Trivandrum: Kerala's harvest festival of Onam has turned bitter for vegetable growers in Tamil Nadu this year with people in the southern Indian state producing about 70 per cent of the vegetable they require for the festival through organic farming within the state.
Vegetables grown in hundreds of hectares of land in Coimbatore, Dindigul, Theni, Madurai, Virudnagar, Nagercoil and other districts in Tamil Nadu have remained without takers with the demand from Kerala dwindling.
The farmers, who had timed their crop to meet the needs during the Onam, are forced to sell their produce in the domestic market at throw away prices resulting in huge loss.
Keralites, who abandoned agriculture following growing urbanisation and rising wage levels, started growing vegetables and fruits they require in their homesteads and rooftops, after they found that the amounts of pesticide in vegetables they got from Tamil Nadu were higher than permissible levels.
A team of food safety officials who visited several farms in Tamil Nadu found that pesticide use in vegetable there was four or five times the permissible limit.
The team found that the farmers have been widely using dangerous types of insecticides like furadan, chlorphyrfos, acephate, monocrotophos, acephate and imidacloprid and polytrin that cause diseases like cancer and diabetics.
india
E-Paper
Sign In
0°C 
