The Killing Fields of Punjab.

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Killing fieldshttp://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/features/Killing-fields.4323614.jp

 

 

 

 

 

Picture: Getty

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Three Cheers to Umendraji - "a towering, energetic environmental activist with chest-length locks and a thick beard." - Jagannath]

 

 

 

Published 27 July 2008

By Daniel Pepper

 

 

IN the Punjab's farming villages, locals are literally dying for the government to outlaw pesticides and advocate organic agriculture

INSIDE a hot, dun-coloured courtyard at the edge of India's north-western Punjab state, Jagdev Singh, a wheelchair-bound boy of 15, twitches and jerks fruitlessly in search of respite.. "I can't swat the flies off of my face," he says.A debilitating muscular disorder prevents Singh from raising his arms more than a few inches above his lap. Doctors in New Delhi say he suffers from an overabundance of urea – a chemical fertiliser used in the wheat, rice and cotton fields that surround Jajjal, a Punjab village of 3,300 residents.Three other village children nearby suffer from a similar malady. Many more villagers have cancer and other serious conditions. No one is immune – from three-year-old Navish Ram, who suffers from hydrocephalus as well as skin cancer, to Karnail Singh and his wife Balbir Kaur, who both have cancer. Amid such suffering, it is no wonder that Singh's brother Jarnail says, "This

village is cursed."However, the relatively recent plague of illnesses is attributable to more worldly causes – it is part of a pattern of disease caused by environmental pollutants, according to activists, government scientists and academics. "For the West, agriculture means agribusiness," says Umendra Dutt, a towering, energetic environmental activist with chest-length locks and a thick beard.Dutt is head of Kheti Virasat, a local advocacy group that lobbies healthcare professionals, government officials and farmers in support of chemical-free organic cultivation. "The Green Revolution is input-intensive, techno-centric and resource-guzzling. It is not a cultural transformation leading to self-sufficiency."Many doctors are now encouraging both patients and farmers to pursue organic farming. Says GPI Singh, a public health expert and specialist in community medicine who has worked in southern Punjab for more

than 25 years. "What are you achieving by feeding people at the cost of their health?"The Punjab is where India's Green Revolution began in 1965, leading the Indian subcontinent out of periodic cycles of famine and realising the dream of self-sufficiency in food. The north-western Indian state is the nation's biggest user of fertilisers, consuming 18% even though it constitutes only 1.5% of the area under cultivation. Some of these pesticides are highly toxic and banned, but they are easily accessible in the public marketplaces through pesticide dealers, according to farmers.After decades of relying on fertilisers, some farmers now say that the benefits have come at too great a cost, slowly siphoning the health of both the soil – sapping nutrients and killing micro-organisms – and the surrounding communities. In has led to a spike in cancer, low sperm counts in men, the early onset of menstruation and an increase of still births in

women, as well as other ailments. "People are fed up with chemical farming," said Amarjit Sharma, who began farming here 30 years ago. "The earth is now addicted to the use of these chemicals."A recent study by researchers at Punjabi University found a high rate of DNA damage among farmers due to pesticide use. Another study, by the government pollution control board, has found that drinking water contaminated by pesticides and heavy metals is a major cause of death from water-borne diseases in Punjab state.The state government is slow to take action, say villagers, whose access to healthcare depends on an uncomfortable overnight train journey to neighbouring Rajasthan state, where the nearest subsidised large hospital serves throngs of rural poor.In Channu, a district of the Malwa region, with a spike in cancer patients (about 55 cancer patients in a village of 1,500 families, where cancer was previously unknown), the feeling is

that the state government should be taking action. This is a common problem in India: government is viewed as a distant, corrupt entity that is uninterested in the problems of poor villagers, while simultaneously being the surest, quickest way to affecting change.But neither of the studies mentioned conclusively links fertilisers with disease, says Tilak Sarangal, Punjab's health secretary. He points to the Indian Council of Medical Research statistics from 2005, which found 58 cases of cancer per 100,000 in the area worst affected in the Punjab by the overuse of pesticides and fertilisers, far below the national average of about between 70 to 90 cases per 100,000.Sarangal's detractors claim these statistics are outdated and that new, more thorough studies should be carried out. Which is exactly what the government has agreed to, commissioning two new cancer surveys, as well as constructing two new hospitals that specialise in cancer

treatment. "Certainly we are in a danger zone as far as the toxicity and danger of fertilisers are concerned," says Sarangal.Complicating the switch to organic poses a dilemma for the Indian government: fruits and grains may be healthier and environmentally sustainable, but many doubt that organic farmers can feed a nation of 1.1 billion inhabitants. "This is a country that can well remember mass hunger," says Sarangal. "Today we are quite comfortable. If we go back to organic food, how will we feed ourselves?"Veteran farmer Sharma, who began organic farming four years ago, is now the custodian of the village's organic seed bank. He sells wheat at more than twice the price of his neighbours who use pesticides and fertilisers, even though he reaps only a little more than half the yield. He is making about as much money as his non-organic neighbours, but he doesn't have to invest in costly hybrid seeds, fertilisers and pesticides, which

keeps them from going into debt every season.Sharma uses natural, homemade pesticides such as cow manure mixed with urine, soured milk, garlic, chillies and the leaves of a native plant that wards off parasitic insects on his wheat, sugarcane, sorghum, vegetables and marigold plants. "The major difference between chemical farming and organic farming is that with chemical farming the yield either decreases or stays stagnant over time, while with organic farming, yield and quality of the soil increases," says Sharma."After two or three years, the yield will be equal," he says. A short visit to his fields reveals a chaotic mix of plant life."We had never even heard of cancer before," says 75-year-old Burbachan Singh. Like most farmers, he doesn't have an alternative form of livelihood, and he can't see a way out of the overuse of pesticides. "The soil is now addicted" he says. "The yield is low and it is difficult to make ends meet.

We are completely dependent on the poison." Deadly harvest THE number of deaths around the world from pesticides is estimated by the World Health Organisation as around 20,000 each year.Figures suggest that there are also around three million severe cases of pesticide poisoning every year.In the European Union, a number of pesticides often used in the production of food have been found to cause disruption to the natural hormones in our bodies.While European countries have banned the use of some chemicals in food and set limits on others, because no irrefutable proof of poisoning has been produced, farm workers in many other countries flout regulations. California is the largest agricultural state in the United States, and home to some of the world's highest breast cancer rates. Studies indicate an almost doubled probability of developing cancer among rural workers.Figures from a

recent study in Sao Paulo state suggest that rural workers in Brazil also have nearly twice the likelihood of developing cancer compared to their urban counterparts.In 2003, Greenpeace India undertook a study into the impact of pesticides on children's mental health and development. The report concludes that the mental development of children is "being compromised silently and without remorse".Problem pesticides include Chlordecone, Vinclozalin, DDT, Carbendazim, Lindane, and organophosphates.

The full article contains 1317 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.

 

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Last Updated: 26 July 2008 1:46 PM Source: Scotland On Sunday

Location: Scotland "It is now 30 years since I have been confining myself to the treatment ofchronic diseases. During those 30 years I have run against so many histories of littlechildren who had never seen a sick day until they were vaccinated and who, in the severalyears that have followed, have never seen a well day since. I couldn't put my finger onthe disease they have. They just weren't strong. Their resistance was gone. They wereperfectly well before they were vaccinated. They have never been well since. "---Dr. William Howard Hay

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