little did farmers in Maharashtra know, or ever expect, that the thousands of rupees they invested in their soybean crop would be lost to countless colonies of caterpillars. The losses have shaken the region's agricultural economy to the roots. Now, while discussing whether the pest attack was preventable, several allegations and counter allegations are being made and the blame shifts focus from bureaucracy to "careless farmers". Overuse of pesticides, climate change and irreparable damage to the local environment combined to bring down with a crash one of the best crop seasons that the farmers of suicide-ridden Vidarbha had seen in a decade.
The spurt in soybean prices in the last crop season from Rs 1,200 to Rs 3,000 per quintal caused the cultivation area of soybean to soar this year to over 1.9 million hectares (ha) in the region--a rise of more than 20 per cent over last year's figures.The crop promised to be a bumper one, until in the early part of August, when the caterpillars rapidly spread to over seven districts. "I have never seen a calamity of such proportion in my 70 years. It was a nightmare. Not a single bean is left on the stalks. We are bankrupt. The food stock we have will last us another month or two. Starvation stares us in the face," says Maroti Doye of Chandrapur district, one of the worst hit districts in the state. Doye's son recently committed suicide after the tobacco-leaf eating caterpillar Spodoptera litura destroyed his crop spread across about 9 ha. Chandrapur has sustained crop losses to the tune of Rs 600 crore. Crops on 235,000 ha, including cotton and tur among others, were also damaged and an estimated 200,000 families affected. The pest attack, which also killed cattle and goats and caused illnesses among people, is in abeyance as the caterpillars have now formed cocoons under the soil, but the farming community still lives in fear of another outbreak during the rabi crop season which begins in late September. The mood in most villages is despondent as there is no hope of compensation. But Subash Sharma of Dorli village is a happy man (see box Spark in the dark).
The caterpillar has also attacked bt-2 cotton plants in parts of Warora, Bhadravati and Chandrapur tehsil proving hollow Mahyco and Monsanto's claims that its newly launched Bollgard 2 cotton seed was immune to all kinds of pest attack.
Pesticides did not work
Farmers said heavy spraying with commonly used pesticides, endosulfan and quinol phos, and expensive brands costing more than Rs 3,500 per litre could not save their soybean. B M Mankar, agriculture development officer of Chandrapur district, says that the absence of preventive spraying practices in case of soybean has caused the pesticide failure. "Farmers here do not routinely spray pesticides on soybean crops as they do with cotton. The larvae started appearing in late July, but went unnoticed due to rain. It was only around the second week of August that the pests were noticed and the spraying started. By that time the caterpillars were already full grown," he says. The other reason, cited by both the agriculture department and Panjabrao Krushi Vidyapeeth (pkv), Akola, an agricultural university, is spraying is done on the top of the plants, while the caterpillars mostly stay under the leaves. "Thorough spraying from under, needed to wipe out the pests completely, was not done," says Shivaji Sarode of pkv.
Farmers don't agree. Arun Pimpalshende, a young farmer from Marda village in Chandrapur tehsil, says in a fit of desperation he grabbed a few caterpillars and dumped them into a can of endosulfan. "But they did not die, you know.