Unable to cope with the problems of agriculture and pressures of industrialisation and urbanisation, some villages are on sale, according to journalist and environment activist Shivananda Kalve.
Speaking on the problems faced by agriculture at the literary-cultural meet Alva’s Nudisiri at Vidyagiri near here, he said 14 villages near Trasi in Uttara Kannada were on sale as farming was no longer profitable or they were being made to give their lands for industrialisation or urbanisation. In addition, children of farmers were no longer interested in continuing their parents’ professions.
Mr. Kalve said a hospital in Sindhanoor was witnessing unprecedented rise in young patients because of increasing use of pesticides in agriculture. Karnataka’s coast that supplied rice to the entire State not long ago was now getting rice supply from towns as far as 600 km away, he pointed out. Farmers in Dakshina Kannada were increasingly taking to rubber, abandoning cultivation of arecanut. Across the State, farmers were making choices based on market forces rather than what they need to produce for the people, he lamented.
Journalist Nagesh Hegde said the people of Karnataka – which led many movements against those endangering the environment – were no longer interested in this issue. Barring a few elderly persons such as H.S. Doreswamy, Y.N. Yallappa Reddy, youths in particular no longer spoke about dangers such as sand mining or forest destruction. He regretted that the Prime Minister had to give a call for a clean India.
