Environment degradation

Prof. (Dr) R.D. Gupta
Though rapid strides have been rendered by India in food security yet new problems relating to environment degradation like air, water and soil pollutions and climate change are posing new dangers to the food security. With the assistance of scientific agricultural research through Green Revolution, we have succeeded not only in modernizing of agriculture but also in achieving self sufficiency in food grains production. This is quite evident from food grain production from about 50 million tonnes during 1947 to about 263 million tonnes during 2012-13. However, the agriculture policy in the country has been such that it benefitted only  the rich farmers, growing rice. And the so called trickle-down effect has not happened to the poor farmers i.e; farmers who are still landless, small and marginal.
There may not be shortage of food grains in the country with godowns overflowing stocks available is at least three times that of buffer stock requirement of 26 million tonnes. Despite the drought situation in many parts of the country and 12% deficit rainfall during last monsoon season food grains production were 257.07 million tonnes in 2014-15, which was only about 3% lower than record food grains production achieved during 2013-14.
There is no doubt that the Green Revolution made the country self-sufficient in food production. However use of high yielding varieties of rice and wheat, which responded to higher doses of chemical fertilizers and pesticides as well as large quantities of water have degraded the environment. Excessive application of nitrogenous fertilizer has implicated in nitrate pollution of ground water. High nitrate levels are the most wide spread contamination of ground water globally and can lead to health problems such as “Blu Baby” disease in infants. Even in the early 1990’s, agriculturally advanced states of Punjab, Haryana, where fertilizers is intensively used, had water wells above the safe limit of nitrate as prescribed by the WHO. Infact excessive use and abuse of chemical fertilizers has poisoned the soils, hybrid crops varieties being pushed at a subsidized prices have destroyed the soil fertility and sucked the ground water dry.
The Central Ground Water Board has found that water from wells in over 300 sites scattered across Gujarat too had high nitrate level. Recently Central Ground Water Board, found nitrate level in the ground water used in Bangalore and many other places of Karnataka. Large scale drawing of ground water can create more serious hazards of heavy metals. The arsenic contamination of ground water in West Bengal and neighbouring Bangladesh has affected millions of people. It has been called the largest mass poisoning in the history. Now there are number of reports of arsenic contaminated ground water in many parts of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh served by the river Ganga.
Heavy metals pollution of lead, chromium, nickel and cadmimum, has been observed in a number of water bodies of Kashmir (Dal lake, Wular lake) and Jammu (Mansar, Suriansar lake). These heavy metals are also deposited in the soils through accumulation of sewage and sludge. These metals finally get deposited in the bodies of human beings through taking of agricultural products grown on heavy metal contaminated soils. Excessive amount of fluoride disrupts the activity of normally functioning hormones. It can reduce levels of melatonin, the sleep hormone, in the body, causing chronic insomnia. The declining ground water levels had serious implication on water quality as the water from deeper aquifers usually carried higher amount of fluoride, nitrate and dissolved solids.
There is alarming reports about the increased level of pesticides in toxic amounts in milk and other food stuffs. Slow absorption and accumulation of some of the chemicals by lower organisms like water microbes and plants coupled with their regular increased application leads to biological magnification and become carcinogenic at a certain critical concentration. The repercussions of man’s ill treatment of nature have been many, but it is only recently that they have begun assuming alarming proportions. One of the more far reaching consequences, according to a number of scientists, is the gradual rise in earth’s temperature. It is attributed to green house effect. It mainly occurs due to increased level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the earth thin gaseous envelop. Methane (CH4), ozone (O3) and chlorofluoro-carbons are the other green house gases.
Denitrification is another process in soils, which involves conversion of soil nitrate into gaseous nitrogen and/or nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Presence of higher amount of such gases not only contaminate atmospheric air but also increase the atmospheric temperature.
Strategies to Control
* Encourage organic farming: Organic farming excludes the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Contrary to this, use of organic pesticides and biofertlizers is encouraged.
* Balanced use of fertilizers: Balanced use of fertilizers is the only remedy to improve the present scenario. Indeed, the balanced use of fertilizers for various crops, is a prime necessity for maintenance of soil fertility and enhancing crop productivity on sustainable basis and avoiding any damage to the environment.
* Growing of cover crops: These are used to control weeds and increase nutrients in the soil. For example using legumes or by using plants with long roots pull mobile nutrients backup to surface from lower layers of soil.
* Ban on cutting down the trees: Cutting down of the trees and other vegetation reduces oxygen generation and polluting the air with carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide etc.
* Ban on over grazing of the pastures: Owing to increased livestock population, the pasture lands have become more eroded, reducing thereby, their fertility. So overgrazing should be totally banned.
* Setting up of Agroforestry: Adoption of agroforestry is the need of the day, especially in Kandi belt of North West Himalayas. Agroferestry i.e; agronomy-forestry, horticulture-forestry, agronomy-animal husbandry-forestry, are the main agroforestry systems which are required to setup.
* Afforestation: The forest cover of any area must not be less than 33% of the total geographical area but unfortunately to about 20 to 22%. As forests are disappearing the atmospheric oxygen cycle has been disturbed. It is because plants/trees regulate supply of oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide and other gases. Hence different tree species must be planted indeforested areas, which is called afforestation.
(The author former Associate Dean-cum-cum Chief Scientist KVK, SKUAST-J)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com

Follow our WhatsApp channel