Pesticides modernising farming in India, but Sikkim’s fighting back
SORENG, India: Fifteen years ago, the tiny Indian state of Sikkim launched a radical experiment: Its leaders decided to phase out pesticides on every farm in the state, a move without precedent in India - and probably the world.
The change was especially significant for India, a country whose progress in agriculture was defined by the introduction of fertilisers and pesticides that rapidly boosted food production across the country, staving off famine and reducing the country’s reliance on foreign aid.
But with the indiscriminate use of pesticides came a spike in cancer rates in industrial farming areas. Rivers became polluted, and soil infertile. Sikkim’s leaders say they were driven to go all-organic by those concerns and because pesticide residue - including from some chemicals banned in other countries - was tainting fish, vegetables and rice.
The cloud-wreathed Himalayan state is starting to see the dividends. Overall health has improved in the state, leaders say, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has embraced Sikkim and organic farming throughout India, pouring about US$119 million to support organic farmers nationwide. India is betting that Sikkim can be the global model for other jurisdictions around the world that want to go all-organic.
Sikkim’s organic acres constitute just a sliver of India’s 5.6 million acres of chemical-free farmland, which itself is a fraction of India’s nearly 400 million acres of agricultural land.
Demand for organic food is high in India and growing fast. Concern about pesticides and desire for chemical-free food are fuelling market growth that is rising 25 per cent a year, more than the 16 per cent globally, according to a recent study by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India. The market for organic products is about US$600 million now and could top US$1 billion in the coming years, the study said.
“This is a big moment for India,” said Radha Mohan Singh, the country’s minister of agriculture and farmers’ welfare.
In a brightly coloured tent in a mountain town one recent day, Sikkim’s chief minister, Pawan Kumar Chamling, exhorted 300 or so constituents in the audience to embrace the eco-friendly lifestyle.
“The approach Sikkim has started will be adopted by the whole world tomorrow,” he said, in a speech that stretched five hours. “This is our vision!”
Chamling, 67, has been the principal driver of Sikkim’s move to go all-organic since his state legislature set up the programme in 2003. He’s largely self-educated, writes poetry in his spare time and is India’s longestserving chief minister, in office since 1994.
“When we decided to go into organic farming in Sikkim, we faced so many challenges,” he said. “Agriculturists or cultivators had no idea what organic farming is, so education was our first priority. Slowly, people began to understand and supported us.”
But the executive order in March to ban the import of inorganic produce from neighbouring states threw the state into turmoil, with prices of cabbage tripling in the markets, traders in revolt and the opposition party marching in protest.
Chamling dismissed these most recent events as “teething problems” and said he was confident the chaos would sort itself out. The state government is introducing seasonal price caps on organic vegetables for consumers to keep prices affordable.
There was no blueprint for change when Chamling began his efforts to preserve Sikkim’s fragile ecosystem, a land of hundreds of species of birds, wild orchids and glacier-fed streams, in the shadow of Kanchenjunga, the world’s third-tallest peak. The state - population 610,000 - nestles among China, Bhutan and Nepal and was a separate kingdom until it merged with India in 1975.
India has just begun formulating its policies for organic farming after its “Green Revolution,” during which the country adopted modern farming methods of highyield seeds, chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
To encourage farmers to make the switch to organic, Sikkim tapered off its supply of chemical pesticides and fertilisers - making their use a criminal offence in 2014 - launched education programs, and installed thousands of composting pits. By 2016, 190,000 acres of cultivable land had been certified organic. The state has also banned the use of plasticware. Roadside snack stalls use plates fashioned from leaves.
The transition, which took more than a decade, has not been easy. Some farmers say their income has decreased or have quit farming all together. One farmer, Pem Dorjee Sherpa, who grows potatoes and cardamom, said his income decreased dramatically since he switched to pesticidefree farming, and he complained that farmers need better access to markets, organic manure and training.
“The benefit of going organic has not reached us,” he said.
Sonam Taneja, the programme manager for food safety and toxins at the Centre for Science and Environment, a research and advocacy organisation in New Delhi, received similar feedback when she visited 16 farms across the state for a report that came out last year.
“The information I was getting was that farmers are struggling, fighting with pests, and yields are lower, and therefore they’re upset,” Taneja said. — Washington Post.