doing Farming initiatives to remove the hurdles and bottlenecks farmers encounter during cultivation, harvesting and marketing operations. Nirmala Sitharaman would appreciate this much better because it was during her tenure as Commerce Minister that 7,000 steps for ease of doing business were laid out. I wonder why she can’t unroll a mechanism to provide 5,000 steps for Ease of Doing Farming. #

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