Crop Production, Protection and Sustainable Development : A Socio-

Crop Production, Protection and Sustainable Development : A Socio-
Legal perspective
Dr. Alok Chantia* & Dr. Preeti Misra**
*Lecturer, Dept. of Anthropology, Sri J.N.P.G. College, (KKC) Lucknow; E-Mail
alokchantia@rediffmail.com
** Lecturer, Dept of Human Rights, School for Legal Studies, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar
University, Lucknow; E-Mail misra9us@gmail.com
Abstract:
Man became unique when he understood mechanism and process of crop production
during Neolithic period (it is very first sign in the path of cultural evolution when man
started with agriculture, animal husbandry etc.)Crop production made survival of human
being easy across the globe, but this process also led to population explosion. Initially
natural resources were in abundance and population was meager but today case is
different and reverse. This imbalance between population and resources has led to the
philosophy of sustainable development. It is nothing but reflection of Indian philosophy
as ‘Santosham param Sukham ’ or ‘Kum Khao Gum khao’ these parlances show that
Indians have always been thinking in terms of present and future day needs of its society.
They always had the thoughts of interests of posterity in mind. Apart from cultural
dimensions, Nation-state concept gave another idea of welfare state and to fulfill this
aspect government started the process of privatization, liberalization which led to the
flow of MNCs and BPOs etc.
India is a rural country where socio-cultural dynamics of life lies in villages. More than
70% of its population is residing in rural India. The process of investment under
industrialization has occupied rural land for industrial plant establishment. Industrial
plants require big areas of land which not only contaminates water by industrial waste
material but also depletes ground water level. So crop production is multi dimensional
process giving rise to multi problems. Some crop production requires serious attention
due to ecological imbalance created by it. Today we need bio products, bio agriculture
rather than agriculture using different chemicals and fertilizers.
In present paper an attempt has been made to analyse how the process of
industrialization, liberalization with the coming up of MNCs and BPOs are destroying
crops in different parts of the country. We have Plachimada case of Kerala where whole
crop of the village was adversely affected due to coca cola plant and on the other hand
coconut production in Chittur district of Andhra Pradesh was destroyed due to the
process of economic liberalization. Today farmers are committing suicides due to wrong
public policies and programmes. The crop production and protection should not only be
analysed in context of its usefulness, fertility or its effect on environment etc. it should
also be studied in terms of Government policies and programmes as agriculture and
horticulture provide a vital source of livelihood and employment as guaranteed under the
Indian Constitution. How Government policies and programmes should be framed so as
to ensure sustainable development along with crop production and protection will be the
highlights of present paper.