-DNA A poisoned country A few weeks ago, India entered into an agreement with the UN to end the use of the insecticide DDT by 2020. DDT had been used in agriculture for decades until it was restricted in 1989, but 6,000 tonnes of DDT are still produced annually for the eradication of mosquitoes and other pests. This would be perfectly understandable, except for the simple fact that DDT has become...
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Limited access to pesticides reduced suicides in Tamil Nadu villages: WHO report -Jitendra
-Down to Earth In rural India, poisoning accounts for four in 10 suicides due to swallowing of pesticides A World Health Organization (WHO) case study carried out in two Tamil Nadu villages shows the link between limited access to pesticides and the reduction in the number of suicides. A WHO report based on the study says that the suicide rate in these two villages reduced after pesticides were kept in storerooms instead...
More »In Haryana, wheat farmers done in by unseasonal rain -Vidya Venkat
-The Hindu "At least 50 deaths of farmers either by suicide or cardiac arrest have been reported and government has done nothing about it." Brown, damaged wheat fields is all one gets to see in Sonepat district of Haryana. In at least six villages The Hindu surveyed, deaths of farmers, either by suicide or cardiac arrest, have occurred following the shock of crop loss due to unseasonal rain. Yet, last week in...
More »Farm to Plate: How safe is your food? -Priyamvada Kowshik
-India Today "The butterflies will show you the way to the farm." Farmer Sunil Gupta is not talking of mythical butterflies that will appear to guide me to the organic farm I am trying to locate amidst swathes of farmland, some lush with the standing paddy, some damaged in parts from last week's strong winds, others dotted with vegetable patches or freshly ploughed for the next crop. Can one tell an organic...
More »CCFI claims Greenpeace bent on derailing Indian agriculture -Tomojit Basu
-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: The Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI) furthered its stand against foreign funded NGOs in India at an event here on Wednesday where controversial ecologist and former Greenpeace member Dr. Patrick Moore shared the stage with officials from the body. CCFI had decided to file a Rs. 50 crore defamation suit against Greenpeace's "baseless" report on pesticide residues in tea earlier this month. When asked by...
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