Green Revolution - The Capitalist Propaganda

The World Wide Agriculture Movement called the Green Revolution which took off in a big way in 1960's was the result of the research that began in 1944, when the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mexican government established a plant-breeding station north-western Mexico.

The success in Mexico led to the establishment of another plant-breeding center in the Philippines which is known today as the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

That trend reduced the diversity of grain crops especially Rice and Wheat. IRRI took control of the traditional varieties of rice from the Asian countries, as a result, the local farming communities lost control of the seeds which are now kept in a giant genetic seed bank. The rice seeds released by IRRI, despite being labeled as the high yielding varieties are susceptible to pest and diseases and requires heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers. Also these seeds cannot be kept for replanting as they will not produce well, thus the farmers are required to purchase new seeds every time.

This is how the capitalist world have introduced the globalized food system through reducing the diversity of seeds and traditional varieties which are tolerant to climate change and pest and diseases, so they make huge profits from hybrids, high yielding varieties and genetically modified seeds and the agro-chemicals. The seed companies such as Mosanto are big players in the globalized food system.

All over Asia, the peasants are rising and mobilizing to deglobalize the food system to harness the diversification of seeds which are in the hands of the farmers and NOT IRRI or Mosanto.

The Green Revolution is a Capitalist Propaganda for a Globalized Food System control by the minority. 2010 April 4 will be IRRI's 50 years of capitalist globalized seed bank. The farmers in the Asia-Pacific region are raising one voice - SHUT DOWN IRRI, Deglobalised the food system, Hand back the seeds to the farmers. It is a crime to take seeds away from the people and make profits out of their poverty.

Gone off the Course

(Reflecting on PNG 34th Independence Anniversary)

When the children of this land sang the National Anthem and lift the black gold and red flag on September 16, 2009, there was a sense of emptiness in the song. The lyrics sounded foreign as it does not reflect the spirit of the people of this country. Rundown education and medical facilities, high school fees, high cost of living, poor infrastructures, corruption and the list goes on.

Papua New Guinea’s National Constitution developed before the independence in 1975 was based on five key pillars set by the Constitutional Planning Committee quoted below:

“We hereby proclaim the following aims as our National Goals and Direct all persons and bodies, corporate and unincorporated, to be guided by these our declared directives in pursuing and achieving our aims:

1. Integral Human Development:
We declare our first goal to be for every person to be dynamically involved in the process of freeing himself or herself from every form of domination or oppression so that each man and women will have the opportunity to develop as a whole person in relationship with others.

2. Equality and Participation:
We declare our second goal to be for all citizens to have an equal opportunity to participate in and benefit from the development from our country.

3. National Sovereignty and Self Reliance:
We declare our third goal to be for Papua New Guineans to be politically and economically independent, and our economy basically self reliant.

4. Natural Resources and Environment:
We declare our fourth goal to be for Papua New Guinea’s natural resources and environment to be conserved and used for the collective benefit of us all, and be replenished for the benefit of our future generations.

5. Papua New Guinea Ways:
We declare our fifth goal to be to achieve development primarily through the use of Papua New Guinea forms of social, political and economic organisation.”

The PNG Constitutional Planning Committee in 1975 also had a vision for PNG quoted below:

“We see the darkness of the neon lights. We see the despair and loneliness in the urban cities. We see the alienation of people that is the result of the machine oriented economy. We see the true social security and the people’s happiness being diminished in the name of economic progress. We caution therefore that large scale industries should be pursued only after very careful and thorough consideration of the likely consequences upon the social and spiritual fabric of our people. There is overwhelming evidence to suggest that a significant number of people who live by the fruits of multi-million dollar multi-national corporations live in misery, loneliness and spiritual poverty. We believe that since we are a rural based people, our strength should be essentially in the land and the use of our innate artistic talents” (PNG Constitution Planning Committee 1975)

The Constitution Planning Committee set the development path for PNG and its people in 1975 through the national goals and directives and its vision.

Quoted below are 3 of the quotes of 3 famous PNG and Melanesian Leaders:

“All of us in Bougainville, PNG and Melanesia; and everybody in the Pacific need our land. Our lives depend on our land and our resources which are our wealth. What do we (160,000 Bougainvilleans) need the biggest copper mine in the world for?”
Francis Ona

“Do we really want to become a country of big cities? In all the 700 languages of our country we have never needed words for air pollution, for slum or for unemployment. Do we wish to build the kind of country that needs these words?”
Michael T Somare (1973)

“The concept of land ownership goes beyond human existence, for while a person is a transient creature, land is permanent, irredeemable and non-disposable. Land is the link between the earth and the sky, the sea and the clouds, the past and the future. Because land is eternal, it is owned in a sacred trust for the succeeding generations.”
Bernard Narokobi


Reflecting on the 34th Independence Anniversary of this beautiful country (PNG), it is very clear the country has gone off the tangent. The leadership that had the bright and sharp eyes during the preparation stages of independence in the early 1970’s have gone blind and lost vision. In a very short period of a little of 30 years, the country has been ripped off big time by multinational corporations and few corrupt elites of this country. The future of this country looks bleak.

Addressing Climate Change in the Global Village

Climate Change is generally referring to the global climatic condition which is now affected and unstable due to an increasing level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting in Global Warming and triggering extreme and unstable weather patterns. Burning of "fossil fuels" such as coal, oil and gas which contains carbon is a major sponsor of climate change. Burning them releases carbon dioxide gas. Since the early 1800s, when people began burning large amounts of coal and oil, the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere has increased by nearly 30%, and average global temperature appears to have risen between 1° and 2°F.
An important role of Carbon dioxide gas is trapping solar heat in the atmosphere, partly in the same way as glass traps solar heat in a sunroom or a greenhouse. For this reason, carbon dioxide is often called a "greenhouse gas." As more carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere, solar heat has more trouble getting out. The result is that, everything else stayed unchanged, the average temperature of the atmosphere has increased.
These have further aggravated, sea levels rising, natural disasters, crops diseases and pestilences and food security concerns are few examples. These are huge challenges impacting global politics, economics, industries, science, technology, and social patterns and cross cutting across the developed, industrial and the underdeveloped countries.

There is scientific consensus that Global Warming and Climate Change are global phenomenon; however the mitigations remain a challenge because it is not a pure scientific issue, but a scientific issue resulting from main streams factors such as political, economical and social decisions and human behavioural patterns and thus consequently having a major effect on these factors. To address Global Warming and Climate Change would require a total overhauling from all these factors which is adding the complex icing on the already complex scientific problem. This remains a huge challenge for the global community.

The developed countries, especially the Europeans are driving global campaigns on approaches to mitigate Global Warming and Climate Change while on the other end China and India are hungry for more raw materials for their huge and growing industries. The developing countries especially those who are vested with reserves of raw materials like Papua New Guinea are sandwiched in the middle of this two worlds whether to continue in exporting raw materials or stop. For instance the PNG’s timber exports is now challenged to stop logging and engage in a new and fast developing industry – Carbon Trade through what is called “Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD)” a mechanism devised for rainforest countries through the Rainforest Alliance which the PNG government is leading.

Carbon Trade is about buying and selling carbon credits. The emitter pays for the credits created by another through reduction schemes and systems. There are many talks and discussions around carbon trade and its benefits in PNG, however not much attention is given on Global Warming and Climate Change – the underlying issue. For instance the Government established the office of Climate Change, Carbon Trade and Sustainable Development. This newly established office advertised 67 new positions, of which 64 were designated for carbon trade and only 3 positions for climate change. In essence it means that the major function of this office will be focused on carbon trade which is in fact a market based climate change mitigation mechanism, in simple terms, focus is on where “money” is. Market based mechanisms refers to taxes, levies, penalties and payments for emissions produced.

Now this brings on another question – will market based mechanisms effective enough to mitigate climate change?
Yes market based mechanisms can contribute to that effect but can not be successful alone if other approaches such as industries cutting down emissions and changing social behaviours of the people are not seriously considered. These are more moral and ethical issues. Nevertheless, it is a general practice for industries and business to include all their production costs on their products mark up and the consumers ended up paying for the all costs in prices of goods and services. There will be a sharp increase in the cost of goods and services and place like PNG will feel the heat of rising costs.

One important fact people must know is that, the current status of the global climate is a result of impacts over time and it will not be an over night experience for mitigation results to take effect. That means the effects of climate change and global warming such as extreme weather patterns will continue until the equilibrium is reached. How prepared are we as a country to handle climate change induced disasters such as in the Oro floods, Land slides in Simbu and the sinking Carteret Islands remains a huge challenge.

A friend recently attended a faith based conference on Climate Change in Nashville U.S.A hosted by the Climate Change guru and former U.S vice president, Al Gore. This friend of mine described the conference to be scientific and technical. However, the experts recommendations include, clean energy, alternative source of transport, organic food sources etc. My friend told the conference participants and experts that 90 percent of Papua New Guineans do not own cars and therefore use public transport or walk, the Bougainvillians are already using coconut oil to run vehicles and more than 80 percent of our population depend on their land for survival thus eat organic food. This shocked many of those participants and climate experts who gave him a look as if he was an alien from a different planet.

While facing the tide of the new industries developing from economizing environmental services and the efforts to mitigate Climate Change and Global Warming, we need to;
Understand what the underlying issue is.
Analyse how it is affecting or will affect us.
Analyse what opportunities that are evolving as a result of the issue and how best we can benefit from the opportunities without compromising the efforts to address the issue
Understand that the West does not have all the answers in the world, in fact their model of development and economic growth have contributed to the global climatic catastrophe.
Understand that moral and ethical issues have an important role in Climate Change and Global Warming mitigation and not only market based mechanisms.
Climate Change has clearly defined the world as a “Global Village” in its cross cutting effects, therefore with the huge challenges facing the global village, the model communities need to take the lead in showing the way

Reafforestation escalating in the Highlands of PNG

50 years ago, the highlands villages were enclosed by pristine forests. Today most of these areas are covered by grasslands (kunai). There are many contributing factors to that, but the most evident is the high population growth experienced in the highlands in the last 50 years.

Quite recently, there has been an escalation in Reafforestation in the highlands region. Communities and individual families are embarking on major reafforestation drive and huge amounts of grasslands have been reafforested. Consequently, tree seedlings are becoming an emerging enterprise as not many people are keen to do nurseries. Two years ago, a casuarinas seedling was selling for 50 toea in Mt. Hagen, now it has gone up to K2.00.

Whilst admiring the initiatives taken by the highlanders, what is the motivating factor? Why a sudden shift of the mindset? It seems that, the promises of carbon trade have settled in well in the highlands region – Money speaks.

I do not want to discredit the whole exercise as I also believe in reforestation and reafforestation exercises because of the many benefits, however my concern is, will money truly come to the highlands as promised by the carbon trade maniacs? PNG does not have a policy framework for carbon trade, and the global community is yet to decide whether or not to include the REDD initiatives for carbon trading.

On the global perspective, by now people should understand that money is not the solution to the global climate crisis; it is the moral values that count most. Simple things like respecting your neighbour, caring for others, taking just enough, changing your lifestyle, and putting the people and the planet before profits matters if anybody is serious at all.