For ensuring sustained growth and food for all, the only effective strategy is to give the due income and social status to the small, medium and marginal farmers and farm workers and reduce inter-sector imbalances.

1. GIVE THE FARMERS THEIR DUE AND
ENSURE SUSTAINED GROWTH
AND FOOD FOR ALL
PROF. (DR.) RAJU M. MATHEW

2. SUSTAINED GROWTH - MYTH OR REALITY?
• Information Technology Revolution accompanied by the Management
Revolution, Globalization and the super imposed Service Sector created the false
sense of hope that the Global Economy had reached the stage of sustained
growth without any crisis, recession and depression. That was the picture drawn
by the Management and Financial Gurus, the Nobel Laureates in
Economics, Business Schools of almost all universities and above all Information
Technology Experts up to 2008.
• Their logic was that the best brains and talents have been employed in the
service sector, including IT and over 70% of the investment and the best
technologies have been set apart for the growth of cities that guarantee
sustained growth for ever.
• But the global economy has been moving from financial crisis to recession and
then to Great Depression since 2008, affecting everybody, especially the poor
and marginalized; the rural sector has lost its importance; over 60% of the
Humanity is on the verge of poverty and starvation for the alarming decline of
agriculture and food production aggravated by poor storage and distribution of
food products. Nobody is dared to tell when the world is getting free from the
Depression, called the Recession.

3. MOVING TOWARDS EXTINCTION
• Everybody was shocked when the financial meltdown occurred in
some well known banks and financial institutions in 2008 that had
grown to the extent of a financial crisis, then Recession affecting
almost all nations and finally a Great Depression lasting at least
2025.
• The world is getting realized that with stimulus packages, monetary
and fiscal policies or measures, it cannot be contained. With the
linear and one-dimensional thinking, theories, policies and
strategies
of
the
economists,
management
experts, strategists, technocrats of universities, think
tanks, governments, the World Economic Forum, the UN, IMF, WTO
and the World Bank there is no solution for the Global Economic
Crisis other than aggravating the Crisis coupled with severe
shortage of Food Supply.
• Mass poverty and starvation are powerful enough to wipe out one
third of the humanity between 2025- 2050. Further fall of food
supply leads to the extinction of the entire humanity as the nations
and people wage wars just for food, even using highly destructive
mass weapons.

4. DEMORALIZED FARMERS AND
THE FIRE BRAND RELIGIOUS PEOPLE
• Computer simulated growth models and sophisticated statistical or
mathematical projections and forecasting of the economists and financial
analysts do not bring sustained growth and make sound global economy.
• The overplay of the powerful corporate houses and some government
entities resulted in the striking inter-sector and inter-region imbalances
so as to make sustained growth and eradication of poverty and starvation
almost an impossibility.
• Not only the farmers and the rural folk but also the common people in the
streets are getting realized that they have already been sidetracked and
alienated even in their own locality. The People have lost their faith in
ideologies, religions, justice and governments and they found pleasures in
crimes.
• This has driven many to make use of any religion or organization that
justifies rape, crime, terror, murder of somebody branding as ‘the
unfaithful’ or ‘the enemies of the God or the ideology or religion’ and
glorify the martyrs and suicide bombers. Though they are using religion,
especially Islam as a mask, they don’t have any faith in the religion or the
humanity while rigorously following some of the religious practices. This
is more true in the case of the new fire brand Islamists, including the new
converts.

5. PLIGHT OF THE GREEN COLLAR WORKERS
• It is much easier to make a tablet or smart phone available to every
school children and bring everybody under the control of e-or mgovernance than to feed everybody on this earth.
• Even though industrial revolution had made blue collar workers
superior to farmers and farm workers, it also contributed for the
wide mechanization of farming operations and thereby substantial
increase in food production and creation of value-added and
innovative food products.
• Information Technology Revolution has brought out a new class of
white collar workers or professionals dominating the blue collar
workers and even reducing farmers and farm workers or ‘green
collar workers’ to the status of beggars or the ‘Sudras’ of the caste
system of India.
• The gap with regard to the earning and the social status between
the green collar workers, the blue collar workers and the white
collar workers has been widened into several folds in the ratio of 1:
5: 25. As a result, farm products, especially food production has
been declining at an alarming rate globally, making agriculture
inferior or unattractive , especially for the new generation.

6. THE MOST EFFECTIVE SOLUTION
• Over-emphasis on the Urban-Centered Service Sector, Globalization
and Information Technology is the basic reason for the Intersector and inter-regional imbalances. This has lead to the collapse
of the Rural life and reinforcement of Poverty and Starvation of the
millions which in turn lead to Religious Fundamentalism and
Terrorism so as to aggravate Poverty and Starvation affecting the
entire Humanity and the Global Economy.
• Almost all universities, academic disciplines and academic or
professional experts are molded for service-dominated urban life
with very little concern for the rural sector and agriculture. That is
the reason why; Poverty and Starvation and the Global Economic
Crisis coupled with terrorism and fundamentalism persist without
much solution.
• The most effective solution for all these problems is to develop an
integrated development strategy based on reducing inter-sector
and inter-regional imbalances and redesigning technology and
education system, especially higher education for the integrated
rural and agriculture development.

7. GIVE THE FARMERS THEIR DUE
• The development of Information Technology and the spread
of the Corporate Culture even in developing countries have
relegated the income and social status of the small and
marginal farmers and the green collar workers to the level
beggars or social outcasts.
• It is time to correct the crime committed against the farmers
and the green collar workers by empowering
them, upgrading their income and social status and
introducing the massive development initiatives for the
rural and agriculture sectors. Every farmer or the farm
worker is entitled to get an income and social status on a par
with his counterparts in the industrial and service sectors.
• Unless such urgent corrective steps are introduced , the
global economic crisis will prolong indefinitely, religious
fundamentalism and terrorism will spread all over the world
and poverty and starvation will dominate the entire
humanity which ultimately result in the next World War with
unimaginable consequences. .

8. ALTERNAT POLICIES AND STRATEGIES
• Though over 70% of the Humanity is based on the rural and farm sector that
provide food products to feed the entire humanity and support the
industrial and service sector, it has been over-squeezed for developing the
Industrial and Service Sectors. We are paying a great price for it. It is time to
correct the blunder committed by the rulers, policy or decision
makers, educators, technocrats, investors and industrailists.
• Alternative Global Policies and Strategies for Rural and Agriculture
Development are required to save the global economy from the prolonged
Economic Crisis, save the Humanity from Poverty and Starvation and prevent
the spread of religious fundamentalism and terrorism.
• For rural and agriculture infrastructure development , at least a five fold
investment is required globally within a period of five years besides
developing new technologies, management techniques and new education
system and enhancing the income and social status of the rural and farm
sector on a par with industrial and service sectors. Agriculture literacy and
education must be recognized on a par with computer literacy or education.
• This will augment a ten fold increase in food production supported by the
scientific storage and distribution system; empower the entire rural folk; give
a new direction and meaning for rural life and thereby diffuse terrorism and
religious fundamentalism; ensure full employment for them; create several
employment opportunities even for the urban people; make the global
economy on a sound footing so as to eliminate the global Economic Crisis.

9. CAPITAL AND TECHNOLOGY
• Once the humanity realizes the strategic importance of
the rural and agriculture development and the dangers of
making undue importance to the industrial and service
sectors at the expense of rural and agriculture
sector, capital and technology for the rural and farm
development are not a big problem at all besides
redesigning the education system, Information Technology
and Management Sciences and Practices.
• For producing enough food for all and making it available
to the entire humanity, over and above the traditional or
well known areas of cultivation, we have to exploit the
vast desert regions and even the oceans for this purpose
for which new technologies and methods of cultivation
need to be developed besides new crops along with the
traditional ones.