Since July 19, 18 farmers have died in Yavatmal and 14 in surrounding districts in the cotton growing belt of the state. The two fresh deaths have been reported from Nagpur and Akola.
Nagpur: Cotton cultivation experts and researchers have said the cumulative effect of several factors, such as humidity, spraying of pesticide cocktails and use of a new kind of spraying machine, seem to be behind the deaths of cotton growers in Maharashtra. The number of deaths climbed to 32 on Sunday.
Since July 19, 18 farmers have died in Yavatmal and 14 in surrounding districts in the cotton growing belt of the state. The two fresh deaths have been reported from Nagpur and Akola.
Yavatmal police have initiated criminal action against five pesticide sellers who didn’t have the licence to sell the products. “We have registered FIRs under the Insecticides Act,” Yavatmal Superintendent of Police M Rajkumar said.
But the acting director of the Central Institute of Cotton Research, Vijay Waghmare, pointed to other factors that could have claimed the lives of farmers and labourers.
“The Bt cotton crop at this time is standing at least one or two feet taller than previous years and with heavy foliage…. So, the farmers sprayed at head level. The area under cotton, too, has grown from about 37 lakh hectares to about 42 lakh hectares in the Maharashtra. Also, from the past 4-5 years, farmers have been extending the crop beyond December right till February-March to get extra quintals,” Waghmare said.
He said extending the crop cultivation time leads to “failure to break the pest cycle” and an “increase in the spread of pests”.
He said if the crop cycle ends in December, the “pest cycle is also broken”, but if cultivation continues till close to the following season, the insects remain and continue to breed.
Waghmare also said that “farmers have been increasingly using cocktails of pesticides, which we strictly recommend against. Also, there was a lot of humidity in September and the farmers probably didn’t cover themselves properly to escape it, letting in a lot of pesticide through their skin and noses. Humidity also multiplies pests.”
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