Genetic, neurological, behavioural damage. The legacy of pesticides, survey of Indian Panjab.

[sanjaykumar]

Genetic, neurological, behavioural damage. The legacy of pesticides, survey of Indian Panjab.


I will start this topic to document evidence, basic research as well as clinical and social of the effects of ground water contamination in rural Panjab.

The prompt for this is my recent acquaintance with the practice of Panjab farmers of reserving a plot of land for their own use, where they desist from abusing pesticides and fertilizers. It is not through ignorance that Panjab exports this grain to the rest of India. I do not know if it is through malice.

[Rakesh]

Must the title thread be this long? And this thread belongs in the Science, Economics & Technology Forum.

[sanjaykumar]

Please adjust as deemed fit.

[sanjaykumar]

Citations will be omitted.

Some elementary statistics,



State Total pesticides consumed
1 Uttar Pradesh 39948
2 Punjab 29235
3 Haryana 21908
4 Maharashtra 16480
5 Rajasthan 15239
6 Gujarat 13430
7 Tamil Nadu 12851
All India 210,600


However this is needs to be corrected for acreage.






But these tables do not correct for acreage under cultivation, Madhya Pradesh has a miniscule use of fertilizers. However it produces the second highest yield of wheat in India



State/ UT

Wheat (Th. tonnes)

1

Uttar Pradesh

33949.68

2

Madhya Pradesh

22418.5

3

Punjab

14821.94

4

Haryana

10447.21

5

Rajasthan

9484.08

6

Bihar

6223.76

7

Gujarat

3334.24

8

Maharashtra

2473.71

9

Uttarakhand

863.6

10

West Bengal

661.52


More meaningfully fertilizer application per unit shows Panjab to be at the first spot.


8.2 kg/ha

In India, Punjab has the biggest consumption of fertilizer (in Kg Per hectare). Punjab state alone consumes about 9 per cent of the total fertilizers in India and the use is the highest on a per unit area basis at 190.1 kg/ha of the gross cropped area against 88.2 kg/ha in all India.

[sanjaykumar]

The size of the state is relevant as well as the application of fertilizers and pesticides per unit area.

This is because groundwater contamination is partially a function of dilution. Not that all geographical areas have constant groundwater and ground water flux. (accessibility to water reservoirs of applied chemicals).

I could not find useful ground water analysis in different parts of India


District level health outcomes are available and can be correlated to overall pesticide use, for Malwa area (Patiala, Ludhiana):

The Malwa region of Punjab consumes nearly 75 percent of the total pesticides used in the state. The high use of pesticides, along with environmental and social factors, is suspected to have led to a high concentration of pesticide residues in the water, soil and food chain, threatening the health of the local population and the environment in the region.

The region has been described as India’s "cancer capital" due to the abnormally high number of cancer cases, which have increased 3-fold in the last 10 years. Studies of this region have also highlighted a sharp increase in intellectual disability and reproductive disorders, suspected to be due to pesticide use.

[sanjaykumar]

If it is any comfort, China uses forty times as much pesticide as India.

I suggest one consider abjuring foodstuffs from China.

As far as I know the Indian consumer has no choice or option when it comes to grain, especially that which enters the central pool. This grain is mostly consumed as a subsidy in regions outside Panjab.

Back to the study of Malwa region of Panjab, https://www.indiawaterportal.org/articl ... pes-punjab


The study found that:



Use of pesticides depended on the type of crops cultivated
Farmers who cultivated wheat were spraying pesticide three times in the whole crop season. Initially, herbicides were sprayed to clear unwanted plants like climbers and creepers. Pesticides were used later to control pests and weeds.

Pesticides led to extensive water and soil pollution
In this region, rain and irrigation caused extensive leaching or downward movement of pesticides and fertilisers through the soil and the unsaturated zone, to the groundwater. There were several other sources of water pollution as well, such as decayed animal, plant and nitrogenous wastes, industrial effluents and domestic wastewater containing detergents. High amounts of insecticides and pesticides were found in agricultural runoff in all seasons, with the highest being after the monsoon, due to increased surface runoff.

Vegetables were saturated with dangerous levels of heavy metals from pesticides
Vegetables tested in the region along the banks of the river Ghaggar were found to be highly contaminated with harmful heavy metals such as chromium, manganese, nickel, copper, lead, cadmium and uranium. The concentrations of these heavy metals in all the vegetables samples were found to be higher than those recommended by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) guideline values.

River water was loaded with toxic heavy metals from pesticides
The waters of river Ghaggar in the region were found to be heavily loaded with toxic heavy metals such as chromium, manganese, nickel, zinc, antimony, tin, lead, strontium, cadmium, uranium, titanium, with their concentrations being much higher than the safe limits prescribed by various organisations and agencies such as the US EPA, WHO and the BIS.

People from the villages reported a range of health problems
This high level of pollution of the food and water sources also reflected in the poor health of local residents. The prevalence of cancer and hepatitis C was found to be very high in these villages. Spontaneous abortions and premature births were also found to be significantly higher. Stillbirths were about five times higher as compared with figures from other South Asian countries.

A large proportion of children in the area suffer from delayed developmental milestones, exhibit a blue line in their gums, have mottled teeth and presented with gastrointestinal morbidities. Although no direct association was established in the study, the results showed that heavy metal and pesticide exposure may be potential risk factors for adverse reproductive and child health outcomes.

[sanjaykumar]

An older publication summarises possible effects of pesticide exposure and more subtle neurobehavioural sequelae, ADHD in this investigation.
https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/d ... .14-260901

The limitation of this study is the lack of reporting a dose-response effect. Likely risk multiples non-linearly with high exposures.
Further, it logically leads to the question of multiple contaminants and either likely additive and possibly synergistic effects.

[sanjaykumar]

This is a good summary of pesticide association with cancer risk.

https://www.beyondpesticides.org/resour ... ase/cancer

Here is a summary of genetic risk of pesticides, or at least the mechanistic pathways to potential cancer risk.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8394939/