Pesticides or insecticides made of eggs and fish innards may sound peculiar but are an age-old trick of the Kondh and Paraja tribes of Odisha’s Koraput — what is now known as organic farming.
In the 1950-60s, the Green Revolution — with its stress on the use of high-yielding varieties, chemical pesticides and fertilisers — sounded the death knell for indigenously prepared ‘tonics’ that increased field fertility, besides killing insects and worms.
However, side effects of increased chemical intake with fruits and vegetables re-popularised organic cultivation in the past decade or so. It was then that, five years ago, these local pesticides made by some tribal octogenarians came to the attention of Koraput-based NGO, Ekta.
In Dasamantapur block, Ekta officials persuaded nearly 1,500 farmers across 50 villages under Gadiaguda and Mujang panchayats to start using the natural insecticides.
“We constituted committees of 12-15 members in each village,” NGO Ekta secretary Jagannath Mishra tells The Indian Tribal. “It helped sort out villagers’ problems and persuaded farmers to resort to fish and egg tonics and organic farming.”
The Dasamantapur experiment proved to be a huge success, according to farmer Moti Golori.
Tonic Recipes
The fish tonic is made from equal parts jaggery and fish entrails (maccha puta in Odia), along with one-fifth the amount of curd or lemon juice. Alternate layers of jaggery powder and fish are fermented in the acidic lemon juice for about a fortnight.
“We mix one litre of water with 20 mg of the tonic to be sprayed for preventing premature fall of budding fruits and flowers,” says farmer Natha Sounta of Khajuriput village who is one of the beneficiaries of NGO EKta’s initiative.
The egg tonic is made with six eggs and 2 litres of lemon juice kept in a dark room for a fortnight. “Egg tonic kills pests and even prevents cattle from grazing at the crops,” explains farmer Musa Muduli in Kesabguda village. “Though I cannot say in terms of percentage regarding the increase in the agricultural and horticultural output, organic farming and tonics have definitely increased our farm produce.”
“Earlier, we used to earn Rs 12,000-15,000 annually but that has now shot up to over Rs 35,000,” he says happily. And Musa Muduli is not the only satisfied farmer. It seems there’s nothing fishy about these tonics.
