The Economy of Permanence: A Quest for a Social Order Based on Non-violence (स्थायी अर्थतन्त्र)

Economy of Permanence
fertilizer. This must be stopped altogether. This is one of the fundamental
reasons why oil seeds should not be allowed to go out of the villages but should
be crushed in the local country ghanis. This will retain both the oil and the
cake in the village and enrich men, cattle and the land.
In the name of increasing the fertility of the soil, great attempts are being
made to introduce chemical fertilizers. The experience gained through the use
of such chemical fertilizers throughout the world is clear enough to warn us of
their inroads. They do not add to the fertility of the soil but act as stimulants
or drugs so that the land yields up its fertility resulting in immediate bumper
crops, but in the end bring about a corresponding exhaustion of the land. They
also destroy a host of earth-worms so essential to maintain the fertility of the
soil. In the long run, such artificial fertilizers prove to be most injurious to the
land. Behind the specious pleading for the chemical fertilizers lies the anxiety
of the fertilizer factory owners to push the sale of their products irrespective of
the harm or injury they do to agriculture.
Seeds : Selected and improved varieties of seeds are essential if agriculture is
to flourish. What is wanted in this regard is the machinery for effective
distribution of seeds in the form of co-operative societies which should run
seed farms under able research workers.
Grain storage : Enormous loss of grain occurs through bad storage alone. Such
loss is estimated on a conservative basis to be about 3.5 million tons, an
amount equal to the declared deficit of grains in India during 1946. The
qualitative loss caused by insects, rodents, dampness etc., all caused by bad
storage arrangements resulting in all kinds of diseases, is equally great.
If storage arrangements are made locally all the waste through bad storage,
loss by insects etc., and conveyance charges will be eliminated.
The storage problem is both an urgent and a permanent one and should be
tackled in all earnestness and seriousness. In any case, holding stocks in ill-
protected godowns, as at present, should be stopped.
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