Aheli Moitra
A significant portion of the news that the press in Nagaland highlights relates to agriculture. There are detailed discussions around jhum agriculture, government departments often impart commercial agricultural training, cooperatives are formed to market agricultural produce and best agri-practice methods are consistently shared. Nagaland is still a land-based society with the rural poor continuing jhum to sustain their lives while the urban rich often convert their lands into plantations to increase their economic worth. The Government of Nagaland is aspiring to make Nagaland an ‘Organic State.’
Given the present scenario and future aspiration, Abokali Jimomi’s report on the increasing use of chemicals to facilitate cultivation of food and commercial crops in Nagaland is worrying. “Availability and easy access to chemicals, pesticides, herbicides and the lack of regulation and monitoring for application to the soil, crops and water ways have altered how we produce food today,” wrote Jimomi in her piece published in The Morung Express on August 13, 2018.
While cultivation in the hills can be labour intensive, Naga cultivators have always found their way with weed. A colleague narrated how salt was used in the days of yore to control weed till the cultivators found out themselves that it was not just destroying the weed but also the food crops and the soil on which the salt was being applied. It may be a matter of time, likewise, that Naga cultivators recognize how pesticides and herbicides could eventually destroy both crop and soil; plus affect the health of people applying the chemicals. The longer cultivators take to recognize this though, the worse the problems could get.
Farmers in the United States of America have reported the components in some herbicides like Roundup, also used in Nagaland, have led to the development of herbicide-resistant ‘superweeds.’ More than 800 cancer patients in the US allege that the herbicide gave them cancer.
The role of the Government of Nagaland is pertinent here. It has to raise awareness about herbicides and other such chemicals before they are put to use. The communities that do not have access to such scientific information, but have access to chemicals over the counter in Nagaland, need to be informed about the long term effects of using these on their soil and crops. The government has the responsibility, also because it aspires to be an ‘Organic State,’ to provide alternatives to control weed and other pests.
As Nagaland State consistently attempts to convert the food sustainable State into an entrepreneur-sustained State, with commercial crops pushed more than food crops, it is important for the government to have a line on how far to go with new technology. New seeds/crops (food and commercial) are often genetically modified and are dependent on herbicides, pesticides or other chemicals producing an endless cycle of dependency, and eventual despondency. In signing up to the global economic order, the fine print should not be skipped. It could produce everlasting damage to the Naga lands and the people who inhabit them.
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