Kerala to disappear in ten years: Jesuit environmentalists Published: 10:22 am, July 29, 2013 Story By: mattersindia reporter Kochi: Kerala as we know it now will disappear within next ten years unless urgent steps are taken to correct some negative trends, a group of Jesuit environmentalists has warned. “Kerala which has been known as God’s Own Country is fast heading toward an ecological disaster in the vital areas of food and health,” observed the group that toured the southern Indian state for a month in preparation for the opening of a Jesuit ecology center. The group comprising Fathers Rappai Poothokaren, James Morais and Robert Athickal organized four consultations on ecology at Calicut, Trichur, Ernakulam and Trivandrum in June to get input from experts and interested people to decide on the nature of work for the center named “Aadi” (beginning). The participants included activists, academicians, Catholic Religious people and experts on various fields. The center is proposed at Attapady, a tribal region in Palakkad district that hit heads recently after several kids died of starvation and malnutrition. One of the trends the group noticed in Kerala is that the state has sufficient funds but no food that is good and healthy. “While the monocultures of rubber, coconut, coco, vanilla, cashew nuts, and pineapples and in some cases mangoes brought financial security for the families, the process ended up in total dependence for every day rice, vegetables and meat on the neighboring states,” the Jesuits observed in the concluding remarks. They said farmers in Kerala opted for monocultures because of labor scarcity. “The large scale migration of youngsters from (Kerala) to other parts of the globe, resulted in Kerala farmers finding it extremely difficult to get labor to cultivate daily items such as rice and vegetables,” the group remarked. This not only ended rice cultivation in the state but also led to rubber plantation encroaching rice farms. The group recalled a warning late Jesuit agricultural scientist Father K. M. Mathew made decades ago that monoculture would turn Kerala into an “ecological cemetery of silence.” Kerala now gets its daily rice, vegetables and meat from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha and Tamil Nadu where industries and business firms have undertaken large scale farming of food items. “Farmers in these states use poisonous pesticides and hormones extensively. At the same time, they did not use the same for their own personal use,” the Jesuits noted from the discussions at their consultations. Several participants told them that poisonous substance such as Endosulfan, which is banned in Kerala, has been extensively used in other parts of India, especially in Andhra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Another negative trend in Kerala is poor way institutions and others manage their waster. “Many told us waste management is one of the biggest problems on the ecological front. Municipal corporations and Panchayat (village council) have no adequate arrangements for waste disposal,” the group said This has led to rivers in the state getting littered with plastic bags and bottles. “In fact the problem is getting more compounded,” they added. All these trends have had a direct impact on the health of Kerala’s population. The group quoted the Economic Times to pointed out that cancer cases have increased 200 percent and cardiac cases 800 times in the past decade. “Stomach ailments such as ulcer, diarrhea and intestinal cancer are common,” the report said. The participants at the consultation pointed out that children in Kerala are gaining unnatural weight because of overdose hormones pumped into food. One scientist told a meeting that the average height of children has shot up by 15 centimeters in the past ten years. Farmers who attended the meetings expressed their helplessness. They said they cannot give up rubber cultivation since the cost of living and labor has increased manifold in the past few years. The daily for an agriculture laborer is around 500 rupees, up from 200 rupees five years ago. “One of the strongly supported observations was that Kerala as of now would disappear in a short period of ten years,” the Jesuit experts said in their concluding remarks. The participants urged the Church, especially the Jesuits, to take “a prophetic stand” at what they said was “an hour of crisis.” They want the Church leaders to persuade people to opt for great simplicity and mutual assistance and cooperation. “Instead of building up larger opulent churches and institutions, it is laid on them as a duty to exhort the community to simpler ways of living a happy life,” the participants asserted. “While the technocratic society looked at frugality as poverty, the Church especially the Religious communities always cherished frugal and contended happy living,” they noted. The Jesuit experts say families in Kerala would regain their health if they start cultivating their daily needs of rice and vegetables on their farms. “They may have to cut down on their indulgence on fish and meat,” they said. To overcome the labor problem, the Jesuits suggested that Kerala farmers assist each other during transplantation and harvesting. “Looking back 50 years in Kerala history, such give and take practices were common,” they said and asked parish priests and the Religious to lead the people in “this crisis of survival.” A positive trend is the decision of some people and institutions have resorted to organic farming to combat the problem of pesticides and chemicals. One of the institutions to do so is the Jesuit novitiate in Alwaye where the three Jesuit experts stayed. Some women who attended the consultations said they have stopped buying fruits from the market and instead started growing them in their land.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 09:13:22 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015