Indian State Bans All Pesticides. Wildlife, Crops and Tourism Flourish.

State goes 100% organic. Wildlife returns, crop yields improve, tourists flock. Governments around the world are looking to the Indian state of Sikkim to see if going organic is viable. So far all signs are pointing to yes. The state banned the import of all pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers and GMOs in 2003, becoming the world’s first fully certified organic state in 2016. At first farmers struggled with the transition, with steep declines in crop yields, but the government promised things would get better in the long run and to compensate for their losses in the short-term. A decade and a half later, “the cloud-wreathed state is starting to see the dividends” of its investment, The Washington Post reports. Within three years their harvest returned to what it used to be, says the farmer in the BBC News report below: And now the yield for most crops is actually higher than it was during the days of conventional farming, according to a report by the Center for Research on Globalization. Fruit yields are up 5%, and the state’s cash crop cardamon has increased a whopping 23%. That’s in part thanks to rebounding pollinator populations. Since pesticides have disappeared, wildlife […]

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