Mumbai and Home!

Welcome to Mumbai - at low tide. I traveled to Mumbai on the 5th for my last two days and had a wonderful meeting with the governments agricultural bank located in Mumbai. I was greated by 6 great guys, each handling different aspects of agricultural loans for Dairy, forestry, tea, nuts, fishing, etc.

Dairy Capital

On the 3rd I moved to Anand, about 200km north of Mumbai - which is considered the "Dairy Capital" of India. This is home to Amul the largest and most well know dairy cooperative in the country. The fact that they have created an empire of sorts one farm at a time, usually with 2-3 cows on each farm is absolutely astonishing. To see farmers of all ages lined up every morning and night, delivering their milk to the village society (one of 14,000 of them!) is an amazing sight. They control everyting from collection to production of prodocts and all marketing. They are the largest food packaging group in Asia! It makes me wonder where the traditional co-ops of the US have gone.

Monday Chennai

Yesterday I moved to Chennai, on the southern point of India. Much more tropical here..its the rainy season and very humid. The sights are different, with more greenery and less dryness, even a few hills. The city has seen a quick development in recent years and is also known as the Detroit of India. This development is evident when you drive outside of the city. I spent a great day with Hermantha from Hand In Hand Here I am meeting a very progressive dairy and fodder farmer and also with a group of women who are experimenting with organic vegetable production. Both of them served as mentors to other farmers in the area working with the organization. It was great to get out into the countryside!

Catchup

Hi all. I've been a bit delinquent in my posts, but I will catch up. I've had a great couple of days meeting with government officials, in the rural development ministries, agriculture ministry, the India Agricultural Research Institute and others. Today I spent the day with Basix amazing stuff! check it out. They introduced me to some of their customers in a poor outskirt section of Delhi.

Tuesday

Tuesday began with a fantastic meeting with the organization NAVDANYA - that was originally set up as a seed bank for indigenous crops. They assist farmers in learning about the benefits of organic production, nutrition of various heirloom crops and varieties, works with policy makers, focuses on women, and multicropping in India. I had a great time learning about their view of the green revolution, the benefits of "old seeds" and the concept of "nutrition per acre" not production per acre.

Later in the day I meet with Chandra Bhushan and Sopan Joshi at the center for science and environment in New Delhi. The Center is involved in all aspects of environmental issues and is considered on of the largest and most influential organizations in the country. I had a wonderfully candid conversation about climate change, the US involvement in the global climate change debate, as well as the viewpoint of climate change in the eyes of the average Indian citizen. It was a very fun and spirited conversation!

Monday Delhi

I started the day by meeting with Dan Miller at USAID. It was helpful to get a sense of the issues at hand in India regarding agriculture and development from the viewpoint of a US agency. I was given the US's new global hunger and food security initiative document, as well as Hillary Clinton's recent remarks on food security...did they know I was coming here!

Next I met with the group TERI. A research organization involved in all aspects of agriculture, renewable energy, development, as well as other issues. We had a great conversation about how developed nations can assist India in accomplishing their goals - technology, public/private partnerships, and financial help with global warming.

Later in the evening I had the opportunity to join Fellow Arbind Singh at his home for a great Indian meal with his family. It was wonderful to experience some real "home life" after being gone for a while. It was absolutely delicious.

Observations...

First, driving here is UNBELIEVABLE! Imagine hundreds of thousands of cars, motorized rickshaws, mopeds, motorcycles, and bikes all sharing two and three lane roads with absolutely no regard to lanes, procedures, laws, or organization. its bedlam. It is a driving style all its own. Now, thats not even the best part. Imagine with all of of this chaos going on, that cars could talk. Imagine they talk to each other with their horns. Like a beeping conversation. That is what it is like. Horns are constant. they are used to tell people to move, watch out, go ahead, "hey you", for ever possible reason horns go off. Large trucks are generally only allowed on the road at night. while the rickshaws have "no horns" painted on the back of them, trucks are another story. They have "blow horn" painted on the back of some of them, as they want you to beep...because they usually cant see you while you are driving beside them...they count on the horn to let them know you are there!