permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

An Indian state banned pesticides. Tourism and wildlife flourished. Will
others follow? - The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pesticides-helped-bring-modern-farming-to-india-one-tiny-state-is-leading-the-charge-to-ban-them/2018/05/29/95c7e594-3da6-11e8-955b-7d2e19b79966_story.html

An Indian state banned pesticides. Tourism and wildlife flourished. Will
others follow?

<annie.gowen@washpost.com?subject=Reader%20feedback%20for%20%27An%20Indian%20state%20banned%20pesticides.%20Tourism%20and%20wildlife%20flourished.%20Will%20others%20follow?%27>

Organic farms are perched on hillsides on the outskirts of Gangtok, in the
Indian state of Sikkim. (Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg)

SORENG, India — Fifteen years ago, the tiny Indian state of Sikkim launched
a radical experiment: Its leaders decided to phase out pesticides on every
farm in the state, a move without precedent in India — and probably the
world.

The change was especially significant for India, a country whose progress
in agriculture was defined by the introduction of fertilizers and
pesticides that rapidly boosted food production across the country, staving
off famine and reducing the country’s reliance on foreign aid.

But with the indiscriminate use of pesticides came a spike in cancer rates
in industrial farming areas. Rivers became polluted and soil infertile.
Sikkim’s leaders say they were driven to go all-organic by those concerns
and because pesticide residue — including from some chemicals banned in
other countries — was tainting fish, vegetables and rice.

The cloud-wreathed Himalayan state is starting to see the dividends.
Overall health has increased in the state, leaders say, and Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s government has embraced Sikkim and organic farming
throughout India, pouring about $119 million into supporting organic
farmers nationwide. India is betting that Sikkim can be the global model
for other jurisdictions around the world that want to go all-organic.

(Annie Gowen/The Washington Post)

In the years since the shift to organic, Sikkim has outlawed pesticides and
chemical fertilizers, aided farmers in certifying about 190,000 acres of
farmland as organic and on April 1 banned the import of many nonorganic
vegetables from other states. The transition has not always been easy: Some
farmers have complained that their crop yields have decreased and that they
haven’t gotten enough support from the government.

The small state’s organic acres constitute just a sliver of India’s 5.6
million acres of chemical-free farmland, which itself is a fraction of
India’s nearly 400 million acres of agricultural land. (The United States
also has about 5 million acres of organic farmland.)

Demand for organic food is high in India and growing fast. Concern about
pesticides and desire for chemical-free food are fueling a market that is
growing 25 percent a year, more than the 16 percent globally, according to
a recent study by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India
<http://www.assocham.org/newsdetail.php?id=6726>. The country’s market for
packaged organic products is nearly $8 million now and is expected to top
$12 million by 2020, the study said.

“This is a big moment for India,” said Radha Mohan Singh, the country’s
minister of agriculture and farmers’ welfare.

In a brightly colored tent in a mountain town one recent day, Sikkim’s
chief minister, Pawan Kumar Chamling, exhorted 300 or so constituents in
the audience to embrace the eco-friendly lifestyle.

“The approach Sikkim has started will be adopted by the whole world
tomorrow,” he said, in a speech that stretched five hours. “This is our
vision!”

Chamling, 67, has been the principal driver of Sikkim’s move to go
all-organic since his state legislature set up the program in 2003. He is
largely self-educated, writes poetry in his spare time and is India’s
longest-serving chief minister, in office since 1994.

“When we decided to go into organic farming in Sikkim, we faced so many
challenges,” he said. “Agriculturists or cultivators had no idea what
organic farming is, so education was our first priority. Slowly, people
began to understand and supported us.”

But the executive order in March to ban the import of inorganic produce
from neighboring states threw the state into turmoil, with prices of
cabbage tripling in the markets, traders in revolt and the opposition party
marching in protest.

Chamling dismissed these most recent events as “teething problems” and said
he was confident the chaos would sort itself out. The state government is
introducing seasonal price caps on organic vegetables for consumers to keep
prices affordable.


There was no blueprint for change when Chamling began his efforts to
preserve Sikkim’s fragile ecosystem, a land of hundreds of species of
birds, wild orchids and glacier-fed streams, in the shadow of Kanchenjunga,
the world’s third-tallest peak. The state — population 610,000 — nestles
among China, Bhutan and Nepal and was a separate kingdom until it merged
with India in 1975.
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India has just begun formulating its policies for organic farming after its
“Green Revolution,” during which the country adopted modern farming methods
of high-yield seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

To encourage farmers to make the switch to organic, Sikkim tapered off its
supply of chemical pesticides and fertilizers — making their use a criminal
offense in 2014 — launched education programs, and installed thousands of
composting pits. By 2016, 190,000 acres of cultivable land had been
certified organic. The state has also banned the use of plasticware.
Roadside snack stalls use plates fashioned from leaves.

The transition, which took more than a decade, has not been easy. Some
farmers say their income has decreased, and some have quit farming
altogether. One farmer, Pem Dorjee Sherpa, who grows potatoes and cardamom,
said his income has fallen dramatically since he switched to pesticide-free
farming, and he complained that farmers need better access to markets,
organic manure and training.

“The benefit of going organic has not reached us,” he said.

Sonam Taneja, the program manager for food safety and toxins at the Centre
for Science and Environment, a research and advocacy organization in New
Delhi, received similar feedback when she visited 16 farms across the state
for a report <http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/organic-trial-57517> that
came out last year.

“The information I was getting was that farmers are struggling, fighting
with pests, and yields are lower, and therefore they’re upset,” Taneja
said. Productivity of most crops remained the same, except oranges, but the
state will probably continue to have to rely on conventional produce from
other states to feed itself, the study said.

(Annie Gowen/The Washington Post)

In April, state officials opened two markets where farmers can sell their
products directly to consumers and have added more than two dozen transport
vehicles help them move their goods to markets more easily.

Officials say that the switch to all-organic has health benefits for
Sikkimese, who are getting more nutritious food, and has rejuvenated the
health of its soil as well as wildlife and dwindling bee populations. The
country’s yield of large cardamom — dependent upon cross-pollination from
bees — has increased more than 23 percent since 2014.

In the tiny Indian state of Sikkim, which banned disposable plastic plates
in 2016, a spicy roadside snack of onion pakora comes on a disposable plate
molded from leaves. (Annie Gowen/The Washington Post)

The country’s move to all-­organic also has been a boon to its tourist
industry, with a growing market for eco-tours and farm vacations. The
Lonely Planet travel guide named it the world’s top destination in 2014,
and the number of foreign visitors has more than doubled since 2011, the
state’s tourism department says. As a consequence, tourism provides a
growing share of the state’s gross domestic product, rising from 5 to
nearly 8 percent by 2016-2017.

“It’s had a huge impact,” said Khorlo Bhutia, Sikkim’s secretary of
horticulture and cash crop development. “It’s because of the good
environment — chemical-free air, water, food — all these factors.”

Experts say that India’s organic product market has been driven by
health-conscious, middle-class urbanites alarmed by the overuse of
pesticides. But that’s changing. India is encouraging farmers to engage in
a self-regulating organic certification process that is cheaper than
outside consultants and will make organic food more accessible for the
domestic market.

Choitresh Kumar Ganguly, an organic farmer from India who sits on board of
the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, said Sikkim
can be a model for other states, such as Kerala and Meghalaya, that are
planning to go all-organic. Sikkim’s neighbor, the kingdom of Bhutan,
aspires to do so by 2020.

“Sikkim is of course way ahead, and their political will is much stronger
than any other state,” Ganguly said. “They’ve done a good job. They did not
use so many pesticides to begin with so it was easier for them to move out
than it will be for many other states. Still, there’s huge awareness, and
it’s growing slowly.”

Residential properties in Gangtok are seen in the background near an
organic farm in the Indian state of Sikkim. (Prashanth
Vishwanathan/Bloomberg)

Kunal Rai contributed reporting in Soreng and Gangtok, Sikkim.

*Correction: *An earlier version of this report misstated the uptick in
Sikkim’s yield of large cardamom since 2014. It has increased by nearly
23 percent.