On Winds

Winter has switched to spring quite abruptly this year. 

Within a span of a week cold foggy mornings gave way to bright sunshine all day prompting us to pack up our jackets and sweaters a month ahead of the Holi festival -  the traditional end-date for winter in this part of the country. There is however one lingering sign of winter that still remains - a cold, steady wind that blows before sunrise and after sunset.

Winds have a language of their own. They always remind me of a passage in Michael Ondaatje's classic, "The English Patient":

"There is a whirlwind in southern Morocco, the aajej, against which the fellahin defend themselves with knives. There is the africo, which at times has reached the city of Rome. The alm, a fall wind out of Yugoslavia. The arfi...which scorches with numerous tongues. These are permanent winds that live in the present tense.

There are other, less constant winds that change direction, that can knock down horse and rider and realign themselves anticlockwise. The bist roz leaps into Afghanistan for 170 days - burying villages. There is the hot, dry ghibili from Tunis, which rolls and rolls and produces a nervous condition. The haboob - a Sudan dust storm that dresses in bright yellow walls a thousand meters high and is followed by rain. The harmattan, which blows and eventually drowns itself into the Atlantic..."

One of the winds named here - the Ghibili - has been immortalised by the Japanese anime legend, Hayao Miyazaki, who has named his production house, The Studio Ghibili Collection, and churned out some of the most endearing animation movies we have seen. 

Recent research has also revealed that the great Amazon forests owe their nutrition to winds that emerge from the Sahara desert. Molecular level analysis combined with remote sensing technology tells us that an estimated 22,000 tons of phosphorus from Saharan dust is deposited on Amazon soils every year!  Even more astounding is the discovery that much of this phosphorus comes from one specific area in the Southern Sahara, the Bodélé Depression in Chad, an ancient lake bed where rock minerals composed of dead microorganisms are loaded with phosphorus!

Do the winds that blow through Delhi have their own names? Have they inspired any creative genius, or carried vital nutrition into distant ecosystems? We don't know yet.  Perhaps the answer, my friend, is blowing in the winds...the answer is blowing in the winds.

--------------------------------------------------

REFERENCES & LINKS

* Nature (4 Jan., 2021) - Dust arriving in Amazon Basin over the past 7500 years came from different sources

* NASA Satellite reveals how much Saharan dust feeds Amazon's plants - https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-how-much-saharan-dust-feeds-amazon-s-plants

* The Studio Ghibili Collection - Hayao Miyazaki - https://ghiblicollection.com/

* Demons of the African Air - https://www.irishtimes.com/news/demons-of-the-african-air-1.90392

Out of Africa - into Europe

This was an eye-opener, and a reminder about how little I know about Africa.

Having studied with a group of Africans I also find it surprising that even as a part of academic discussions at Tsukuba University on this very topic, there were no fiery discussions on the three key events mentioned by Dr. Arikana:

• Berlin conference of 1884-85 for amicable division of Africa into European colonies - a meeting of 14 colonial powers for drawing of arbitrary boundaries, creation of countries that exist today.
• The French government arm twisting its colonies to sign, during 1958-61,  a pact for the Continuation of Colonisation - "The Colonial Debt" 
• 1963 - Addis Ababa conference that lead to the creation of Organisation of African Unity (OAU) by just seven states - Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

Some of the numbers presented are truly cringe-worthy. As a repayment for "civilising" the Africans, for teaching them how to 'eat with fork and spoon', 14 French colonies were were required to deposit 80% (now down to 60%) of their bank reserves with the French Ministry of Finance. This self-serving arrangement enables France to extract no less than USD 500 billion from these 14 countries every year!

Since these 'Francophone' depended almost entirely on their former colonial master for marketing their minerals (first right of refusal), their military hardware, for their printed currencies, and for the education of their elite, the dependencies are almost hardwired. Countries that try to come out of the Colonial Debt are rewarded with coups (no less than 60 so far), assassinations and 'engineered chaos'.

On the 100th anniversary of the Jallianwalla Massacre, it does seem like a miracle that we Indians managed to get independence with just the partition of the subcontinent!

----------------------------------------
LINKS & REFERENCES

* https://blogs.mediapart.fr/jecmaus/blog/300114/franceafrique-14-african-countries-forced-france-pay-colonial-tax-benefits-slavery-and-colonization
* The French African Connection - https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2013/08/201387113131914906.html
* The Berlin Conference of 1884 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Conference

Two Books on Africa

It is a coincidence that two of the books I have 'read' over the past weeks have both been on Africa.

The first was Chinua Achebe's 1958 classic, "Things Fall Apart", and the second one, Dorris Lessing's part fiction, part memoir, "Alfred and Emily". Both the books were connected in strange ways.

The Achebe's book is set in the pre-colonial Nigeria of 1890's. It is about a warrior named Okonkwo whose life and social standing is altered by the arrival of the White Man. The first one who turns up an amiable, gentle priest who wants to introduce Christianity to the remote villages of the Niger delta. He is something of a curiosity, worthy of being engaged and disdained at the same time. By the time it dawns on Okonkwo's community that this is just a soft, probing tentacle of a formidable British colonial administration, it is too late. Guns and machete's have been drawn, blood is spilt, tribes have been set against each other....and Things Fall Apart.

In Lessing's narrative, the view is from the other side of the fence, a few decades later. Countries like Kenya and Rhodesia have emerged out of the the same process that transformed West Africa. An apartheid system is well entrenched. The white farmer now lords over large tracts of land and employs locals as farm laborers, cooks, servants and menials. Tribal hierarchies have been decimated and the most coveted position a local can aspire to is that of the "Boss-Boy", an overseer to other laborers.

For the European settlers, this is a heaven they wouldn't trade for anything that Europe has to offer. Yet, once again, change is just around the corner. African freedom movements sweep aside the white settlers and the rich farmlands return to the bush. Things fall apart once again but for the ordinary Africans who want to pick up the pieces and start over again, there are no social structures to fall back on.

These two books tell stories that have perhaps been repeated a thousand times over in Asia, the Americas and Australia...

Africa!

If there is one image that screws-up your world view at a very early age, it must be the Mercator Projection.

About five hundred years ago, the Flemish cartographer did a brilliant job for the seafarers by projecting the globe on a flat surface. But for the rest of us, it continues to be a distortion of epic prroportions - especially for continents further away from the equator. Greenland, for instance, look four times the size of Australia when it is actually it is just the opposite!

Africa, however, takes the cake. It takes a map like this to show how things really stand -

You can fit 18 large countries, including India, China and USA into Africa, and still have plenty of room to spare.

'The True Size of Africa' is really an eye-opener.

-------------------------------------------------------

LINKS

* 8 Maps that will change the way you look at Africa -- http://www.one.org/us/2014/03/13/8-maps-that-will-change-the-way-you-look-at-africa/

A Give & Take Relationship

Is it really true that while rich countries give $130 billion in aid to poor countries, they actually extract stuff worth $ 2 trillion every year?

Data published by the UN shows that 300 years ago, rich countries were only three times richer than poor countries. By the end of colonialism in the 1960's this rose to 35x. Today, the difference is 80x!

Rich countries try to compensate by giving aid to poorer countries each year. This amounts to about $130 billion. If you think this is a large amount, consider the fact that large corporations are taking more than $900 billion out of poor countries each year in a form of tax avoidance called "trade mis-pricing". Also each year, poor countries pay $600b in "debt service" to rich countries, paying the originally borrowed amount many times over. Add biased trade rules that costs poor countries $500 b every year (Univ Massachusetts study), and you have the rich-poor divide in two startling figures:   Every year, in exchange for $130 billion in aid, rich countries take back home a total of $2 trillion!

Here is an info-graphic video that conveys this much better:



So, how does this work?

Take the case of Guinea, West Africa. A recent article in the New Yorker (see here), describes in detail how two transnational companies, Rio Tinto and BSGR, "lobbied" their way to gain control over the Simandou Mountains, which was, "without doubt, the top underdeveloped tier-one iron-ore asset in the world." In 1997, the Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto gained exclusive rights to explore and develop the mines.

Ten years later, Guinean officials passed these rights to a much smaller Israeli company, Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR). No fees were paid for the exploration license. Since BSGR had no expertise or experience in the iron-ore business, it sold a controlling stake (51%) to Vale, a Brazilian mining company,  for $2.5 billion. So, in exchange for 'investing' $160m (mostly bribes to the ruling elite?), BSGR got $ 2.5 million, plus a 49% stake in a $5 billion asset.

However, as of now, the Simandou mountains are still intact. The iron ore will continue to remain unexploited until the big boys settle their fight and find a way to transport the ore to a seaport. Until educated and public- spirited Guineans take control of their own affairs, the country may continue being one of the poorest in Africa.

Until then, perhaps it is good to remember what Joan Robinson had to say -- "The misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all."

View Larger Map

Simandou mountains in Guinea are near Nzerekore, which is tucked away next to Liberia

-------------------------------------------------
LINKS

* Simandou Mountains - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simandou
* Economics Quotes -http://quotes.cat-v.org/economics
* Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries -- http://www.gfintegrity.org/storage/gfip/executive%20-%20final%20version%201-5-09.pdf

World Rice Shortages – Taking India’s Green Revolution to Africa

It’s a quixotic world out there – especially when one takes a closer look at international commodities trade. Thanks to a maze of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), WTO rules, national subsidies, trade blocks and bilateral pacts, massive quantities of food grains rot in western silos while food riots erupt in parts of Asia and Africa. Nothing illustrates this farce better than the rice trade.

Despite being largely self-sufficient in rice, developed countries like Japan end up importing rice from America to maintain some semblance of ‘balance of trade’. 1.5 million tons of high-grade American rice is currently idling in Japanese silos. As long as the Japanese have the money to buy local 'sticky-rice' varieties like Sasanishiki and Koshihikari, they would rather pay over Yen 600/kg (~Rs. 200/kg) than suffer the indignity of eating American rice. And as long as the US-Japan agreement prevents resale of this rice, a lot of it is destined to either rot or be disposed off as animal feed.

Total world rice production is about 646 million tons (2007, IRRI), of which only 6% or 38 mT is traded internationally. About 50% of rice exports come from three countries - Thailand (26%), Vietnam (15%) and India (10%).

This year, a shortage of rice has sent the world markets into a tizzy. A crisis that worsened after India decided to ban exports (non-Basmati rice) in order to build sufficient buffer stocks. How much is sufficient? Food Corporation of India (FCI) has announced plans to raise the rice buffer stock to 27.5mT, i.e., about 70% of recent world rice exports.

If this seems like a huge buffer, consider one point - FCI distributes around 2 mT of rice every month under the national Public Distribution System (PDS). The system is notorious for its inefficiency, corruption and leakages, but it still remains a political hot-potato that nobody wants to touch – let alone the thought of making it more efficient.

Across the Arabian Sea, in Africa, millions of lives depend on rice imports. Despite producing about 14mT (2006, FAOSTAT) it imports about 7mT annually. According to an International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) report - "With only 13% of the world's population, Africa accounts for 32% of world rice imports, which makes it a big player in the international rice”. The report goes on to say, “In 2006, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) imported more than 9 million tons of rice worth an estimated $2 billion. With world rice reserves at their lowest level since 1983-84, international rice prices are expected to double in the next couple of years. This is especially alarming for SSA nations, which need to import about 40% of their rice to satisfy local demand."

Africa Rice Center (WARDA) in Benin is one the 15 international agricultural research Centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). It has been working towards improving the productivity and profitability of rice production in Africa by popularizing a hybrid called NERICA (NEw RIce for AfriCA), a variety that has high yield potential in a short grown cycle. The Center’s website has a long list of international collaborators and India is prominently absent. Having benefited enormously from the Green Revolution, one would have expected India would take on a leading role in teaching Africa how to lead farmers from hybrids to bumper crops.

There was no trace of such generosity in the recently concluded India-Africa Summit (8-9 April 2008), even though Agriculture figures prominently in the joint framework for cooperation. The framework broadly outlines sustainable development of agricultural and animal resources, capacity building, water resources management, disease control and processing/storage technologies. Surprisingly, there is no mention of the ongoing commodities crisis or of any collaboration in rice production.

India has a wealth of experience in rice production. We owe a large part of this to international collaborations that helped us improve our research capabilities, our expertise in breeding and seed production, agricultural extension, use of improved seeds, fertilizer and equipment, as well as post-harvest handling and marketing. It is time we returned the favor and extended our wholehearted support to African countries in their efforts towards self-sufficiency in food grains and reduction of imports.

Setting our own house on order also help. Efficient management of Indian public institutions like FCI and the PDS system would not only reduce wastage but also reduce the necessity of maintaining huge, expensive buffer stocks. Releasing our surplus rice into the international markets would go some way in easing the pressure on those who are worse off than us – especially the countries of Sub Saharan Africa.

There are, of course, no short-term, quick-fix solutions to the problems of food security. While India curries favor with Africa for its natural resources, and trade concessions, it would be helpful to remember what Cervantes noted in Don Quixote - “There's no sauce in the world like hunger”.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

References:

• RICE Today, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Website
• Africa Rice Centre, WARDA
• FCI happy with wheat stock (The Hindu 09 Feb 08)
• Enough food stock buffer to meet needs: FCI
• INDIA-AFRICA FORUM SUMMIT, New Delhi, 8 - 9 April, 2008
• Rice buffer stock tops 10 million tonnes: FCI news
• Japan's silos key to relieving rice shortage (The Times, London 17 May 2008)
• Riots, instability spread as food prices skyrocket - CNN 14 Apr 2008
• IDSA:Keynote Address by Nalin Surie, Secretary (West), MEA Govt. of India (23 June 2008)
• International Farm Research - Why India should step up funding - Harish Damodaran, BusinessLine, 4 June 2008
• World Rice Crisis: Issues & Options - CSC Shekar, EPW, June 28, 2008