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SRINAGAR: In Srinagar, for once, authorities took a backmost spot connected December 8, erstwhile the conversations revolved not astir the tug-of-war betwixt CM Omar Abdullah and LG Manoj Sinha, oregon different circular of information briefings.
In the J&K assembly corridors this Monday, lawmakers gathered alternatively to face a deadlier governmental unsighted spot: Cancer among its farmers.The House Committee connected Environment, chaired by CPM legislator MY Tarigami, convened the league with apical officials, experts and scientists successful the state.Horticulture sustains millions present but receives small argumentation attention. For years, farmers person sprayed orchards unaware of the toxicity of changeless pesticide exposure, starring to a emergence successful malignant encephalon tumors among those who powerfulness the valley’s billion-rupee pome system and lend much than 70% of India’s full apples.The archetypal survey connected the information of pesticides successful Kashmir’s pome orchards was done by Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS). It had past identified a “quite beardown and possible” nexus betwixt the chemic vulnerability and malignant encephalon tumours among orchard farmers.Examining implicit 400 crab patients betwixt 2005 and 2008, the survey had pointed to alarmingly precocious incidences of superior encephalon crab successful districts that signifier Kashmir’s halfway effect loop including Baramulla, Anantnag, Budgam, Shopian and Kupwara.
The findings, mostly ignored astatine the time, person resurfaced amid increasing aesculapian grounds of pesticide-linked wellness disorders successful the valley.Tarigami told TOI connected Thursday: “We don’t privation to make panic among farmers who spray their orchards each season. But neither tin we beryllium idle erstwhile information indicates a superior wellness hazard. If pesticide spray is harming lives, it indispensable beryllium addressed.”The committee has present sought inputs from scientists and wellness practitioners to plan tract studies that seizure vulnerability levels, chemic compositions, and semipermanent wellness outcomes successful apple-growing districts.Kashmir’s pome roar began with 1950s onshore reforms nether Sheikh Abdullah, diversifying farming from atom to horticulture. By the 1960s, orchard cultivation expanded done technological spraying schedules and grafting techniques. Today, 3.35 lakh hectares employment 3.5 cardinal radical and lend astir 10% to J&K’s GDP, generating astatine slightest 400 man-days of enactment per hectare per year, making it cardinal to Kashmir’s agrarian economy.Dr Shahid Rasool, main idiosyncratic astatine CSIR-IIIM, said: “Orchardists present usage 15 rounds of fungicide and insecticide each season, often acold beyond limits. Believing it boosts yield, galore over-spray -- each 10–12 days alternatively of 18–21.”Few tin spend protective gear; chronic cough, rashes and irritation are common. “Without gloves, goggles and masks, the hazard multiplies,” Rasool warned, urging PPE subsidies and safer practices.While policymakers person conscionable begun to react, section researchers person been raising reddish flags for years. Dr Sobia Nisar, physician-researcher successful the section of medicine astatine Government Medical College, Srinagar, has spent the past six years studying the biochemical interaction of chronic pesticide vulnerability connected residents of Shopian and Pulwama: 2 districts synonymous with ‘Apple wealth.’“The archetypal thought was to cheque pesticides residue levels successful the fruit,” she said.
“But what we recovered was acold much disturbing. Traces of these compounds successful quality humor samples.”The study, soon to beryllium published, documents pesticide residues successful the bloodstream of orchard workers and adjacent residents, alongside higher rates of obesity, lipid disorders, and metabolic syndrome. “When specified patterns look consistently crossed populations exposed to pesticides, it demands urgent technological scrutiny,” Nisar added. Equally worrying are her team’s findings of aboriginal kidney relation impairment among immoderate farmers.Tarigami said the committee’s deliberations successful the gathering volition beryllium followed by recommendations to the wellness and horticulture departments connected monitoring, probe funding, and idiosyncratic safety.
