Greening cotton: farmers lose faith with chemicals 

In 2002 and 2003 Meena Menon, a writer on development issues travelled through the cotton fields of Gujara, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. There she found farmers reverting to organic farming and rejecting the chemicals they had used over three decades. The suicide rate among poor farmers had increased and the land was becoming degraded. Can the resulting damage be arrested or even undone? 

Muljibhai Bhalani, an organic cotton farmer from Bhavnagar, Gujarat. Photo: Meena Menon

In the last decade many farmers in India have realised the ill-effects of chemical agriculture. While agriculture overall has stagnated, cotton has been the worst-hit. Pests, notably the American bollworm, have become resistant to insecticides. Cotton is grown on 5% of the land in India but consumes about 54% of the total pesticides. Soils have been degraded and farmers are realising that unless these are enriched, farming will become a thing of the past. The spate of suicides, the resistance of pests to insecticides, the high cost of intensive cotton production and low returns appear to have been the cost of intensive production. In Andhra Pradesh farmers in debt have sold their tractors, their houses, their valuables, even their kidneys to survive.

A gloomy picture
In Punjab, a study conducted by the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID) in seven villages of Bhatinda district of Punjab(1) found that 85% of the cotton farmers were in debt. In Bhatinda over 100 farmers were reported to have committed suicide in 1998-99. In Dharampur village, Taluka Savli, Baroda, of 32 farmers, most are in debt. In Vidarbha in Maharashtra, since May 2001, over 80 farmers are reported to have committed suicide. Why has cotton become a killer crop in the land where it was born? 
    Billions of rupees (100 rupees = 1.20 pounds sterling) have been spent on cotton research in India and, instead of the native short staple cotton, today almost 45% of the total area in India is planted to intra and interspecific commercial cotton hybrids for which there is higher demand(2). Yet it is low in productivity, giving insufficient returns to the farmer who has to spend anything above Rupees 3,000 per acre to cultivate it. Cotton is a crop most suited to drylands, flourishing there despite poor monsoons. The old cotton varieties (herbaceums or arboreums, called desis) were suited to each region and its peculiarities. Hybrid cotton with its promise of high yields changed all that, but now in some places, farmers are convinced of the need to develop and grow varieties that are locally suitable. Erratic rains, poor quality seeds, degrading soils and indiscriminate use of pesticides leading to increasing pest resistance have led to mass crop failures.

The tide is turning
Despite this bleak picture some big farmers heard the warning bells in the 1980s, adopting low-cost techniques and reducing dependence on external inputs. Large-scale farmers like Baburao Wankhede from Amravati and Anandrao Subedar from Yavatmal (both in Maharashtra) were influenced by Bhaskar Save or Masanobu Fukuoka, proponents of natural farming, and tried experimenting on their own as part of the centuries-old Indian tradition of nurturing soils(3). They found organic farming allowed the farmer to spend less and ensure a good yield without depleting soil fertility. The prospect of selling certified organic cotton that fetches premiums of 10% to 30% is a major attraction in certain areas where organic cotton projects are underway. In 2003 India was the third highest producer in the world, producing 1000 tonnes of organic cotton, 17% of the world total.

Common sense prevails
Fortunately pesticide reduction is gradually being adopted throughout India by discerning farmers. Although proponents of intensive farming have dismissed the benefits of organic agriculture, cotton farmers are rejecting chemicals and fertilisers and trying to salvage their degraded lands. Not all farmers have switched to organic cotton for the high premiums. Farmers like Yellappa in Asifabad, Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh, though not fully organic, does not use pesticide sprays, has reduced his use of chemicals, and is not troubled by the bollworm. Pathubhai Rathod, an organic farmer in Surendranagar, Gujarat, allows the bollworm to chew up his cotton crop. After the assault, the crop grows back giving an average yield. Most farmers who have stopped using chemicals and pesticides find the pests have reduced or do not appear. Natural predators are back on their farms and even birds feed on the worms once they stop using all toxic chemicals. Farmers who have experimented with organic and chemical farming find that pest attacks are more severe on chemicals plots and they have to spend more to control them. Many of them are going back to desi varieties where this problem of bollworms did not exist. The issue here is availability of seeds.
    According to the Organic and Biodynamic Farming Working Group, ‘Although as yet in its infancy, organic farming is becoming important in the agriculture sector in India, largely through the efforts of small groups of farmers. It has come out of the exploitative agriculture that has been followed all these years, resulting in damaging impacts on environment, human and animal health, soil and water resources. It is well-known now that increased use (or abuse) of chemical pesticides and fertilisers has created a chain of problems of soil, environment and water degradation. The intensive chemical agriculture that has been followed after Green Revolution successes is causing heavy pollution of our food, drinking water and air. Life expectancy has improved, but the quality of life has substantially deteriorated.’ 

Chandraprabha Boke, who grows organic cotton in Amravati, Maharashtra. Photo: Meena Menon

Leading by example
‘The great thing is that organic farmers do not have to commit suicide,’ says Muljibhai Bhalani, a small farmer and schoolteacher near Bhavnagar in Gujarat. While some feel that only large farmers can take up organic farming as the risk is much higher for smaller farmers, there are a few who prove this is a misconception. Muljibhai, who lives in Shampara village near Bhavnagar, is an example of how seven acres can make a profitable farm. He and his family have promoted and practised organic farming over the last eight years. 
    ‘The Gujarat agricultural university told us how to farm until 1990. I believed them. The production capacity of land is not endless and soon it was obvious that I would fail. I tried growing fruit for a while but there is very little water here. I decided to experiment, and tried growing crops with and without chemicals. In my organic plot, I saw that less water was needed, insects were fewer and pests were better controlled,’ says Muljibhai.
    Muljibhai also learnt to prepare and use bio-fertilisers and found that expenses were lower for organic cultivation. In the first year, production was 400 kgs per bhiga (1 acre = 2.5 bhigas) and it was more or less the same over the years. He found that more chemicals or pesticides meant more pests. In 1994 he totally stopped using any chemical fertilisers or insecticide sprays on his land growing cotton on an average of one or two acres every year. He felt he had to prove himself in cotton since it was the local cash crop. On his farm here are plenty of birds, including large babblers, and many insects. Muljibhai claims he was the first organic farmer in the whole of Saurashtra and that slowly the movement has grown to about thirty farmers in the district.
    It is not unusual to see Muljibhai selling his bio-fertiliser mix to farmers or advising them. His farm is a museum that many people visit, although some locals remain sceptical about his techniques. Muljibhai and his wife Manjulaben have worked hard to improve the soil quality to support quality grass. ‘We had to focus on improving the soil and at first people used to laugh at us. They don’t know that the secret of a good crop is healthy soil.’ Water levels are below 700 feet in this region and Muljibhai is recharging a borewell using a small pond nearby. He uses vermicompost and exchanges fodder for cowdung from a cattle pond nearby.
    Muljibhai has been searching for a local variety of cotton suitable for this region and travelled all over Gujarat in 1994 in his quest. Wherever he saw good cotton plants he brought them home and cultivated them. He finally settled on one variety, improved it and called it Nisarg. In 1997 he distributed the seeds to several farmers but the crop failed due to drought and he lost the seed totally. To select the most suitable variety for the farm, he conducted his experiment on ten gunthas (40 gunthas = 1 acre) where he grew ten varieties and found that H8, a cotton hybrid, gave the best yield of 37 kg. But a desi or local variety was close behind with 36.5 kg. His profits have gone up from 30 to 50% and he no longer sustains any losses.
    Farmers inspired by him have stopped using pesticides but still use some urea as a fertilizer. In Ishwariya village, Virsingh Solanki also grows desi cotton and he gets 250 kg per bhiga. Next year he wants to stop using even urea and grow organic cotton on four of his 20 acres. Others in Pipardi and Zariya villages in Bhavnagar district are trying to grow crops organically but some of them still use urea, which they believe is organic.

The future
While this is hardly a sweeping revolution, the organic seeds have been sown. Farmers are seeking a different way of working the land in harmony with nature and individuals are providing inspiration and example to others that may be followed more widely in the future.

1. 85% Cotton farmers in debt. Pioneer News Service, Pioneer (a daily newspaper) 26 April, 1999.
2. Cotton Production Practices Report prepared by ICAC secretariat for the 61st plenary meeting Cairo, October 2002.
3. Ancient agriculture as practised by rishis or sages.

The original article appeared as a series on InfoChange News and Features, April 2003. Meena Menon is now special correspondent for The Hindu newspaper, cats@mtnl.net.in

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 67, March 2005, pages 13-14]