A Necessary Evil?
Many would argue that such
chemical fertilisers are necessary if we are to feed a growing, frequently
starving population. However, as one farmer in the region of Uttar Pradesh,
India, reported in 1990:
Earlier … no one knew about
[chemical] fertilizer and people used to apply desi fertilizer (i.e. manure).
Now, they mostly use market fertilizer: it makes the soil weak and deficient…
so the soil is getting weaker…and the taste is diminishing in this way.
(Gupta, 1998)14
Food losing its flavour,
the very make-up of the soil is being destroyed, and farmers are required to
buy in fertilizers and thus find themselves exposed to the vagaries of the
market. This is a sorry indictment of the impact of chemical fertilizers on the
lives of producers and consumers, and on the land itself. And yet governments
and other international agencies, either frightened of, or in cahoots with, the
powerful agrochemical lobby, turn a blind eye to the consequences of their
actions.