YEH KHET MANGE MORE....

Kishan Katlam is a humble farmer from a small village called Bhaisra in Rajnandgaon district, Chhattisgarh. He has gratitude and respect for manufacturers of soft drinks like coco-cola and pepsi in his heart. He utters his khet (fields) mange more of Pepsi....A litre of coca cola or pepsi mixed in 3 buckets of water produces a great combination..for using as a pesticides(?).

Chhattisgarh is proudly known as 'rice-bowl' of India. However 23 thousand varieties of paddy are grown in this region. Several global forces have already started eyeing the rich traditional seed varieties for developing hybrid seeds and earn handsome profits. In the same context, Syngenta, a Swiss base company, contacted the IGKV, Raipur, for acquiring rice germ plasm of traditional varieties is the sole objective of acquiring their patents for profit making. All these varieties were developed by the agrarian communities after practicing for centuries and they are the first natural owners of 24,000 varieties of germ plasm of Chhaattisgarh. It will be deemed as a moral crime if any one try to make profit out of it. The agriculture scientist and experts need to spread awareness among the farmers about the possible threat of bio- piracy.

In Chhattisgarh, this work was done by Dr. R.H. Richharia. Not only did he researched and experimented about the rich quality of paddy varieties but he also preserved near about 17,000 paddy germ plasms which could survive even if there wasn’t enough rainfall. But this invaluable collection is under serious threat from multinational seed companies who want to acquire this common property of Chhattisgarh farmers for profit making.

The farmers have done considerable biotech and agroclimatic transformations in tradional variety of paddy, so that they might be proned to pests. But with the arrival and vast use of hybrid seeds, the crops started catching pests. This enforced farmers to use costly pesticides available, to fight with the pests. But it was not possible for all farmers to use these costly pesticides. They were in search of cheaper alternative. They finally got the remedy, it was soft drinks.
This was the thing which is not only low in cost but easily available.

Kishan Katlam gladly tells , "its highly effective upon few rigid pests like banki, maho and chitri". Another farmer, Dhirendra says, "nothing could be cheaper than this. Even the fishes developing in fields are dying due it."
The farmers elaborated that general pesticides used to cost approx. Rs. 70 for single acre. Now 2 bottles of 120 ml cold drink are sufficient for one acre of land, that means cost shall be just Rs.10.

Regarding effectiveness, they say, its more effective than foret, metaseed, democron, farsa, few common names available in market. Last crop of paddy was attacked by maho, and the farmers Mahendra Oati, Ramchand Mandavi, Devidas Nirmalkar, Hemlal, Naresh kumar and many others, saved their crops by using cold drinks. Even the sarpanch of the village , Budhram Verma used pepsi as a pesticides.

Interesting thing is that in a meet of farmers in gram panchayat, organised by state government, it was revealed that the farmers of nearby villages like Achholi, Devbatta, Belgaon, Katli are also using cold drinks as pesticides.The gram sevak suggested the farmers to use the same.

Some scientists, deny that colddrinks could work as pesticides but they feel that as these cold drinks are sweet syrups, and contain sugar and carbohydrates, these two elements, provide food to plants. It increases the resistance power of plants. While few believe that the syrup attracts the ants and ants eat the larvae of pest. This whole action, gives the drinks the status of pesticides.

Anyway, this is the good news for marketing division of cold drinks. In the remote villages also, these drinks are easily available on thelas and pan-shops. the sales have increased tremendously in these villages. This fact is even confirmed by a general store owner that farmers are buying cold drinks to be used as pesticides.

Neither the vendor nor the consumer wants to reveal the new use of cold drinks. The innocent people think, any type of publicity would increase the prices and after that they will loose the opportunity of using this very cheap alternative.

Sunita Narayan's report left little impact upon educated consumers. But the uneducated farmers are much smarters. They have found its right use, they say.Its not only cost effective but highly active also.