Punjabi farmer, the poster boy of Green Revolution, is dying, Pesticides overuse is the cause. This is picturised by Express train No. 339 which carries as many as 70 cancer patients per day on an average from Bhatinda railway station to 326 km away Bikaner in Rajasthan. They go to Bikaner because the cancer treatment in Punjab is very costly, lakhs of rupees needed for that. But in Bikaner Acharya Tulsi Regional Cancer Treatment and Research Centre is the nearest place which gives them affordable treatment. They come here all over from Punjab’s Malwa region, which comprises nine of the state’s 20 districts and 60 percent of the population, Bhatinda being the centre of Malwa.
This train from Batinda has come to be known as the ‘cancer train’. An epidemiological study done by the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, concluded the incidence of cancer is higher in this area than elsewhere in the state. Cancer death rate was 51 per lakh per year in Talwandi Sabo of Batinda as compared to 30 in Chamkaur Sahib, outside Malwa.
Those onboard Express 339 are taken hostage by different types of cancers. But doctors advise all of them to switch to clean packaged driniking water. The Green Revolution that started in the mid 1960s has turned Punjab into the breadbasket of India—contributing more than 95 per cent of the food grains that feed deficit areas in other states—but it has also turned the water table into a poisonous aquifer.
Malwa consumes 75 per cent of the pesticides used in Punjab, according to a 2007 State of Environment Report. “It is the excessive usage of fertilizers, pesticides and extensive irrigation that has caused the problems, not the Green Revolution methods,” says Rattan Lal, a soil scientist at Ohio University, USA. Lal studied in Punjab Agricultural University in the early Sixties.
Punjab’s land is so addicted to fertilizers—consumption in the state is at 177 kg per hectare as compared to 90 kg at the national level—and pesticides that even cattle fodder can’t be grown without their application. “Children are more susceptible to the nitrate pollution caused by the fertilizers,” says Reyes Tirado of University of Exter, UK, who published a study on the area in November 2009 for Green Peace.
In Jhajjal village, Sarabjeet Kaur’s baby was born in the sixth month. He is nine now, but still experiences weakness neck down. A few houses away, Paramjeet Kaur has three children with the same ailment. There are 20 such children in the village of 3,500. “Reproductive health has taken a beating, number of sterile couples is increasing. Since the female fetuses are more susceptible, it will add to the dwindling sex ratio,” says G.P.I. Singh, community health expert, Aadesh Medical College, Batinda.
Hospital records in Batinda show 61 people have died between 2004 and 2008 by inhaling pesticides while spraying, an RTI enquiry shows. These pesticides have entered the food chain. Studies detected pesticides—carcinogens like heptachlor and ethion—in the farmers’ blood here. And also in fodder, vegetables, bovine and human milk. Nothing had come of the expert committee constituted by the state government in 2007. “After the first meeting nothing has happened,” says Sateesh Jain of Oswal Cancer Hospital, Ludhiana, a committee member.
The number of patients boarding the ‘cancer express’ is rising so is the usage of pesticides and fertilizers. But there is something that is on the decline: productivity. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee admitted in the latest Budget speech: “The declining response of agricultural productivity to increased fertilizer usage is a matter of concern.”
The Effect
There is not a single animal or bird to be seen in the green fields across Malwa region. Soil has become deadly. Cancer is blowing in the wind. It has come to be known as the ‘cancer belt’.
Men here are finding it tough to get matches from outside and women with premature graying of hair are facing a tough time too.
What the doctor ordered
“When we gather at funerals, we discuss about cancer. Everybody knows it’s because of pesticides. But nobody is willing to shift to organic farming. It’s so expensive,” says Gurmail Singh Dhillon of Jaitu village, Mukhtsar. The experts suggest adoption of integrated nutrient management. “Applya as much manure and recycle as much residue as possible and the difference should be made up by adding just the right amount of fertilizers,” says Ratan Lal, a soil scientist.
{Courtesy : Praveen Donthi, Hindustan Times ND Jan 17}
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