‘Use of pesticides under Green Revolution destroyed Sindh’s agriculture sector’

The Green Revolution brought destruction to the agriculture sector in the Sindh province due to the use of pesticides and fertilizers, said Dr Muhammad Ismail Kumbhar on Saturday.

Kumbhar is rural development and agriculture education extension expert by profession. He was of the opinion that due to use of pesticides, soil fertility of Sindh was affected and yet we end up losing billions of rupees on fertilizers and pesticides and not focusing on Sindh’s traditional ways.

He was addressing a discussion titled ‘Water and Agriculture Development of Sindh’ arranged by the Irtiqa Institute of Social Sciences. When we talk about Sindh’s irrigation, he said, there were three big revolutions.

In the year 1890, he said, the province experienced a huge famine after which a famine commission was formed. In 1904, he said, the Britishers made three agriculture research centers in Sindh, one each in Mirpurkhas, Sakran and Dakhan.

The concept of the research centers was to make agriculture sustainable for the increasing population. They also wanted to take measures to control famine and drought.

“The revolution started from this point,” he said. As for the second revolution, he said, it started in 1932 when the Sukkur Barrage was constructed. Then the British viceroy started short courses on agriculture and wanted to produce human resources for the development of the agriculture sector. He said that the idea was to introduce best international standard practices in the agriculture sector.

In 1962, he said, a Green Revolution came and new technology of tractors and fertilizers were introduced. In 1990, he said, there were rainfalls in the province, which led to a digital revolution. “In Pakistan, however, we could not focus much on the digital revolution in the agriculture sector,” he said.

The Green Revolution, he said, brought destruction by using pesticides, which in return destroyed the soil fertility of the province. Yet, he said, we waste billions of rupees on fertilizers and are not focusing on our traditional ways.

He said that the use of fertilizers causes cancer, skin and liver diseases. “From food security we got stuck in food safety,” he said, adding that in Sindh we are rapidly losing soil fertility and one of the major reasons is the use of fertilizers and pesticides. The cotton-pickers and vegetable-pickers, he said, get diseases on their hands due to pesticides on crops.

He said that 85 per cent of the groundwater is not fit for human consumption, as well as for the usage of the agriculture sector. Also due to the usage of pesticides, he said, more than 44 per cent of the children in Sindh have stunted growth and the main reason is the agriculture sector.

The residual effects of pesticides and fertilizers, he said, has destroyed the province’s biodiversity. Sindh is losing its butterflies. Water and agriculture policy expert Umer Karim also spoke at the discussion.