Punjab’s cancer belt finds antidote in its dense cover of neem

The mission, in the process, is also bringing about empowerment of rural women. While women in villages such as Kot Shamir are now getting to be part of Punjab’s campaign of promoting bio-pesticides, they also earn at least Rs 100 a day by selling ripe fruits of neem trees (the fruit fetches Rs 3 per kg) and de-pulping them to extract kernels that are used to make neem powder.

Punjab is the third state after Maharashtra and West Bengal where the Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers is funding the bio-pesticide project. The other two states have already taken to mass propagation of this low-cost, simple technology after three years of field trials in phase I of the project.

Punjab, which was included in phase II, is into its second year now and is conducting farmer contact programmes to sensitise villagers on the harmful impact of chemical pesticides.

“We are educating villagers on how chemical pesticides kill pests indiscriminately, including friendly predators such as beetles, which are natural enemies of these pests. Also unlike chemicals, there is no residual toxicity in case of neem pesticides after seven days and it only causes morbidity rendering the pests incapable of causing any damage to crops and not mortality as in the case of chemical ones. This belt is already witnessing the worst damage chemical pesticides can cause in the form of high incidence of cancer as the overuse has also contaminated its water resources and soil,” says Dr Dapinder Bakshi, senior scientific advisor with the Punjab State Council of Science and Technology, which is conducting the field trials.

Collaborating with the Council is Department of Forests and Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, which is conducting laboratory trials for studying the impact of Punjab’s own indigenous neem on its local pests.

From Kot Shamir, the contact programme has now travelled to nearby Tungwali village in Bathinda and Sangrur, another district that boasts of huge neem vegetation.

And the targets have gone up too. By the end of this neem fruit season (till August), the Council expects to collect nearly 50 tonnes of fruit, up six-fold from the earlier eight tonnes.

The success run of the first year has led to setting up of the first unit for mechanical de-pulping, drying of seeds and making kernel powder at the Science and Technology Entrepreneur’s Park (STEPS) at the Thapar Institute in Patiala, the third district making remarkable strides in promotion of neem pesticides.

Expecting a surge in demand, another two such units are planned at Bathinda and Sangrur.

With none other than Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal pushing for the cause, Council chairman N S Tiwana is hopeful that Punjab will be freed from the scourge of chemical pesticides within five years.

And when that happens, neem would no longer remain confined to just the Malwa belt. Then women will also have another role to play, that of being part of the large-scale neem plantation.riv