Vandana Shiva discusses Health per Acre
[NOTE: ANYTHING NOT IN QUOTATION MARKS ARE MY WORDS, Freya Sargent]. [FREYA] Summary: Navdanya exposes the flaws in measuring Indian agricultural success by "yield per acre", instead of "health per acre." Chronic and acute illness has majorly spiked in the past 40 years in India, and many of these ailments can be connected back to malnutrition. Navdanya compared the nutrition produced per acre of farmland through organic and conventional agriculture, collected from four different states of India- Sikkim, Rajasthan, Kerala, and Uttaranchal, as well as from three case studies conducted at Navdanya farms. The study aims to highlight methods that maximize nutrient production, minimize environmental risk, and ensure a sustainable alternative to solve the national and global food crisis. The team at Navdanya, along with many other esteemed researchers, have found in their comparative studies, that fostering organic mixed crop practices radically enhance nutrient density and supply the plant diversity necessary for a healthy diet. "On an average, organic mixed cropping produces 124 kg of protein more than conventional mono cropping, per acre farmland. 124 kg of protein is enough to fulfill the protein requirement of 2000 adults for a day." If India used all their cultivable land for organic mixed crops, they could "produce enough protein to fulfill the protein requirement of approximately 5 billion adults for the whole year." "Organic mixed cropping can increase the production of micro nutrients, for consumption, by 72%." "Only 0.1% of the pesticide used reaches its target, that is, the pests." "The United Nations has estimated that about 2 million poisonings and 10,000 deaths occur each year from pesticides..." [FREYA] A study done in 1998-99 revealed that 74.3 percent of Indian children under the age of three years old were anemic. Source: National Family Health Survey-II (1998-99)
Source: Dr. Vandana Shiva with Dr. Vaibhav Singh, "HEALTH PER ACRE, Organic Solutions to Hunger and Malnutrition" http://www.navdanya.org/attachments/Health%20Per%20Acre.pdf [verified 4/15/14]