The resulting resurgence of pests forced farmers to use cocktails of pesticides, but this only exacerbated the problem and led to repeated crop failures. These, together with the increasing costs of pesticides and other inputs, forced farmers into a cycle of debt. So once these small farmers bought into this Green Revolution technology, they were trapped.

Unable to bear the consequences, the men committed suicide, leaving the burden of the debts to their wives and families who face increasingly unbearable workloads and depressing poverty as they struggle to settle them. And most surviving small and marginal farmers – not just in Andhra Pradesh, but in Asia as a whole – face such an accumulation of debt as a result of switching to Green Revolution technology. The Asian NGO Coalition has established that 4.3 million farming families in Thailand were buried in debt just a few years after adopting high-yielding varieties.

Some 25 million farmers and agricultural workers are poisoned by pesticides each year. A Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Asia and the Pacific study of pesticide use and exposure patterns in seven countries revealed a litany of problems including poorly educated and impoverished farmers applying pesticides without any training or protective clothing.

Absence of safeguards
The use of highly dangerous pesticides – including World Health Organization Class I pesticides categorized as ‘extremely hazardous', such as methyl parathion, monocrotophos and methamidophos – is common. There is very little knowledge of their dangers. Measures to restrict re-entry into a sprayed field for a number of hours are difficult to enforce. There is a shortage of facilities for washing after use, or for coping with accidents. In Cambodia, one methyl parathion product carries labels in Thai, rather than the Khmer language, so farmers are unable to read the instructions for use or any warnings they carry. Farmers frequently store pesticides in their kitchens, under beds and within easy reach of children. Pesticide containers are reused for water collection or storage. Farmers and agricultural labourers complain of headaches, dizziness, vomiting, nausea, difficulty in breathing, chronic itching, nails turning black and dropping off, sensitivity to light and even unconsciousness. A study in Indonesia observed that farmers averaged three or more neurological, intestinal or respiratory symptoms of poisoning in 21 per cent of the studied spraying operations.

Community action
PAN International campaigns against pesticide use and for more ecological pest management. In many regions, including Asia and the Pacific, it has initiated community health monitoring, participatory action research and local surveys to document the impact of pesticides on farmers and agricultural workers. As a result groups are working towards empowering women, farmers and workers to address and campaign against hazardous pesticides, to reduce their exposure to them and to promote non-chemical alternatives.

A quiet revolution is now taking place in Asia. The Ecological Agriculture Movement looks at agriculture as a holistic system, where other key concerns besides yield increases are considered in making decisions about development. Most emphasis is placed on food security in a framework encompassing production, environment, women’s participation and democracy. Such ecological agriculture systems tend to learn from, and build on, traditional farming using local farmers’tools and technology.