PUNJAB, INDIA, May 1, 2008: The governments of many poor nations are alarmed at the rise in food prices. There are even problems in the Indian region of Punjab, where science once seemed to have found answers for a hungry world and perhaps India’s immense population. The new strains of seed and chemical pesticides and fertilizers certainly brought high yields. They called it the Green Revolution of India.
But the problem is that the benefit of high yields from new seed types was not long-lasting, and the pests kept ahead of the pesticides. They also have boosted cancer cases.
The cause of cancer is always a contentious issue, but a new study from the Punjabi University at Patiala ruled out other potential factors, concluding that the way the sprays are used is increasingly causing cancer. The local farmers said that they wanted the same agricultural scientists who had given them the high yields of the 1970s to come up with something else. They say that what they are doing now is unsustainable, because they are getting lower yields despite using more spray and paying more for fertilizer due to high oil prices.