Pesticides

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Business Line, 17 Oct 2018

PANAP study finds unauthorised use of toxic chemicals is rampant in India. More than half of the 53 pesticides commonly used in Indian agriculture are highly hazardous, and two-thirds of those involved in manual spraying do not wear any protective equipment, which exposes them to toxic chemicals, a report released on Wednesday said.

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The Caravan, 4 Oct 2018

On 10 August this year, a California jury ruled that Roundup, the world’s most widely used herbicide, caused the terminal cancer of Dewayne Johnson, who was formerly a groundskeeper of a school near San Francisco. The jury directed Monsanto, the agricultural biotechnology corporation that owns Roundup, to pay Johnson $289 million—Rs 2116 crore—in punitive and compensatory damages. In his court testimony, Johnson said he worked with the herbicide 20–30 times a year and was soaked with the product on at least two occasions. In 2014, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a rare type of cancer.

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BBC, 24 Sep 2018

In 2016, Sikkim, a small state in India’s northeast, was declared the country's first fully organic state. Since then, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been trying to promote chemical-free farming across the country.

It’s been nearly half a century since the "Green Revolution" introduced modern farming techniques that included the use of pesticides, to make India a self-sufficient food producer.

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Azim Premji University, Himanshu Upadhyaya

In their new song, Vinay and Charul are seen performing live, with the very basic Dafli and Ghunghru a song in Gujarati that celebrates what the proponent of Organic Farming – Sir Albert Howard – had referred as humus content. Painting a moving word picture of farmland, they sing in a very persuasive tone a refrain: Maare Zer Nathi Aapvu (I refuse to poision my farm).

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Business Standard, 17 Sep 2018

The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from Centre on a plea for a ban on 85 pesticides since these were banned in other countries but were allowed in India, posing a serious health hazards to farmers. A bench of Justice Arun Misra and Justice Vineet Saran issued notice to the Centre and others on a plea by one Kavita Kuruganti who said that the continued use of "deadly pesticides" is a major threat to the right to life of farm workers and farmers. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, argued for empowering the states to take decisions at their own level for prohibition and restriction related to pesticides.