India’s Cottony Pesticide Cloud

Looks like Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” never got translated into Hindi.

By: ArtAdmin | Nov 20, 2007 |  0

Categories: Economics & Trade, Environment, T-shirt Textiles & Manufacture, Video

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It seems like all the advances made by the environmental movement against pesticide use in North America has been of little benefit to the developing world. Rachel Carson, who authored "Silent Spring" in 1962 and launched public awareness against pesticides, probably wouldn't be too surprised.

The petrochemical industry (nationalities are irrelevant) has simply begun selling what they can't sell to North American and European farmers to farmers that aren't even able to read the warning labels, let alone understand the long-term health and environmental implications. There are dollars to be made and what happens in a 1/2 acre field around the world is irrelevant to quarterly results.

This short film, produced by the Australia-based NewInternationalist, looks at the cotton industry in Southern India. It really speaks for itself and will change the way you think about that next shirt.

Another excellent documentary was done by PBS Frontline "Seeds of Suicide", and can be seen on their website. It makes the connection between genetic seed modification, the petrochemical industry and Indian farmer suicides - an estimated 25,000 since 1997! These are marginal farmers that have been lured to, and caught in, the vicious cycle of multi-national agribusiness dependency and indebtedness. When they loose their land, they loose everything.

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