Showing posts with label Foundations of Growth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Foundations of Growth. Show all posts

Monday, March 7, 2011

Rig Veda: Amalgamation of the Aryans with the natives

A very interesting thing in North India is that almost all the languages and dialects are derived from Sanskrit or Persian, both of which are Indo Iranian languages. Apart from the few pockets of tribal areas, where Austro Asiatic Munda languages are spoken, Indo Iranian languages are spoken almost every where from Afghanistan to Assam. This means that the Indo Iranian languages took over almost all the native languages of which Munda and Burushaski may be just the two known to us. We've seen in Languages of Aryan Trail that Dravidian languages were never native to northern India. So we discount them as being taken over by Indo Iranian languages.

Let's see some of the other cases of language takeover in historical times.

The most recent scenario of immigration of non native elites imposing a foreign language on the subdued natives is the arrival of Europeans in the American continents. The mainly English peoples subjugated the native Americans in what later became USA. Traces of the ancient native languages in USA are now limited only to names of places and rivers like Mississippi and Missouri. English is the dominant language in USA now but the American Indians still speak their native language. Even centuries of subjugation and elite dominance couldn't impose English and Christianity on them. The Bolivian and the Peruvian Indians may be Spanish speaking Christians now, but a large part of them still speak the native Queucha as well. Many native customs and tenets of the Inca religion still survive, often in a Christian garb.

After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 AD the elite dominance of the Norman French peoples influenced heavily and nearly replaced the Anglo Saxon, Welsh and other native languages of England. But in the end nothing happened. Apart from a few family names there are only very few remnants of that conquest and centuries of elite domination by the Normans.

The Russian language was enforced on the erstwhile Soviet Republics of Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan etc.). Now that the USSR has disintegrated the fate of Russian in all these countries is questionable. The Turkish language didn't survive in the Ottoman empire in Balkans. Even the bloody Arab dominance on the Parsis, that led to the coining of the term persecution, couldn't replace the Persian with Arabic. Even centuries of elite dominance by the elite English peoples in India couldn't replace any of the regional languages.

So it's very obvious that an elite dominance very rarely results in a complete language takeover, something that happened in India with the advent of the Indo Aryans peoples. So it's logical to believe that such a feat was achieved not by elite dominance, but through amalgamation and absorption of the native peoples. More than everything they showed better ways of lives to the native peoples. They brought considerable change in their standard of living. They made them prosperous.

Indus valley didn't know the use of plough. They had a primitive way of cultivation by using fertile silt left by periodic flooding of the rivers. Artificial dams and barrages were used to flood the river. This very flooding, which was so essential for farming, might have been one of the causes for the decline of their civilization. Lack of better agriculture is a striking difference from Mesopotamia and Sumer. Indus Valley had no canals as in Mesopotamia. Much less surplus in grains might have been the reason for the lack of internal competition and also external attack. That might have been the reason too for minimal change over 1500 years. The Aryans destroyed the dams and brought greater areas under cultivation. RV mentions Indra destroying Vritra, which means restrainer, obstacle and may refer to the barrage that obstructs the water. Indra is said to have removed rodhas, meaning obstacle but used in RV in context of dams and embankments. The Aryans broke barriers between primitive and conservative tribes which had managed to preserve their archaic religion and tools for long. They introduced better production techniques. Several groups of people separated for ages were brought together. Various skills, which were local secret, became public, thus stimulating more trade and prosperity.


A similar thing would have happened in BMAC around 1900 BC when there was a sudden surge of wealth with the arrival of the Indo Aryans from the northern Arkaim and Sintashta Cultures.


The Aryans never displaced anyone or enslaved entire lots of natives. The Aryans brought in new techniques and knowledge and provided the much needed guidance that led to their prosperity by better harnessing natural resources, producing more and enhancing trade and commerce. This made the Aryans very much acceptable to the natives as their elites.


In most cultures the natives were always enslaved by the intruders. But in case of the Aryans there are multiple instances where the natives were promoted to the ranks of elites. Discussions on Peoples & Conflicts during Rig Vedic times have many such instances. In fact the addition of shudra as the fourth class was to accommodate the natives. It may be still argued that the natives were put in the lowest stratum of the society. But still that's much better than treating them as slaves.


Anyway, coming back to the topic of language takeover it's important to understand that such a thing was possible not through force. Rather it was done through amalgamation and cooperation. It's a very rare instance in the history of mankind that a few elites make such a positive impact on the lives of the natives that they eventually adopt not only the language but also the culture and religion of the former.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

HUNGER IN INDIA

By Amartya Sen, Address made at a public hearing on hunger and the right to food, Delhi University, 10 January 2003

 

1

 

When India achieved independence, more than fifty years ago, the people of the country were much afflicted by endemic hunger. They still are. Since India is often considered to be one of the great success stories in tackling the food problem, the belief in success has to be scrutinized in the light of the grim reality that we can observe.

 

The positive perception in not, however, entirely mistaken. Certain things have been achieved, and it is important to see what has been accomplished and what remains to be done. Some positive things have certainly occurred. First, pre-independence India had a stagnating agriculture, and this has been firmly replaced by an imposing expansion of the production possibilities in Indian agriculture, through innovative departures. The technological limits have been widely expanded. What holds up Indian food consumption today is not any operational inability to produce more food, but a far reaching failure to make the poor of the country able to afford enough food.

 

Second, substantial famines that so plagued India until independence has been effectively eliminated: the last sizeable famine occurred in 1943 – four years before independence. And yet this creditable record in famine prevention has not been matched by a similar success in eliminating the pervasive presence of endemic hunger that blights the lives of hundreds of millions of people in this country.

 

Indeed, India has not, it should be absolutely, clear, done well in tackling the pervasive presence of persistent hunger. Not only are there persistent recurrences of severe hunger and starvation in particular regions, but there is also a gigantic prevalence of endemic hunger across much of India. Indeed, India does much worse in this respect than even Sub-Saharan Africa. Estimates of general undernourishment - what is sometimes called “protein-energy malnutrition” - are nearly twice as high in India as in sub-Saharan Africa. It is astonishing that despite the intermittent occurrence of famine in Africa, it too manages to ensure a much higher level of regular nourishment than does India. About half of all Indian children are, it appears, chronically undernourished, and more than half of all adult women suffer from anaemia. In maternal undernourishment as well as the incidence of underweight babies, and also in the frequency of cardiovascular diseases in later life (to which adults are particularly prone if nutritionally deprived in the womb), India’s record is among the very worst in the world.

 

2

 

What, then, should we do, indeed what can we do? People have to go hungry if they do not have the means to buy enough food. Hunger is primarily a problem of general poverty, and thus overall economic growth and its distributional pattern cannot but be important in solving the hunger problem. It is particularly critical to pay attention to employment opportunities, other ways of acquiring economic means, and also food prices, which influence people’s ability to buy food, and thus affect the food entitlements they effectively enjoy. It is also crucial to use the means of specialized delivery of food that particularly helps poor children, such as more extensive use of feeding in the school.

This can not only increase the incentive of children to go to school, but also actually make them healthier and less undernourished. The Supreme Court has been judicious in emphasizing the importance of this right.

 

Further, since undernourishment is not only a cause of ill health, but can also result from it, attention has to be paid to health care, in general, and to the prevention of endemic diseases that prevent absorption of nutrients, in particular. There is also plenty of evidence to indicate that lack of basic education too contributes to undernourishment, partly because knowledge and communication are important, but also because the ability to secure jobs and incomes are influenced by the level of education.

 

Indeed, low incomes, relatively higher prices, bad health care and neglect of basic education are all influential in causing and sustaining the extraordinary levels of under nutrition in India. There are also more complex connections. Recent medical research has brought out the long-run effects of maternal undernourishment, which not only ruins the health of the mothers, but can also cause serious health problems for the children who are born with low birth weight, since they are more prone to children’s diseases and – later on in life – also to adult diseases. Indeed, low birth weight substantially increases the incidence of cardiovascular diseases later in life.

 

3

 

What about food policy, and in particular food prices policy? Why is it the case that the large expenditure on food subsidy in India does not achieve more in reducing undernourishment? Part of the answer lies in the fact that the subsidy is mainly geared to keep food prices high for the sellers of food - farmers in general – rather than to make food prices low for the buyers of food. The high incentive to produce more food while giving little help to the poorer people to buy food has produced the massive stocks of food grains that we find in India today.

 

In 1998, stocks of food grains in the central government’s reserve were around 18 million tons - close to the official “buffer stock” norms needed to take care of possible fluctuations of production and supply. Since then, it has climbed and climbed, firmly surpassing the 50 million mark, and while it has had some ups and some downs, the total stock is still extraordinarily large. To take Jean Drèze’s graphic description, if all the sacks of grain were laid up in a row, this would stretch more than one million kilometres, taking us to the moon and back.

 

The public expense of the programme of subsidies (estimated, not long ago, at a staggering Rs. 21,000 crores a year) is mainly used to add to the market food prices to raise the incomes of the farmers. We are evidently determined to maintain, at heavy cost, India’s unenviable combination of having the worst of undernourishment in the world and the largest of unused food stocks on the globe. Indeed, a regime of high prices in general (despite a gap between procurement prices and consumers retail prices) both expands procurement and depresses the affordability of food. The bonanza for food producers and sellers is matched by the privation of the consumers. Since the biological need for food is not the same thing as the economic entitlement to food (that is, what people can afford to buy given their economic circumstances and the prices), the large stocks procured are hard to get rid of, despite rampant undernourishment across the country. The very price system that generates a massive supply keeps the hands – and the mouths – of the poorer consumers away from food.

In fact, much of the subsidy goes into the cost of maintaining a massively large stock of food grains, with a mammoth and unwieldy food administration. Also, since the cutting edge of the price subsidy is to pay farmers to produce more and earn more, rather than to sell existing stocks to consumers at lower prices (that too happens, but only to a limited extent and to restricted groups), the overall effect of food subsidy is more spectacular in transferring money to farmers than in transferring food to the undernourished Indian consumers.

Of course, those who want high producer prices of food include some who are not affluent, in particular the small farmer or peasant who sells a part of the crop. The interest of this group is mixed up with those of big farmers, and this produces a lethal confounding of food politics. While the powerful lobby of privileged farmers presses for higher procurement prices and for public funds to be spent to keep these prices high, the interests of poorer farmers, who too benefit from the high prices, are championed by political groups that represent these non-affluent beneficiaries. Stories of hardship of these people play a powerful part not only in the rhetoric in favour of high food prices, but also in the genuine conviction of many equity-oriented activists that this would help some very badly off people. And so it would, but of course it would help the rich farmers much more, and cater to their pressure groups, while the vital interests of the much larger number of people who have to buy food rather than sell it are thoroughly sacrificed.

 

4

 

There is need for more explicit analysis of the effects of public policies on the different classes, and in particular on the extreme underdogs of society who, along with their other deprivations (particularly low income, bad health care, inadequate opportunities of schooling), are also remarkably underfed and undernourished. For casual labourers, slum dwellers, poor urban employees, migrant workers, rural artisans, rural non-farm workers, even farm workers who are paid cash wages, high food prices bite into what they can eat. The overall effect of the high food prices is to hit many of the worst off members of the society extremely hard. And while it does help some of the farm based poor, the net effect is quite regressive on distribution. There is, of course, relentless political pressure in the direction of high food prices coming from farmers’ lobbies, and the slightly muddied picture of benefitting some farm-based poor makes the policy issues sufficiently befuddled to encourage the confused belief that high food prices constitute a pro-poor stance, when in overall effect it is very far from that.

 

Given our democratic system, nothing is as important as clear-headed public discussions of the causes of deprivation and the possibility of successful public intervention. Public action includes not only what is done for the public by the state, but also what is done by the public for itself. It includes what people can do by demanding remedial action and through making governments accountable. That is exactly why we are gathered here today. The lives and well-being of hundreds of millions of people will depend on the extent to which our public discussion can be broadened and be made more informed. I hope we manage to have some impact.

Eradicating Indian Hunger

By Peggy Bradley, Executive Director, Institute of Simplified Hydroponics


"Poverty is the worst form of violence."
Mohandas Gandhi


Foreword

Before his assassination in 1948, Gandhi prophesied that from each drop of his blood a new Gandhi would be born on earth. His dream has been realized in leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Corazon Aquino who follow Gandhi’s non-violent movement. Now we have an opportunity to follow his lead in working to end hunger and poverty in India.

 

Tremendous Need

According to UN estimates, India has the most hungry people. Over 200 million, or about one-fifth of India’s population, is chronically hungry. About half Indian children are classified as undernourished with a large percentage born with protein deficiency affecting brain development and learning capacity. 

Fuel costs have doubled the costs of some vegetables in the past year. This makes life more difficult for the 800 million people in India who live on less than $2 a day. 

In India 440 million people languish at the bottom of the economic pyramid and about 500,000 children are born deformed each year due to vitamin/mineral deficiencies.  (India Together website)

Twenty-two percent of childhood disease in India is caused by malnutrition. Half of the 2.3 million deaths of children is caused by lack of food and malnutrition. 


Potential for Simplified Hydroponics

From the point of view of a family in hunger, their labour is often the only thing of value to help obtain food. Yet over their heads, there is enough solar energy to grow some of the family food requirements. The labour involved is very little, the cost of set up and operation can be just pennies.

The 400 million people without enough food can be estimated to be about 100 million families. If a simplified hydroponic garden cost $100 to set up and operate, the total cost to the country would be 10 billion dollars.

In planning a food program for India utilizing Simplified Hydroponics, the cost can be borne by or supplied by the poor themselves through microcredit that helps families start their own gardens.


A Family Garden in India

For thousands of years, the human population provided for their own needs, often with the help of a vegetable garden. In recent times, with industrialization, more and more people no longer have gardens and rely on their labour to produce money to buy food.

Most daily foods in India include basic ingredients of ginger, garlic and onion. All three of these are very easy to grow in hydroponic culture. The onions can be grown in a bed grower and produce 120 full size onions in 90 days, or about one and a third onions a day.

 Ginger is grown as a bush plant in a root grower and pieces are cut off as needed. If it is used every day, perhaps two plants might be needed. 

Garlic grows more slowly in hydroponic culture. It can take 180 days to produce a full size bulb from a clove. So perhaps as much as 3 square meters may be needed to produce the family garlic needs.

Tomatoes are a standard in hydroponics, very easy to grow and eight plants should provide one or two tomatoes a day. Eggplant is another very easy plant to grow and six plants should provide one eggplant a day.

Potato and carrot are also easy to grow but should be grown in deeper tubs to provide root growing room.

While lettuce is not eaten very often, the people in India gather wild greens to eat as a vegetable. These greens can be grown in hydroponic culture.

There are advantages to creating and having a simplified hydroponic garden. Right now, in India the prices of food are going up rapidly due to higher costs of fertilizers and transportation. With your own garden many of these costs disappear. The fertilizer cost for 100 pounds of vegetables should only be about $1.50.


National Potential

If every hungry family is India had a home hydroponic garden, there would be 100 million gardens producing 300 million to 400 million pounds of food every day. The produced food would add 500 calories to each person's diet. With some planning these calories would be the vitamin rich and also improve the quality of life with a varied richer diet.

Some of the owners of simplified hydroponics will be likely to expand their gardens to produce foods for neighbours or nearby markets. It is possible that one out of ten can produce enough to provide the family with an extra five to ten dollars a day. This would mean that of the 400 million making less than $2.00 a day, perhaps as many as 40 million would at least double family income.

For each person now making $2.00 a day or less, most of the daily income is spent on food. With the hydroponic garden this need is reduced, and they can buy the rice, beans lentils and wheat in bulk, perhaps creating a small food supply. This increases national food security, a population more prepared for emergencies.

A reliable steady supply of fresh vegetables should improve overall health of the population. Children now suffering from malnourishment should be better developed and healthier.

As the simplified gardens become established in the country, more potential can be realized by people whose talent and ability is now under utilized. The people with gardens, and some food security, have an opportunity to increase their income and economic security.

A garden is a real joy for most families. It makes obtaining food much easier, and the quality of the food grown should match the best vegetables grown anywhere in the world. So the daily food becomes enjoyable and helps to improve overall quality of life. Favourite foods that were too expensive can now be grown for just pennies.

 

Family costs

A garden can be started for about $100 investment and labour of about one to two hours a day. It needs a space of 20 square meters, but smaller gardens can also be built on rooftops, balconies, sunny patios.

As the gardens become established technology they can easily be designed into new housing, and retrofitted into much of the existing housing.

A garden starts to be productive within 60 days and fully productive in 90 days. With a protective structure the garden can also be productive in difficult climates of too much rain or cold. This structure may cost $100 to $400 in India.

 

Table 1.  Expected daily vegetable production from a micro-garden average range ( 2 kilos per day)

Vegetables

Area in M2

Grams per Day

Ounces per Day

Calories

Proteins

Fats

Carbo-hydrates

Carrot

2

113

4

50

1.2

0.22

12

Cucumber

1

226

8

30

1.6

0.3

6

Garlic

1

57

2

 

 

 

Ginger

1

57

2

 

 

 

Leek

1

57

2

35

0.86

0.17

8

Lettuce

1

226

8

30

2.9

0.5

6

Green Bean

1

113

4

35

2.06

0.14

8

Onion

2

113

4

44

1.3

0.18

10

Peapod

1

113

4

47

3.16

0.23

9

Potato

4

226

8

180

4.78

0.24

40

Salad greens

1

226

8

56

5

1

12

Greens

2

226

8

58

6

0.46

12

Tomato

2

226

8

48

2

0.74

10

Total:

20

1979

70

613

30.86

4.18

133

 

National Costs

In India, if a ten year plan was enacted to offer support for simplified gardens, with 40 million families supported each year, the cost would be about 4 billion dollars a year. This cost could be borne by the international NGOs, the federal and local governments, and the families themselves.

Training in how to set up and operate the gardens could be accomplished through national television programming. The organoponic gardens in Cuba, now credited with ending hunger in Cuba, were largely established through a national television show. The video programming exists and is being used in pilot projects around the world.

The dollars invested in the gardens should be returned by the families who have gardens in the form of a microcredit loan. Every effort should be made to help the families pay off the loan in extra fresh vegetables, or labour exchange in a national program. Established garden owners could repay part of the loan in training others.

The second year, to help another 40 million would cost another 4 billion dollars. Hopefully some income would have started from the first year families and reduce the cost of this investment.


How to Begin

The simplified hydroponic gardens need to be introduced to a country through a pilot project that sets up the first demonstration garden. This first garden would be set up by an international expert in the technology, along with local people who will carry the garden forward through its first year. This first garden would be a test garden to find a logical garden for India. Substrates available locally are tested with nutrients produced locally, and used with local seeds. This early garden evolves to be effective in the local conditions. This takes six months to a year.

In that first year, people can be transported to the demonstration garden and taught the technology in a three day training course. This training course is available on DVD in a nine lesson course so the DVD can help these trained people teach the technology to others.

In the 22 years since this technology first started in Colombia, tens of thousands of families have benefited from their gardens. It is proven technology that can help end hunger and poverty.

Establishing these gardens in India may be a pathway to Gandhi’s dream for his country, to end hunger, poverty and misery.


Demonstration Garden Requirements

For the demonstration gardens, the first requirement is adequate supplies to make the inorganic hydroponic nutrient. This nutrient is based on the Steiner formula developed in Holland, a standard recipe in the field of commercial hydroponics.

Cost for the components varies and for the purposes of this proposal are estimated at $900.00 for the requirements for 20 families for a year. This should provide enough fertilizer for 14.6 tons of food for the 20 families (730 kilograms of food per family per year).

This fertilizer requirement averages about 6 cents per kilo for food, or 12 cents a day for 2 kilos of food.

 

Table 2.  Fertilizer Requirements for Family’s 20m2 Micro-garden per Year

Fertilizer

Grams/

Single Family

20 Families

1000 Liters

20m2/Year

Kilograms

Potassium nitrate

293

8.204

164.08

Monopotassium phosphate

136

3.808

76.16

Potassium sulfate

252

7.056

141.12

Iron EDTA

23

0.644

12.88

Manganese EDTA

15

0.42

8.4

Copper EDTA

1.5

0.042

0.84

Zinc EDTA

2.6

0.0728

1.456

Boric acid

6

0.168

3.36

Molybdic acid

0.2

0.0056

0.112

Calcium nitrate

1092

30.576

611.52

Magnesium sulfate

496

13.888

277.76

Total:

2317.3

64.8844

1297.688

Tons of Food Produced:

0.73

14.6


1.      Table Grower Components

For the first demonstration garden, and training, two construction kits will be needed so that students have access to tools during the training. The kit as in Table 5 will cost $108.25 per family. In the case of the demonstration garden only two kits will be needed.

 

Table 3.  Table Style Micro-garden Construction Kit (20m2)

Materials

Amount

Single Family Cost

Black 6 mil plastic, 2m2 wide sheets

20

$6.80

Plastic tubing 3/8" dia. (cm)

150

$1.30

Recycled lumber for:

 

$20.00

 Sides of Bed 1 m long, 12 cm wide

20 boards

10.00

 Ends of Bed 1.2 m long, 12 cm wide

20 boards

12.00

 Bottom slats 1.2 m long, 8 cm wide

70 boards

8.00

 Bed Legs 0.65 m long, 12 cm wide

40 boards

10.00

Nails 1.5", stainless steel

650

$3.50

Staples 1/2", stainless steel

360

$1.00

Substrate: lava rock cubic m3

0.64

$15.00

Substrate: coir coconut fiber m3

0.64

$15.00

Styrofoam sheets

2

$5.65

Total Cost:

 

$108.25

 

2.      Builders Kits for Tools

For the training course, eight builders tool kits are required so that a class of 20 students has adequate tools to complete the practical part of the training. In the training each student should participate in the building of two bed growers.

 

Table 4.  Table Style Micro-garden Builders Tool Kit

Items

 Cost

Hand Saw, 1 each

$5.00

Measuring Tape, 1 each

$4.00

Pry Bar, 1 each

$4.00

Hammer, 1 each

$4.00

Nails 1.5 inch, Stainless Steel, 1500 each

$4.00

Staple Gun, 1 each

$15.00

Staples, 1000 each

$3.00

Small level, 1 each

$4.00

Hand drill and bit, 1 each

$12.00

Scissors, 1 each

$3.00

Total Cost:

$58.00

 

3.      Tub Growers for the Demonstration Garden

The demonstration garden will also have a tub garden area, with growers made from plastic containers. The garden sets up two of the plastic containers at $104.10 each or $208.20.

 

Table 5.  Tub Style Micro-garden Construction Kit

Item

 Cost

Plastic Tub 30 x 20 x 6, 20 each

$60.00

Plastic fittings, 20 each

$8.00

Plastic tubing 3/8" diameter, 150 each

$1.30

Nylon netting for filter, 20 each

$0.20

Sealant, 4 tubes

$0.60

Substrate: coir coconut fiber, 1.28 cubic meters

$30.00

Exacto knife with extra blades, 1 each

$4.00

Total Cost:

$104.10

 

4.      Pest Control in the Garden

Each garden owner needs to have supplies for handling insects in the garden. The Pest Control kit includes insect traps and sprays for the start up gardener. Five kits are needed for the garden classes.

 

Table 6.  Micro-garden Pest Control Kit

Items

Single Kit Cost

Yellow plastic material (2 square meters, 6 ply) for white fly traps.

$7.00

One quart (litre) of motor oil for spreading on the yellow plastic to trap white flies.

$2.50

One plastic spray bottle, (1 litre) to use for organic sprays to prevent or kill insects.

$3.00

Dr. Bonner’s peppermint soap (concentrate) to mix and spray on and kill soft insects such as aphids and aphid larvae.

$2.00

Garlic extract for use in making a preventive weekly spray for the garden to repeal most pests.

$3.50

Powdered milk for making a spray to control powdery mildew.

$2.00

One roll of audio tape for placing around garden to deflect birds.

$3.00

Clear plastic quart bags (6 ply with twist ties) to fill with water and hang in garden to attract insects.

$3.00

Seeds to grow pyrethrum flowers to make insect spray from mature plants, basil and marigold to repel.

$4.00

Total Cost:

$30.00

 

5.      Nutrients and seeds 1st year supply

Each garden owner will need a steady supply of nutrients and some seeds as shown in Table 9. This cost can be reduced if the garden owner learns to seed save, and can be eliminated if the garden owner can switch to saved seeds and organic nutrient produced at home.

 

Table 7.  Micro-garden Nutrient and Seed Kit

Item

 Cost

Grow Nutrient (8 ounces), 1 each

$1.50

Root Nutrient (8 ounces), 1 each

$1.50

Bloom Nutrient (8 ounces), 1 each

$1.50

Calcium nitrate (32 ounces), 1 each

$4.00

Magnesium sulphate (12 ounces), 1 each

$1.85

Variety of vegetable seeds for 3 crops, 3 sets

$12.00

Measuring spoon, 1 each

$0.25

Total Cost:

$22.60