Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
umbilical cords of infants, as well as in other bodily fluids.5 In Kerala,
communities exposed to chemicals like endosulfan have been over-
whelmed with cases of developmental disabilities and birth defects.
The shift to organic agriculture limits the amount of chemicals run-
ning off into watersheds and being released into the air, thereby reducing
everyone's exposure to toxic chemicals, from producers to consumers.6
Evaluating the health benefits of “organic” purely from a nutritional stand-
point ignores these realities and benefits. Chemical-
free farming—very
much in contrast to the status quo of the Green Revolution and industrial
farming
—is healthier for the environment and human populations be-
fore anyone has even taken a bite.
Dismissing organic agriculture on the grounds that it can't feed the
world's population is problematic as well. As I noted in chapter 4, the
Teachers' Association of K AU asserted in its rebutal to the drat organic
farming policy that because yields
could
decline under organic produc-
tion methods, organic farming
could
increase the state's food
in
security.
Likewise, many Indian politicians and bureaucrats argue that organic
farming threatens the nation's food security—that is, if farmers don't use
chemical fertilizers and pesticides, yields will fall, increasing the number
of Indians suffering from hunger and making the nation more vulnerable
in international affairs, as it was during the PL-480 era. These fears are
compounded by research indicating that India's food demand will out-
pace its food supply by 2026.7 Adding fuel to these concerns is that or-
ganic farmers themselves in places like Padayeti, Kerala, reported drops
in their yields immediately after converting to organic farming.
Such Malthusian logic assumes that if there are either fewer people on
our planet or more food available (through higher agricultural output),
food insecurity would disappear. Unfortunately, this assumption is ill
conceived, because it doesn't take into account whether or not communi-
ties can afford to buy food. In an era when the prices of vegetables, grains,
and meat continue to rise, poor people will continue to struggle to get
enough food, regardless of the world's population levels or the amount of
food harvested.8
But what about the declining yields in Padayeti? Because the village
farmers no longer had to purchase inputs like artificial fertilizers, they had
