Environmental Ethics

Author(s): S M Jain
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 56

Soil renewability :
Earlier when individual land holdings were large enough farmers would cultivate half the land in a year and leave other half fallow to allow it to recuperate and rejuvenate. Subsequently with rise in population entire land had to be cultivated but only one crop was raised and it was allowed to lie fallow during other crop season. Now the land is continuously cultivated with three crops all the year round giving no respite. The land also has renewability capacity but at a time scale very much greater (500 to 1000 years) than that of food crops or other biomass from few months to 5-20 years. As a result of over exploitation many areas are now converted into wastelands and remaining areas are also sustained by heavier and heavier doses of artificial fertilisers, hybrid varieties of crops, requiring more and more fertilisers and water. As a result vast areas of land has lost its natural fertility and the microorganisms which maintained its health and fertility. The land has been depleted into almost a machine requiring as much inputs as its output and is now uneconomic and is sustained on the crutches of huge subsidies all over the world.
Biological magnification of pesticides :
Even the farmers with larger land holdings cultivate land intensively growing three crops continuously year after year and because of greed use more and more poisonous pesticides, fertilisers and water. Earlier the farmers even with smaller land holdings were growing mix of crops at a time i.e. dividing the land for different crops and there was polyculture which was a natural method of pest control. Now single crop or monoculture is practised over miles and miles, making crops more and more susceptible to pests and requiring higher and higher doses of poisonous pesticides which are not only polluting the environment, the soil, water and air but also accumulating in animals and humans to limits beyond tolerance by biological magnification and is cause of several endemic diseases. Pesticides and fertiliser
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