India is the largest producer of pesticides in Asia but ranks twelfth for their use. Every one has heard of the disastrous effects of DDT (Dichloro Diphenyl Trichloroethane). It persists in the soil for over a decade. BHC (Benzene Hexachloride) is worse because it remains longer. They both damage our reproductive systems. Other variations and types of pesticides are not very much better.

A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine in December 2019 addressed the issue of pyrethroids exposure in humans and found that contrary to pyrethroids being considered safe, they affect the heart. Ever since DDT and similar compounds were phased out in the West, pyrethroids which are naturally occurring pesticides found in chrysanthemum flowers have been extensively used.

According to research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association in 2019, on-the-job exposure to high levels of pesticides raised the risk of heart disease and stroke in men. Short term health problems in humans arising from pesticide use consist of issues such as stinging eyes, rashes, blisters, nausea, dizziness and diarrhoea, but long term effects include cancer, birth defects, disruption of the endocrine system, toxicity to the immune system and neurological toxicity and developmental toxicity.

Pesticides not only degrade the soil but can unintentionally pollute wells and all other sources of water because they easily percolate through soil and get carried to water bodies as runoff; and, air pollution results because they drift outside the intended area when sprayed.

Hand sanitizers prevent the growth of bacteria with chemicals such a triclosans and parabens linked to dangerous health problems. Both alcohol and alcohol-free sanitizers are toxic due to the fragrant chemicals rubbed on skin. In short, they are harmful for the human immune system. Even anti-bacterial soap may do more harm than good.

Pesticides are harmful to all life, not only the species targeted to be done away with. Also let us not forget that water consumption and waste generated during manufacture of pesticides is toxic and pollutant. In 2018 American researchers found that marine mammals such as dolphins, manatees, seals and whales which evolved to make water their primary habitat, had lost their ability to make a gene that defends humans and other land-dwelling mammals from the neurotoxic effects of particular man-made pesticides.

Pesticide manufacturers in India have about 270 crop chemicals registered and each of these molecules have about 150 product brands. In addition, the unorganised sector sells unregistered and spurious chemicals to farmers.

In 2017 the Vasantrao Naik Sheti Swavlamban Mission disclosed that at least 40 farmers died and over 2,000 had been hospitalised due to passive inhalation of pesticides in Vidarbha and Marathwada and the state’s pesticide manufacturers and government officials were responsible for it. The pesticides that caused deaths in Yavatmal: acephate, monocrotophos, diafenthurion, combination of carbendazium and manocoxzeb imidacloprid. It is not surprising that 100 banned pesticides in other countries are used in India, e.g. monocrotophos is banned in 60 countries. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) was set up to find out the reason for the Vidarbha ‘pesticide deaths’. The probe panel listed extra height gained by cotton crop, wide-spread use of pesticide cocktails, high-density plantation, non-use of protective gear while spraying, etc. as factors. However, the basic cause citied by all investigators was the lethal mixing and indiscriminate use of legal and illegal pesticides.

In January 2018 Maharashtra decided to formulate a new policy to enable the state government to trace of all pesticides sold to farmers, thus ensuring that only those that had been registered with the Central Insecticides Board and Registration Committee were sold. Then in view of 272 farmers of the state having died between 2014-18 from accidental pesticide inhalation, to prevent further deaths due to spraying farms, the state Agriculture Department in September 2018 banned 5 pesticides but only for 2 months: profefonos 40% + cypermethrin 4%; fipronil 40% + imidacloprid 40%; acephate 75%; difenthiron 50%; and monochrotophos 36%.

Despite this, pesticide poisoning cases occurred in 2018 at Yavatmal, a major cotton growing district. And, again 31 persons were affected in August 2019. They had to be admitted to the Government Medical College’s (GMC) hospital but the number of deaths was not publicly disclosed. The persons had been spraying pesticides on crops and had inadvertently inhaled them. The administration was meant to provide safety kits but it is possible they may not have been used or even received.

There is a train called the Punjab Cancer Express that runs from Bathinda to Bikaner. The cancer-affected who travel on it are small farmers and every day 30 to 35 new cases are seen at Faridkot Medical College. Why?

The farmers live in a disturbing cesspool of toxicity, a result of excessive and unregulated use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. They use 923 grams of pesticides per hectare, way above the national average of 570 grams per hectare. Worse, they use the empty pesticide cans to store water and food.

Also there has been a continuous steady rise in the number of cancer patients of all ages in western Odisha’s agriculture-intensive district of Bargarh where the smell of pesticides fills the air. Paddy is grown here, not once but twice a year, and for this farmers use pesticides such as pyrethroid, organophosphate, thiocarbamate and neonicotenide which are in WHO’s Class II hazardous category. The poor farmers, who only know that the pesticides they use kill 80% of pests, do not realise that they are harmful and carcinogenic to themselves and so spray them in their fields without putting on protective gear.

A study by Lucknow’s Queen Mary Hospital in January 2023 found that in the previous 10 months pesticides in breast milk had led to the death of as many as 111 newborns in Maharajganj district. Pesticides present in breast milk of non-vegetarian mothers were thrice as much as compared to vegetarian mothers. The cause was non-veg food and also chemical farming.

In fact the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has been undertaking regular nationwide surveys on commodities like milk, khoa, chhenna, paneer, ghee, butter, curd and ice cream which are tested for quality and safety covering pesticide residues, heavy metals, crop contaminants, melamine and microbiological parameters. In 2022 the FSSAI survey was done in 12 states of which 10 were affected by Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) in cattle. The aim of such surveys is to find out the adverse affects of antibiotics and veterinary drugs in affected cattle and the spraying of insecticides in the cattle sheds resulting in residual contamination in milk.

In April 2024, two leading masala manufacturers’ products were prohibited by the Center for Food Safety in Hong Kong as well as the Singapore Food Agency, because a pesticide cum sterilising agent was detected beyond permissible limits: ethylene oxide (a group 1 carcinogen as per the International Agency for Research on Cancer). Following this FSSAI conducted regular quality checks.

Pollinators

In February 2016, the first global assessment of the threat to creatures, including some 20,000 species of wild bees that pollinate the world’s plants was released in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a group affiliated with the United Nations. The report said farming exposed these insects to pesticides, and bees were under attack from parasites and pathogens as well. Chemicals such as neonicotinoids were to blame, and even if pesticides levels were not lethal on individual insects, concentrations in the hives had long-term effects on bee colonies.

In 2019 the College of Agriculture, Pune, stated that about 45% of crop losses were on account of infestation by pests resistant to pesticides and insecticides and the collapse of the insect biodiversity because natural predators that consumed harmful pests were fast disappearing. For example populations of praying mantis, dragonfly, beetles and honey bee populations were fast dwindling. In view of this five species of bio-pests were being cultivated in the college labs – in other words pest vs. pest would supplement organic farming practices.

Killing for Sweetness

Farmers of Maharashtra catch, kill and sell white grub beetles which pose a threat to their sugarcane plants. The beetles lay eggs on fields around June which hatch in a fortnight. The larvae live for 7 months and chew at the roots of plants before becoming pupae. The beetles emerge with the first monsoon showers the following June and lay eggs. Chemical pest control has been rejected by farmers and many have opted for this mode of biological control by intervening in the lifecycle of the beetles by killing them between June and August just before they lay eggs. For every kilogram of dead beetles the Vasantdada Sugar Institute pays Rs 300.

Few know that a side-effect of the sugar industry upon animals is the common harvesting practice of burning cane fields when all life like insects, rats and snakes residing in the fields are charred to death.

Another side-effect is that leopards, known to live undisturbed by humans in sugar cane fields till harvest time between January and April. Man-animal conflicts arise then because leopards taken by surprise, attack humans. Studies have shown the density of leopards in the sugar cane fields of Junnar (Maharashtra) is higher than in reserved forests. For example, in February 2018, three leopard cubs were charred to death in a sugar cane field near Ozar (Pune-Nashik Highway, Maharashtra). The fire was suspected to have started from a short circuit in an overhead power cable.