1984
The Impact Of The Green Revolution On Health:
The State Of Punjab - Part IV
GUNISHA KAUR
Punjab has been a hotspot of human rights violations and activism since the birth of the Indian nation in 1947. The history of human rights abuses in the state has contributed significantly to the present economic, environmental and medical crisis in Punjab.
In this multi-part series, we explore the emergent issues in the state, with a focus on farmer suicides, female feticide and infanticide, ecological damage, river water rights, rising rates of diseases, mental health, and drug and alcohol abuse.
"Walking through the narrow dirt lanes past pyramids of dried cow dung,
Singh introduces Amarjeet Kaur, a slender 40-year-old who for years drew
the family's daily water from a hand pump in their brick-hard compound.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. Tej Kaur, 50, also has
breast cancer. Her surgery, she says, wasn't nearly as painful as losing
her seven-year-old grandson to "blood cancer," or leukemia. Jagdev
Singh is a sweet-faced 14-year-old boy whose spine is slowly
deteriorating. From his wheelchair, he is watching Sponge Bob Square
Pants dubbed in Hindi as his father discusses his prognosis. "The
doctors say he will not live to see 20," says Bhola Singh ... So many
people take the train from the Malwa region to the cancer hospital in
Bikaner that it's now called the Cancer Express." [Joel K. Bourne, Jr., National Geographic Magazine]
The Green Revolution's adverse impact on health in Punjab remains one of its most striking outcomes.
The main reasons for the detrimental health effects include the increase in pesticides and fertilizers required to support High Yield Variety seeds, the continued use of internationally banned chemicals, the pesticide contamination and disposal of hazardous wastes in drinking water, and the lack of education on safety precautions for handling toxins.
Furthermore, recent studies have shown
that children are disproportionately impacted for a multitude of
factors, such as higher rates of metabolism and cell turnover.
A study conducted in 2005 by the Delhi Center for Science and Environment found 11 of 14 pesticides in high quantity and frequency in the blood of Punjabi farmers, including DDT, chlordane, malathion, endosulfan. Notably, more than half of these substances have been banned by the Stockholm and Rotterdam International Conventions.
In comparing the data from this study to one conducted by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the concentration of these pesticides in the blood of Punjabis was 15 to 605 times greater than the concentration of the same compounds found in U.S. farmers.
The evidence presented in this study calls attention to two key issues: first, it indicates that harmful pesticides such as DDT remain prominently available in present-day Punjab, and second, it demonstrates that pesticides are entering the bloodstreams of Punjabis at toxic levels.
In reaction to
the prevalent use of toxic substances, between 1989 and 2003, the Indian
Government banned 28 pesticides from use in farming, many of which had
already been removed from the international market by the Stockholm and
Rotterdam Conventions. Unfortunately, without the enforcement of such
legislation, the banning of pesticides remains theoretical in nature.
Pesticides cause serious detrimental health effects, including new onset of diseases, widespread organ dysfunction, and damage to embryos, fetuses, and children.
Cancer among Punjabi farmers is another emergent issue directly tied to the use of pesticides. Due to a lack of health care accessibility, diagnosis of treatable cancers (e.g., brain, breast, prostate cancers) often remains terminally delayed. In the rare instances that cancers are detected at a stage early enough to be treated, agriculturalists are typically unable to afford treatment. The cost and inaccessibility of resources for curative surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy render these treatments as largely unavailable to Punjabi farmers, and because of these shortcomings, a majority of affected families living in the countryside of Punjab succumb to the natural course of these treatable diseases.
In addition to its linkage with cancers, pesticide toxicity has been shown to be severely damaging in pregnancy, leading to recurrent miscarriages or infertility in women. In the case of pregnancy, research has demonstrated that intra-uterine toxin exposure from pesticides leads children born in this context to have higher incidences of birth defects, developmental immaturity, and neurobehavioral deficits.
The
impact on children proves particularly disturbing because it illustrates
that the major health issues will be transmitted to future generations.
There are three mechanisms by which pesticides are consumed by Punjabi men, women, and children.
The most prominent form of pesticide ingestion comes through food consumption. As a result of Green Revolution technology, higher and more frequent doses of stronger pesticides are needed to achieve the same effect.
A second mechanism of exposure occurs through unsafe agricultural practices. Farmers conventionally spray pesticides on their crops without any form of protection; gloves and masks are typically absent, and more disturbingly, old pesticide canisters are kept for storing food and water. This lack of awareness has proven to be problematic, and it has been compounded by mass media campaigns that champion pesticides as “medicine” for crops, giving the impression that pesticides are good for ones health.
Third, Punjabis are exposed to pesticides exposure through drinking water. Pesticides leech from the soil into water sources, and as a result, villagers directly consume pesticides in their drinking water. In fact, the government has publicly announced the dangers associated with drinking the water in certain areas, though possible solutions have yet to be provided.
These changes in agricultural practices and lifestyles wrought by the Green Revolution have significantly impacted the health of Punjabis over the past half century.
[The author is a human rights activist and a physician at Cornell University in New York City. Her research focuses on chronic pain management in survivors of torture, and she has written extensively on human rights violations in India. Her first book, entitled "Lost in History: 1984 Reconstructed" - [http://www.panjabmall.com/storeproduct508.aspx], documents the violence in Punjab that took place in the 1980s and 1990s. The articles in this series draw from her forthcoming book, which discusses the current economic, environmental, and health crisis in Punjab.]
Parts I to III in this series can be accessed from the "1984" section on sikhchic.com.
May 28, 2012