SUNS 4351 Tuesday 12 January 1999

New Delhi, Jan (Panos/K.S. Jayaraman) -- Government clearance for the Canadian transnational Seagram to turn coarse grains - the poor person's staple - into whisky, a rich man's drink, is worrying agricultural and social scientists alike.

"Seagram is actually trying to steal food from the poor," alleges Vandana Shiva, president of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology. "Diverting coarse grains for whisky-making will have a serious impact on India's food security," she says.

Renowned geneticist and the father of the Indian Green Revolution Monkombu S. Swaminathan however welcomes the project - with a degree of caution. "We have to see what is Seagram's strategy of sourcing the raw material," he told Panos Features.

"If they can help promote the cultivation of coarse grains in dry areas, then it is fine because in that process the project will widen the food security basket," he added. But it would be a matter of
concern if the grains are produced on land which is already irrigated and used to feed the poor.

Food grains, such as sorghum, are used in many developing countries, particularly in Africa, to produce alcoholic drinks that cater to a particular kind of taste. But breweries in India have always produced these beverages from molasses. The byproduct of sugar is cheap, abundant and yields a great deal of alcohol - 230 litres per tonne. Seagram is planning to convert maize, sorghum, bajra (pearl millet) and ragi (Eleusine coracana) into whisky. Coarse grains accounted for 36.5 million tonnes out of a total food grains production of 192 million tonnes in 1996. According to official estimates, 150 to 200 million people in India still depend on coarse grains for nutrition.

Indian scientists have known all along how to make alcoholic beverages from food grains. But this route was never pursued because of low yield (40 litres of alcohol per tonne). More importantly, in a country with 50 to 53 percent of its population under-nourished, it would be obscenely unethical to convert food grains into whisky.

Under India's newly liberalised economic policy, however, Seagram has been granted permission to become what it reckons "the only company in India which uses grain, and not molasses, in the production of its blended whiskies."

The move is worrying some scientists in a country where huge scientific advances in agriculture have been spurred by egalitarian ideals of social justice and self-sufficiency.

"Food surplus Western countries produce alcohol from food grains out of necessity because they do not have molasses," says Harbansh Bahadur Mathur, a former professor at the respected Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi and an expert in alcohol production and use. "To do so in India, which has abundant molasses, would be foolish as this may create food scarcity," Mathur warns.

"At a time when the intake of coarse grains is decreasing, converting them into whisky should be discouraged," says Kamala Krishnaswami, director of the National Institute of Nutrition. "Coarse grains are full of micro-nutrients and their iron content is high. So they should be used to fortify other cereals instead of using them in whisky-making."

But Seagram (India) maintains it will not touch wheat, rice or any other staples consumed by people or animals. Instead, it will only use "grains which fall out of the human food chain and waste grain
residues."

Campaigners argue that there is hardly ever any food grain  - coarse or otherwise - that is not consumed.

Suman Sahai, convenor of Gene Campaign, a nongovernmental organisation, says that the coarse grains targeted by Seagram are indeed the staple of the poor and that waste grain residues are used as animal feed - never thrown away.

Seagram has already invested Rs. 35 million (0.83 million dollars) on a research and development centre in the Western state of Maharashtra to develop methods for converting pearl millet, grown by farmers in Maharashtra, and ragi - cultivated in Rajasthan state - into whisky.

"We will invest Rs. 100 million ($2.38 million) over the next five years in grain alcohol research using locally grown raw material," says Virender Sheroin, director of the centre.

The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) under the Ministry of Science, has also lent its support to the grain alcohol project. It recently awarded full recognition to the Seagram R&D centre, making it eligible for coveted government incentives such as tax benefits and import of duty-free equipment.

Also concerned about the project is Ebrahimali Abubacker Siddiq, former head of crops division at the government-run Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and now head of the ICAR's rice research unit.

"There is nothing wrong in making whisky from grains that are surplus or unfit for consumption. But the government must specify the raw material and closely monitor the project, or we may land in trouble," he says. No one knows how much coarse grain is really thrown away but Siddiq says it is very little.

According to Sheroin, the R&D centre "is targeting not one raw material but many." Ragi is a possibility but maize would be ideal, he says.

Jagdish Singh, an adviser to DSIR, says the crops targeted by Seagram are sorghum, pearl millet and maize, which is the main grain used by Seagram in Canada. Singh said Seagram plans to have the grains produced in farmers' fields under contract.

Sheroin says the Seagram centre will work with nearly 10,000 farmers in four districts of Maharashtra state helping to "upgrade the quality and suitability of grains grown by them" for producing whisky.

"Right now we are focusing on Maharashtra but soon we will do the same in other states," he says, but adds that it is too early to say how much coarse grain will be used. According to DSIR, it will not be more than half million tonnes.

Sheroin also says the project will benefit farmers who can earn money by selling to Seagram rather than using grains as cattle-feed or as food for themselves. This is precisely what worries Mathur.

"Millions of our landless farmers who still depend on coarse grains will starve if some of the coarse grains - whose production has already dwindled - end up in distilleries instead of in provision shops," says Mathur.

Shiva agrees. "The farmers will start off as contractors supplying grains to Seagram, but may end up as bonded labourers - the project is destructive whichever way you look at," she says.

Scientists are also fear a possible shift in research priorities once coarse grains are viewed as cash - rather than food - crops. "Currently we breed sorghum and millets to increase their protein content from the nutritional point of view," says an ICAR scientist.

"But Seagram, whose aim is alcohol, is interested in increasing the starch content, not protein."

Sheroin confirms that Seagram would like farmers to grow grains with high starch content and is considering entering into research collaboration with Indian agricultural institutions and scientists at
the International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in the city of Hyderabad, which holds India's largest collection of coarse grain germplasm.

It is, however, the wider concern about poverty and hunger that makes scientists wary.

"India, with its cheap labour and cheap food grains, offers a great potential for Seagram to produce whisky at low cost and export it to make huge profits," says Mathur. "It would be a pity if, in that
process, the country's poor are left hungry."