Environment and Health Aspects of Pesticides Use in Indian Agriculture

In the recent past, pesticide related issues have been extensively highlighted in the media including research journals and attracted wider debate and sharp focus among the interested groups in India. Indiscriminate and excessive application of synthetic pesticides damaged not only the environment and agriculture but also have entered into the food chain thereby affecting health and development. The main intention of the introduction of pesticides was to prevent and control insect pests and diseases in the field crops and of course, initially the use of pesticides reduced pest attack and paved the way for increasing the crop yield as expected. Simultaneously, increased use of chemical pesticides has resulted in contaminating the environment and the long-term implications on the society are found multidimensional. In India pests cause crop loss of more than RS 6000 crores annually, of which 33 per cent are by weeds, 26 per cent by diseases, 20 per cent by insects, 10 per cent by birds and rodents and the remaining (11 per cent) is due to other reasons. The magnitude of the problem would grow further as more and more (newer) pests and diseases likely to attack crops and the need to use pesticides in different forms will be necessitated in the years to come. The common formulation types of pesticide are liquids, wettable powder, emulsifiable concentrates and dusts, and when they are sprayed, move through the air and eventually end up in other parts of the environment like soil and water. Also pesticides break into ground water, soil and surface water depending upon soil type, temperature, vapor pressure, the amount of sunlight and rain, the water solubility of the pesticides and magnitude of application. The pesticides have toxic effects like reproductive, teratogenic, mutagenic and carcinogenic as well as on ecology including non -target host plants and animals. Theoretically agro-chemicals are used on large scale for all crops under a market oriented farming system but under subsistence farming scenario farmers tend to use less quantum of pesticides as they consider that production is sufficient to meet the domestic requirements. While the intensity of production increases towards market orientation from subsistence level, invariably farmers use a high dosage of agrochemicals for generating more income via production. Another aspect is that when the land becomes scarce and the agriculture production moves towards market orientation (with scarce land), more chemicals including pesticides are required. Now as the cultivable land becomes a scarce and inelastic commodity, due to population growth, the situation will be aggravated in the years to come especially in highly populated countries like India and China. It is to be noted that in India the annual pesticide business is estimated at around RS 5000 crores and in coming years, this would grow faster and soon becomes a major player in the world. Detailed literature on the environment and health dimensions of pesticide use in Indian agriculture is found to be scarce. In addition to this there exists poor appropriate and alternative framework to the use of pesticides. Under this scenario, it is important to understand the crucial issues like what are the environment and health costs of pesticide use? What alternative frameworks would help solve the problem? To address a few issues this study is taken up and it relies on available literature on the subject particularly in India and is divided into five sections. After introduction, the next section provides the factors contributing to the growth of pesticides use and the third section illustrates the laboratory findings and impact of pesticides use and fourth part examines the possible remedial mechanisms and the final section deals with the conclusion and suggestions. This study found that application of pesticides increased as much as 30 times over fifty years in India (from merely 2.35 thousand tonnes to around 60 thousand tones between 1959 and 2000). Liberal subsidies, extensive and intensive pest attack, shortsighted public policies, lack of legal framework, nepotism, strong campaigns favoring pesticides, poor alternative systems and farmers’ attitude have contributed to increasing pesticide application. It is obvious that continuos and indiscriminate pesticide use contributes to many environment pollution and health problems. Laboratory findings indicate that the environment is highly polluted as there are many toxic metals and residues found in the soil, water, humans, animal and plants. The pesticide particles also enter into agricultural products (some times more than 500 times of maximum permissible limit). Another observation is that pesticide residues at alarming rates are observed in bottled water and soft drinks. The source for packaged water and soft drinks companies is largely from agriculture fields and industrial suburbs. Maximum permissible limit for pesticide residues in packaged water and soft drinks exceeds many times the international norms like European Economic Union. Laboratory results also reveal that pesticide residues present in leafy vegetables create health disorders like neural tube defect (NTD) among newborn children. These findings enable us to corroborate the fact that pesticide residues are responsible for causing environmental problems and health disorders. Continous, indiscriminate and nonjudicial application of pesticides contribute to unviable agricultural production. It was also brought out that farming with external factory made inputs including pesticides becomes less profitable in the long run. Research findings indicate that pesticide residues contribute to polluting the soil, ground water and surface water besides affecting animals, plants and human beings. Water became unfit for consumption and living beings became victims of the pesticides. In the pretext of agricultural development health disorders like cancer and mental retardation are observed via pesticide use. Human (breast) milk and cow milk are found with pesticide (endosulphan) residues and many habitants suffer from diseases like cancer, epilepsy, skin diseases and unbearable suffering due to pesticide use, some of the villagers committed suicides. Thus pesticide use takes a heavy toll on environment and health and hence there is a need for alternative models for synthetic inputs. Possible alternativse could be application of non-toxic environment friendly formulations and solutions to combat pest for maintaining environment security and creating a healthy society for attaining overall development and well being. In fact there is a paradigm shift in agriculture towards low external input sustainable farming and subsequently (ecological) farming with only local inputs. Ecological or organic farming is considered as environmentally sustainable, economically viable and socially adaptable through which sustainable agriculture development (SAD) is attained. Organic farming rely on local resources including plants that have pest repellent properties to control the pests. In India it is estimated that around 3000 plants do possess pest repellent features, which need to be scientifically studied and utilized for promoting sustainable agriculture development. In fact, some of the research centers have already started working on this direction but in a compartmentalized form. Comprehensive research by different institutions and individuals in coordination with stakeholders – farmers – on alternatives to pesticides would solve the problem. This needs careful examination and understanding of the whole issue of pesticide use in the larger context of environment and health for attaining social equity with econom ic development. It is clear from this study that pesticide use has increased manifold obviously due to many complex factors. Research findings reveal that pesticide residues have been found in the environment many times higher than the maximum permissible limit. Pesticide residues present in the environment affect the soil, water, agricultural products, animals and plants. Continuos application of pesticides have caused diseases like cancer and epilepsy and the people have been made to suffer for years. Alternative techniques to pesticides are to be found viable in the long run and hence a concerted effort needs to be put by all concerned for promoting SAD in the broader framework of environment and health.