Aerial spraying with chemicals such as endrin, BHC and endosulfan has gone on for the last 18 to 20 years to control tea mosquito in cashew plantations owned by the Plantation Corporation of Keralam (PCK), a public sector company. Although Keralam (the Indian spelling for Kerala) is a small state and cashew is an important export, aerial spraying was only taken up as an issue very recently. Before that, people living inside and around the plantations and the workers were suffering from new and unknown diseases.
Cashews were brought to the State by the Portuguese about 400 years ago. After independence, cashew growing was supported and the cropping area expanded. In the Sixties, the agriculture department started planting cashew in Malabar. This area is unusual, with hard laterite hills and fertile valleys, which are rich in biodiversity. People lived here for generations, and thought of these hills as common lands, depending on them for fodder, fuel, fertilizer and seasonal cultivations. They did not have legal rights over the land.
In the Sixties, the government took land away from the people without paying compensation. Few people were employed on the cashew farm. Nursery plants were treated with pesticides such as endrin: the farm was taken over by PCK in 1977 when the trees were at the cropping stage and aerial spraying began in the early eighties.
People felt unhealthy in the eighties, but did not link their complaints with aerial spraying. Most of the people living in the area are either small or marginal farmers, potters, scheduled caste people and other indigenous communities. Many of them are illiterate and they were not aware of the hazards of chemicals until very recently.
In 1996 people living in Periya, one of the plantation divisions, started complaining. They gave a memorandum to the district collector asking for aerial spraying with chemicals to stop. The collector met the PCK authorities and local people, but nothing happened. Later in 1998, a few people from the locality – including an agriculture assistant working in the agriculture department – filed a case in the Hon. Munsif’s court asking for a ban on aerial spraying. The court heard the appeal and gave a positive judgement: the Hon. Munsif noted: ‘The stand taken by the respondents (the PCK) is that of a heartless industrialist. They say the use of insecticides would bring more profit and more foreign exchange. But it cannot be at the cost of human lives… Certainly we have the power to destroy nature, but the question is whether we have the wisdom to preserve it…”
This is one of the first rulings of this kind in the State. PCK could not spray in 1999 because of the Periya judgement. Usually, spraying is done three times a year from November until March, which coincides with flowering and fruiting. For the local people it is a hard time because of the illnesses which followed spraying – mainly breathlessness, vomiting, bleeding from the nose, fatigue and other effects. But last year they could breath pure air during these months and there were no symptoms of acute toxicity. Since then, more people have questioned the aerial spraying.
But it was a year of losses for the cashew growers in general because of a sudden change in climate during flowering. The trees were in full bloom by November/ December, but by January they had dried up. PCK took this as an opportunity to criticize people who opposed aerial spraying and asked for compensation. At this point many environmental groups joined the struggle and the issue became significant at State level.
PCK did not stop at this. They moved to the High Court, asking for permission to start aerial spraying by November 1999, and quoting the losses from the last season. The court gave permission to make all the necessary arrangements – including buying chemicals – but asked the company to obtain a court order before spraying.
Survey
Two surveys were done: the first was by SEEK (The Society for Environmental Education in Keralam) and was based on a questionnaire in two wards with about 250 families on the edge of the plantation. Then a second survey was organized by the author and her colleagues using health data from government sources. The panchayath (local government) had admitted on the record that aerial spraying affects health. So discussions with about 40 families tried to find how much suffering there was. The survey and the discussions revealed many things about health hazards and the callous and indifferent attitude of
PCK.
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Painful skin conditions like this are common
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A chronic skin complaint on a child
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Results
Health issues
General and chronic symptoms
Many of the ailments have not been completely cured, even though there are three doctors working in the locality. Local people know that the doctors cannot diagnose them; many go to nearest town and take high doses of medicines given to them by specialist doctors who have no idea about these strange diseases.
Chronic cases noticed
Working conditions
In Periya plantation there are around 45 workers, but there used to be more than 100. Their main responsibilities include weeding, spraying chemicals, and nursery management. There are only four women who were employed as a special case when their husbands died of cancer while working on the plantation.
About 50 families are inside the plantation and the surrounding area has a population of about 5000. There are about 4000 families in the panchayath area and between 60% and 80% of these are affected by spraying. During aerial spraying, workers are not given any warning or protective clothing. Men and women are on duty in the plantation doing weeding and other jobs. They said that they just stand under the cashew trees inhaling all the pesticides. When hand spraying is under way, they are not given any protective masks or clothes. Immediately after spraying they take a wash as some relief from suffocation. But many of the workers said that they suffer from skin itching and swelling after washing.
In the early years of aerial spraying, the workers had to stand in the border areas of the plantation as signposts. When the trees grew this practice was stopped. One ex-worker disclosed that most of the workers have some kind of skin disease. His daughter complained of the frequent swelling of her body, and reported gynecological problems as well. Almost all the workers suffer from itching eyes, burns, chronic headaches and occasional loss of vision.
Factors which do not permit aerial spraying
The plantation has an undulating topography draining a lot of small streams which cannot be covered during spraying. Many people depend on one stream which drains
into a wetland. People have noticed the sudden death of fish immediately after spraying and most of them catch fish daily.
The area is very close to the sea and there is always a wind blowing inland – especially during November and February, which coincides with aerial spraying. Spray drift is extensive and affects far away areas. There are two powerlines (110 kV, 220 kV) going through the plantation, so the helicopter cannot fly close to the canopy, which adds to drift.
This is biologically a rich area with lot of wildlife. People have seen dead birds, porcupines, snakes, frogs and other wildlife after spraying. Many insects have disappeared, which has affected the area’s agriculture. Cattle suffer from bleeding, dermatitis and a variety of ailments.
Indian Insecticide Act
This act says aerial spraying in cashew plantations should be from a maximum height of 2m from the crop canopy. In Periya this is not possible, because there are two power lines.
Twenty-four hours before aerial spraying, a warning should be given to the local people so that they can take precautions. But in Periya, there is only a warning notice in front of a few government offices and youth clubs three or four days before spraying. Most of the people here are illiterate and they have to work every day to earn a living, so they won’t see the notice. Children would be either playing or going to the school.
PCK is following the recommendations of the Act, which was passed in 1983. They have not updated their information since. On this 1983 list, BHC, toxaphene, lindane and endosulfan are the permitted organochlorines for aerial spraying.
Pesticides used
The main spraying season is October to February. The current pesticides sprayed aerially are quinalphos, with copper oxychloride; endosulfan with mancozeb; and carbaryl. PCK buys endosulfan from Hindustan Insecticides Limited (HIL) another public sector company based in the Eloor industrial belt. HIL is the only manufacturer of DDT, and they also manufacture dicofol – another organochlorine pesticide – and are establishing a plant to manufacture mancozeb. Recently Greenpeace has declared the factory and the area as the thirty-fifth most toxic hotspot in the world. HIL also gave a recent statement that ‘DDT is not a POP and UNEP has removed DDT from the POPs list’.
Need to go organic
Keralam is a State which gives priority for cash crops dependent on fertilizers and pesticides. Since most of the cash crops are perennial, management strategies are highly standardized without any scrutiny or review. There is no testing for chemical residues, and no health monitoring. There are public health centres in every Panchayath but the doctors are ill equipped. The pollution control board does not have a proper laboratory to analyze organochlorines and other pesticides. Without any basic infrastructure, pesticide use is encouraged more and more.
In the context of sustainable agriculture, land use and intensive chemical farming need to undergo a drastic change. It is important to take up Periya’s case so that we can have integrated farming and a toxic-free future for us and our children.
S.Usha is a research associate at INTACH (National Heritage), PB No 2230, Sasthamangalam P.O. Keralam, India, Pin. 695010. Email: thanal@vsnl.net.in
[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 47, March 2000, pages 6-7]