VIJAYAWADA, DEC 4: Krishna and Guntur districts are sitting on the tinderbox of a major agricultural disaster that may unfold in the next few years if indiscriminate usage of pesticides is not curbed.Scientists engaged in integrated pest control management warn that the "evil consequences" of high utilisation of synthetic pesticides in coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh will be of "manifold nature" from severely affecting the delicate ecological balance to the general health of people.The magnitude of the problem could be gauged from the fact that many harmful insects have developed resistance as much as 300 times while almost all useful insects disappeared from agricultural fields. ``Drop the American Bollworm (Heliothis armigera) into a pesticidal solution. You will find it alive,'' says a scientist describing how pests have developed resistance due to constant spraying of synthetic pesticides.Farmers in many coastal areas have been reporting a constant fall in yields, despite regular use of high doses of pesticides. A farmer from Vinukonda in Guntur district, who indiscriminately used pesticides, could salvage only a bag of Bengal gram from an acre. The most affected crops are red gram, cotton, Bengal gram, paddy, sunflower, maize, cabbage, brinjals and cauliflower.Andhra Pradesh utilises about 50 per cent of the total pesticide produced in the country. And Guntur and Krishna alone account for 60 per cent of the pesticide consumed within the State. In certain areas farmers had been spraying pesticides almost every alternate day and yet could not control American Boll worm, brown plant hopper, leaf-folder worm, gall midge fly or stem borer.The result is heavy financial losses, fall in overall farm production, atmospheric pollution and health problems like arthritis, cancer, hormonal defects, change in texture of mother's milk and cardiac disorders.According to P Prakash Rao and A Janardhan Rao, technical officers of Integrated Pest Management Centre (IPMC) here, pests including sucking insect that had now assumed monstrous proportions were just minor entomological problems a few years ago. ``Our studies in Krishna and Guntur have shown that the growth in insect population is directly proportional to the use of pesticide. In other words, the more the usage of pesticide the more the growth in population of insects,'' they told this paper.Entomologists point out that a field is considered to be healthy if the population of spider species is about two to three lakhs a hectare. Nature is so programmed that for every pest there are thrice the number of useful predators to control diseases in plants. But, this ecological balance is tilted with the disappearance of 90 per cent of predators. Spiders are hardly seen. Friendly arthropods like grasshoppers, wasps and beetles and sparrows have virtually dissappeard.The city IPMC headed by Dr M S Mohiuddin has come up with effective biological control systems to wean away farmers from using pesticides. The centre is developing friendly insects in labs for distribution among farmers.Earlier too, the state has faced such disasters with regard to pest and pesticides. In fact, the government is now considering a proposal to teach pest management to farmers.
