Hindu Vivek Kendra
A RESOURCE CENTER FOR THE PROMOTION OF HINDUTVA
   
 
 
«« Back
Do It With Chillies

Do It With Chillies

Author: Savitri Choudhury
Publication: Outlook
Date: November 22, 2004
URL: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20041122&fname=Villages+%28F%29&sid=1

Introduction: A village shows the way to tackle pests with indigenous, non-chemical means

Punukula was just another sleepy village in Andhra Pradesh's Khammam district till word spread about a quiet revolution taking place there. Now farmers from across the state are trooping in to see for themselves: is what they have heard true? Can cotton really be grown without spraying chemical pesticides? The farmers of Punukula have many success stories to narrate but are getting tired of all the attention. "By the time the morning batch is ready to leave, the evening lot of visitors is already arriving," says Hemlanayak, grumbling about the sudden flood of people to his village.

Last month, Punukula's 12-member panchayat passed a resolution banning sale or use of chemical pesticides in the village. The news has naturally come as a radical shift in a state which has the dubious distinction of having the highest consumption of pesticide in the country. However, the Punukula panchayat's resolution was not some arbitrary decision but the result of a planned programme. It was a decision which had the support of all the farmers in the village.

It was in 1998 that members of a local NGO, working on a watershed management programme in the area, began advising villagers to stop spraying their fields with chemical pesticides. They asked them to go back to the age-old method of using indigenous, biodynamic sprays and pastes to control pests. However, nobody was convinced as most farmers in Andhra Pradesh, as in the rest of the country, firmly believe it's impossible to cultivate crops-especially cotton, the dominant crop in Punukula-without pesticides.

Today, 60-year-old Margam Mutthaiah is proud to declare that Punukula's war on pesticides began with him. In the summer of 2001, saddled with debts crossing well over a lakh, Mutthaiah felt he had nothing left to lose and so decided to give it a shot. "People thought I was crazy and even I myself wasn't fully convinced. Despite repeatedly spraying such deadly and expensive chemicals, we still had pest problems and here they were telling us to fight them with ordinary things such as neem and garlic sprays. It just didn't seem to make sense," says Mutthaiah who grows cotton, red gram, chilli and paddy on 20 acres of land.

However, much to his surprise and of all the rest in Punukula, the traditional methods not only worked, but also made sound economic sense. Pesticide costs ranged anywhere between Rs 8,000 and Rs 12,000 per acre of crop. And they kept escalating as the pests built up resistance to a particular pesticide. The farmers were then forced to resort to the next generation of deadlier chemical cocktails, which invariably pushed up costs, many times by 100 per cent. On the other hand, with traditional methods of pest control, costs dropped to just a couple of hundred rupees per acre while the yields remained just as good, if not better.

"In three years since I've stopped pesticides, I've cleared all my debts, married off a daughter and saved Rs 60,000," says Mutthaiah. Pesticides account for almost 60 per cent of the input costs in cotton. Studies show that while cotton accounts for only 5 per cent of India's crop cover, it consumes over 50 per cent of the pesticides used in the country.

Impressed by Mutthaiah's success, other farmers in the village began following his example. In several cases, it was the women who forced change on obstinate husbands. Veerabhadra is grateful that his wife put her foot down. Says he, "Instead of mounting debts, we are now making a profit on every acre we cultivate. Now, we have taken on an additional five acres on lease." A five-fold escalation of land rentals in Punukula and adjoining villages in the last three years is a reflection of the recent increased viability of agriculture in the region.

Besides creating their own pastes and sprays with neem seeds, chilli, garlic and cow-dung, farmers have also learned to encourage the return of natural predators such as ants, birds and wasps that feed on the bollworm larvae infesting cotton crops. Now, there's a more integrated pest-management approach that takes into account the entire life-cycle of the insect instead of only trying to bombard it with deadly toxins.

Meanwhile, inspired by their own turnaround, the farmers of Punukula are spreading the story of their success to other farmers. In addition to advising those who visit Punukula, the villagers have also formed an advocacy group that sends members to a different village every week. This farmer-to-farmer contact is paying off. The neighbouring village of Pullaigudem has also become totally pesticide-free while several other villages in the area have also drastically cut back on chemical use.

"In 2001, I sold pesticides worth Rs 40 lakh a year. Now, it's down to Rs 25 lakh even though the cost of the pesticides has actually gone up," says Srinivas Rao, owner of Mansa Fertilisers and Pesticides, one of the largest pesticide suppliers in Palvoncha, the local mandal headquarters. Rao candidly admits the Punukula experiment is a success. However, alarmed by the drop in business, he sits with two bundles of cotton, one looking obviously healthier than the other, trying to convince customers that using pesticides means better yields.

Pesticide dealers are known for their aggressive marketing tactics, including misinformation to force farmers to buy more of their products. "Over the years, they have completely eroded the farmer's confidence in traditional methods of farming, making them totally reliant on commercial inputs," says K. Venumadhav, secretary of secure (Socio-Economic and Cultural Upliftment in Rural Environment)-the NGO that first persuaded Punukula to dump pesticides. In most cases, these dealers are also moneylenders and often the farmers, caught in the debt trap, are forced to sell their produce to them below the market price.

Over the years, several villages have experimented with the idea of saying no to pesticides. But Punukula's success is unique because of the commitment of the entire village. The social homogeneity of the village-tribals, Dalits and other backward castes-meant there were no caste rivalries to weaken the anti-pesticide movement. According to activists, there is no reason why the Punukula model cannot be implemented in other villages. However, given the powerful market forces at play and the fact that most agriculture scientists themselves lack confidence in traditional methods of cultivation, Punukula is swimming against the tide.
 


Back                          Top

«« Back
 
 
 
  Search Articles
 
  Special Annoucements