On food and fossil fuel dependence
- CCDD (Citizens Concern For Dams And Development) -

25 May 2010

It has come to the stark and painful reality of the hardship of food crisis, whether in the tiny 'plain' area or the hill areas in Manipur. An un-escapable fact is that this crisis has also brought to us down to earth again. There must be self introspection of all of us now in Manipur of the real situation which has been manifested by and upon us.

CCDD has been propounding a self sustained livelihood system through our activism to bring to an end to highly destructive projects such as Tipaimukh dam, airport expansion etc. to ensure a self sufficient food system effort resulting into food sovereignty. Henceforth, the people of the state must demand that no agricultural land will be used for any other purposes, and the state must work out a policy where agricultural land cannot be transferred for other use.

For a long time, the government has been propounding projects where large agricultural lands are directly destroyed. One may recall that Loktak Hydro-projects have submerged more than 40-60000 Hectares of prime and cyclical agricultural land, Thoubal Multipurpose Project (Mapithel Dam) will result in the loss of more than 2646 acres in the upstream portion, Imphal airport expansion is estimated to take over more than 600 acres of very fertile agricultural land.

Tipaimukh dam will submerge a total of 68057 acres (approx) in total. In addition, there will be agricultural land loss due to unplanned urban expansion, various smaller projects, jathropa and carbon sink plantations etc. All these result in the continued reduction of agricultural production in the state, thereby increasing our un-sustainable and over dependence on trucks. Waiting for truck lifestyle cannot be the future we as people strive for.

In addition, we have also realized that our dependence on fossil fuel have increased manifold. While a thorough study on this is required, there must be effort to understand the energy dependence and how we can ensure cheaper, cleaner and faster efficient energy measures, and to develop an energy secure future. There is urgent need to re-instate public transport system rather than the current noisy and highly polluting private autos. A lot of schools in the valley are closed down, but this is only the manifestation of a fossil-fuel dependence of schools and the government must plan ways how this can be dealt with in the long term.

If there are positive lessons from the highway blockade and counter blockade it is this that we have learnt how to live with little that we have, and that we begin to re-think on our food and energy security.

Signed
Dr. Ranjan RK
Chairperson
CCDD