100 Agricultural Harm to the Environment
Andhra Pradesh is one of the nine major cotton-producing states of India. The
rural population is 73 per cent of the total. Cotton is grown on 1.02 million hec-
tares. The industrial production of cottonseed is also concentrated in the state.
According to the 2001 census, Mahaboobnagar and Warangal districts have a total
population of 3,077,050 and 2,818,832, respectively. Cotton is grown as the main
crop during the rainy season (Karif ) on 121,260ha in Warangal and 22,697ha in
Mahbubnagar.
Darpalli is a small village populated by marginal native farmers (721 inhabit-
ants). The area under cotton was 45 hectares. The level of education among the
people was found to be very low (in 1997, 70 per cent of the rural people in the
state were not literate). In contrast, migrant communities, who moved from the
state coastal area in search of fertile lands to cultivate, mainly inhabited Srinigar
and Sairedapalli villages. The villages had respectively 3108 and 1038 inhabitants;
the area under cotton was 500ha and 122ha. Those villages could be considered
better off in that they had more education and wealth.
Training of enumerators and farmers
The study involved three FFS facilitators trained by the EU-FAO IPM Programme
for Cotton in Asia in season-long (six months) residential Training of Facilitators
(ToF) on IPM. In addition to the technical knowledge, the ToF provides a solid
background about adult non-formal education and enables facilitators to conduct
Participatory Action Research with farmers. In order to coach the self-health mon-
itoring, three FFS facilitators were also taught how to identify the signs and symp-
toms of acute pesticide poisoning. Emphasis was given to the need for establishing
clear correlations between illness and exposure to pesticides. Minor adaptations to
the specific study requirements were made to the reporting format and method
developed by Murphy et al (1999, 2002).
During the initial FFS sessions, three facilitators trained the farmers who had
volunteered to participate in the monitoring. The forms to be used were field
tested with 20 respondents to correct for any potential misunderstandings of the
reporting procedures as well as misconceptions about the signs and symptoms.
During the four months of the assessment, the project staff provided constant
coaching to the farmers and the facilitators. A mid-season review meeting was also
organized two months from the start. A simple analysis of the forms was done
together with the farmers at the end of the season in a final workshop.
Period and procedure
The actual reporting started in the second month of the cotton-growing season
when pesticides are first applied to the young plants, in August 2003, and lasted
until December 2003. Women farmers (n = 50) attending the FFSs, organized in
their respective villages, filled in health-monitoring forms after potential exposure to
a variety of pesticides. In addition to self-reporting their own signs and symptoms of