Chemical nation

JUL 01 -

Will the government budget for agriculture be doubled as Baburam Bhattarai once promised? We do not know. Let’s hope it does. At the same time we have to understand that doubling the money alone will not be enough. The budget has to be aimed at promoting highly productive and ecologically sustainable agriculture. The talk about agriculture budget is happening at a time when reports of chemical fertiliser shortage have become daily headline news. While we can understand farmers’ plights, we have to be mindful of the fact that providing for subsidised chemical fertiliser is not the true solution for Nepal’s agriculture. Good thing is there are now millions of farmers across the world who have moved away from the toxic treadmills. It is time to learn from them and chart saner paths ahead. 

Amir Khan asked Hukumchand Singh, an organic farmer from Rajsthan to come on stage during the blockbuster Satyameva Jayete episode on Sunday 24 June and he gave him a warm hug. That was perhaps the most poignant moment of that episode entirely devoted to both good and bad stuffs happening in Indian agriculture. First the bad stuff. Most of food that Indians and Nepalis are buying in the market contains high doses of dangerous pesticides. Kavitha Kurugunti of Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) told viewers during the same TV show that most of the food samples officially tested in India contained high doses of pesticides.

Those who farm with chemical fertilisers and pesticides are becoming dangerously ill. A trainload of people go to Charitable Cancer Hospital in Bikaner, Rajsthan every day from villages in Punjab, India’s heartland of modern agricultural. That train is called ‘cancer train’ because all of those who board it go for cancer treatment. Those who are selling poison are overly manipulative about the benefits that their products bring to farmers. Buying fresh vegetables often means that you are buying freshly poisoned vegetables. And in Kerala, the state-government owned cashew plantation spread hundreds of thousands of litres of Endosulfan for twenty five years from late seventies onward. The result: thousands of children were born with debilitating birth-defects and thousands of pregnancies ended in miscarriages.  

If modern Indian agriculture has become evidently bad for human health and ecosystem, we also find in India millions of farmers who are also moving away from chemicals and are adopting a variety of highly productive organic farming practices. Amir Khan asked Hukumchand Singhji if his yield had gone down. In the first year, a little bit. After that, yields have gone up every year to the extent that his neighbours come to learn from him.

The most spectacular change has happened in the South-eastern state of Andhra Pradesh. Amir asked over 3G connection twenty farmers in a village in Andhra Pradesh how many of them used to use pesticide in the past. All of them raised their hand. He then asked how many do now. None, came the answer in unison.

These twenty farmers were among the over a million others across Andhra’s thousands of villages where non-pesticide management (NPM) has spread spectacularly. The statistics are stunning. In 2009, I wrote in this column about ongoing transformation in Andhra Pradesh’s smallholder agriculture. According to an extensive report published by the World Bank, CMSA’s non-pesticide management of agriculture had expanded from 450 acres in a small village in 2004 to over half a million households covering about half a million hectares of land. Between 2009 and now, there seems to have been even more spectacular growth. During his conversation with Amir in the show, Ramanjaneyulu, agriculture scientist and  coordinator of Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, said that said that close to 1.5 million hectares of farmland  (3.5 million acres) was under non-pesticide management in 2011. And the number continues to grow. If this spreads at this rate, soon over hal f of Andhra Pradesh’s agriculture will be free of harmful chemicals and poisons.

For long this state also had been India’s farmer suicide capital, with the bulk of 250,000 cases during the last fourteen years occurring here. The World Bank’s report in 2009 showed that not a single case of suicide had happened in villages where farmers had adopted NPM. Farmers were producing more. They were incurring less expenditure for farming. They are eating healthier food and breathing non-poisoned air. Increasingly, farmers who sell their surplus are getting premium price for their products.

Sikkim’s is even more ambitious goal. Pawan Chamling told Amir Khan that his government has plans to convert the whole state into certified organic farming state by 2015. They have already banned the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides in the state.

In Nepal, there are a lot of district level agricultural officers who are actively involved in promoting highly productive organic farming. The projected increase in agricultural budget has to go in supporting and expanding their activities among farmers. Thousands of farmers across Nepal have already been practicing biodiverse sustainable agriculture. With some support from governments, they can lead the transition to saner and better agriculture across Nepal. One of the leading organic farmers in Nepal, Govinda Sharma of Patalekhet, Kavre is also advising Sikkim government in the process of transition there. It is time to make bold moves away from the toxic chemical treadmill. Nothing short of this will work in really addressing the interrelated problem of farm productivity, human health and ecological sustainability.

Source: http://www.ekantipur.com/2012/07/01/oped/chemical-nation/356430/