Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
As noted in the early Five Year Plan, pest control was a top priority.
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Early in the state's history, the national government and its Agriculture
Department recommended the use of endosulfan to control mosquitos
and other pests breeding around or atacking cashew trees.73 Farmers of
other crops, such as cardamom, also used the chemical to protect their
plants and maximize their returns.
Endosulfan's negative effects on the environment have not gone un-
noticed. Several countries are currently phasing it out. In May 2011, dele-
gates at the international Stockholm Convention on POPs “agreed to add
endosulfan to the list of POPs to be eliminated worldwide.”74 The Indian
government initially opposed the move, citing the hardship a ban would
impose on Indian farmers
—an opposition that illustrates how dependent
Indian agriculture has become on chemicals. Later in the year, the Indian
Supreme Court banned the use of endosulfan in India but allowed for
its continued export from the country as a way of dealing with existing
stocks of the chemical.75
In Kerala, the Pollution Control Board had stepped in years earlier, in
2004, to suspend the aerial spraying of endosulfan, and in 2010 the state
officially banned any use of the pesticide in agriculture.76 However, the
effects of endosulfan continue to make headlines on a weekly basis in
Kerala. The press alone had identified almost three thousand endosulfan
victims by 2010, many of whom had experienced headaches and nausea
after being directly exposed to the pesticide. Many other victims, how-
ever, have been small children, who have experienced problems includ-
ing abnormal weight gain, delays in reproductive organ development, and
skeletal deformities.77
Endosulfan's residues have been found in the soil, homes, and drinking
water of many communities in Kerala. Research by the Salim Ali Founda-
tion has recorded a decrease in aquatic diversity in areas where the aerial
spraying of endosulfan occurred, which has threatened the area's endemic
biodiversity.78 The use of this POP has resulted in the poisoning of Kerala's
agricultural lands, environment, biodiversity, and human bodies for the
long term.
Complicating maters, however, is the pervasive notion among farmers
that pesticides are a necessity in their business. At one meeting that I at-
