Posted 1:06 PM
by Mary
Punjab reaps a poisoned harvest By David Loyn BBC News, Punjab
The governments of many poor nations are alarmed at the rise in food prices. There are even problems in the Indian region of Punjab, where science once seemed to have found answers for a hungry world...
The new strains of seed and chemical pesticides and fertilisers, certainly brought high yields.They called it the Green Revolution.The benefit of high yields from new seed types was not long-lasting, and the pests kept ahead of the pesticide
But today the food the cows eat and the milk they produce, along with the water the cows and Mr Singh's family drink, all show high levels of pesticide residue. The problem here, as in many other places in the world, is that the benefit of high yields from new seed types was not long-lasting, and the pests kept ahead of the pesticides...
An old man, suffering from cancer, told me that in recent years he has had to spray round the clock to keep the pests off his wheat.The sprays all have instructions demanding that they should only be used with face masks and protective clothing.
But the farm workers here do not use protective equipment, and they spray far more than the recommended amount.The cause of cancer is always a contentious issue, but a new study from the Punjabi University at Patiala ruled out other potential factors like age, alcohol intake and smoking, concluding that the way the sprays are used is causing cancer...
They know that what they are doing now is unsustainable, because they are getting lower yields despite using more spray and paying more for fertiliser because of the high oil price.
None had heard of organic farming.
n neighbouring Pakistan, the local TV news carries interviews every night from flour mills and farms, as well as a daily check on the market price of flour.
The police have intervened to stop hoarding.
Ration cards have been issued, and the World Food Programme (WFP) talks about a crisis as the number of people who do not have enough to eat has risen to 77 million, half of the population of Pakistan.
The WFP describes the food price rise as a "tsunami" affecting the poorest in the world and there are many poorer countries than Pakistan.
The political consequences are already apparent in the troubled regions of the North West Frontier, where the Taleban and al-Qaeda have significant support.
They are more easily able to recruit by saying the government is failing to make affordable food available.
And on the other side of the border on a recent trip to Afghanistan, I heard the US-led occupation squarely blamed on the streets of Kabul for the high price of food. ...
Labels: farming, Food prices, pesticide, WFA
