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India’s premier scientific organisation for research in agriculture, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), signed a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Syngenta Foundation India (SFI) and Syngenta India Pvt Ltd to promote climate-resilient agriculture and training programmes on July 15, its foundation day.
But this was not the first.
The ICAR has been on an MoU signing spree with various multi-national agribusiness companies like Bayer and Amazon since 2023. Its aims to develop “solutions” — including crop varieties, practices and technologies, and advisories — which can be provided to farmers.
The signing of the MoUs have drawn serious concerns from farmer groups, agriculture scientists, and civil society organisations, over a range of reasons, the most worrying being the issue of conflict of interest in these collaborations.
It is not clear from ICAR’s official statements as to how private companies will be prevented from promoting their marketing agenda or products and services like agrochemicals and seeds to the farmers and maximising their profits instead of providing best available options.
These MoUs also imply commercialisation of scientific research in agriculture and extension activities, which are the mandate of ICAR, public agriculture extension departments, and krishi vigyan kendras (KVKs).
The copies of the MoUs or any explanation behind selection process of the private entities could not be found in the public domain. But ICAR has put out official statements regarding these on its website.
Sample these:
· On June 8, 2023, ICAR signed an MoU with Amazon Kisan “for guiding the farmers on scientific cultivation of different crops for optimum yield and income”. According to the official statement, this MoU is also aimed at ensuring access to high-quality fresh produce for consumers across India, including through Amazon Fresh.
· On June 27, 2023, ICAR-Indian Institute of Spices Research entered into an MoU with Jain Irrigation Sytems Ltd, a multinational micro irrigation firm, for “collaborative research” on black pepper, ginger and turmeric.
· On September 1, 2023, ICAR and Bayer, a multinational pharmaceutical and crop science company, signed an MoU to develop “climate-resilient solutions” for crops, varieties, crop protection, weed, and mechanisation. The official statement says that this partnership will focus on working together on agriculture sustainability programme efforts, empowering smallholder farmers with agronomic advisory, and developing carbon credit markets.
· This year, on March 19, 2024, an MoU was signed between ICAR and Dhanuka Agritech Limited, an agri chemical manufacturing company, on ironically promoting natural farming and providing advisories and training related to agricultural production to small farmers by associating with the central institutes, ATARIs and KVKs.
· On June 13, 2024, Coromandel International, Limited (CIL), a manufacturer of fertilisers and crop protection chemicals, entered into an MoU with ICAR-National Bureau of Soil Survey & Land Use Planning, Nagpur with an aim to enhancing dissemination of “improved soil test-based crop nutrition management” for farmers in Maharashtra, particularly in the Vidarbha and Marathwada regions. Based on soil-test based datasets generated by NBSS&LUP, Coromandel “will provide nutritional management solutions for better soil health and to improve crop productivity”.
· On July 15, ICAR signed an MoU with Syngenta Foundation India, and Syngenta India Pvt Ltd to “enhance training and capacity-building programmes for farmers and rural youth, focusing on climate-resilient agriculture practices and agricultural skill training”.
Experts have questioned the rationale behind these MoUs.
“ICAR is tying up with private corporations on activities that are the primary mandate of ICAR itself, where taxpayers’ funds are going to The National Agricultural Research System (NARS) for doing this,” said Kavitha Kuruganti, Co-Convenor, Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), Bengaluru.
For example, the statement on the MoU with Amazon Kisan says that ICAR will provide technological support to farmers through Amazon’s network to “improve farmers’ livelihood and boost crop yield”.
And the one with Syngenta outlines that the collaboration will focus on capacity building and extension activities, including the adoption of climate-resilient agriculture practices, safe and proper use of crop protection chemicals, and the use of precision agriculture tools such as drones and AI-based techniques.
“Is this then a statement on ICAR failing in its stated mandate? Is this also a statement on India’s extension systems failing, as per ICAR? Have the extension departments of state governments been consulted about such MoUs, when agriculture is a state subject as per our Constitution?” asked Kuruganti.
ICAR is one of the largest public agriculture research bodies in the world. The organisation has a wide network of 113 crop-specific research institutes.
A KVK is an agriculture extension centre in India. Present in every district of the country, KVKs have a vast network and are involved in on-farm testing to assess the location specificity of agricultural technologies and in demonstrations to establish the production potential of technologies on farmers’ fields.
While private companies will get to utilise the vast network of ICAR and KVKs, the collaboration is also likely to affect the nature of these very services provided by ICAR and agriculture extension functionaries.
For example, different ICAR institutes develop solutions to various problems faced by farmers — from new climate-resilient crop varieties, agronomic practices to protection from diseases and pests.
“But global agribusiness players have different sets of aims. Bayer, for example, is involved in research, tailor-made to promote the marketing of products starting from pesticides to hybrid and Genetically Modified (GM) seeds,” said Soma Marla, former Principal Scientist and Head, Crop Genomics, ICAR.
The statement by ICAR on the MoU with Bayer mentions that the partnership between the two will work to promote efficient agronomic practices such as direct seeded rice (DSR) in paddy cultivation, especially in smallholder farms.
“DSR involves direct seeding of rice in prepared paddy fields without the hassles of growing rice nurseries and transplanting. But the practice is taxed with excessive weeds in paddy fields. Here, Bayer will be ambitious in promoting weed-killing chemical herbicides, to be sprayed several times during crop growing,” said Marla.
It is not clear how ICAR will ensure that the farmers get unbiased advisories.
“Does the ICAR believe that Bayer will deliver advisories to farmers which will not further its own business goals and that such advisories cannot be given by the public sector extension departments as well as ICAR’s KVKs in the country,” questioned Kuruganti.
These are similar to MoUs signed by the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare with organisations like Microsoft Corporation and Patanjali in 2021.
Under the MoUs, the department entered into an agreement with the private companies for sharing data on land profiling, crop estimation using remote sensing, and advising farmers on soil nutrition, accurate quantification on farmer crop and yield.
And there have been concerns about information asymmetry, data privacy and consent, profiling of farmers, mismanaged land records and corporatisation of agriculture.
Some of the agri-corporations which have signed MoUs with ICAR, have come under scrutiny in the past for marketing products that cause health and environmental damage. For instance, the use of glyphosate, a herbicide developed by Bayer, has been restricted in India because of its health hazards to humans and animals.
Similarly, pesticide ‘polo’ manufactured by Syngenta caused a spate of pesticide poisoning deaths in 2017-18 in Maharashtra; a total of 63 farmers died due to pesticides poisoning across 15 districts. The health effects of the poisoning on those who survived are still present even after six years and, in fact, were on a far larger scale than previously known.
Different farmer and civil society organisations, agriculture scientists, and citizens will be writing a letter to ICAR, asking to suspend the implementation of the signed MoUs, to share all details in the public domain including MoU copies, and to desist from signing any more such MoUs without widespread debates on the same.
Among other issues, the letter also asks if any efforts are being undertaken to get into MoUs with farmers’ organisations. It questions ICAR about facilitating Bayer in carbon credit markets as per the MoU.