Healing Powers Of Traditional Indian System Of Medicines Don't Depend On Chemicals, They Rather Depend On Earth: Alphons

The three-day Krishi India 2018 expo organised by Prem Behl, Chairman, Exhibitions India Group held last week had attendees from agriculture, biotech, health and organic sector. 

The inaugural session of Wellness India 2018 saw Union Minister of State for Tourism KJ Alphons who spoke about India being the country of wellness. He also spoke about Kerala being at the heart of the wellness tourism industry owing to the numerous wellness retreats offering a combination of Ayurveda, yoga and other Indian systems of medicines.

He emphasised, “The healing powers (of traditional Indian systems of medicines) don't depend on chemicals, they rather depend on the earth. The products that heal us are actually Ayurvedic.” 

Yasuro Koizumi, Executive Vice President, CFO & CIO, FiNC, Japan who has invested in Indian wellness startup FitmeIn, stressed that India’s efforts of staying healthy should be connected with Japan’s efforts.

A recurring theme in the farming and agriculture sessions kept emerging around the fact that Indian agriculture is the cereal-centric i.e. production of wheat and rice is preferred over oilseeds and pulses. 

Stressing on how the country’s cereal-centric (limited to wheat and rice) food security approach actually harmed interests of farmers Dr. Ramesh Chand, Member NITI Aayog said, “The per capita consumption of cereals has remained more or less the same for about 50 years though per capita consumption of edible oils, for instance, has grown by 300 percent since 1992-93. However, India has not taken advantage of this growth and 70 percent of our edible oil demand is still met by imports.” 

He also pointed out that exporting water-guzzling crops like paddy was not in the interest of the nation or its farmers. “We should aim to get more productivity from less resources if we want to double farm income by 2022.” 

There was also much talk around private sector investment in supply chain infrastructure and services that would lead to a reduction in waste and more added value. 

The conversation also veered towards the ‘profitability aspect’ rather than the ‘productivity aspect’ of farming to achieve the 2022 target of doubling farmers’ incomes.

An exploration and analysis of how farmers could be integrated into modern value chains that can raise their incomes and also minimise the risks, also ensued. 

Dr. J.P. Mishra, Adviser (Agri), Niti Aayog, explained that there exist two kinds of risks - production risk and price risk, adding that Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana covers the production risk. Pointing out that India has the problem of plenty with the amount of food being produced, Dr. Mishra admitted, “Post-production activity in India has issues for which a larger ecosystem needs to be created.” He added that post-harvest value addition has been debated at the level of the Prime Minister. 

Pradipta Kumar Sahoo, Business Head, SAFAL Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetable Pvt. Ltd., stressed that, “Value chain intervention is key to an efficient farm risk mitigation mechanism.” 

Shri Gokul Patnaik, Chairman, Global Agri Systems Pvt. Ltd. expressed strongly that, “Farmer produce needs to be demand-driven. Farmers lack critical management skills and technology which are necessary for them to make profits.”

A shift from agriculture to agribusiness is being viewed as an essential pathway to revitalise Indian agriculture and improve farmers’ livelihoods. Dr. Shruti Sethi, senior scientist, PHT, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), opined that value can be added by the manufacturer through branding and marketing. 

There is a huge network of cooperatives in the country, the largest in the world. With around 8,33,560 cooperatives in existence, 98% villages are covered by these cooperatives, and farmers have easy access to them. Cooperatives are a formidable force for farmers, with all types of cooperatives eligible for National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) assistance. Defining the concept of farmer producer organizations Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), Ms Deepa Srivastava, Chief Director, NCDC, said, “The concept of FPOs consists of collectivization of producers especially small and marginal farmers to forming an effective alliance to collectively address the challenges of agriculture such as improved access to investment, technology, inputs and markets.” 

Ms. Nora Galway, Agriculture Counselor, Australian High Commission, highlighted how digital technology was fundamentally changing agriculture in Australia, where decisions are based on objective data, adding, “It would be nice to see technology transfer in agriculture from Australia to India.”

World-renowned environmental activist and Navdanya founder Dr. Vandana Shiva said that it was her association with the Chipko movement that drew her to organic farming. “The Chipko movement was started by women in the Himalayan region. Because of their daily experiences in gathering and preparing food from natural sources, as well as cultivating crops and raising domestic animals, they maintained sustainable relationships with the natural environment.” According to Dr. Shiva, organic farming stands for non-violence. “There is no violence to the environment, the farmer or our health,” she asserted.

Advocating for organic food for the mid-day meal scheme and Public Distribution System (PDS), she said, “It will increase community participation and ownership, and favourably influence the quality and safety of food served.” 

Navdanya’s own experience has shown that chemical-free biodiversity based farming produces more nutrition per acre and can feed two India’s. Farmers using their own seeds and their own ecological inputs, growing diverse and nutritious foods that people need and want, and creating their own markets without middlemen, can increase their incomes 10X to 100X. “So we are not simply talking about doubling farmers’ incomes.” 

Nitin Puri, Senior President, YES Bank, stressed strongly on the fact that we should take pride in our products. 

On the Wellness front MasterChef India winner Pankaj Bhadouria and an advocate of ‘Think Global, Eat Local,’ said, “With an increase in population and urbanisation, lifestyle changes have taken place and diseases have increased. FAD foods and diets don't have any benefits. All the damage we've done to our body, cannot be undone overnight. It needs time of over a decade, and we should start making healthy choices today itself. Ayurvedic food, which is not seasonal, is healing.” 

Industry stalwarts like Nutritionist Dr. Ishi Khosla, Dermatologist Dr. Deepali Bhardwaj, Wellness Coach Preeti Rao and MD Wholeleaves Dr. Shyama Nagarajan gave insightful views  on the importance of nutrition for a healthy in mind body and spirit; with a unanimous voice on how wellness is not only how we look on the outside but more importantly what we feed ourselves, thoughts being of equal importance. 

Animal activism aside there was much talk about how Vegan is the Future. It’s shocking how environmentalists who are fighting about tree cutting, are not stressing on the burden created by a non-vegetarian and milk-based diet. Erika Abrams of Animal Aid Unlimited, Lakshmi Venkatraman from FIAPO, Nikunj Sharma from PETA, Tarun Jain, founder, Soin and Nutritionist Poonam Sharma from SHARAN passionately highlighted the importance of a plant-based diet ergo Veganism. 

Veganism is the way of the future if we want not only animals and people to survive, but the planet too.