Children’s development undermined by pesticide use in India   

Evidence of the chronic effects of pesticides on the health of children and women in cotton growing areas in six Indian states has emerged after a recent Greenpeace study. The main findings include cases of arrested development in children under 13. Kavitha Kuruganti reports on the details of the findings.

Below: A child taking part in the cognitive ability test of drawing a human figure. Above: Jigsaw puzzle being assembled as part of analytical abilities tests. Photo: Greenpeace India

A unique study investigated the chronic impacts of pesticides on children in India(1). In 2003, researchers with Greenpeace India tested almost 900 children living in cotton-growing areas in six states for their developmental abilities, using a range of tests designed to measure analytical abilities, motor skills, concentration and memory. They found that children living in regions in which pesticides are widely used performed significantly worse in these various developmental abilities than children in a control group living elsewhere. The investigation reveals that children from regions as diverse as Tamil Nadu and Punjab, who have nothing in common but their exposure to pesticides, appear to share an inability to perform simple play-based exercises – such as catching a ball or assembling a jigsaw puzzle – simply because they have been exposed to pesticides over a period of time.
    Cotton uses some of the most highly toxic pesticides, including significant levels of organophosphates, which affect the nervous system. The quantities of chemicals applied are massive: while cotton occupies less than 5% of cultivated land in India, it uses more than 50% of all agricultural pesticides. India is a major user of pesticides, with annual sales in the region of three quarters of a billion dollars in 2001(2). 
    The six cotton belts in the country where the study was conducted apply high levels of extremely hazardous pesticides. Eighteen villages were chosen from six districts for the study: Warangal district in Andhra Pradesh (Atmakur, Oglapur and Peddapur villages); Raichur district in Karnataka (Khanapur, Manjeria and Poorthipli); Bathinda in Punjab (Bangi Nihal Singh, Jajjal and Mahi Nangal); Bharuch in Gujarat (Halder, Kavitha and Samlod); Yavatmal in Maharashtra (Dehlatand, Kopamandvi and Sunna); Theni in Tamil Nadu (Rassingapuram, Silamalai and Visuvaspuram).
    Cotton farmers have become dependent on a cocktail of pesticides, and have no support or information to help them apply organic strategies – ironically, cotton is a crop where organic approaches have long been successfully established by some farmers in the country (PN28, June 1995, pp12-13). Even the government-run Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR) in Nagpur had documented organic cotton cultivation and has found that yields improve over a five-year period with organic cultivation. The pesticides used are predominantly the older insecticides, often the most hazardous, with many pesticides banned or restricted elsewhere outside India and include organophosphates, organochlorines, carbamates and synthetic pyrethroids. When these fail, farmers purchase the newer, more expensive insecticides.
    Since launching the report in April 2004, Greenpeace has held public hearings, or a People’s Commission, in two of the study areas, Bathinda in Punjab and Warangal in Andhra Pradesh (see box 1). The hearings provided a platform to hear from the affected farming community, and to bring together experts to discuss how to first minimize, and eventually put an end to, the dependence on pesticides. In Punjab, the experts heard that the excessive use of pesticides has affected the groundwater as well as other drinking water resources, and that there is urgent need to supply pure drinking water in the affected areas. An additional problem facing farmers is the availability of spurious and adulterated products. These sprays are not effective, and can lead to progressive resistance in pests. There are not enough government agencies to inform and train farmers on the hazards of pesticides, and in the absence of government controls, the pesticide companies and traders are not constrained in the claims for their products. Many of them use aggressive marketing strategies to promote their products. Farmers’ health is often badly affected by the products they spray (box 2). 

Box 1. Recommendations from the People’s Commission, July 2004

The People’s Commission took place in Bathinda district in the Punjab. It was formed of four experts(5) and included a trade policy analyst, representatives of the legal and medical professions, and a scientific advisor. The Commissioners found the situation in Bathinda district to be alarming and recommended urgent action to prevent irreversible damage to health and the environment. Its recommendations included: 
  • the whole cotton belt should be declared as a toxic hotspot requiring special treatment. 
  • the state government should set up agencies to educate farmers about good agricultural practices, minimum use of pesticides and methodologies to use them with least harm to the human beings and the environment
  • banned pesticides should not be used, or allowed for sale to farmers in the cotton belt, and those selling banned or restricted pesticides, as well as spurious pesticides, should be punished
  • companies should be made liable for damage to the environment and human health on the basis of the ‘polluter pays principle’
  • the government should publish information on banned or restricted use pesticides, along with the authentic list, in the local vernacular language. It should be mandatory to display these lists in shops and pesticide retail outlets and other prominent places
  • the Punjab Agricultural University guidance to the state agriculture department and farmers should incorporate advice on practices that lay stress on sustainable and low input cotton production, including recommendations on seed quality
  • the state government, with the help of NGOs, should introduce the practice of organic farming, with compensation for farmers during conversion 
  • a special health insurance scheme for the farmers and farm workers should be introduced in the cotton belt area
  • extremely hazardous Class1a pesticides should be immediately banned and Class 1b be gradually phased out in a realistic timeframe.

Chronic effects on children
The researchers chose to study the impacts on the developmental abilities of children as they are particularly vulnerable to the impact of pesticides. The study was also able to document the more insidious effects of pesticides, not commonly known. 
    The research selected at random 448 children aged 4-5 years and 451 children aged 9-13 for chronic exposure to pesticides – 899 children in all in the ‘study group’. For comparison, a total of 749 children were assessed from reference locations where pesticides were not used. In all other aspects the exposed and unexposed children were of a similar socio-economic and cultural background. A rapid assessment tool, based on play, and developed for a similar study in Mexico(3), adapted appropriately for the rural Indian situation, was used to document the abilities of the children. The approach measures the abilities to perform or function in normal childhood activities by pre-school and school-age children.
    The tests, in the form of games, were standardized across the six states, and between the study and control areas for ease of comparison. Similar kinds of tests were administered to each age group, but at the appropriate level. These ‘tests’ were designed carefully and comprehensively, in consultation with experts, to assess a variety of abilities that children in those particular age groups are supposed to possess and develop by that time. They were designed to capture possible neuro-toxicity, and therefore, impairment of developmental abilities. Many of the pesticides used in India both in quantity and value are organophosphorus and carbamate compounds, which are known to cause neurological damage, in addition to other possible health effects.
    The tests were classified into a few broad categories to analyse particular abilities:

In all, the younger children took part in 23 tests each and the older children in 20 tests each, both in the exposed and reference locations. Within each test there was a progression from easier to more difficult tasks. In some cases there was no difference in abilities within each group between boys and girls, while in other tests there were gender differences.
    In 86% of the tests in the younger age group and 84.2% of the tests in the older age group, the reference location children displayed better performance abilities than the pesticide-exposed children. In 70.8% of tests for 4-5 year olds and 70% in the case of 9-13 year olds, the results were statistically significant. In the 4-5 year old age group, only 6.6% of the total tests were significantly conclusive in favour of the pesticide-exposed children, while it was 4.2% in the case of the 9-13 year old children. The remaining are tests where both groups have performed equally well, or have performed without any significance to the results.
    The researchers noted a significant difference in abilities between the exposed and reference location children with trends remaining more or less consistent across different locations and age groups. For example, amongst the analytical tests is one for tactile perception abilities – holding a wooden block of a particular shape and size in one hand and being able to pick an identical one amongst many wooden blocks, blindfolded. In the case of Tamil Nadu, for the first sub-test for 4-5 year olds, while 68% of the children in the reference group could do the test successfully, less than 34% of children in the pesticides-exposed group could do the test. When it came to the second sub-test for the same age group of children, more than three times the percentage number of study location children performed the test successfully in the reference group (53.3% in the reference group and only 16% in the exposed group). In the case of Maharashtra too, these tests went in favour of the control location children for both age groups. The margin of difference increased between the first and second sub-test: 37.3% more children could do the test in the control location, compared to their study location counterparts in the first test; for the second sub-test the margin shot up to 52%for 4-5 year olds). 
    Pesticides that are potential neurotoxins can disrupt aspects of the human nervous system, and ball-catching exercises, using different sized balls and distances, were designed to compare gross motor functions of exposed and reference location children. Other tests included dropping raisins from a specified height into a bottle lid, balancing on one foot and walking on a thin plank, and tests for stamina, concentration and memory. In all cases, reference location children significantly out-performed exposed children in the tasks, and, for example, in the stamina test older children could perform three times longer than exposed children. In a comparison of ability to draw a human figure, for assessing non-verbal cognitive abilities in the 4-5 year old group, drawings were assigned a score out of five, and while the exposed children scored 1.69 points on average, the reference group scored 3.4 points.
    Though all the study locations show similar trends of low abilities in the pesticides-exposed children, the most stark differences were found for both age groups in Tamil Nadu and Punjab; more extreme in the 9-13 age group in Gujarat and Maharashtra; and Andhra Pradesh in the case of 4-5 year old children. 
    The findings show that the study was able to capture the more insidious effects of pesticides reflected in the long term and chronic effects on children’s development. This is a great cause for concern since the very basic right to healthy development is being taken away from these children. 
    The findings echo those of a 1998 study of Mexican children exposed to pesticides that was conducted by Dr Elizabeth Guillette of the University of Florida, who was an advisor for the Indian study(4). This showed that, when compared with children of the same age living elsewhere, such children have decreased stamina, under-developed hand-eye coordination, weaker memory and lower drawing skills. ‘One can only wonder about the future of any society in which individuals are unable to function at what should be their full potential,’ said Guillette. 

Box 2. Killing Fields of Warangal 

In 2002, a fact finding team consisting of four organisations – Centre for Resource Education, Community Health Cell, Sarvodaya Youth Organisation and Toxics Link – looked into the issue of deaths and hospitalisations of pesticide sprayers in the district of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh. The team found that ‘a highly grievous situation persists in the districts of Warangal caused by chemical pesticides. On the basis of preliminary investigation by the team, taking into account two to three deaths and more than five to 10 cases of exposure in villages visited was estimated that there could be more than 500 deaths in Warangal district alone and more than 1000 exposed in the period August to December 2001.’
    Post mortem reports, where available, indicated that major organs showed ‘congestion’ which according to doctors was a clear indication of exposure and poisoning cases. 
    Symptoms and health effects reported by the victims included dizziness, fatigue, runny nose or eyes, salivation, nausea, intestinal discomfort, sweating, changes in heart rate, chest pain and respiratory congestion, central nervous system stimulation and depression, dermatitis, diarrhoea, visual disturbances, hepatic and renal injury, insomnia and mood changes, mucous membrane irritation, muscle twitching and shivering, abdominal pain and anorexia, vision problems, joint pain, hormonal disturbances, paralysis, peripheral neuropathy and weakness. In acute cases, paralysis, seizures, loss of consciousness and death were reported.

Source: The Killing Fields – Farmer deaths due to exposure to pesticides in Warangal District . Report of the fact finding team, January 2002.

Pesticide sales and use
In Warangal district, Andhra Pradesh, interviews with farmers indicated that cotton was sprayed at least 20 times each season, and the real figure is likely to be higher. In Punjab, researchers met with farmers spraying mixtures of up to five pesticides. The irrigated cotton varieties use much higher levels of pesticides, and local varieties use hardly any pesticides. The ecological effects of such heavy pesticide use, particularly insect-pest resistance to many products, have been recognised to some extent. But in spite of international acknowledgment of the problems of pesticides in poor countries, galvanising a response to the public health disaster is largely ignored. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies as well as non-chemical pest management for cotton are well understood and established, and by now should be made widely available to farmers. However, intensive marketing by the pesticide industry of their products encourages farmers to believe that there are no alternatives. 
    Common marketing methods for pesticides are incentive schemes for dealers. Companies fix targets for sale for their dealers, and the prizes include tourist trips for the dealer with family and friends. Dealers pass on incentives to farmers, including a lucky draw for a motorcycle or holidays. In Punjab, it was reported that Syngenta provided free T-shirts, Coromandel gave purses, and Dupont promised a discount of Rupees 100 on coupons on the purchase of more pesticides from them. Dealers extend credit facilities to the farmers, and farmers depend on the dealer’s advice on which pesticides to use in what quantities. Small dealers are now setting up shops in the villages, making it again easier to obtain the products. Special discounts include pesticides offered with seeds, or vice versa. Special camps are organised in the villages by the companies, with specially decked jeeps and audio systems to announce the products. Wall paintings and posters in the villages back these up. 
Greenpeace India is demanding the pesticide industry to accept liability and provide compensation for the affected children. It has also called on the Indian government to ban at least those pesticides that have been banned in other countries and to do more to support pesticide-free agriculture, for example by using biological pest-control techniques. 

Conclusion
The Government of India has accepted the revised FAO International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides which sets high standards in its guidelines, and urges adoption of IPM strategies and withdrawing the most hazardous pesticides from sale, especially in the developing world. India has officially adopted IPM as its policy for agriculture and it features prominently in recent Five Year Plans agreed by the government. Arrested Development calls for a rational pest management policy that places ecological agriculture at the forefront of its goals. To support IPM, many pesticides should be banned, and a stronger system introduced for registration, review and monitoring of pesticides used in the country. Tighter regulation should be initiated on the pesticide industry to restrict marketing of pesticides and encourage adherence to the FAO Code of Conduct. Product responsibility needs to be extended to the product life cycle, and higher taxation introduced to support research into organic farming and to monitor health impacts. 
    The problem requires the urgent attention of the government, including introduction of strong controls on pesticide sales, better and independent advice for farmers, and the availability of alternative products and strategies for pest control. If action is not taken quickly, the result will be permanent damage to the land in this cotton belt and the human health including the health of future generations.

References
1. Kuraganti K, (principal investigator) et al, Arrested Development: the impacts of pesticides on children’s mental health and development. A Greenpeace study conducted in six states of India in collaboration with: Greenpeace India, Dharamitra, ICRA, Janachetna, Kheti Virasat, Sewa, Sirpi, SYO and YMC, December 2003. 
2. Damodaran, H, Pesticide sector calls for crackdown on fakes – Demands amendments in Insecticides Act, Business Line, Financial Daily of the Hindu group of companies, 30 March 2004
3. Guillette EA, Meza MM, Aquilar MG, Soto AD, Garcia IE, An anthropological approach to the evaluation of preschool children exposed to pesticides in Mexico, Environmental Health Perspectives, 106:347-354, 1998.
4. Guillette, et, op cit 3
5. The panel of experts at the public hearing in Bathinda included Devinder Sharma, Agricultural Trade Policy analyst; Sanjay Parikh, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India, Dr G.P.I. Singh, Professor and Head, Dept of Community and Preventive Medicine at Dayanand Medical College in Ludhiana, and Dr. Ashesh Tayal, the Greenpeace India Scientific Advisor. The panel heard the findings of the report, and listened to the testimonies of farmers and Sarpanches from various affected villages. Other experts presented their views.
6. Cole DC, Sherwood S, et al, Pesticides and health in highland Ecuadorian potato production: assessing impacts and developing responses, International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 8(3):182-190, 2002.

Kavitha Kuruganti was the lead author on the Greenpeace study, Arrested Development. For information contact Greenpeace India, namrata.chowdhary@dialb.greenpeace.org

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 65, September 2004, pages 12-13]