The Andhra government's department of rural development has implemented pesticide free farming on 30 lakh acres. But agricultural scientists say their methods are unproven and not as effective as claimed
Fatima Begum leans over to pluck a tomato from a vegetable patch. Without washing it, she begins to chomp on it rather theatrically, as if to make a point. “You can eat this just as it is,” she says. “No pesticides.”
It is a scorching hot March day in Neredgunta, a village about 100 km north of Hyderabad. The farm that Begum plucked the tomato from is part of the largest pesticide-free agricultural experiment in India. At 30 lakh acres, this experiment, known as non-pesticidal management, reaches 12 lakh farmers in villages across Andhra Pradesh. Begum, 35, coordinates the non-pesticidal management efforts in five villages, helping farmers adopt the system and advising them on the best practices.
Begum’s enthusiasm is palpable as she reels off tiny facts about the practice of non-pesticidal management. “These are called vaavil aakulu,” she says, handing me a bunch of leaves with serrated edges that she has plucked from the roadside. They are a component of a tonic which is excellent at warding off crop pests, she points out. Occasionally, she shouts out a stern word of advice or a wisecrack to the farmers we pass by. Begum’s zeal and loquacious endorsement of the system make her something of an evangelist.
Non-pesticidal management is being promoted in Andhra Pradesh by the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP), an organisation under the state’s department of rural development. As organic farming becomes increasingly popular in India, this Andhra experiment has gained prominence in the minds of environmentalists. For its scale alone, it is being hailed as proof that farming without pesticide is possible and viable. Perhaps the strongest evidence of non-pesticidal management’s popularity is that it was featured in June 2012 in actor Aamir Khan’s television talk show, Satyamev Jayate, as the answer to the evils of pesticide overuse in India.
Proponents of the system, whether SERP or the environmentalist groups, are hardselling it; they claim that crop yields under this system are similar to that of conventional farming. Further, because farmers do not spend anything on synthetic pesticides, their costliest agricultural input, they end up with much larger profits. With so many upsides, proponents believe, non-pesticidal management is the way to go for all of India. Given the right governmental support, they argue, it is a model that can replace conventional agriculture altogether.
Yet, the Andhra experiment is today at the heart of a bitter debate. While, on one hand, it is being hailed as a paradigm shift, on the other, it is regarded with scepticism by agricultural scientists. Even more interestingly, while the department of rural development promotes the practice across the state, Andhra’s department of agriculture rejects it.
The debate hinges on two issues. First, even though SERP claims that the system doesn’t affect crop yields, there is evidence of substantial drop in crop outputs in areas where this method is practised. It is a documented fact that organic farming, in general, suffers from this problem. This is because levels of nutrients, such as nitrogen, tend to be lower in land that is not artificially fertilised. Second, some of the methods widely used under non-pesticidal management haven’t been tested in controlled conditions yet. Whether panchagavya, a mix of the five cow-derived products (cow dung, cow urine, ghee, milk and curd), or brahmastram, a composite of neem leaves, custard apple, papaya, etc, scientists do not have enough data to state that these traditional formulations are as effective as the pesticides they seek to replace.
The yield disagreement
Figures from SERP show that non-pesticidal management has actually led to marginally higher yields in crops such as paddy, sorghum and cotton. This claim, though, is disputed. Although the farmers I met during my visit to Neredgunta and its neighbouring villages said their yields weren’t hurt after switching to non-pesticidal management, there were others who experienced a huge drop.
Manda Balarama Reddy, the head of a farmers’ association of Andhra Pradesh, is one of them. Reddy owns 6-7 acres of farm land on which he cultivates paddy, maize and vegetables. When he switched to pesticide-free farming a few years ago, his crop output dropped drastically. “If I get 10 tonnes from conventional farming, non-pesticidal management gives me only 6 tonnes,” he says.
Given such yield losses, there isn’t much incentive for farmers to switch to such alternative systems if they do not receive a premium price for their produce. According to the SERP website, though, only about 12 percent of farmers receive such premiums. Such a situation is not acceptable to ambitious farmers like Reddy. “Why would I work at a loss?” he says.
To Reddy, if non-pesticidal management is truly viable, farmers wouldn’t need prompting to adopt it. “Take the example of drip irrigation,” he says. “Nobody had to ask farmers to implement it because it was so obviously useful.”
Narahari Rama Sharma, another farmer and a great believer in organic farming, also accepts that lower yields are the bane of non-pesticidal management. Yet, for ideological reasons, he refuses to give up. It also helps that he doesn’t depend on agricultural produce as his main source of income. Instead, he owns a plant nursery that takes care of his financial needs.
An ideological rift
(This story appears in the 27 June, 2014 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)