Pesticide, weedicide, suicide-Dishonest Dealers Prowl Rural india

Pesticide, weedicide, suicide

Dishonest Dealers Prowl Rural india

Avijit Ghosh | TNN

1.“Many retail shop owners also act as moneylenders. They often push goods on credit with seemingly easy-to-pay-off loans.
But if they are unable to pay up, they are made to sell their produce at lower rates. Some Vidarbha farmers were driven to suicide due to this,’’

2. Commercials are also not averse to cashing in on religious sentiments. Palash Ghoshal of Yuva, a Nagpur-based NGO, says pamphlets promoting Bt cotton in Vidarbha region carried the names and photographs of farmers who had allegedly benefited from using the genetically modified variety of the crop.
“It was difficult to find them because the names of their village had not been printed. But when we tracked down one such farmer in Amravati, he told us that he had made no such statement,’’ says Ghoshal.

3. Such campaigns often tug at a farmer’s heartstrings. Kishor Tiwari of Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti recalls that the early advertisements urging farmers to use Bt cotton went like this: if you want to marry off your daughter, build your own home, get treatment for your old father, plant Bt cotton. “Knowing that a farmer is usually religious and Godfearing, fertilisers are named after Hindu gods and goddesses,’’ says Tiwari, whose organisation statistically tracks the number of suicides in the region.


Fear is endemic in western Uttar Pradesh. In a region where kidnapping and extortion is a cottage industry, businessmen fear phone calls from an unfamiliar mobile number. Inter-community and inter-caste lovers fear for their lives because honour killings are a weekly feature.
But for the thousands of sugarcane farmers in these parts, fear and worry have another name: the red rot, a stalkand-seed disease that destroys the crop.
So when a private retailer dropped by at the village peddling salvation from the sugarcane scourge, it was an offer marginal farmer Rajbir Singh could hardly refuse. Buy the micronutrient zinc worth Rs 550 and get a pesticide priced at Rs 350 for free, went the offer. About 50 villagers, along with Rajbir, took the chance. “But the pesticide and the zinc turned out to be useless. We had been conned,’’ he says.
What happened in Mataur, located 15 km from Meerut on NH-58, was not unusual. Kisan leaders and economists say rural shopkeepers and on-the-move dealers based in qasbahs often exaggerate the virtues of their seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. Several farmers complain of being sold poor-quality, ‘duplicate’ agro-input products. That’s not all. In Vidarbha, activists say companies occasionally fib in their marketing campaigns.
Commercials are also not averse to cashing in on religious sentiments. Palash Ghoshal of Yuva, a Nagpur-based NGO, says pamphlets promoting Bt cotton in Vidarbha region carried the names and photographs of farmers who had allegedly benefited from using the genetically modified variety of the crop.
“It was difficult to find them because the names of their village had not been printed. But when we tracked down one such farmer in Amravati, he told us that he had made no such statement,’’ says Ghoshal.

Such campaigns often tug at a farmer’s heartstrings. Kishor Tiwari of Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti recalls that the early advertisements urging farmers to use Bt cotton went like this: if you want to marry off your daughter, build your own home, get treatment for your old father, plant Bt cotton. “Knowing that a farmer is usually religious and Godfearing, fertilisers are named after Hindu gods and goddesses,’’ says Tiwari, whose organisation statistically tracks the number of suicides in the region. Agriculturist Vinod Sharma, who owns 120 bighas in UP’s Pilibhit district, says that private companies also offer free meals of poori-sabji during promotional trips. Farmers are taken on demonstration trips to farms with crops fed on boosters and bio-vitamins. “But such super ideal conditions do not exist for the marginal farmer. He doesn’t get to see the real picture,’’ says R L Pitale, former member, National Farmers’ Commission.

But the issue isn’t just about marketing oversell. Farmer leader Rajesh Tikait says that factories producing substandard fertilisers and pesticides have mushroomed in Muzaffarnagar, Meerut and Ghaziabad districts. “The police and district administration are often on their payroll,’’ says Tikait, national spokesperson, Bharatiya Kisan Union.
Data collected in the 59th round of National Sample Survey (2002-03) shows that fertilisers (23%), seeds (16%) and pesticides (7%) make up 46% or roughly half of India’s national average cost of cultivation. According to The Millennium Studies conducted by the Union ministry of agriculture, there are 3,00,000 outlets selling agricultural inputs in the country. Of them 75% are managed by private traders and companies. “Many retail shop owners also act as moneylenders. They often push goods on credit with seemingly easy-to-pay-off loans.
But if they are unable to pay up, they are made to sell their produce at lower rates. Some Vidarbha farmers were driven to suicide due to this,’’ says Pitale.