Green Revolution in India

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The introduction of high-yielding varieties of seeds after 1965 and the increased use of fertilizers
and irrigation are known collectively as the Green Revolution, which provided the increase in
production needed to make India self-sufficient in food grains, thus improving agriculture in
India. Famine in India, once accepted as inevitable, has not returned since the introduction of
Green Revolution crops. This movement is now under fire, and is blamed for the spread of Land
Degradation in India due to excessive use of fertilizers, pesticides, etc.[citation needed]
Of the high-yielding seeds, wheat produced the best results. Production of coarse grains- the
staple diet of the poor- and pulses -the main source of protein- lagged behind, resulting in
reduced per capita availability[citation needed]. All India Radio (AIR) played a vital role in creating
awareness for these methods. Along with high yielding seeds and irrigation facilities, the
enthusiasm of farmers mobilized the idea of agricultural revolution and is also credited to All
India Radio.

[edit] Results
The major benefits of the Green Revolution were experienced mainly in northern and
northwestern India between 1965 and the early 1980s; the program resulted in a substantial
increase in the production of food grains, mainly wheat and rice[citation needed]. Food-grain yields
continued to increase throughout the 1980s, but the dramatic changes in the years between 1965
and 1980 were not duplicated. By FY 1980, almost 75 percent of the total cropped area under
wheat was sown with high-yielding varieties. For rice the comparable figure was 45 percent. In
the 1980s, the area under high-yielding varieties continued to increase, but the rate of growth
overall was slower. The eighth plan aimed at making high-yielding varieties available to the
whole country and developing more productive strains of other crops[citation needed].
The Green Revolution created wide regional and interstate disparities[citation needed]. The plan was
implemented only in areas with assured supplies of water and the means to control it, large
inputs of fertilizers, and adequate farm credit. These inputs were easily available in at least parts
of the states of Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh; thus, yields increased most in these
states. In other states, such as Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, in areas where these inputs were
not assured, the results were limited or negligible, leading to considerable variation in crop yields
within these states. The Green Revolution also increased income disparities: higher income
growth and reduced incidence of poverty were found in the states where yields increased the
most and lower income growth and little change in the incidence of poverty in other states[citation
needed]
.
The Green Revolution has also been criticized as unsustainable. It requires immense amounts of
capital each year to purchase equipment and fertilizers[citation needed]. This may lead to a cycle of
debt if a farmer is unable to pay off the loans required each year. Additionally, the crops require
so much water that water tables in some regions of India have dropped dramatically[citation needed]. If
this drop continues, it is possible that the process of desertification may take place. Already, the
low water is starting the process of salinization. If continued, this would leave the land infertile,
spelling disaster for India.[citation needed]
In 2006, Dr Norman Borlaug, widely known as the 'Father of India's Green Revolution', was
presented India's second highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, by India's ambassador in
Mexico City.[1][2]
[edit] Environmental impact
The environmental impact of excessive use to chemical fertilizers and pesticides was only
revealed as years passed by. In 2009, under a Greenpeace Research Laboratories investigation,
Dr Reyes Tirado, from the University of Exeter, UK, conducted a study in 50 villages in
Muktsar, Bathinda and Ludhiana districts that revealed chemical, radiation and biological
toxicity was rampant in Punjab. 20% of the sampled wells showed nitrate levels above the safety
limit of 50 mg/l, established by WHO. The study connected this finding with high use of
synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.[3] With increasing poisoning of the soil, the region once hailed as
the home to the Green revolution, now due to excessive use of chemical fertilizer, is being
termed the "Other Bhopal", and "even credit-takers of the Revolution have begun to admit they
had been wrong, now that they see wastelands and lives lost to farmer suicides in this “granary of
India".[4] For example, Buddha Nullah, a rivulet which run through Malwa region of Punjab,
India, and after passing through highly populated Ludhiana district, before draining into Sutlej
River, a tributary of the Indus river, is today an important case point in the recent studies, which
suggest this as another Bhopal in making.[5] A joint study by PGIMER and Punjab Pollution
Control Board in 2008, revealed that in villages along the Nullah, calcium, magnesium, fluoride,
mercury, beta-endosulphan and heptachlor pesticide were more than permissible limit (MPL) in
ground and tap waters. Plus the water had high concentration of COD and BOD (chemical and
biochemical oxygen demand), ammonia, phosphate, chloride, chromium, arsenic and
chlorpyrifos pesticide. The ground water also contains nickel and selenium, while the tap water
has high concentration of lead, nickel and cadmium.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Punjab: A DYING CIVILISATION?
Punjab: A DYING CIVILISATION?
The repeat of devastation of Sindhu Valley Civilization
By Umendra Dutt
About two years ago my friend the famous singer Rabbi Shergill in one of his
Punjabi article says “There is no doubt that it was just because of a major
environmental change that the great civilization of Indus valley had completely
vanished. The same reasons, in the same form are today existed before us. The
only difference between the both situations is this that in those times it was a
natural disaster but this time it is of man made”. Rabbi equated present situation of
Punjab with Sindh valley which destroyed because of water scarcity.
Rabbi concluded his article by saying ‘Sindh ghaatti aj fir maran nu tyaar hai’ which
means Sindh valley is again prepared to die “Will this really happen?” I asked my
co-passengers “Of course, it is a degrading environment and a dying civilization in
Punjab; a whole community has been put to slow death” affirmed Dr Amar Singh
Azad, my senior colleague in Kheti Virasat Mission. “It is a crime committed against
humanity and nature by our own governments, that too in the name of
Development”, I said, endorsing his observation. All of us were very upset and
angry after visiting villages near Dhakansu drain and Ghaghar River in Patiala and
Sangrur districts.
This was our third visit to a river or drain area to educate ourselves on
environmental toxicity and its multiple impacts. About eight years ago, I did a
padayatra along the Jayanti River in Ropar district. I found several similarities
between the disappearance of Jayanti and Ghaghar rivers. Both rivers have lost
their relevance after society forgot and neglected the significance of these rivers.
The river eco-system was ruined at both places by the developmental activities
carried out by “modern society”. Our latest Yatra was a field visit to learn more on
the crisis of water, environmental toxicity, condition of agriculture, biodiversity, the
unfolding health crisis and the socio- economic fallout of this ecological disaster.
The entire picture is extremely frightening. There has been a lot of debate on the
severe health and water tragedy apparent in the districts of Malwa region. But we
should correct our view point - it is the whole of Punjab that seems to be under
deadly devastation now. Some of our well-wishers ask us again and again that –
“Why are you activists bent on such scare-mongering around these things?” I would
like to repeat the words of Dr Azad here – “Yes, we want to create a scare, because
the situation is far more destructive and scary than our government and people can
ever imagine.
It is a life and death question for Punjab; it is clearly evident that Punjab is a dying
civilization. Several people may find this offending, ugly and uncalled for. However,
the indications that we are getting from across Punjab point to a death sentence
written for the whole eco-system in this part of the country and particularly for this
brave community.
‘Villages up for sale’ are a unique symbol of distress and devastation in Punjab. It
was a first-of-its-kind protest in India at that time. In March 2002, Harkishanpura of
Bathinda district put itself up for sale and then Mal Singh Wala of Mansa district
followed in 2005. Both of these villages are situated in cotton belt of Malwa. Both
have a common reason -– the Water crisis. It was a desperate step that was taken
by the villagers. Now, this water distress has engulfed the villages of the apparently
‘eco-prosperous’ area of Puadh. A village in Patiala district near Chandigarh -
Mirzapur Sandharsi is contemplating putting itself up for sale. The reason is the
same “waterlessness” that has now become a nightmare for this village too. After
reading reports in the media, we visited this village – what was bluntly visible and
extremely disturbing to find is that Punjab is fast turning into a waterless region. It
can be Harkishanpura, Mandi Khurd or MalSingh Wala or Teja Rohella, Dona Nanka
near Fazilka or Mirzapur Sandharsi - villages after villages are caught in the grip of a
severe water crisis.
There are several indicators to confirm what Dr Amar Singh Azad said about Punjab
being a dying civilization. The disturbing symptoms of this slow death are common,
in a journey from Mirzapur Sandharsi, Harpalpur to Shahpur Theri and Makrod Sahib
in Sangrur. I wondered how accurate is forecast made by Rabbi Shergill.
The symptoms are: severe, multiple environmental toxicity, drinking water crisis
due to drying-up of upper aquifers and rapid deterioration of the groundwater
situation all over the state, water quality going drastically down with multiple kinds
of contamination, destruction of river eco-systems and vanishing aquatic life, loss of
biodiversity and crop diversity, increasing health problems particularly those related
to reproductive health, declining immune capacity, early ageing and cancers etc.
Disturbingly, the same pattern of health problems is being found in domestic
animals: farmers repeatedly reported that animals are unable to conceive and if
they conceive they abort frequently. Further, the all-round crisis is also reflecting
itself in agriculture and agricultural livelihoods: falling agriculture productivity,
increase in external inputs and rising debts, growing disconnect between farmer
and his/her land, farmers selling their farms and lastly, emergence of loss of self-
confidence and self-esteem amongst the affected people to tackle the situation.
I often say in Punjabi that Punjab is fast turning into Be-aab and Punjabis of Be-aab
Punjab are bound to become Be-abaad (displaced). I find that Mirzapur Sandharsi
and nearby villages are an apt illustration for this idiom. Surinder Singh, Sarpanch
of Mirzapur Sandharsi told us, “There is no proper water; this water crisis has forced
us to sell our land. We are ready to sell even our village”. As there is no water left in
two upper aquifers – at 70 feet and 150 feet respectively - villagers are facing a lot
of hardship to meet even basic requirement of water. Around ten years back, the
70-feet aquifer began to go dry and about five years ago, water started
disappearing from the 150-feet aquifer also. “We are forced to increase the lowering
by 12 to 20 feet every year”; told Harbans Singh, Chairman of village Cooperative
Society. “When Ghaghar was alive about 20 year back, there was no such problem.
As Ghaghar died slowly, this water crisis engulfed our area”.
Now villagers are forced to draw water from third aquifer to be found at the depth of
about 400 feet, but unfortunately at many places this aquifer is having water unfit
to even irrigate their farms, so it is of little use. Even if it is fit for irrigation, it is very
costly to draw it and more over how long will it last. After all it is ‘Fossil Water’. It is
going to be exhausted. What after that? No body is able to answer.

Farmers are able to grow wheat and paddy but with this hard water, vegetables
cannot be grown. It’s very difficult to find anyone growing vegetables from last ten
years in the village. “We forgot the taste of our own grown vegetables”, said a
farmer. This is a common trend in all villages of this area where purchasing
vegetables from cities is common. Earlier, farmers here used to grow several kinds
of vegetables for sale in the market as well as self-consumption. Now, they don’t
cultivate vegetables in several villages of Ghannour area of Patiala district. Farmers
from Harpalpur gave a more pitiable picture: “Earlier we use to sell our vegetables
in Rajpura and Chandigarh markets; now, because the water quality has
deteriorated, we are not able to cultivate vegetables anymore. Farmers will tell you
the same story in villages like Shahpur Theri, Mandavi, Chandu, Makorad Sahib and
Foold. Everywhere, farmers have turned into buyers of vegetables from being
producers. This is sign of loss of household food and nutritional security. This has
also put an economic burden on them”.
The average wheat yield dropped drastically in the last few years in all villages we
visited. Farmers reported getting yields as low as 5 quintals per acre of wheat. ‘As
groundwater is going deeper and deeper, it is also losing its quality. This affects
crops and their yields often.’ It is a common perception of farmers from different
villages. This has another impact -manifold increase in usage of chemical fertilizers,
making agriculture more expensive now. All of this makes the farm economics
unviable, with farmers becoming more indebted. Almost all the agricultural land
here is mortgaged! “We were happy and prosperous those days, using Ghaghar
water and getting higher yields in comparison to today. We used to grow Basmati
about 15- 20 years back with very less water from Ghaghar and used to obtain 16 to
20 quintals per acre, 14 to 16 quintals of wheat and even 10 to 12 quintals of
pulses. We had these results without using any Urea in our fields.” said Gyani Subeg
Singh, a 70-year old farmer from village Shahpur Theri .
Loss of agro-biodiversity is another issue of concern. It was found that in the last 20
years, there has been a drastic loss in agro-biodiversity. Earlier, most of farmers
used to grow pulses. Slowly, as yields started declining, they stopped producing
pulses. It was found that earlier, diversity-based farming was the main approach.
Farmers grew Corn, Basmati, Cotton, Sugarcane, Wheat, Mustard, Pearl Millet,
Barley, Pigeonpea, Moong, Masar, Moth, Alsi, Til, Tara-Mira, Gwara, Arhar and
Chilies.
Farmers reported that all these crops were grown without any chemical inputs
simply by irrigating their farms with Ghaghar water. But as Ghaghar has gone dry,
the biodiverse farming system which flourished here for hundred of years also dried
up. Farmers’ real wealth – water and soil - was plundered.
This has also eroded traditional knowledge system of farming in this area. Now
farmers are using high amount of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and weedicides.
They are now so obsessed with chemical farming that they lost self confidence. “We
cannot grow any thing without chemicals. We know it is poison – but we have no
other alternative” said Jaswant Singh of Shahpur Theri, while preparing to apply
chemical fertilizers in his farm.

When asked about debt situation, Harvinder Singh, Youth Club President of Shahpur
Theri says with grief, “Death of Ghaghar has destroyed both our wealth and health.
Now, the entire village is under debt. Not a single acre of land is free from loan.
Several farmers were forced to sell their farm land. About 35 to 40 people sold their
entire property and shifted out of the village. Several farmers are now working as
landless laborers”.
This situation is reminiscent of my earlier experience in Mirzapur Sandharsi and
Harpalpur. In these villages, a large number of farmers had already sold their land.
When I asked farmers at Harpalpur in Patiala what they thought of Mirzapur
Sandharsi villagers putting up their village for sale, more than three farmers replied
at once in a collective voice – “We are also ready to sell our village.” Then one
farmer added “Why talk about only these two villages - the whole belt of around 40
villages is up for sale though we are not declaring it openly. But if we get a chance,
we are all ready to quit agriculture and move out of here”. Everyone sitting there
supported his views. These farmers no more feel any attachment to their village.
Sadly, the cord of affinity with their land no longer exists.
The most painful experience we have had in this tour is that of the murder of a river
and her bounties. It was the case of entire society breaking away from its water
heritage. Everybody whom we met during our visit told us - “Once Ghaghar River
used to be full of life and we used to drink Ghaghar water about 20 years back - it
used to be clear, sweet and tasty”. Vaid Piyara Singh (55) of Makrodr Sahib said
with unshed tears in his eyes: “Ghaghar was clean and the whole village used to
drink its water; I used to drink Ghaghar water almost every day while returning from
fields – I never experienced any problem with that – that was about 20 years back”.
In village Phoolad, which is just 300 meters from Ghaghar we got to know that
except two young men, all the persons sitting in front of us had once been able to
drink directly from the river.
“Fish from Ghagar used to be quite famous once upon a time; people used to come
from far away to purchase fish here. Thousands of fish of different species, small
and big tortoises and so on used to be present in large numbers in Ghaghar.
Ghaghar died right in front of our eyes”, said Kulwant Singh (52) of Makrodr Sahib
with visible grief on his face.
In adjoining Chandu village, all households used to irrigate their farms from
Ghaghar water, but now they are forced to look for other options. “Earlier our
animals would go there for grazing, bathing and drinking Ghaghar water, but now
we cannot even think of it. It is acid only.” said Vaid Subhash (37).
The entire belt of villages on the bank of Ghaghar in Sangrur district was using
Ghaghar water not only for irrigation but also for domestic usage. Some people also
pointed out that the river bed had several springs like Nadiya Taal from where they
got water throughout the year. There were large numbers of Dhaak and Dhaki trees,
Jand, Kiker, and bushes of Duaansa. This indicates that along with destruction of
Ghaghar the native plants and trees also got ruined.
“In those days, several species of birds were found; now we hardly see even
common birds like the crow or the sparrow. They are all gone”. We heard this
almost everywhere that we went. Many report that the number of birds in this area
has gone down. Dr Azad kept muttering that this is our Silent Spring unfolding in
Punjab. I am speechless since the picture emerging in front of us was a hopeless
picture of doom.
In every village we had also enquired about existence of honeybees and
earthworms and unfortunately got the similar answer indicating more vast
destruction of life – ‘Now honeybees and earthworms are almost gone, we hardly
see any hive around our villages’ villagers told us. Every time when we got negative
answer about presence of honeybees, Dr Azad reminds me famous prediction of
Albert Einstein, "If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would
have no more than four years to live."
Like earthworms and honeybees several other insects were thrown out of web of
life. And the younger generation of farmers even does not know the names of
several friendly-insects.
In spite of floods every year, Ghaghar was generous with life and prosperity. Now it
appears that hell is flowing here and villagers are forced to live with the situation.
They reported that Ghaghar got polluted some years back with toxic effluents from
a factory at Main near Patiala and Chambowali drain which joins Ghaghar at Chandu
village. The water is black, with bad smell and with no life at all. The water, if
touched, produces irritation, itching and skin rashes, it was explained. We do not
even dare to touch it where we used to earlier be able to drink the water, they said.
Punjab is going to be a state of sick people highly dependent on medicines”, Dr
Azad keeps saying again and again. His words were reinforced during this tour as
we had personally witnessed a massive health crisis all around. What we have
witnessed during this study visit has reaffirmed our earlier hypothesis that Punjab is
being subjected to multiple environmental toxicity. Every village we had visited
illustrates the same tragedy.
As Dr Azad often says, “The whole ecosystem of the earth is interwoven in a web of
highly sensitive and complex interdependence; any toxin in the environment – air,
water and soil - affects all forms of life right from the microbes to human beings.
Wherever toxicity is high, humans, cattle, wild animals, other living forms including
microbes and plants are gravely affected. Punjab today is witnessing the whole
spectrum of ill effects on human health shown through various studies, of such
contamination. The immunity of Punjabis is being ruthlessly damaged”.
In each village we visited, people reeled out high numbers of cancer deaths in
addition to a long list of cancer patients under medication. What we got from
villagers is shocking data regarding cancers, raising infertility and other
reproductive health disorders, increasing number of neurological disorders, allergies
and impaired immunity. As farmers gave this information to us while sitting in front
of us by recalling names, the possibility of errors must certainly be there; however,
this is an indicator that cancer is on the rise while reproductive health is
deteriorating fast, that too in all parts of Punjab. We found quite a large number of
issueless couples, cases of miscarriages, spontaneous abortions and premature
deliveries; in each village, we also found cases of neurological disorders Children
with mental retardation and congenital abnormalities, cerebral palsy, autism, ADHD,
ADD, learning and behavioral disabilities and so on were identified. It is hard to
believe that the list of illnesses is much longer then we thought.
Skin diseases are also very common in all villages; Dr Azad points out that this is a
sign of impaired immune system in people of Punjab. We also found large number
of patients with kidney problems, stones in kidney and gall bladder, digestive
system disorders etc.
This starkly visible disease pattern can be correlated to the toxicity load caused by
environmental toxicity and prevalence of toxins in our eco-system and food chain.
During group discussions, it was also noticed that number of young deaths in last
ten years is on the rise. Though it may be because of other reasons too, a young
death is an indicator that something is seriously wrong in Punjab.
Poisoning of ecology has a deep impact on animal health as well. The status of
animal health in these parts seems to indicate that the toxicity everywhere has
reached its threshold level. People reported that apart from human beings, cows
and buffalos are also losing reproduction capacity. They observe lesser lactation
period and lesser reproduction cycles. It has come down to 5 from 15 reproduction
cycles. More and more cows and buffalos are becoming sterile. These animals are
unable to conceive and miscarriages and abortions are increasing amongst these
animals. At least 70% animals have become unproductive and sterile, people
reported. Their milk productivity is also going down. Moreover, even horses are
reported to be getting sterile. Some farmers observe that desi hens are not able to
lay eggs properly.
When the villages had pasture lands, the animals used to give more milk, they
recall; now, the animals are falling sick and dying. These animals cannot go to
Ghagar now and farmers have to run pumps for water, which adds to the financial
burden of the families. “We are ruined due to the poisonous water that was allowed
to flow in Ghaghar”, they say.
But question is - who is responsible for this ecological destruction? How are we
going to restore justice to river Ghaghar, her inhabitants and Nature? Who is to be
blamed for subjecting this whole area to this severe environmental health crisis?
What has killed River Ghaghar and its thousands of animals, fishes, tortoises, birds
and other creatures?
The answer is very simple - our Development model obsessed with high GDP. The
factories of liquor and wine at Banaur, Patiala and Patran have contributed to the
death of Ghaghar. The owners of these factories, their management, the
government departments which gave clearances for the establishment and running
of these factories, the officers with whose signatures these factories came into
existence, the Punjab Pollution Control Board which is primarily responsible for
monitoring and controlling pollution and effluents, the Revenue department and
Directorate of excise and taxes, the Finance Ministry of Punjab which is filling its
pockets from taxes on these factories thus giving them a legal status and lastly, the
people who remain silent and indifferent during this demolition are responsible for
the death of a river and her ecosystem, the destruction of health and environment
here and for the displacement of farmers. These are environmental criminals who
need to be held liable. Punjab needs a people’s movement to take up the issue of
life of our rivers and to keep alive Punjabi civilization. By giving a rousing call to the
public, Sant Balbir Singh Seenchewal has already taken an initiative in this
direction. But we have still a long way to go.
Moreover , After confirmation of presence of uranium traces in hair samples of
children from Baba Farid Centre for Special Children and water and soil samples it is
certain that Punjab is in midst of multiple environmental toxicity. This is an indicator
that it is situation of extreme emergency in Punjab. Let us start talking the political
ecology. Let people start thinking politically to punish the environmental culprits of
Punjab. We have to evolve newer ways to punish those who are responsible for this
devastation. Though, I also found that I was also one of the culprits, even several of
us those who are now fighting for environment were not behaved in responsible
manner earlier, otherwise situation would have been different. I feel we are also
blameworthy and I am firm that all those who are guilty must be punished

Green revolution’s cancer train

Pesticides and cancer: a murderous concoction, a massive environmental and health disaster,
while people are dying in village after village of Punjab
By Sandeep Yadav Faridkot/Muktsar
Despite the relentless suffering, 41-year-old Karamjeet Kaur is not scared of death. Member of a
proud, landed family in Kotbhai village in district Muktsar, this mother of three has been
diagnosed with uterus cancer. The revelation has brought no change in her daily chores, except
that she has to travel long distance for periodic check-ups at the Acharya Tulsi Regional Cancer
Treatment and Research Centre, at Bikaner, in Rajasthan. Her hair has turned white due to illness
and heavy medicines, and her face is weary in the fading daylight. Yet, she tells her story with
immense dignity, so distinctive among the strong, hardworking women of Punjab. And it doesn’t
matter if it is her cancer she is talking about.
Karamjeet is one of the five battling cancer in her village. The Jhoke Sarkari village, in Faridkot
district, has 10 cancer patients. There have been 15 cancer-related deaths in the last five years
here. Even children, as young as ten- year-old, are suffering from joint pains, arthritis and
greying of hair. Their suffering is starkly visible.
It’s the same story in several villages of Punjab—Jhariwala, Koharwala, Puckka, Bhimawali,
Khara. Recently, a 12-year-old boy died of cancer in Khara village and a 25-year-old woman has
been detected with breast cancer. Similar cases of cancer deaths (apart from farmers’ suicides)
have become the norm in the whole of Malwa region of Punjab, comprising the districts of
Muktsar, Faridkot, Moga, Sangroor and Bathinda. Although the government has claimed 172
cancer deaths in Muktsar district in the last two years, Manpreet Badal, the Shiromani Akali Dal
MLA from Giddarbaha, contested the claim. He has a list of 300 cancer deaths from Giddarbaha
constituency alone. “In the 50 villages falling in my constituency I have attended close to 300
funerals of people dying due to cancer in the last three months,” says Manpreet.
“Punjab is in the grip of a terrible environmental and health crisis emanating from the intensive
farming practices involving large doses of chemicals and pesticides in use for the past four
decades,” says Devinder Sharma, agriculture policy analyst. The green revolution has not really
been so green. The environment has been intensely contaminated by the rampant use and abuse
of chemicals and pesticides. The underground water is clinically unfit for drinking or for
irrigation.
A comprehensive study conducted in the area by the prestigious Post Graduate Institute of
Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, brings out unequivocal evidence that
the use of indiscriminate, indiscreet, excessive and unsafe pesticides is directly responsible for
the rapid and significant rise in the number of pesticide-related cases of cancers and cancer
deaths. Studies by the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR) have
established that Punjab is facing a serious second-generation environmental crisis.
Malwa region, in the southwest of Punjab, is a cotton belt that is now growing the controversial,
genetically modified Bt cotton only. Gurmail Singh, a cotton farmer of Jaitu village, says that
about 14 years ago the cotton in the region was attacked by the American ball worm— a deadly
pest. “I used about ten pesticide sprays over three acres of land and still could not kill the pest,”
he recalls. There are many farmers who used more than 20 sprays of pesticides to kill the pest,
but were still unsuccessful.
Unaware of the harmful effects of the mindless use of pesticides pushed by the nexus of
unscrupulous agencies and private companies, the people of the region are paying a terrible price
for their folly. Often wrongly advised by influential agricultural lobbies and profit sharks, the
greed of high yield overruled prevailing health concerns. Indeed, Punjab has 2.5 per cent of the
total agricultural land in the country, but is using the highest amount—more than 18 per cent of
pesticides in the country. All this has contributed to widespread social devastation in individual
and community life.
Predictably, Dr Harinder Singh, Agriculture Development Officer, Muktsar, categorically blames
the farmers for not adhering to the precautions related to the use of pesticides. He says that a
pesticide called Monocrotophose is banned from being used on vegetables and fruits, but the
farmers don’t follow the warning. “The precautions are not binding as an official order since
there are no such laws. Hence no legal action can be taken,” says Singh.
Umendra Dutt, executive director of Kheti Virasat Mission, an NGO in Faridkot, argues that the
entire tragedy is a result of a conspiracy hatched between the scientists of the influential Punjab
Agriculture University (PAU) and pesticide companies, which convinced the innocent farmers
with a false promise: more pesticides, more yield. “The PAU continues to push pesticides,
knowing too well that these were not required in the first place. In the case of cotton, scientists
have compounded the problem by turning the ‘insect profile’ hostile, who, instead of being
eliminated are breeding heavily. There were six or seven kinds of pests that worried the farmers
in the 1960s; today, the number of cotton pests has multiplied to over 60,” says Dutt.
Almost 40 years after the green revolution, the International Rice Research Institute, at Manila,
in the Philippines, now publicly accepts its mistake in promoting pesticides. It is on record that
“pesticides were a waste of time and efforts” in Asia for the cultivation of rice. Farmers in
Bangladesh, Vietnam and the Philippines have successfully opted for pesticide-free cultivation.
But the irony of Punjab is that the agriculture establishments are not open to this bitter realism
about pesticides. They are still gloating in the green-revolution mindset, insulated from
alternative paradigms for sustainable agriculture, environment and development.
After Sunita Narain, Director, Centre for Science and Environment, raised the issue of pesticide
content in the blood of the people of Punjab last year, the Punjab government constituted two
committees — one high-profile committee, headed by Chief Minister Amrinder Singh, and
another expert group headed by Dr K.K. Talwar, Director, PGIMER, Chandigarh. The expert
group met at least once but the high-powered committee failed to meet even once in the last ten
months. Meetings were fixed not less then five times but were postponed for one reason or
another.
While the Punjab government is busy clearing multi-crore SEZs, it has not been able to provide
its people a proper cancer treatment facility in the Bathinda region. Poor cancer patients are
forced to go to distant Bikaner, in Rajasthan, for their treatment. According to the National
Cancer Registry Programme, out of 424 cancer patients from Bathinda district, 328 were being
treated at Bikaner. So much so, the train plying between Muktsar and Bikaner has been
rechristened as the ‘cancer train’ by the locals.
While NGO’s such as Kheti Virasat Mission, are doing their best to educate the farmers about
health and environment issues, even to the extent of asking them to pledge that they will do only
organic farming, the state government’s role is starkly insensitive and lackadaisical. The Punjab
government paid a meagre relief amount to some cancer patients. But can half-hearted doles of
monetary help stop the epidemic?
How will the government stop the ecological degeneration and health crisis, and save the people
from cancer and other
diseases directly related to top-heavy policies and the vested interests of pesticide lobbies?
The wake-up call has been buzzing non-stop and for a long time. But no one’s listening, certainly
not the powerful green-revolution lobby. While the people die, or survive, waiting for death, in
abject pain.

Punjab's Malwa region, once referred to as 'Makheon meetha Malwa' (sweeter than honey) for its
rich agricultural produce and cotton farming, is today battling environment-related health
problems including a noticeable rise in cancer cases, kidney ailments and infertility as a result of
large-scale use of pesticides and fertiliser.

The green revolution of the 1970s that brought a windfall to the farmers in terms of prosperity is
now revealing its sorry side-effects -- large-scale environmental degradation with the strong
chemical pesticides having led to contamination of water bodies, food and air, says Kheti Virasat
Mission (KVM), a non-governmental organisation working in the area.

"Punjab is in great danger. It is only when you go to the villages that you realise how much the
environmental pollution
has affected the people there. In the Malwa region, you will get to see girls and boys as young as
nine years with greying hair, signifying that ageing is setting in early. There are five to 10 cancer
cases in each village, plus numerous other health problems

," KVM head Umendra Dutt told IANS.

According to Dutt, the total dissolved salts (TDS) in the water bodies is much higher than
permissible levels, forcing women and schoolchildren to spend valuable time in fetching potable
water from approved sources.

"The water is not fit to be given even to animals. The high toxicity in the environment has
affected the cattle too. Their milk yields have gone down, and like the humans there they have
developed bone problems. They do not walk properly and the cows are not conceiving properly."

The Malwa region consists of nine districts with Ludhiana, Barnala and Sangrur in the non-
cotton growing belt and the rest, Bathinda, Mansa, Moga, Ferozepur, Faridkot and Muktsar,
comprising the cotton belt.

Dutt and his team went on a door-to-door survey in Ferozepur, Faridkot, Muktsar and Bathinda
districts a few months ago and met the people there, right from grandparents to children.

"What we saw is very disturbing and terrifying. The dance of death by cancer is everywhere.
Every village has faced cruelty of deaths -- young, old, married, single, men, women, rich, poor,
farmers, labourers -- there is no distinction. The death count includes those as young as 4-5
years."

Each village, including the smaller ones, have more than 5-10 cancer cases, and cancer deaths
are taking place every year. The disease takes an economic toll on the families as they are
forced to sell their land to get the victims treated, said Dutt, who is from Ferozepur.

Dutt and his team came across several cases of childhood arthritis, reproductive health diseases
and an alarmingly high number of childless couples. When this happens, says Dutt, it is the
woman who is blamed for not being able to bear children.

"Most people don't even know what went wrong in the last few years," he says. His team also
saw many kidney

patients, mentally challenged children, diabetic patients and young men with fertility problems

.
A study was done on the rising cancer cases in Talwandi Sabo block in Bathinda by the Post
Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) more than two years ago. It
found that cancer cases were indeed high and attributed it to "more use of pesticides, tobacco and
alcohol".

An angry Dutt says that the "study has diluted the aspect of high use of pesticides in the area.
Tobacco is against the Sikh religion and how can people in a largely Sikh area be accused of
tobacco use, including women? So how does tobacco feature in the area as a cause at all?"

He maintains that "the agriculture departments, pesticide companies and dealers are brothers-in-
arms in disaster to push the area into the lap of environmental death and are against the shifting
to organic farming".

Dutt feels that the region "needs a pesticide holiday and should be declared an environmental hot
spot".

He feels the government should withdraw all pesticides and adopt natural farming -- agriculture
without chemicals. "Whatever the geography of the area permits, we should grow that only."

He proposes that the government carry out a house-to-house epidemiological survey on the
causes and distribution of pesticide-induced diseases.

"The government should do a blood sampling of 100,000 people to check for pesticide levels and
also do a check on the breast milk of mothers. This will reveal the level to which the toxins are
affecting the people," he said, adding that successive state governments lacked the "political will
power" to tackle the situation.

India's Deadly Chemical Addiction

By Madhur Singh Tuesday, Jun. 10, 2008
Indian cancer sufferer Mukthiar Singh, second to right, sits with family members on a platform
in Bhatinda, waiting to board a train known as the "Cancer Express"
On a scorching June afternoon in Jhajjal village in southwestern Punjab, elderly men have
gathered in a communal courtyard to quell the boredom of the long afternoon with a game of
cards. The cotton crop has been sown, and the farmers have a few weeks' holiday before they
must return to their fields. As with most small villages, everyone knows everyone else here, and
the conversation centers around marriages and births. But these usually mundane topics have
taken on a tragic twist, involving couples failing to conceive, children being born with genetic
disorders, people of all ages succumbing to cancer. Nadar Singh, the village headman, says there
have been some 20 cancer-related deaths during the last five years in Jhajjal, a village of only
3,200. "A 23-year-old died of cancer in our village last year," he says, "But such news has
stopped shocking us. Here even kids have cancer."
India's rural activists for years have blamed the overuse and misuse of pesticides for a pervasive
health crisis that afflicts villages like Jhajjal across the cotton belt of Punjab. Evidence continues
to mount that the problems are severe. Last month, a government-funded study revealed that
chemical fertilizers and pesticides have seeped into the groundwater in four Punjab districts and
are causing an alarming array of ecological and health problems including cancer and mental
retardation. A June 2005 study by the new Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment
found residues of between 6 and 13 pesticides in blood samples of villagers from Mahi Nangal,
Jajjal and Balloh villages in Bhatinda district. Recent research by Punjabi University at Patiala
established evidence of DNA damage among agricultural workers exposed to pesticides;
damaged genes can give rise to a range of cancers as well as neurological and reproductive
disorders. Bala, a 24-year-old day laborer, worked for two months in the fields during the
spraying season four years ago. Not long after, her second child, a boy, was born with a
neurological disorder and has recently been diagnosed with hydrocephalus. "His treatment is so
expensive that we have had to borrow large amounts of money... I know he won't survive" she
says. Surinder Singh, the executive director of the rural NGO Kheti Virasat, says, "Punjab is
paying with its life for a dubious promise of prosperity."
Punjab's lethal pesticide legacy can be traced to the Green Revolution of the 1960s and '70s,
when high-yielding varieties of cotton were introduced in the region's relatively arid Malwa belt.
Initially the move was successful as yields and prices were good. But farmers soon discovered
that the cotton was highly susceptible to pests, and ended up spending huge amounts on
pesticides. As the pests, such as pink bollworm and aphids, became increasingly resistant to
chemical spraying, farmers reacted by laying on even more, sometimes mixing two or more
products against all scientific evidence. The region virtually became a chemical laboratory. The
expense of spraying put many farmers deep in debt, yet they remain vulnerable to outbreaks such
as a mealy bug attack last year that destroyed 70% of the crop. "Earlier, we used less water,
traditional crops and organic manure. Now, it's all chemicals," says Sarmukh Singh, a 93-year-
old patriarch in Jhajjal. "We've got our land addicted, but we don't know how to fight this
addiction."
The health impact on the region is shocking. A daily passenger train that runs from Bathinder to
Bikaner in neighboring Rajasthan is nicknamed the "Cancer Express" because it routinely fills a
dozen cars with patients and their attendants on their way to a charitable hospital. Despite the
high incidence of cancer, there is no government-run cancer hospital in the Malwa region,
although the government announced plans to build one last year. "Officials sometimes visit our
village, but they never seem to do anything," says Santosh, a 35-year-old resident of Jhajjal who
was diagnosed with leukemia three years back and goes to Bikaner every six months for a blood
transfusion.
There's plenty of blaming going on. Pesticide companies blame farmers for not adhering to
prescribed quantities and not using protective gear. Workers who spray the chemicals blame
landlords for not investing in protection, and companies for not properly informing them of the
dangers of exposure. Farmers claim it is greedy dealers who push them to spray more, and also
blame the government's failure to change its policies after the harmful side effects of the Green
Revolution began showing. "We know what we are doing is not sustainable," says Nadar Singh,
the chief of Jhajjal. "The agriculture department and the PAU [Punjab Agricultural University,
which pioneered the Green Revolution]should come up with an alternative."
Faced with the latest studies on the effects of pesticides on the ecology and on people's health,
Punjab Pollution Control Board is holding a meeting in the coming weeks to decide what action
to take. For the moment, the government doesn't seem to have a plan of action, though piecemeal
steps are afoot. It is promoting herbal pesticides and extending outreach programs to better
educate farmers about the dangers of pesticide overuse—not only in this region but all over
Punjab. Some farmers are taking up organic farming, and many scientists have been calling for a
return to crops more suited to the local landscape—in the case of the Malwa region, pulses and
cereals like bajra and maize in addition to cotton—to restore the biodiversity of the soil. The
Congress Party–led government in Delhi has been talking about the need to launch a second
Green Revolution, for which it is partnering with countries like the U.S. and Israel to devise
technologies that are more sustainable. It is looking at developing and introducing transgenic
crops and other advances in biotechnology. But, as Surinder Singh of Kheti Virasat points out,
the government must ensure that it doesn't repeat the mistakes it made the first time around. "The
Punjab farmer basks in the glory of making Punjab the bread basket of India," he says, "but the
price has been too high. Punjab cannot pay with the lives of its next generation."

Census of farmer suicides

Posted by Reema in General, Health, Human Rights, India, Politics, Punjab on 05 28th, 2008 |
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The Punjab government has finally allocated funds to assess the breadth of farmer suicides in the
state.
The Punjab Government seems to have finally woken up to the
need of having a census on farmers’ suicides in the state. The
state government, it is learnt, has the [sic] entrusted the arduous
task of completing the census to the Punjab Agricultural
University. As per Dr R.S. Sidhu, head of the Department of
Economics, PAU, “The state government has asked us to do the
work and we have taken it up as a research project. Though
whole of Punjab is to be covered under the study, the state
government has asked us to do a pilot project in two districts of
Punjab, Gurdaspur and Sangrur initially.
The census will be conducted by the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), based in Patiala
Ludhiana. During the first phase of the survey, PAU will conduct a door to door survey in about
1,500 villages in Gurdaspur and about 575 villages in Sangrur out of the 12,000 villages in
Punjab. The report from this initial phase is set to be completed in four months from the
beginning of the survey, which is set to begin in the next couple of weeks.
The census will take into account farmer suicides occurring after April 1, 2005, excluding
suicides of farm laborers.
Rising pesticide and fertiliser costs, shrinking land holdings, declining soil fertility and heavily-
subsidized farming in wealthier countries are some of the factors blamed for these suicides.
A related issue is the increasing rate of cancer stemming from excessive use of harmful
pesticides since the Green Revolution (which other langarites have blogged about as well).
A comprehensive study conducted in the area by the prestigious Post Graduate Institute of
Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, brings out unequivocal evidence that
the use of indiscriminate, indiscreet, excessive and unsafe pesticides is directly responsible for
the rapid and significant rise in the number of pesticide-related cases of cancers and cancer
deaths.
The PAU isn’t expected to have a perfect record to qualify to
conduct the census, but I hope that it has at least stopped
pushing farmers to use pesticides as it used to.
“The PAU continues to push pesticides, knowing too well that
these were not required in the first place. In the case of cotton,
scientists have compounded the problem by turning the ‘insect
profile’ hostile, who, instead of being eliminated are breeding
heavily. There were six or seven kinds of pests that worried the
farmers in the 1960s; today, the number of cotton pests has multiplied to over 60,” says Dutt.
Farmers have excessively used pesticides which have polluted the drinking water, upon bad
advice from influential agricultural lobbies and profit sharks, which has led to high yield
overruling health concerns.
Punjab has 2.5 per cent of the total agricultural land in the country, but is using the highest
amount—more than 18 per cent of pesticides in the country. All this has contributed to
widespread social devastation in individual and community life.
Other Asian regions have acknowledged the unnecessary and harmful effects of excessive use of
pesticides.
Almost 40 years after the green revolution, the International Rice Research Institute, at Manila,
in the Philippines, now publicly accepts its mistake in promoting pesticides. It is on record that
“pesticides were a waste of time and efforts” in Asia for the cultivation of rice.
‘Organic farming’ is slowly being introduced and used in very small scales in Punjab, but it is
not yet widespread, unlike in other Asian neighbors.
Farmers in Bangladesh, Vietnam and the Philippines have successfully opted for pesticide-free
cultivation. But the irony of Punjab is that the agriculture establishments are not open to this
bitter realism about pesticides. They are still gloating in the green-revolution mindset, insulated
from alternative paradigms for sustainable agriculture, environment and development.
Organic farming is being introduced mainly by ngos.
While NGO’s such as Kheti Virasat Mission, are doing their best to educate the farmers about
health and environment issues, even to the extent of asking them to pledge that they will do only
organic farming, the state government’s role is starkly insensitive and lackadaisical.
But the effects of excessive use of pesticides and pollution of water have already taken root.
the train plying between Muktsar and Bikaner has been rechristened as the ‘cancer train’ by the
locals.

Impact of Green Revolution

Resource Type:
Posted Date: 09 May 2008 Category: General
Articles/Knowledge Sharing
Author: Sushil Kumar Patial Member Level: Gold

Rating: Points: 4
The experience of the Green Revolution in Punjab is anexample how science takes credit for
successes and frees itself from all responsibility for failures. It offers technological fixes for
social and political problems, but detaches itselffrom the new social and political problems it
creates. It is an illustration of how modren scientific project is politically and socially created
and how it builds its immunity and obstructs its social assessment.

The Green Revolution was based on the assumption that technoloty is a betteralternative for
nature's limitss. However the assumption of nature as a source of shortage, and technolgy as a
source of plenty, leads to the creation of new technologies which create new scarcities in nature
through ecological destruction. The reduction in availability of fertile land and loss of diversity
of crops as a resuld=t of Green Revolution, illustrates that at the ecolotical level, the Green
Revolution Produced scarcity, not abundance. It not only led to ecological insecurity but also
social and political insecurity.
It is deceptive to reduce the roots of the Punjab crisis to religion, since the conflits are also
rooted in the ecological, economic and political impacts of the Green Revolution. The
communalization of the Problem, which basically arose from the policical transformation
linked with the Green Revolution was based, in part, on externalizing the political impacts of
technological change from the domain of science and technology.
The Green Revolution has many impacts which have drewn intense praise and equally intense
criticism ----

1. Social, Economic and political impact of GreenRevolution

2. Ecological impact of Green Revolution

1. Social, Economic and political impact of GreenRevolution

Inspite of the fact that the Green Revolution brought initial monetary benefits to many farmers,
especially the rich ones, those benefits were closely related to the high subsidies and price
support. These kind of subsidies could not moved further indefinitely and farmers in Punjab are
now facing increasing indebtedness. There is in fact an evidence of a decline in the real income
per hectare of farmers since 1978.
The increased utilization of capital for purchasing inputs has produced new inequalities
between those farmers who could use the new technolgy profitably, and those for whom it
turned into an instrument of dispossession. Petty farmers, who make up nearly 50% of the
farming community, have been particularly badly hit. A study conducted between 1976 and
1978 pointed out that small farmers' households were running into an average deficit of about
1500 rupeens. In the period between 1970 and 1980 , the number of small holding in the Punjab
decreased by nearly a quarter due to their economic no-feasibility

The major beneficiaries of Green Revolution have been big farmers and the agrochemical
industries, A a result of increasing dependence of peasants on off farm inputs, they have
become increasingly dependent on those companies that manage the input of HYV(High
Yielding Variety) seeds.
The continued commercialization ha HYV seeds has been actively encouraged by the Word
Bank, without being affected by widespread resistance from the farmers who choose to retain
exchange seeds among themselves, outside the market system. The World Bank has also
rendered help by granting four loans to the National Seeds Project since 1969. The fourth loan
which was allotted in 1988 was particularly desired to encourage the investment of the private
sector, including the MNCs in the production of seeds. This type of involvement was thought to
be for seeds did not expand as espected, constraining the development of the inexperienced
industry.
Intensive irrigation has led to the need for large scale storage systems, centralizing control over
water supplies and leading to both local and inter-state water conflicts. Despete a succession of
wateer-sharing agreements between Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana, there is an increasing
conflict over both the availability of wather and its quality. In the Punjab, farmers are actively
campaigning to stop the construction of the Satluj -Yamuna Link Canal which will take water
to Haryana, while in Haryana local politicians are trying hard for its completion.
The worsening condition of the peasantry in the Punjab which is largely made up of Sikhs, has
undoubtedly contributed to the development of Punjab nationalism. Many complaint that
Punjab is bing treated like a lolony in order to provide cheap food for urban elites elsewhere in
India.

2. Ecological impact of Green Revolution

The Green Revolution has been a failure as far as ecology is concerned. It has led to
reducedgenetic diversity. increased vulnerability to pests, soil erosion, water shortage, reduced
soil fertility, micronutrient defiencies and soil contamination-

1) The Myth of High Yields---

The term 'high yielding varieties' is a wrong name or word, because it implies that the new
seeds are high yielding of themeselves but actually they are highly responsive to certain key
inputs such as fertilizers and water, the new seeds perform worse than the indigenous varieties.
Increasing the nitrogen uptake plants by using artifical fertilizers upsets their carbon/nitrogen
balance causing matabolic problems to which the plant reacts by taking up extra water.

2. Loss of Diversity---
Diversity is a central principle of traditional agriculture in the Punjab, a in the rest of India,.
Such diversity contributed to ecological stability, and hence to ecosystem productivity. The
lower the diversity in an ecosystem, the higher its vulnerability to pests and desease.
The Green Revolution has reduced genetic diversity at two levels. First, it replaced mixtures
and rotations of crops like wheat, maize, millets, pulses and oil seeds which monocultures of
wheat and rice. Second, the introduced wheat and rice varieties came from a very narrow
genetic base. On this narrow and alien genetic base the food supplies of millions are
precariously perched.

3. Increasing Pesticide use-----

Because of their narrow genetic base, HYVs are inherently vulnerable to major pests and
disease. As the Central Rice Research Institute, in Cuttack, concludes regarding rice, the 'high
yielding varieties' are susceptible to major pests with a crop loss of 30-100%.

Even where new varieties are especially bred for resistance to disease, breakdown in
resianstance to dcan occur rapidly and in some instances replacement varieties may be required
every three years or so. in the Punjab the rice variety PR 106 which currently accounts for 80%
of the area undercultivation, was considered resistant to white backed planthoppper and stem
rot when it was introduced in 1976. it has since become susceptible to both diseases, in addition
to succmbing to rice leaf folder, pispa, stem borer and several other insect pests.

The Green Revolution in the Punjab

By Vandana Shiva

From The Ecologist, Vol. 21, No. 2, March-April 1991 reproduced by

permission of the Editor
The Green Revolution has been a failure. It has led to reduced genetic diversity, increased
vulnerability to pests, soil erosion, water shortages, reduced soil fertility, micronutrient
deficiencies, soil contamination, reduced availability of nutritious food crops for the local
population, the displacement of vast numbers of small farmers from their land, rural
impoverishment and increased tensions and conflicts. The beneficiaries have been the
agrochemical industry, large petrochemical companies, manufacturers of agricultural machinery,
dam builders and large landowners.
The “miracle” seeds of the Green Revolution have become mechanisms for breeding new pests
and creating new diseases.
In 1970, Norman Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in developing high-
yielding varieties (HYVs) of wheat. The “Green Revolution”, launched by Borlaug’s “miracle
seeds”, is often credited with having transformed India from “a begging bowl to a bread basket.”,
and the Punjab is frequently cited as the Green Revolution’s most celebrated success story.’ Yet,
far from bringing prosperity, two decades of the Green Revolution have left the Punjab riddled
with discontent and violence. Instead of abundance, the Punjab is beset with diseased soils, pest-
infested crops, waterlogged deserts and indebted and discontented farmers. Instead of peace, the
Punjab has inherited conflict and violence.
Origins
It has often been argued that the Green Revolution provided the only way in which India (and,
indeed, the rest of the Third World) could have increased food availability. Yet, until the 1960s,
India was successfully pursuing an agricultural development policy based on strengthening the
ecological base of agriculture and the self-reliance of peasants. Land reform was viewed as a
political necessity and, following independence, most states initiated measures to secure tenure
for tenant cultivators, to fix reasonable rents and to abolish the zamindari (landlord) system.
Ceilings on land holdings were also introduced. In 1951, at a seminar organized by the Ministry
of Agriculture, a detailed farming strategy—the “land transformation” programme — was put
forward. The strategy recognized the need to plan from the bottom, to consider every individual
village and sometimes every individual field. The programme achieved major successes. Indeed,
the rate of growth of total crop production was higher during this period than in the years
following the introduction of the Green Revolution.
However, while Indian scientists and policy makers were working out self-reliant and
ecologically sound alternatives for the regeneration of agriculture in India, another vision of
agricultural development was taking shape within the international aid agencies and large US
foundations. Alarmed by growing peasant unrest in the newly independent countries of Asia,
agencies like the World Bank, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the US Agency for
International Development and others looked towards the intensification of agriculture as a
means of “stabilizing” the countryside - and in particular of defusing the call for a wider
redistribution of land and other resources. Above all, the US wished to avoid other Asian
countries’ following in the revolutionary footsteps of China. In 1961, the Ford Foundation thus
launched its Intensive Agricultural Development Programme in India, intended to “release”
Indian agriculture from “the shackles of the past” through the introduction of modern intensive
chemical farming.
Adding to the perceived
geopolitical need to intensify
agriculture was pressure from
western agrochemical
companies anxious to ensure
higher fertilizer consumption
overseas. Since the early 1950s,
the Ford Foundation had been
pushing for increased fertilizer
use by Indian farmers, as had
the World Bank and USAID -
with some success. Whilst the
government’s First Five Year
Plan viewed artificial fertilizers
as supplementary to organic
manures, the second and
subsequent plans gave a direct Spraying pesticides in India. Due to poverty, irresponsible
and crucial role to fertilizers. employers and ignorance about their health effects,
But native varieties of wheat pesticides are frequently used without protective clothing
tend to “lodge”, or fall over, in the Third World. (Photo: Mark Edwards/Still Pictures)
when subject to intensive
fertilizer applications. The new
‘dwarf’ varieties developed by Borlaug, however, were specifically designed to overcome this
problem: shorter and stiffer stemmed, they could absorb chemical fertilizer, to which they were
highly receptive, without lodging.
By the mid 1960s, India’s agricultural policies were geared to pushing the introduction of the
new “miracle” seeds developed by Borlaug. The programme came to be known as the New
Agricultural Strategy. It concentrated on one-tenth of the arable land, and initially on only one
crop—wheat. By 1968, nearly half the wheat planted came from Borlaug’s dwarf varieties.
A host of new institutions were established to provide the research required to develop further
the Green Revolution, to disseminate the seeds, and to educate people in the appropriate
agricultural techniques. By 1969, the Rockefeller Foundation, in co-operation with the Ford
Foundation, had established the Centro International de Agriculture Tropical (CIAT) in
Colombia and the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria. In 197 1, at
the initiative of Robert McNamara, the President of the World Bank, the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) was formed to finance the growing network of
international agricultural centres (IARCs). Since 1971, nine more IARCs have been added to the
CGIAR system. Over the last two decades, FAO has played a key role in promoting the Green
Revolution package of “improved” seeds, agrochemicals and irrigation schemes.
The Myth of High Yields
The term “high-yielding varieties” is a misnomer, because it implies that the new seeds are high
yielding of themselves. The distinguishing feature of the seeds, however, is that they are highly
responsive to certain key inputs such as fertilizers and irrigation water. The term “high
responsive varieties” is thus more appropriate.
In the absence of additional inputs of fertilizers and water, the new seeds perform worse than
indigenous varieties. The gain in output is insignificant compared to the increase in inputs. The
measurement of output is also biased by restricting it to the marketable elements of crops. But, in
a country like India, crops have traditionally been bred to produce not just food for humans, but
fodder for animals and organic fertilizer for soils. In the breeding strategy for the Green
Revolution, multiple uses of plant biomass seem to have been consciously sacrificed for a single
use. An increase in the marketable output of grain has been achieved at the cost of a decrease in
the biomass available for animals and soils from, for example, stems and leaves, and a decrease
in ecosystem productivity due to the over-use of resources.
Significantly, much of the increased yield obtained by planting the new HYV varieties consists
of water. Increasing the nitrogen uptake of plants through using artificial fertilizers upsets their
carbon/ nitrogen balance, causing metabolic problems to which the plant reacts primarily by
taking up extra water.
India is a centre of genetic diversity of rice. Out of this diversity, Indian peasants and tribals have
selected and improved many indigenous high yielding varieties. Comparative studies of 22 rice
growing systems have shown that indigenous systems are more efficient when inputs of labour
and energy are taken into account.2
Loss of Diversity
Diversity is a central principle of traditional agriculture in the Punjab, as in the rest of India.
Such diversity contributed to ecological stability, and hence to ecosystem productivity. The
lower the diversity in an ecosystem, the higher its vulnerability to pests and disease.
The Green Revolution package has reduced genetic diversity at two levels. First, it replaced
mixtures and rotations of crops like wheat, maize, millets, pulses and oil seeds with
monocultures of wheat and rice. Second, the introduced wheat and rice varieties came from a
very narrow genetic base. Of the thousands of dwarf varieties bred by Borlaug, only three were
eventually used in the Green Revolution. On this narrow and alien genetic base the food supplies
of millions are precariously perched.
Increasing Pesticide Use
Because of their narrow genetic base, HYVs are inherently vulnerable to major pests and
diseases. As the Central Rice Research Institute, in Cuttack, India, notes of rice: “The
introduction of high yielding varieties has brought about a marked change in the status of insect
pests like gall midge, brown planthopper, leaf-folder, whore maggot, etc. Most of the high-
yielding varieties released so far are susceptible to major pests with a crop loss of 30- 100 per
cent.”3 Even where new varieties are specially bred for resistance to disease, “breakdown in
resistance can occur rapidly and in some instances replacement varieties may be required every
three years or so.”4 In the Punjab, the rice variety PR 106, which currently accounts for 80 per
cent of the area under rice cultivation, was considered resistant to whitebacked planthopper and
stem rot when it was introduced in 1976. It has since become susceptible to both diseases, in
addition to succumbing to rice leaf-folder, hispa, stemborer and several other insect pests.
The natural vulnerability of HYVs to pests has been exacerbated by other aspects of the Green
Revolution package. Large-scale monoculture provides a large and often permanent niche for
pests, turning minor diseases into epidemics; in addition, fertilizers have been found to lower
plants’ resistance to pests. The result has been a massive increase in the use of pesticides, in
itself creating still further pest problems due to the emergence of pesticide-resistant pests and a
reduction in the natural checks on pest populations.
The “miracle” seeds of the Green Revolution have thus become mechanisms for breeding new
pests and creating new diseases. Yet the costs of pesticides or of breeding new “resistant”
varieties was never counted as part of the “miracle” of the new seeds.
Soil Erosion
Over the centuries, the fertility of the Indo-Gangetic plains was preserved through treating the
soil as a living system, with soil-depleting crops being rotated with soil building legumes.
Twenty years of “Farmers’ Training and Education Schemes”, however, have transformed the
Punjab fanner into an efficient, if unwilling, “soil bandit”.
Marginal land or forests have been cleared to make way for the expansion of agriculture;
rotations have been abandoned; and cropland is now used to grow soil depleting crops year-in,
year-out. Since the start of the Green Revolution, the area under wheat, for example, has nearly
doubled and the area under rice has increased five-fold. During the same period, the area under
legumes has been reduced by half. Today, 84 per cent of the Punjab is under cultivation, as
against 42 per cent for India as a whole. Only four per cent of the Punjab is now “forest”, most of
this being plantations of Eucalyptus.5
The result of such agricultural intensification has been “a downward spiraling of agricultural
land use - from legume to wheat to wasteland.”6 The removal of legumes from cropping patterns,
for example, has removed a major source of free nitrogen from the soil. In addition, the new
HYVs reduce the supply of fodder and organic fertilizer available to farmers. Traditional
varieties of sorghum yield six pounds of straw per acre for every pound of grain. By contrast
modem rice varieties produce equivalent amounts of grain and straw. This has contributed to the
thirty-fold rise in fertilizer consumption in the state since the inception of the Green Revolution.
Increased fertilizer use, however, has not compensated for the over-use of the soil. High-yielding
varieties rapidly deplete micronutrients from soils and chemical fertilizers (unlike organic
manures which contain a wide range of trace elements) cannot compensate for the loss.
Micronutrient deficiencies of zinc, iron, copper, manganese, magnesium, molybdenum and
boron are thus common. In recent surveys, over half of the 8706 soil samples from the Punjab
exhibited zinc deficiency, reducing yields of rice, wheat and maize by up to 3.9 tonnes per
hectare.
Partly as a result of soil deficiencies, the productivity of wheat and rice has declined in many
districts in the Punjab, in spite of increasing levels of fertilizer application.
Water Shortages
Traditionally, irrigation was only used in the Punjab as an insurance against crop failure in times
of severe drought. The new seeds, however, need intensive irrigation as an essential input for
crop yields. Although high-yielding varieties of wheat may yield over 40 per cent more than
traditional varieties, they need about three times as much water. In terms of water use, therefore,
they are less than half as productive.7
One result of the Green Revolution has therefore been to create conflicts over diminishing water
resources. Where crops are dependent on groundwater for irrigation, the water table is declining
at an estimated rate of one-third to half a metre per year. A recent survey by the Punjab
Directorate of Water Resources, has shown that 60 out of the 118 development blocks in the
state cannot sustain any further increase in the number of tube wells.
Social Impact
Although the Green Revolution brought initial financial rewards to many farmers, especially the
more prosperous ones, those rewards were closely linked to high subsidies and price support.
Such subsidies could not be continued indefinitely and farmers in the Punjab are now facing
increasing indebtedness. Indeed, there is evidence of a decline in farmers’ real income per
hectare from 1978-79 onwards.
The increased capital intensity of fanning—in particular the need to purchase inputs—has
generated new inequalities between those who could use the new technology profitably, and
those for whom it turned into an instrument of dispossession. Small farmers—who make up
nearly half of the farming population—have been particularly badly hit. A survey carried out
between 1976 and 1978 indicates that small farmers’ households were running into an annual
average deficit of around 1500 rupees. Between 1970 and 1980, the number of small holdings in
the Punjab declined by nearly a quarter due to their “economic non-viability”.8
The prime beneficiaries have been larger farmers and agrochemical companies. As peasants have
become more and more dependent on “off-farm” inputs, so they have become increasingly
dependent on those companies that control the inputs. HYV seeds are illustrative. Unlike the
traditional high yielding varieties which have co-evolved with local ecosystems, the Green
Revolution HYVs have to be replaced frequently. After three to five years’ life in the field, they
become susceptible to diseases and pests. Obsolescence replaces sustainability. And the peasant
becomes dependent on the seed merchants (see Box).
The further commercialization of seeds has been actively encouraged by the World Bank, despite
widespread resistance from farmers who prefer to retain and exchange seeds among themselves,
outside the market framework. Since 1969, the World Bank has made four loans to the National
Seeds Project. The fourth loan—disbursed in 1988—was specifically intended to encourage the
involvement of the private sector, including multinational corporations, in seed production. Such
involvement was considered necessary because “sustained demand for seeds did not expand as
expected, constraining the development of the fledgling industry.”
Intensive irrigation has led to the need for large-scale storage systems, centralizing control over
water supplies and leading to both local and inter-state water conflicts. Despite a succession of
water-sharing agreements between the Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana, there is increasing
conflict over both the availability of water and its quality. In the Punjab, farmers are actively
campaigning to halt the construction of the Sutles-Yamuna Link Canal, which will take water to
Haryana to irrigate 300,000 hectares for Green Revolution agriculture, whilst in Haryana, local
politicians are lobbying hard for its completion. In 1986, irate farmers in the Ropar district of the
Punjab, where the Link Canal begins, virtually forced the Irrigation Department to abandon work
on the project. In May 1988, 30 labourers were killed at one of the construction sites.
The worsening lot of the peasantry in the Punjab, which is largely made up of Sikhs, has
undoubtedly contributed to the development of Punjab nationalism. Many complain that the
Punjab is being treated like a colony in order to provide cheap food for urban elites elsewhere in
India. A representative of a Punjab farming organ stated in 1984:
“For the past three years, we have increasingly lost money from sowing all our acreage with
wheat. We have been held hostage to feed the rest of India. We are determined that this will
change.”
A Second Revolution
There are two options available for getting out of the crisis of food production in the Punjab. One
is to continue down the road of further intensification; the other is to make food production
economically and ecologically viable again, by reducing input costs. Sadly, the Indian
government appears to have adopted the former strategy, seeking to solve the problems of the
first Green Revolution by launching a second. The strategy and rhetoric are the same; farmers are
being encouraged to replace the “old technologies” of the first revolution with the new
biotechnologies of the second; and to substitute wheat and rice grown for domestic consumption
with fruit and vegetables for the export market. The production of staple foods is being virtually
ignored.
Like the first Green Revolution, the second is being promoted on the promise of “peace and
prosperity”. It is highly unlikely that the second revolution can succeed where the first failed.

This article is extracted from The Violence of the Green Revolution: Ecological Degradation and
Political Conflict in Punjab, a book published by Vandana Shiva, Debra Dun, 1989.
Vandana Shiva is director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural
Resource Policy, 105 Rajpur Road, Debra Dun, 248001 India. Her latest book to be published in
the West is Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development (Zed, London, 1989).
References
1. Swaminathan, M.S., Science and the Conquest of Hunger, Concept, Delhi,
1983, p. 409.
2. Bayliss-Smith, T.B. and Wanmali S., “The Green Revolution at Micro Scale”, in
Understanding Green Revolutions, Cambridge University Press, 1984.
3. Dogra, B., Empty Stomachs and Packed Godowns, New Delhi, 1984.
4. CGIAR, Integrative Report, Washington, DC, 1979.
5. Kang, D. S., “Environmental Problems of the Green Revolution with a focus on
Punjab, India” in Richard Barrett (ed.), International Dimensions of the
Environmental Crisis, Westview, Boulder, Colorado, 1982.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Gill, S.S., “Contradiction of Punjab Model of Growth and Search for an
Alternative”, Economic and Political Weekly, 15 October, 1988.

THE CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF THE GREEN REVOLUTION IN PUNJAB (INDIA)

Bespreking van het baanbrekende boek “The Violence of the Green
Revolution” van Vandana Shiva, geschreven in 1991, in het kader van de
cursus Stad, Platteland en Milieu aan de KUN, maart 2001.

Study-subject: Stad, platteland en milieu (cursus OS 2002)

University: Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen

Nijmegen, 5 March 2001 Guus Geurts Studentnummer:

9912460
g.geurts@student.kun.nl

Introduction

In this paper I will use the models of “Pressure and Relief” and “Access to Resources” which
come from the book “At Risk – natural hazards, people’s vulnerability, and disaster” written by
Blaikie, Cannon, Davis and Wisner in 1994 and reprinted in 1997. I will apply these two models
to describe the causes and effects from the Green Revolution in Punjab in India. This province
is lying in the Northwest of India at the border with Pakistan, and has through five big rivers
streaming in it naturally a high fertility and also a high population density. Of the total area of
50.38 lakh hectares of Punjab, 42 lakh hectares are under agriculture. Since 1965 the Green
Revolution has taken place in this countrystate.
For this paper I use the book from Vandana Shiva ‘The violence of the Green Revolution– Third
world agriculture, ecology and politics’, written in 1991. To my opinion this book should be on
the compulsory literature list of each student which studies environment and/or development of
third word countries, and also for agricultural students both in the North and South. The strong
part of this book is the comparison she makes between the western and traditional Indian vision
on development in agriculture. This is a clash between thinking in balances in ecological and
social systems, and thinking in economic growth with externalising negative effect. Her
conclusion is that applying the western vision by the Green Revolution only brought disaster to
most of the people and the ecological system.
In chapter two I will describe the pressure and release model from Blaikie, Cannon, Davis and
Wisner. In chapter three I will apply this model to the situation in Punjab after the Green
Revolution, according to the book of Vandana Shiva. In chapter four I will describe and apply in
the model of Access to Resources of Blaikie et al., to the situation in Punjab. I will end with the
conclusions.

Note: Because I like the words which Vandana Shiva chooses and the integration of all elements
in her text, so much, a lot of this paper is coming directly from her book. When I use her words
literally, you will find this by the page in her book in brackets. The most of chapter three is also
coming from this book.

2. The Pressure and Release model

Although this model is constructed specially in cases that lead to disasters, it is also applicable to
the Green Revolution. The model consists of five parts (Blaikie 1997 p.23):

1 Root causes  2 Dynamic pressures  3 Unsafe conditions  Disaster  Hazards

This process means the progression of vulnerability

Root Causes
In the model :
1. Limited access to power, structures or resources
2. Ideologies like political or economic systems
Root causes or underlying causes are ‘a set of well-established, widespread processes within a
society and the world economy. The most important root causes that give rise to vulnerability
(and to produce vulnerability over time) are economic, demographic, and political processes.
These affect the allocation and distribution of resources between different groups of people.’
(Blaikie 1997 p.24)

Dynamic pressures
In the model:
1. Lack of local institutions, training, appropriate skills, local investment, local markets, press
freedom and/or ethical standards in public life
2. Macro-forces like rapid population growth, rapid urbanisation, arms expenditure, debt
repayment schedules, deforestation and/or decline in soil productivity
‘Dynamic pressures are processes and activities that ‘translate’ the effects of root causes into the
vulnerability of unsafe conditions (…) that have to be considered in relation to the types of
hazard facing those people. These include reduced access to resources as a result of the way
regional or global pressures such as rapid population growth, epidemic disease, rapid
urbanization, war, foreign debt and structural adjustment, export promotion, mining, hydropower
development, and deforestation work through to localities.’ (Blaikie p.24)

Unsafe conditions
In the model:
1. Fragile physical environment, like dangerous locations or unprotected buildings and
infrastructure
2. Fragile local economy, like livelihoods at risk or low income levels
3. Vulnerable society, like special groups at risk or lack of social institutions
4. Public actions, like lack of disaster preparedness or prevalence of endemic disease
‘Unsafe conditions are the specific forms in which the vulnerability of a population is expressed
in time and space in conjunction with a hazard’ (Blaikie p.25). Examples of this unsafe
conditions are people having to live in dangerous locations, people having little food
entitlements, or entitlements that are prone to rapid disruption. The difference between unsafe
and vulnerable is that people are vulnerable and live in or work under unsafe conditions. So
vulnerable is not used in regard to livelihoods, buildings, settlement locations, or infrastructure.
(Blaikie)

Hazards
In the model:
Earthquake, High winds (cyclone, hurricane, typhoon), flooding, vulcanic eruption, landslide,
drought and/or virus and pests.
Most of the mentioned hazards are natural caused hazards, although in some there is also a
manmade component.
Disaster
In the model:
Risk = Hazard + Vulnerability
The disaster is only happening when hazard and the vulnerability combined are big enough to
lead to a disaster. At this point the physical hazard triggers to create a disaster.
3. Application of the Pressure and Release model in Punjab

By applying this model I use particularly the book of Vandana Shiva ‘The violence of the Green
Revolution – Third world agriculture, ecology and politics’. ‘Two major crises have emerged on
an unprecedented scale in Asian societies during the 1980s. The first is the ecological crisis and
the threat of life support systems posed by the destruction of natural resources like forests, land,
water and genetic resources. The second is the cultural and ethnic crisis and the erosion of social
structures that make cultural diversity and plurality possible as a democratic reality in a
decentralised framework. The two crises are usually viewed as independent, both analytically as
well as at the level of political action.’ (Shiva 1991 p.11) In this book she however connects the
ecological and cultural crisis.
In this chapter I will try to structure her book by using the Pressure and Release model of
Blaikie, Cannon, Davis and Wisner.

3.1 Root causes

The Green Revolution started around 1965 in Punjab. There were several root causes that lead
to this development.
• The western vision on development
Shiva defines in this vision ‘development’ as a strategy with the help of capital and technology,
to combat scarcity and dominate nature to generate material abundance. In this vision
‘technology is a superior substitute for nature, and hence a means of producing growth,
unconstrained by nature’s limits’ (p.15).
The Green Revolution is also used as a techno-politic strategy (combination of science and
politics) ‘that would create abundance in agricultural societies and reduce the threat of
communist insurgency and agrarian conflict’ (p.14). So with the help of foreign capital and
experts, the goal was to stabilise the rural areas politically and create peace and prosperity in
rural India.
• The western vision on science
Science takes in this vision ‘a dual character. It offers technological fixes for social and political
problems, but delinks itself form the new social and political problems it creates’ (p.21). )
‘Through this split identity is created the “sacredness” of science.’ (p.21)
Shiva calls this the process decontextualisation, in which ‘the negative and destructive impacts
of science on nature and society are externalised and rendered invisible. Being separated from
their material and political roots in the science system, new forms of scarcity and social conflict
are then linked to other social systems e.g. religion.’ (p.22) So also in Punjab along to this
vision religious differences between Sikh and Hindus are the cause of conflicts, instead of the
here mentioned root causes of the Green Revolution.
Comparable with Vermeersch in ‘De ogen van de panda’ (1988) who calls this the Science-
Technology-Capital-system, Shiva says that the conceptual framework of western science is
compatible with the needs of commercial capitalism. They ‘generate inequalities and domination
by the way knowledge is generated and structured, the way it is legitimized, and by the way in
which such knowledge transforms nature and society’ (p.23).
• The western vision on agriculture
Although the agriculture of Asian ‘are almost as permanent as those of the primeval forest, of the
prairie, or the ocean’, (Howard 1940 in Shiva p.25) they were regarded by western vision as
primitive and backward. In the traditional agricultural systems people used their excellent
knowledge to create a balance between the resources of nutrients and water. ‘Cropping systems
include a symbiotic relationship between soil, water, farm animals and plants ‘(p.69). They were
‘preserving and building on nature’s process and nature’s paterns’ (p.26). This system was based
on strengthening the ecological base of agriculture, and the self-reliance of the peasants of the
country. This was the indigenous way of handling the food crisis after participation in 1947, also
propagated by Gandhi.
The other was the exogenous way, and taking shape in American foundations and aid agencies.
‘This vision was based not on cooperation with nature, but on its conquest. It was based not on
the intensification of nature’s processes, but on the intensification of credit and purchased inputs
like chemical fertilizers and pesticides. It was based not on self-reliance, but dependency. It was
based not on diversity but uniformity.’ (p.29) ‘The seed / chemical package sets up its own
interactions with soils and water systems, which are, however, not taken into account in the
assessment of yields.’ (p.69) As a result western expert ‘mistakenly believed that their
technologies could substitute land, and chemicals could replace the organic fertility of the soils’
(p.104).
• Pressure through the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the American Government, the
World Bank, the seed and chemical multinationals, the central Government of India and the
various agencies it controls.
American advisors and experts came with the aim to shift India’s agricultural research and policy
‘from an indigenous and ecological model to an exogenous, and high input one, finding, of
course partners in sections of the elite, because the new model suited their political priorities and
interests’ (p.29). Between 1952 and 1970 the mentioned organisations did everything to promote
the Green Revolution, through for example education of Indian students, providing credit,
forcing India to devaluate its currency and to provide favourable conditions for foreign
investments, importing liberalisation, eliminating of domestic controls.
The main supporters of the Green Revolution strategy Subramaniam became agriculture
minister in 1964, and Swaminathan became Director of IRRI (the International Rice Research
Institute in the Philippines) which with support from the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations was
developing new high yielding varieties of rice. Some of the mentioned organisations made sure
that indigenous varieties were lost. For example due to pressure of the World Bank and IRRI the
MPRRI was shut down. They had conserved 20,000 rice varieties and were doing research to
develop a high yielding strategy based on indigenous knowledge of the Chattisgarh tribals. ‘In
the Philippines, IRRI seeds were called “Seeds of Imperialism”. (p.44)’
Also the opening up of markets was important, when ‘American producers of fertilizer were
anxious to ensure higher fertilizer consumption overseas to recoup their investment. The
fertilizer push was an important factor in the spread of new seeds, because wherever the new
seeds went, they opened up new markets for chemical fertilizers.’ (p.105) The use of chemical
fertilizers was also pushed by international agencies, government policy, the World Bank and US
AID.
• The centralisation of politics that results in a central state which controls agricultural policy,
finance, credit, inputs and prices of agricultural commodities.
‘A policy of planned destruction of diversity in nature and culture to create the uniformity
demanded by centralised management systems.’ (p.12) Instead of the traditional vision of
diversity, decentralization and democracy this western vision concentrates on the demands of
uniformity of the market, centralization and militarization.

‘The rise of the market and rise of the state that was part of the Green Revolution policy led to
the destruction of community and the homogenising of social relations on purely commercial
criteria. The shift from internal farm inputs to centrally controlled external inputs shifted the axis
of political power and social relations. It involved a shift from mutual obligations within the
community to electoral politics aimed at state power for addressing local agricultural issues.’
(p.175)
3.2 Dynamic pressures

As a result of the root causes the Green Revolution started in Punjab around 1965.
The Green Revolution contains the following components which all can lead to dynamic
pressures:
• use of new crops (wheat) and new varieties (rice), the so cold High Yielding Varieties (HYV)
These ‘miracle’ seeds were designed to overcome the limits placed on chemically intensive
agriculture by the indigenous seeds. They became ‘central to breaking out of nature’s limits and
cycles.’ (p.36) The ‘miracle seeds’ of the Green Revolution transformed the ‘common genetic
heritage into private property, protected by patents and intellectual property rights.
Peasants and plant breeding specialists gave way to scientists of multinational seed companies
and international research institutions like CIMMYT and IRRI. Plant breeding strategies of
maintaining and enriching genetic diversity and self-renewability of crops were substituted by
new breeding strategies of uniformity and non-renewability, aimed primarily at increasing
transnational profits and First World control over the genetic resources of the Third World. The
Green Revolution changed the 10,000-year evolutionary history of crops by changing the
fundamental nature of seeds.’ (p.63)
• use of chemical fertilizers
• use of pesticides
• use of mechanisation and petroleum
• intensive and accurate irrigation, mostly made possible by building of dams
High yields are not intrinsic to the seeds, but are a function of the availability of required inputs,
which in return have ecologically destructive impacts.

As a result of these components of the Green Revolution a lot of negative effects occurred.
Most of them were decreasing of access to resources as a result of regional pressures. The
dynamic pressures I discern are land degradation, genetic erosion which resulted in explosive
growth of pests in the crops, other negative ecological effects and poverty under the local
population.

• Land degradation caused by:

- water logging
- salinization of the soil
- desertification and water scarcity
- destroying water resources
- destruction of soil fertility
- micronutrient deficiency
- soil toxicity, by high use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers
- biomass reduction used for fodder and organic manure
The Green Revolution only functions properly when the physical environment, especially the
availability of water was sufficient. This higher need for water was caused by ‘the shift from
water prudent crops such as millets and oilseeds to monocultures and multicropping such as
wheat and rice’, and by ‘the replacement of old varieties of wheat with new varieties of wheat
and rice’ (p.125). So intensive irrigation was required mainly by building large dams and
applying surface irrigation. (see also unsafe conditions and disasters)
The dramatic increase in water use has led to ‘a total destabilisation of the water balance in the
region. The water cycle can be destabilised by adding more water to an ecosystem than the
natural drainage potential of that system. This leads to desertification through waterlogging and
salinisation of the land. Desertification of this kind is a form of water abuse rather than water
use.’(p.128) ‘Land gets waterlogged when the water table is within 1.5 and 2.1 metres below the
ground surface. (…) The rich alluvial plains of Punjab which have a very negligible slope suffer
seriously from desertification induced by the introduction of excessive irrigation water to make
Green Revolution farming possible.’ (p.129)
The problem salinity arises through intensive irrigation in arid regions. ‘In regions of scarce
rainfall, the earth contains a large amount of unleached salts. Pouring irrigation water into such
soils brings those salts to the surface and leaves behind a residue when the water evaporates.’ It
is estimated that about 0.7 lakh hectares in Punjab (about one third of the total area), just like in
one third of the world’s irrigated land, are salt affected and produce either no yields or very poor
yields.
‘Where irrigation is dependent on ground water, the water table is declining at an estimated rate
of one to one and a half foot every year, due to over-exploitation.’ (p.140) So half of the
development blocks in the state cannot sustain any further increase in the number of tubewells.
‘The nutrient cycle, in which nutrients are produced by the soil through plants, and returned to
the soil as organic matter is thus replaced by linear non-renewable flows of phosphorous and
potash derived from geological deposits, and nitrogen derived from petroleum’ (p.104). This led
to a western NPK-mentality, with high gifts of these three minerals. As a result deficiency of
micronutrients as zinc, iron, copper, manganese and magnesium arose.
Soil toxicity arose through irrigation and high chemical fertilizer input, for example fluorine -,
boron -, selenium and aluminium toxicity. It is ‘posing a threat to crop production as well as
animal health’. (p.116)
As a result of the reductionist approach only the output of crops were counted, but not the loss in
maintaining the conditions of productivity. These outputs have also to be uniform likes the
central market wants them, and not divers like the traditional crops which partly were used for
own food. ‘The indigenous cropping systems are based on internal organic inputs.’ (p.72) So
they used straw from the harvested crops and other through westerns considered wastes to feed
the farm animals, and/or to increase soil fertility. Also the animals provided organic manure. The
new varieties were however selected by producing little straw, because otherwise as a result of
high fertilizer input they would lodge and the crop would be lost. So the straw production was
much lower, with negative effects on soil fertility through lower input of biomass. This process
also occurred because millet and course-grain were replaced by wheat and grain.
Also the heavy use of chemical fertilizers and new seeds directly led to decreased soil fertility,
because the soil productivity (which also needs organic mass) was lowered and the nutrient
recycling was disturbed. The results were new defiences and diseases.
As a result of replacing pulses by wheat and rice the nitrogen fixing capacity of crops was lost,
so more fertilizers were needed. ‘As Kang has cautioned, “This process implies a downward
spiralling of agricultural land use – from legume to wheat to rice to wasteland”’ (Kang (1982) in
Shiva p.109-110).

• Genetic erosion caused by:

- ‘mixtures and rotation of diverse crops like wheat, maize, millets, pulses and oil seeds
were replaced by monocultures of wheat and rice
- the introduced wheat and rice varieties reproduced over large-scale as monocultures
came from a very narrow genetic base, compared to the high genetic variability in the
populations of traditional wheat or rice plants.’ (p.81)
which resulted in explosive growth of pests in the crops.
‘At present, rice cultivation in Punjab is vulnerable to about 40 insects and 12 diseases’ (p.97-
98) mostly unknown before the Green Revolution. This leads ‘to ever increasing demands for
pesticides. Yet the new costs of new pests and poisonous pesticides were never counted as part
of the ‘miracle’ of the new seeds that modern plant breeders had gifted the world in the name of
increasing ‘food security’.’ (p.98)
Diversity was a central principle of the indigenous breeding strategies. ‘Diversity contributed to
ecological stability, and hence to ecosystem productivity. The less the diversity and the more the
uniformity in an ecosystem, the higher is its vulnerability to instability, breakdown and
collapse.’ (p.78) ‘The crop and varietal diversity of indigenous agriculture was replaced by a
narrow genetic base and monocultures. The focus was on internationally grains, and a strategy of
eliminating mixed and rotational cropping, and divers varieties by varietal simplicity.’ (p.45) As
a result of the formal mixed cropping and using many varieties the growth of pests was
controlled. ‘Indigenous varieties, or land races are resistant to locally occurring pests and
diseases. Even if certain diseases occur, some of the strains maybe susceptible, while others will
have the resistance to survive. (…) Cropping systems based on diversity thus have a built-in
protection’ (p.93) The Green Revolution however resulted in high replacement rates of the new
varieties in wheat, because after one or two years the varieties gets overtaken by pests. ‘The
vulnerability of rice to new pests and diseases due to monocropping and a narrow genetic base is
also very high. (…) Most of the high yielding varieties released so far are susceptible to major
pests with a crop loss of 30 to 100 %…’ (p.89) ‘Most of the released varieties are not suitable for
typical uplands and lowlands which together constitute about 75 % of the total rice area of the
country.’ (p.90) ‘Howard believed that the cultivators of the East had a lot to teach the Western
Experts about disease and pest control and to get Western reductionism out of the vicious and
violent circle of “discovering more and more new pests and devising more and more poison
sprays to destroy them” ((Howard, 1940) in Shiva p.94) Howard regarded the Indian peasants
and even the insects and fungi themselves as his professors of agriculture. ‘Howard could teach
the world sustainable farming because he had the humility to learn it first from practising
peasants and Nature herself.’ (p.94-95)
Also ‘the shift from organic to chemical fertilizers reduces the plants resistance to pest attacks.
Thus there is a linkage between heavy use of fertilizers and vulnerability of pests. (…) Even
those high yielding varieties of crops, which are specially bred for disease resistance become
highly susceptible to certain types of diseases when heavy doses of fertilizers are applied.’ (p.95)

• Other negative ecological impacts:

- greenhouse effect with atmospheric pollution
- pesticide contamination of soil, water and animal life
- lost of common lands under forests and pastures
The Green Revolution puts new demands on scarce renewable resources like water, and
generated new demands on non-renewable resources like fuel.
As a result of high use of chemical fertilizers NO2 is released, which is a greenhouse gas, as is
CO2 produced by more use of mechanisation instead of hand labour.
Also ‘common lands under forests and pastures have been put under agricultural crops. As the
Green Revolution spread, local community management broke down and grazing lands and
forest were broken up for monoculture cultivation. These former nature areas, where also less
suitable for constant keeping under soil depleting crops.

• Poverty under the local population caused by:

- indebted farmers
- landless farmers
- unemployed or only seasonally employed land labourers
- building dams or irrigation canals
As a result of the high inputs of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and the buying of the new
varieties instead of saving (free) seeds from last years harvest, farmers needed much more
money to purchase them. It was possible to get credits and loans from banks, but in years that the
harvests or prices were low, especially small farmers couldn’t pay back their loans. So they get
indebted. In worst cases after a few years they had to sell their land to bigger farms, and try to
get work as land labourer.
Also by using machinery hand labour was replaced, so people got unemployed or could only
work during planting and harvesting seasons. So this system was not sustainable in a region with
a high population, with much labour available. Next to this big farmers who first had tenant
farmers on their land who did all the work and had to give a part of the harvest to the landowner,
were replaced because by using machinery the landowner could do the work in his own (with
some land labourers).
As a result of all this small farmers, landless farmers and land labourers got in worsened
conditions.
‘..many people had ended up as paupers when their land was acquired for the construction of the
Bhakra main canal. Several displaced farmers had become drug addicts while many others had
turned into alcoholics.’ (p.161) They also risk waterlogging and salinisation of their land, when
canals have been built. Also many farmers have to leave their land, when by building dams their
ground is flooded.

3.3 Unsafe conditions

Following the dynamic pressures vulnerable situations are created for the people of Punjab.
These include:
• Nutritional imbalances as a result of the reduction of pulses, oilseeds, millets and other crops
As a result of the Green Revolution agriculture of many different crops was replaced by mainly
rice and wheat. Owing to this the supply of local produced food which contains all needed
proteins, minerals and vitamins, decreased. If people want this crops who were produced outside
the region at least the prices increased because of the transportcosts.
• Pesticide contamination of food, water, and human life
As a result of the much higher use of pesticides since 1965, food and water got contaminated.
• Building dams with by heavy rainfall can lead to floods (see also disasters)
• Creating injustice and inequalities
During Green Revolution ‘technologies created were directed at capital intensive inputs for best
endowed farmers in the best endowed areas, and directed away from resource prudent options of
the small farmer in resource scarce regions. The science and technology of the Green Revolution
excluded poor regions and poor people as well as sustainable options. (…) The science of the
Green Revolution was thus essentially a political choice.’ (p.45)
‘Peasant movements had tried to restructure agrarian relationships through the recovery of land
rights. The Green Revolution tried to restructure social relationships by separating issues of
agricultural production from issues of justice.’ (p.50) Through increasing material prosperity the
goal was to defuse agrarian unrest. So not through redistributive justice but through economic
growth, the rural area of Asia had to be pacified.
But ‘injustice has been at the root of the worst forms of scarcity throughout history and injustice
and inequality has also been at the root of societal violence.’ (...) ‘By-passing the goals of
equality and sustainability led to the creation of new inequalities and new scarcities. The Green
Revolution strategy for peace had boomeranged. In creating new polarisation, it created new
potential for conflict.’ (p.57)
The increased demand for water by intensive irrigation caused by the Green Revolution led to
social and ecological disruptions. ‘Social considerations of equity favour the extensive use of
irrigation water which assures a protective dose of water over as large an area as possible. The
Green Revolution limits the provisioning of irrigation to a smaller region. Thus leading to
inequalities.
All those effects of Green Revolution led to growing inequalities and injustice, between local
people and small and big farms. Before the Green Revolution farmers were dependent on each
other for example during planting and harvest time and to maintain the irrigation system. After
the Green Revolution farmers were more working on their own. Differences arose between
farmers with more or less money and farmers who had the possibilities to sustain their farm or
not. Also the number of indebted and landless farmers rose (see dynamic pressures) and the
situation of land labourers got worse. Also the traditional culture, in which people worked in the
community or village on mutual (though asymmetric) obligations, changed. After Green
Revolution cultivators where fragmented and atomised and related directly to the state and the
market (banks, seed and fertilizer agencies, food procurement agencies, and electricity and
irrigation organisations) instead of to the community. When hazards occur this can lead too
much more risk for the most vulnerable people, because they can not longer rely on their
community. Next to this it generated an erosion of cultural norms and practices and it sowed the
seeds of violence and conflict. (parts from p.172)

3.4 Hazards

The natural hazards which can damage Punjab are:

• Heavy rainfall
• Drought

3.5 Disasters

As a result of the unsafe conditions and the hazards disasters can arise.
These include:
• Hunger and shortage of drinking water
Due to building of dams, by using explosives to construction natural springs and waterways are
blocked, ‘causing a shortage of drinking water in the catchment of the Pandoh dam. Water
scarcity has also been aggravated by the indiscriminate felling of trees, the blasting of rocks for
the construction of the dam and the diversion.’ (p.143)
• Conflict and violence
This has led to at least 15,000 people killed between 1985 and 1991.
The conflicts have developed between classes, between regions, between the local farming
community and the central state, between the states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan and
between the representatives of the Sikh and Hindu religion. For example the conflict between
Punjab and Haryana goes about ‘sharing of river waters in a context of exploding demands for
water. After two decades, the conflict is no longer merely over how the water should be shared,
but also over how much water there is to share.’ (p.164)
Water conflicts in Punjab are already taken places between 1950 and 1990, but worsened during
the last 25 years caused by:
- political fragmentation of Punjab,
- the centralisation of water control to the central government for example by building
large dams,
- the increased demand for water for Green Revolution agriculture.
‘The centralised control of the Bhakra system had made the Indus basin more vulnerable to
floods, as well as to water scarcity, which have further fuelled waterconflicts between
neighbouring states, and between the states and the Centre.’ (p.144) According to Shiva the
centralisation has increased the ecological and social vulnerability of Punjab, leading to
violence. ‘Mega projects thus tend to centralize power and the loss of power by the federating
units becomes a cause for conflict.’ (p.149)
Before the dams the older canal systems of Punjab were regionally managed within the State
since the 19th century.
‘Intensive irrigation also introduces conflicts between private and social interests. Waterlogging
does not recognize farm boundaries, and drainage cannot be managed except as a community
activity. But community management of resources has been the first casualty in the privatisation
thrust of the Green Revolution.’ (p.139) So this leads inevitable to conflicts, which are not
resolvable immediately.
‘With government as referee, handing down decisions in all matters, each frustration becomes a
political issue. In a context of diverse communities, that centralised control leads to communal
and regional conflict. Ever policy decision is translated into the politics of ‘we’ and ‘they’. ‘We’
have been unjustly treated, while ‘they’ have gained privileges unfair. In Punjab, this polarised
thinking gets expressed with the added dimension of religious discrimination against the Sikhs.’
(p.172)
In short ‘three kinds of conflicts seem to have converged in creating what has been called the
Punjab crisis:
1. Related to conflicts emerging form the very nature of the Green Revolution; such as conflicts
over river waters, class conflict, the pauperisation of the lower peasantry, the use of labour-
displacing mechanisation, the decline of profitability of modern agriculture etc., all heading
to a disaffected peasantry engaged in farmers’ protests.’
2. ‘Conflicts related to religion-cultural factors and revolving around Sikh identity. These
conflicts were rooted in the cultural erosion of the Green Revolution, which commercialized
all relations, and created an ethical vacuum where nothing is sacred and everything has a
price. Religious revivalism which emerged to correct the moral and social crisis crystallised
finally in the emergence of a separist Sikh identity.’
3. Conflicts related to ‘the sharing of economic and political power between the centre and
state.’ (p.174-175)

‘The paradox of separatism is that it is a search for identity in a framework of uniformity, it is a

search for identity in a structure based on erasure and erosion of identities. The shift from Sikh
farmers (who are the majority in Punjab) demands to the demand for a separate Sikh state comes
from the collapse of horizontally organised diverse communities into atomised individuals linked
vertically tot state power through electoral politics. The ecological crisis of the Green
Revolution is thus mirrored in al cultural crisis caused by erosion of diversity and structures of
local governance and the emergence of homogenisation and centralised external control over the
daily activities of agricultural food production. (p.175-176)

• Floods
This happened in September 1988, after a period of heavy rainfall. ’65 % of its 12,000 villages
were marooned, 34 lakh people in 10 of the state’s districts were affected. (…) 80 % of the
standing crop was destroyed, and 1,500 people were killed. Very much blame went to the central
dam management board (BBMB) who filled the dam above the maximum storage capacity, and
released water ‘without even warning to the thousands of people who live close to embankments
of the two rivers.’ (p.146)

4. Application of the Access to Resources model in Punjab

In this chapter I will apply the Access to Resources model of Blaikie et al. to the situation in
Punjab after the Green Revolution. Contrary to the Pressure and Release model, which I applied
in the whole state of Punjab, this model is only applicable at village level.
I will choose a small village, which contains small farmers and land labourers. For this two
groups I will make both apply this model.
1. Social relations and flows of surplus

For both small farmers as land labourers after the Green Revolution the mutual dependency of
other farmers and other people living in the village, decreased. In times of poverty or disaster
other people in the village are not so much inclined to helping each other, in contrary to the times
before Green Revolution. As a result of growing inequalities and independence the risk of
conflict is higher.

Small farmers Land labourers

2. A Households
- 10 small farms - 20 families of land labourers

B Their resources and assets

- land, labour, little capital, tools, cattle - labour

3. A Income opportunities
- growing crops for self reliance and/or - working for big farmers, especially
markets or traders during particular seasons

B Access qualifications
- knowledge of soil, plants, water resources, - working skills for land labour
chemical fertilizers, pesticides and seeds

4. Structures of domination
- centralised watercontrol , no power - relationship to landlords
- re lations to banks for loans, leading to debt - landlords keeps on
mechanising,
- relations to markets and traders and decreases wages every year
- relations to traders/companies selling fertilizers, pesticides and seeds
- less access to common property resources, since Green Revolution
- degraded soils by salinisation and waterlogging, leading to decreasing crop outputs
- increasing pesticide use caused by ever increasing diseases and pests

5. Choices of the household

- choice of crop, depending on agriculture
for self reliance only or for markets also
6. Livelihood
- total income of food and money from sold
products to the market or traders
- only choice is to work as much as
possible during planting and harvesting
season.
- total income of wages by labour

7. Household budget
- food and money depends on: the weather, - wages depends on relationship to land-
severeness of soildegradation, pest and lord. Job only at seasons or
permanent
diseases, availability of water
8. Decisions 9. Outcome of decisions
When harvest is lost or too low for several years - stay in the village or move to the city
the indebtness may grow too high, so the to get higher wages
farmer may have to sell his land.

As a result of this cycle after one year some small farmers may have decided to sell their land to
bigger farms and become land labourer. Also some land labourers may have decided to leave the
village and move to the city to have a better chance on a better livelihood. So after a few years
time the rural population will decrease and the urban population increase. In fact that is what
happening all over the world.

Conclusions

The Green Revolution was particularly a fight between western visions on development,
agriculture and science and the indigenous Indian vision. The western vision who promised so
much won, but most people and ecosystems of Punjab lost. Although even the Green
Revolution was bounded by ecological limits, and by attempting to break out of them, if further
increased those limits, generating new levels of scarcity, insecurity and vulnerability.
Conflicts which arose are much more a result of the political, economic and cultural processes
inherent to Green Revolution, than to religious differences between Sikh and Hindu which
always were mentioned before as the cause of violence.

The Pressure and Release model was for me much more appropiate to explain the causes and
effects of the Green Revolution, than the Access to resources model.
The main advantages in my opinion are:
- the possibility to explain the root causes,
- the macro instead of the micro level,
- the surveyability and clearness of this model.

Literature

Blaikie, Piers & Cannon, Terry & Davis, Ian & Wisner, Ben (1997), At risk – natural hazards,
people’s vulnerabiltity and disasters (Second edition), London, Routledge

CIDIN, (2001), Reader studievaardigheden 2001 Culturele antropologie Ontwikkelingsstudies,

Nijmegen, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen

Dogra, Bharat, (1994) Green Revolution: no joy for the poor In Return to the good earth –
Damaging effects of modern agriculture and the case for ecological farming (pp. 242-244),
(Second edition) Penang, Malaysia, Third World Network

Howard, Alfred, (1940), Agricultural Testament, London, Oxford

Kang, D.S., (1982), Environmental problems of the Green Revolution with a focus on Punjab,
India, in Richard Barett, (ed), International dimensions of the environmental crisis (p.204),
Boulder, Westview Press
Shiva, Vandana, (1991) The violence of the Green Revolution – Third world agriculture,
ecology and politics, London, Zed books – Third World Network

Vermeersch, Etienne (1997) De ogen van de panda – Een milieufilosofisch essay (Negende
druk), Antwerpen, Stichting Leefmilieu

The Dark Side of The Green Pastures [Adverse Effects of

Green Revolution on Punjab]
July 22, 2010 @ YouthKiAwaaz → No Comments

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By Radhika Naithani:
Even though Punjab is not my native city, my bond with it goes back to the time when I was 12
years of age. My earliest memories of Punjab comprise of gorging hungrily on my favorite
makki di roti and sarson da saag and the friendly & hospitable Punjabi households. Because of
this intimacy with Punjab, my heart cried when I read an article on the environmental
degradation, taking place in Punjab and I decided to write this article to voice out my anguish.
Year 1966 – 1967 were the years of the “Green revolution” in India, which transformed India
from “Begging bowl” to “Breadbasket”. According to Gurudev Singh Kush, one of the pioneers
of the Green revolution, “Fortunately, large scale famines and social & economic upheavals were
averted, thanks to the marked increase in cereal grain yields in many developing countries that
began in the late 1960s”. Punjab is, without doubt, an example of the living success story of the
Green revolution. So much so, that it also earned the sobriquets like the “Bread basket of India”
and “India’s granary”.
However, the picture is no longer rosy, with the consequences of the Green revolution coming
under constant global scrutiny. While Green revolution provided a few solutions to the problem
of food security, Punjab started facing a completely new range of problems like decaying soil,
pest infested crops, indebted and discontent farmers. Punjab, known as the torchbearer of the
Green revolution, also happens to be the first state, which is suffering from its adverse
consequences.
The Green revolution project included massive use of pesticides, improved irrigation projects,
use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and improved crop varieties. The main objective was to gain
food security through scientific methods. However, there were little or no efforts to educate the
farmers about the high risk associated with the intensive use of pesticides. A comprehensive
study conducted by the Post Graduate Institution of Medical Education & Research (PGIMER)
has shown a direct connection between the use of pesticides and growing incidents of cancer in
the region. The price Punjab had to pay for food security comprises ailments like cancer, renal
failure, stillborn babies and birth defects.
Punjab alone accounts for 20% of India’s pesticide consumption. According to a study conducted
on the blood samples of the villagers by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), six to
thirteen different varieties of pesticides is virtually present in all the blood samples. These killer
pesticides are HCH, aldrin, DDT, endosulfan, chloropyrifos and malathian. Take any sample
from any randomly selected well and there is a good chance that it shall be rich in pesticides.
Breast milk and cow’s milk also contain traces of these killer pesticides.
In 1970s, a huge dosage of pesticides revolutionized the farming ways in India, and the results
were good. However, in due course, the pests grew immune to the pesticides & the farmers in
desperation started pumping out even higher quantity of these. This excessive use of chemicals
not only contaminated the air, soil and the water table, but adulterated pesticides also became a
threat to all the plants and humans who are exposed to these.
Take a trip through Punjab and you will find an unauthorized dealer of pesticides in almost every
nook and corner. These dealers themselves are unaware of the hazardous nature of these
pesticides. The authorized dealers are no better. With no counseling provided to them by the
government, they also remain ignorant. There are instructions on the container of pesticides
clearly mentioning how much pesticide should be used, and the need to wear protective gears
while dealing with pesticides. However, farmers and dealers ignore these safety instructions.
Organic farming is one of the solutions, but the government agencies are not doing much to
assist the farmers in this area, or to provide awareness, and most of the farmers are themselves
reluctant to go back to the old ways as it gives them a lower yield in the beginning.
Kartar Kaur’s three sons died of cancer in the village of Jaijjal, Punjab. What is the government
doing about this? You may wonder. Well it is forming “COMMITTEES”, which conducts
meetings rarely even while the villagers are dying a slow death. However, these committees have
failed to come up with a solution to the problem. The only thing they have achieved to do so far
is conducting ‘studies’ and ‘surveys’. The Punjab government has acknowledged the gravity of
the situation but mere acknowledgement is not a solution. It is imperative to frame a
comprehensive strategy to tackle this menace.
The government agencies should get to work and send health inspectors to these villages to
counsel and train the farmers on the use of pesticides. Protective gears should be distributed free
of cost. If we are contemplating organic farming as an option, farmers should get proper
assistance. In addition, the government should conduct raids and keep a check on the growth of
unauthorized dealers selling adulterated pesticides, which prove to be more lethal than
unadulterated pesticides.
However, the government alone is not to bear the sole responsibility. I believe the pesticides
companies also have a corporate and a moral responsibility to spread awareness and to educate
the farmers on the safe use of pesticides. It should be a joint effort of the government and the
private companies, only than can we hope to achieve some progress. It is very important to wear
protective clothes while spraying insecticides, pesticides and herbicides.
The Bhopal gas tragedy is an example of the extent of irreversible damage caused by hazardous
chemicals; however we still have not learnt our lesson and the government continues to stay
blind to the situation in Punjab. The state puts the blame on the centre and the centre retaliates by
saying that health is a state list subject. However, Punjab is not an isolated case. It is Punjab
today but it can be some other state tomorrow. Its time the state and centre wake up to the
seriousness of the situation, and take adequate steps to combat the many ills of the green
revolution.