As we mark World Environment Day, Sheila Patel, Communications and Development Officer, from the Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention, explores the hidden link between pesticide use, soil degradation, and climate change and speaks to experts who are working at the heart of these issues.
*Warning: This article discusses suicidal behaviour. If you have questions on self-harm or feel suicidal, use this link to find an international helpline.*
Today is World Environment Day, a global moment for us to reflect on how we treat our planet and what we must urgently change. While this year’s official theme focuses on plastic pollution, in this article, we explore a less talked-about but equally urgent issue: toxic pesticides.
You may be wondering – what’s the connection between pesticides, plastic pollution, and soil health, particularly if you are not a agriculture expert?
Whilst the answer isn’t obvious, it’s very simple: phasing out toxic pesticides can reduce plastic use, restore soil health, and help reverse climate change, while improving human health and saving lives.
Why should we explore alternatives to pesticide-based farming now?
While chemical pesticides are good at managing pests and boosting short term yields, they come with significant consequences for soil health, microbial diversity and human health which we will explore here.
- Soil health: Pesticides erode the quality of soil over time making it less fertile. As a result of this, farmers often end up in a negative cycle of relying on more chemical pesticides and fertilisers to produce good crop yields. Not only does this increase the cost of farming, these chemicals also significantly harm soil health. Soil naturally is full of micro-organisms – which are its lifeblood. They are vital for recycling nutrients, decomposing matter and helping plants to grow and thrive. When synthetic inputs are added, this natural balance is disrupted and this makes the soil become more compact, less fertile and able to hold less water.
- Human health: Pesticides can also remain on food, seep into our drinking water supplies and build up in our environment. This can potentially cause health issues such as neurological problems like depression, migraines, memory loss and seizures, hormone problems like insomnia, tiredness and weight changes as well as increasing the risks of getting cancer. Additionally, evidence also shows that 20 per cent of global suicides are a result of being poisoned from highly toxic pesticides that are still being used in low and middle income countries, even though many of them have been banned in the West.
- Less greenhouse gas emissions: Pesticides are made from fossil fuels and often emit nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Chemical free farming not only helps to preserve the soil, it also helps reduce emissions when they are produced as well as in the fields.
- Biodiversity: Chemical treatments also threaten biodiversity. Insects such as bees, which are crucial to pollination, and natural predators like birds, beetles, spiders, dragonflies and ladybirds that eat these harmful insects or organisms, are often harmed or killed by these unnatural substances.
One woman we spoke to in India told us that she decided to change to natural farming after one of her sons became seriously ill with stomach problems after eating food that had been fertilised using chemicals.A. Chandrakala, who is a small-scale farmer in Andhra Pradesh, said: “This experience led us to explore natural farming through YouTube and by talking with others.”
As the risks of using pesticides is too high, we must now explore more sustainable alternatives such as regenerative farming.
Case Study: Farming without poisons in Andhra Pradesh, India
So, let’s look at the natural farming movement in Andhra Pradesh, India that works with nature to preserve soil.
Its key principles are farming without synthetic chemicals, keeping the soil covered with plants all year, growing a variety of crops and trees, adding natural materials to enrich the soil, gently working with the soil with minimal disturbance, including animals in the farm system, using local seeds, and controlling pests naturally with plant-based remedies.
It’s certainly far more environmentally friendly than using pesticides.
A widely popular approach to farming method in Andhra Pradesh is the Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) model.
It’s called Zero Budget because farmers grow crops without spending money on chemical fertilisers or pesticides.
By using locally sourced biodegradable materials and practices to enhance soil health, it inadvertently reduces the use of plastic, too.
Homemade inputs include cow dung, cow urine, jaggery and botanical extracts for pest management.
Also mulching with crop residues and cover crops helps maintain soil moisture and fertility without relying on plastic mulch, further reducing plastic dependence.
Our upcoming film A.T.M – Any Time Money is set to launch in India soon.
It explores the future of farming and soil health.
Filmed in Andhra Pradesh, the documentary captures the voices of farmers, students and experts who are turning to natural farming, not out of nostalgia, but out of necessity.
We feature comments from them in this article.
For the love of soil! Three interesting facts about its role in climate change.
When it comes to the environment and health, we often focus on plastics, forests, and carbon emissions.
Soil is often overlooked, yet is vital to tackling climate change.
Here we’d like to share three interesting facts highlighting its importance.
- Healthier soils store more carbon than the atmosphere and all living plants combined – around 2,500 gigatonnes. This is three times the amount in the atmosphere and four times what is in living plants and animals.
- Most of the carbon is in the topsoil, especially the top 30cm, which contains around 50 to 60 per cent of the total soil carbon.
- Healthy soils act as a carbon sink. As plants grow, they absorb carbon. When they die or drop leaves, that carbon goes into the soil, which keeps it healthy. Farming methods such as composting, cover crops, and minimal tilling all help to keep more of that carbon in the ground, instead of letting it escape back into the air as pollution.
Slow is fast: Learning and support are the key to a successful transition to pesticide-free farming.
Whilst natural farming is just one approach and chemical-free practices are indeed the way forward, it is important that transitions away from chemical farming happen gradually and with the right training and support for farmers.
Governments can play a significant role in this.
Lessons can also be learned from the 2021 crisis in Sri Lanka, which caused huge problems after the Government suddenly banned chemical fertilisers and pesticides to encourage farmers to switch to organic farming.
Although the Sri Lankan Government had good intentions, the sudden, almost overnight changes, without proper support, training, and preparation in place for farmers, led to lower crop yields, food shortages, and financial struggles for many farmers.
Transitioning from conventional to natural farming takes between three to five years.
It is during this period that farmers face the greatest challenges, including uncertainties around inputs and income, and need support.
Bayaikadi Sunitha, Data Enumerator from the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture in Andhra Pradesh, who understands this and supports local farmers to make the change, said the key is to start in small ways. “First, we start mobilising the farmers and get them to start a kitchen garden where we encourage them to grow vegetables in their garden and just use natural inputs. We train them and slowly support them as they make the transition to the farm,” she said.
Less is More: Does natural farming really lower crop yields?
One of the biggest challenges to reducing pesticide use, particularly toxic ones, predominantly in low and middle-income countries, is that many farmers fear that it will lower crop yields, reduce their incomes and threaten their livelihoods.
This however, is a myth largely pushed by the pesticide industry that chemicals are the only way to produce results.
The truth is, there is very little real evidence to support this notion.
Uday Shankar is a Project Executive at the Rythu Sadhikara Samstha (RySS) Transformation, a not-for-profit organisation set up by the Government of Andhra Pradesh, to empower farmers to promote sustainable agricultural practices agreed with this.
He said: “A major challenge we face is the perception that yield is less in natural farming. We consider it a myth because those who are practising natural farming are earning equally if not more than a chemical farmer. We encourage farmers to do multi-cropping, which improves stability and income.”
Aadamu, a natural farmer in Andhra Pradesh, also pointed out that chemical farmers were spending some nine times more than natural farmers. He said: “My brother, who is a chemical farmer spent 8,000 rupees. I spent 800. I can also sell for a price of 1,000 rupees more than a chemical farmer. More than that, my health and my customer’s health will be good.”
Even chemical fertilisers cost nearly twice as much than biofertilisers per acre: US$ 48 for chemical fertilisers compared to US$25 for bio fertilisers.
The truth is natural farming approaches can save farmers up to US$ 2,000 per season and in some cases farmer income have increased by 197 per cent.
Bans and Regulations: The hidden costs of pesticides – poisoning, suicides and what works.
Since the Green Revolution in the 1960s, pesticide-related deaths have dramatically increased and account for 20 per cent of global suicides.
The simplest and most effective way to reduce this is by banning highly hazardous pesticides.
Pesticide suicide also has a high economic cost.
In Sri Lanka, for example, a pesticide bottle costs between 300 to 500 rupees, but treatment for poisoning can range from 100,000 to 500,000 rupees.
Countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, and South Korea (this year’s World Environment Day host) have shown that regulation works and have drastically reduced suicides. You can read more about them here.
Dr G.V. Ramanjaneyulu, Executive Director for Sustainable Agriculture, in Andhra Pradesh, says farming would always continue and that farmers needed support to make the transition to sustainable, chemical free farming practices. He said: “Farming is not dying. It is the small farmer who is dying because they do not have proper support systems,”
Dhannya V. Sasi, Project and Policy Officer, at the Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention, said: “We would like to commend the farmers and experts who are leading on the natural farming movement in Andhra Pradesh. Evidence has shown that natural farming doesn’t affect crop yields and with the right support farmers can transition easily to new natural and healthier ways of farming.”
Michael Eddleston, Director for the Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention, added: “As we have seen in countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, China and South Korea, banning highly hazardous pesticides is the most effective way to reduce suicides around the world.”
Let’s Act Now
In closing, we would encourage governments to ban highly hazardous pesticides and support farmers to change to chemical free farming.
As we address plastic pollution this World Environment Day, we should remember that protecting our soil from toxic chemicals is a vital part of healing the planet – from the ground up.