The One-Straw Revolution - Multiworld India

Research for Whose Benefit?When I first began direct-seeding rice and winter grain, I wasplanning to harvest with a hand sickle and so I thought it would be moreconvenient to set the seeds out in regular rows. After many attempts,dabbling about as an amateur, I produced a handmade seeding tool.Thinking that this tool might be of practical use to other farmers, Ibrought it to the man at the testing center. He told me that since we werein an age of large-sized machinery he could not be bothered with my"contraption."Next I went to a manufacturer of agricultural equipment. I was toldhere that such a simple machine, no matter how much you tried to makeof it, could not be sold for more than $3.50 apiece. "If we made a gadgetlike that, the farmers might start thinking they didn't need the tractors wesell for thousands of dollars." He said that nowadays the idea is to inventrice planting machines quickly, sell them head over heels for as long aspossible, then introduce something newer. Instead of small tractors, theywanted to change over to larger-sized models, and my device was, tothem, a step backward. To meet the demands of the times, resources arepoured into furthering useless research, and to this day my patentremains on the shelf.It is the same with fertilizer and chemicals.96