Read the following passage carefully.
1NO PESTICIDES, HIGHER CROP YIELDS
(1) It was in 1999 that Punukula, a tiny village in Andhra Pradesh's Khammam district successfully began experimenting with non-pesticidal management practices. The contaminated environment began to change. Soil and plant health looked revitalised, and the pests began to disappear. Restoring the ecological balance brought back the natural pest control systems. The crop yields were still higher. Punukula is not the only village to have escaped from the vicious cycle of poison. Thousands of villages in the country have clearly demonstrated that pesticides are not only harmful but also unnecessary.
(2) In Bangladesh, 2,000 poor rice farmers with average farm incomes of Rs 4,000 a year have proved mainline agricultural scientists completely wrong. Gary John, senior scientist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Manila, was completely stumped by the change they brought about in just two years. "To my surprise when people stopped spraying, yields didn't drop – and this was across 600 fields in two different districts over four seasons. I'm convinced that the vast majority of insecticides that rice farmers use are a complete waste of time and money."
(3) Bangladesh rice farmers conclusively demonstrated that insecticide can be eliminated and nitrogen fertilizer applications reduced without lowering yields.
(4) Some agricultural scientists have begun to realise that chemical pesticides are not necessary. The tragedy is that this recognition has come much late – only after poisoning the lands, contaminating the ground water, polluting the environment, putting millions to health risk and fatalities, and killing thousands of farmers and farm workers. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that some 20,000 people die every year from pesticides poisoning.
(5) With the advent of modern science, which began to view everything traditional as backward and sub-standard, the collective wisdom of generations of farmers was lost. The result being that while expensive and unwanted pesticides are being promoted and pushed by scientists and extension workers, farmers are looking for safe and ecological alternatives. Is it not a fact that the chemical industry, which gained commercially from the surge in widespread use, has very cleverly used agricultural scientists as its promoters?
The chemical industry has meanwhile moved into life sciences. It now decries pesticides and sings the virtues of the new "promising technology" – genetic engineering. Pesticides are now being replaced with genetically modified crops, which perform the same functions. Agricultural scientists need to think whether they are once again being used as promoters of a technology, the negative impact of which have not been fully studied.
Devinder Sharma
OBJECTIVE TYPE QUESTIONS
(a) Punukula experiment of non-pesticidal management practices began in ................
(b) Punukula is the only village to escape the vicious circle of poison. (True/False)
(c) The example of Bangladeshi rice farmers convinced Gary John that most of the pesticides used by farmers are a .................. of time and money.
(d) The 'recognition' (paragraph 4) the author talks about is the realisation that .................... are unnecessary.
(e) According to the WHO estimates, about ............. people die every year from pesticides poisoning.
(f) The chemical industry has used...............to promote its poisonous insecticides and pesticides.
(g) The "promising technology" (paragraph 6) refers to........................
(h) A word in paragraph 2 that means the same as 'puzzled' is................. .
(i) A word in paragraph5 that means the opposite of 'a sudden decrease' is...................
Answers
Answer:
It was in 1999 that Punukula, a tiny village in Andhra Pradesh’s Khammam district successfully began experimenting with non-pesticidal management practices. The contaminated environment began to change. Soil and plant health looked revitalized, and the pests began to disappear. Restoring the ecological balance brought back the natural pest control systems. The crop yields were still higher. Punukula is not the only village to have escaped from the vicious cycle of poison. Thousands of villages in the country have clearly demonstrated that pesticides are not only harmful but also unnecessary.
In Bangladesh, 2,000 poor rice farmers with average farm incomes of Rs 4,000 a year have proved mainline agricultural scientists completely wrong. Gary John, senior scientist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Manila, was completely stumped by the change they brought about in just two years. “To my surprise when people stopped spraying, yields didn’t drop- and this was across 600 fields in two different districts over four seasons. I’m convinced that the vast majority of insecticides that rice farmers use are a complete waste of time and money.”
Bangladesh rice farmers conclusively demonstrated that insecticides can be eliminated and nitrogen fertilizer applications reduced without lowering yields.
Some agricultural scientists have begun to realize that chemical pesticides are not necessary. The tragedy is that this recognition has come much late- only after poisoning the lands, contaminating the ground water, polluting the environment, putting millions to heath risk and fatalities, and killing thousands of farmers and farm workers. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that some 20,000 people die every year from pesticides poisoning.
With the advent of modern science, which began to view everything traditional as backward and sub-standard, the collective wisdom of generations of farmers was lost. The result being that while expensive and unwanted pesticides are being promoted and pushed by scientists and extension workers, farmers are looking for safe and ecological alternatives. Is it not a fact that the chemical industry, which gained commercially from the surge in widespread use, has very cleverly used agricultural scientists as its promoters?
The chemical industry has meanwhile moved into life sciences. It now decries pesticides and sings the virtues of the new “promising technology”- genetic engineering. Pesticides are now being replaced with genetically modified crops, which perform the same functions. Agricultural scientists need to think whether they are once again being used as promoters of a technology, the negative impact of which have not been fully studied.
Answer:
a 1999
b False
c waste
d
e 20,000
f promising technology
g genetic engineering
h stumped
I