Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

I almost gagged on this one.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/DEL82946.htm
-Indians struggle to digest claims of poisoned foods
20 Sep 2006 07:03:47 GMT
By Nita Bhalla

SIMBHAOLI, India, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Under the scorching afternoon sun,
Babu Khan crouches over his crops gently pulling out stray weeds from his
small plot on the fringes of Simbhaoli, a town in the northern Indian state
of Uttar Pradesh.

The one-acre plot, divided into patches of rapeseed, maize, rice paddy and
radish, has helped Babu and his family eke out a modest living -- something
he says would have been impossible without the use of pesticides.

"We farmers need pesticides as they protect our crops and make our
vegetables grow healthy and strong very quickly," said the 40-year-old
farmer. "If we didn't have them, we would not make a good living."

But Babu, like millions of India's farmers, is unaware that his dependency
on pesticides over the years may have led to dangerously high levels of the
toxins making their way into everyday foods such as fruit, vegetables and
even milk.

"I don't believe pesticides are harmful and that they stay inside the
crops," he said. "I am the first to eat the vegetables that I grow and I
would be dead by now if they were harmful."

The use of pesticides in India has come under public scrutiny in recent
weeks after a report published by an environmental group, the Centre for
Science and Environment, found traces of pesticides in Coca-Cola and Pepsi
far above recommended safety levels.

The report by the New Delhi-based group triggered a ban on the sale of the
beverages at or near state-run schools, colleges and hospitals in several
Indian states.

The companies that produce Coca Cola and Pepsi maintain their products are
safe. They say that groundwater, which is believed to be contaminated with
pesticides, is treated thoroughly before being used to make the beverages.

DANGEROUS DINNERS

Consumer groups say the discovery of pesticide traces in Coke and Pepsi
soft drinks has highlighted the dangers of widespread pesticide usage in
India.

They believe that most farm products are contaminated with chemicals such
as DDT, which are widely used despite being banned.

"There are numerous studies showing very high levels of contaminants in our
food chain," said Bejon Misra of Consumer Voice, a leading consumer
protection group in New Delhi. "It is extremely concerning and it needs to
be addressed."

While there has been no comprehensive national study testing foods from all
across the country for pesticide residues, activists say the scattered
studies which have been carried out are worrying.

Preliminary tests done by the ministry of agriculture in August on samples
of fruit and vegetables from a New Delhi market found items contained 30 to
50 percent more than the country's permitted levels of pesticides and heavy
metals.

But health experts say the most accurate way to measure the amount of
toxins consumed by Indians is to do a broad diet study, where prepared
meals are tested, rather than random samples.

They add that even if there are higher than permissible levels in foods,
there is no way of knowing how harmful they are and whether they can cause
diseases like cancer, blood disorders and stomach ulcers in the long term
as claimed by critics. "When a person gets cancer or any other ailment, it
is very difficult to trace back to what has caused it," said Alex
Hilderbrand, the World Health Organisation's environmental health adviser
for South Asia.

"It could be through smoking, it could be genetic, it could be pesticides,
it could be anything."

FOOD AT WHAT COST?

In the 1960s, India instituted a "Green Revolution" in which high-yielding
seeds and pesticides were widely introduced, helping the country become
self-sufficient in food grains.

But advocates of organic farming say the Green Revolution left farmers
over-dependent on pesticides which they call "ecological narcotics."

"The more pesticides they use, the more they need," said Vandana Shiva from
Navdanya, a non-governmental organisation that teaches thousands of rural
small-scale farmers how to make the switch back to traditional organic
methods of farming.

"The soil has lost its productivity because of too many chemicals and there
are no nutrients left, so they keep adding more and more and most are
unaware of the damage it causes to human health, animal health and to the
environment," Shiva said.

Some experts say most farmers are overdosing their land with pesticides,
spraying up to 15 times a day when it should be less than five times a day.
The usage of chemicals is much higher in India than in other countries, the
experts say.

India's pesticide manufacturers say the criticism against the use of
pesticides is unwarranted.

"The U.S. has the same area of agricultural land as India, which is about
160 million hectares, but they are spending $8.5 billion per year compared
to India which is spending $860 million," said Salil Singhal, a pesticide
manufacturer and chairman of the Crop Care Federation of India.

Singhal added that India is losing around $195 million every year due to
pests, disease and weeds. He said pesticides were essential in today's
world.

"In these modern times of commercial farming we need pesticides as we are
now asking nature to give us more and more and you can't do that without
the help of technology and man-made pesticides," he said.

Experts say the best way to bring down pesticide levels is to start at the
primary source of the food chain -- the farmer.

"The first thing we need to do is to educate and create awareness amongst
farmers about the amounts that they are using," said the WHO's Hilderbrand.
"They simply can't go spraying these chemicals in the amount they do."