Negative side of artificial fertilizer

V R K de Silva

Sir Albert Howard a British Colonial officer in India, Imperial Botanist to the government of the Raj at Pusa carried out experiments over a period of 30 years and came to the conclusion that this application of artificial fertilizer was harmful. Plants grown on organic matter he found was resistant to insects and pests and it became obvious that for a proper soil management a regular supply of humus prepared from animal and vegetable wastes and that the maintenance of soil fertility was the fundamental basis of health.

Crops grown

He claimed that his crops grown on land so treated resisted all the pests rife in the district and that this resistance was passed on to the livestock as well when they were fed on crops so grown. He observed that the indigenous farmer never used artificial fertilizers, poison sprays, but were extremely careful in returning all animal and plant residues to the soil.

The campaign for organic agriculture caught on in Europe and US - Rodale in 1945 carried out experimental farms and pointed out that in China organic agriculture was able to feed a population of 900 million and nearly as many livestock and on about the same arable land available in the US opposition to Organic Farming.

The triumph of Truman the President of the US brought in the policy of deliberately banishing small farmers to industrial centers and unleashing the petro-chemicals. Through Truman’s creation of the CIA and of a National Security Council trained for ‘dirty tricks’ the multi nationals were able often through the guise of foreign aid, to impose their deadly chemicals not only on America North and South but on all the Third World markets.

Chemical fertilizer consumption in India rose from 1.1 million tons in 1966-67 to 50 million tons in 1978-79.

Silent Spring

With the publication of Rachel Carsons startling expose Silent Spring the public was awakened to the dangers of the situation and legal action was threatened by chemical companies to prevent her articles being published in the New Yorker and Houghton Mifflin from bringing out her book and accusing her of being a Communist.

Yet in 1963 Dr Jerome Wisner, Science Counsellor to President Kennedy reporting to a Commission on the book Silent Spring declared ‘Use of pesticides is more dangerous than a Atomic Fallout.’

Another protagonist for Organic Agriculture in his article ‘Is modern Agricultures worth having, was the first to expose the dangers behind the now highly propagandized irradiation of foodstuffs to ill pathogens and shelf life.

It is worth quoting from this article.’ When I saw this proposed behind the scenes I cited dozens of scientists who warned about some of the consequence of eating irradiated food - embryonal damage, reduced digestibility, malignant lymphomas in mice, changes in organs and more.

Since the after effects of the consumption of irradiated food on living tissues are similar to those of direct radiation, the relevant problem which include an eventual reduction of the resistance against infections diseases, AIDS included, deserved attention but the Svengalis of science defend irradiation as cheap.

Ecological implications

To sum up the ecological implications artificial fertilizers and chemical pesticides, weedicides and large scale irrigation schemes. Intensive cultivation of land without conservation of soil fertility and soil structure would lead to the springing up of deserts.

Chemical fertilizers affect the environment through point sources and non-point sources.

The vital environmental hazards that stem out from the modern agricultural system is pesticide, fungicides, weedicides solutions. The intensive cultivation and green revolution has pest control as one of the important technologies to achieve their target. The pesticides affect the environment from two sources.

The industries from which it is produced. The Bhopal tragedy the worst pesticidal genocide ever happened in the world rendered more than 3000 dead and nearly 250,000 people seriously affected and still having complicated problems arising out of that. The callousness of the Company is seen where a just package of compensation to the victims has not been satisfactorily made.

From the agricultural sources it affects the eco-system in every aspect.

A. Increase in pesticide amount through to process of bio-magnification.

B. Reduce the nitrification rate.

C. Affects organic matter decomposition by inhibiting the scavenger micro-organism.

D. Sulphur transformation.

E. Phosphate availability.

F. Trace elements availability.

G. Soil enzyme activity.

Irrigation without arrangement for drainage would result in soil getting alkaline or saline. In Lanka the ancients followed an eco-friendly irrigation system which overcame the adverse effects of the present huge reservoirs which has wiped and inundated the old small and medium tanks. Important major projects results in large scale floods water logging and salinity problems, siltation seismicity.

Rapid exhaustion

Unscientific tapping of underground water would lead to its rapid exhaustion of this wonderful asset.

The rapid replacement of numerous locally adopted varieties with one or two high yielding strains in large contiguous areas would result in serious diseases capable of wiping out entire crops eg. Irish potato famine of 1845 and the Bengal Rice famine of 1945.

Modern day agriculture is also one of the components which cause global warming.

The contribution of agriculture is through two forms.

Nitrous axides from nitrogenous fertilizer.

Methane from rice cultivation.

The modern technocrats who rule the R and D’s all over the world fail in many aspects as the forego the traditional wisdom that have been accumulated by the farming community over his interaction with agriculture for the past 3000 years.