Pesticides in the wind: How cotton sprays are polluting India’s rural skies

On a hot afternoon in a cotton belt village, farmers say the air tastes metallic and stings the eyes. Neighbours speak of throats that tighten after the spraying season and infants with lingering coughs. What they describe is more than discomfort. Studies by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) have found pesticide residues in air and rainwater up to 10-15 kilometres from cotton fields in Punjab and Vidarbha. Across India’s cotton heartlands, sprays drift beyond farms—carried by wind and rain, settling over homes, schools and ponds in an invisible haze.

Scientific and government monitoring confirm what villagers have long sensed. The CPCB’s 2023 protocol warns that volatile pesticides travel far beyond sprayed fields, contaminating air and ecosystems. Field studies in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal and Akola found organophosphates and pyrethroids in air and rain during peak season. In Punjab’s Bathinda and Mansa, PAU researchers detected residues not just on crops but in rooftop dust and wells. Even those who never touch a sprayer inhale low-level toxins through much of the cotton season.

The problem spans India’s cotton belts. In Telangana’s Warangal, Pesticide Action Network (PAN) India surveys in 2021 found pesticide drift affecting nearby villages. In Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur, health workers reported clusters of nausea and eye irritation among families near fields. Gujarat’s Bharuch and Surendranagar saw similar complaints during high-pressure spraying. In Maharashtra’s Vidarbha, repeated poisoning incidents over the past decade have hospitalised hundreds of cotton labourers exposed during peak spray seasons.

Doctors at Yavatmal’s Government Medical College report a surge in pesticide-poisoning cases each monsoon, coinciding with cotton spraying. The National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) links short-term exposure to breathing trouble, blurred vision, and neurological symptoms. Most cases go unrecorded, but their impact is clear: a few days of illness mean lost wages, medical debt, and children missing school. For families living on marginal incomes, pesticide drift deepens both health and economic vulnerability.

From a development lens, this invisible pollution is an unpaid cost of India’s agricultural model. Rural households bear the health and income losses, while profits move up the cotton supply chain. Economists call it a “negative externality” — a burden shifted onto those least able to pay. For informal workers, even mild illness means lost wages and no safety net. The air itself becomes a carrier of inequality.

India’s pesticide economy amplifies the risk. The ICAR-Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) estimates that cotton covers about five per cent of farmland but consumes nearly half of all pesticides sold in the country. Although Bt cotton was meant to cut sprays, pest resistance has reversed that gain. In Vidarbha, use has risen from five to over 10 litres per hectare between 2010 and 2022, according to the Union Ministry of Agriculture. Yet protective equipment is rare, and most spraying is done by hand or tractor in open weather.

Regulation has not kept pace. The Insecticides Act (1968) mandates safe handling, but enforcement is weak. Many hazardous chemicals banned abroad remain on sale, while the long-delayed Pesticide Management Bill awaits passage. CPCB monitors only a few districts, leaving most cotton belts untracked—and policymakers blind to the scale of contamination.

Those most exposed are least able to demand change: migrant sprayers, landless labourers, and women pickers. In Bathinda, panchayats have sought buffer zones after children fell ill; in Yavatmal, health groups traced lost wages among poisoned workers. Environmental harm here deepens rural economic insecurity.

Solutions exist. Integrated Pest Management and non-chemical cotton initiatives in Madhya Pradesh and Telangana show that pesticide use can be halved without hurting yields. Under the National Food Security Mission, pheromone traps and bio-pesticides have reduced chemical dependence and drift. These examples prove that lower costs, safer work, and sustainable farming can go hand in hand—if policies support ecological practices over chemical quick fixes.

To confront this crisis, India needs stronger monitoring, local governance, and protection for those exposed. Rural air and rainwater must be regularly tested, and health centres should record pesticide-related illnesses. Agriculture departments can promote safer spray practices and public awareness. Most urgently, phasing out highly hazardous pesticides would safeguard both farmers and their neighbours.

Invisible pollution is still pollution. When cotton sprays rise into the sky, they leave behind more than a faint odour—they reveal how agricultural progress has outrun health and environmental safeguards. If rural growth is to be truly inclusive, India must clean the very air that feeds its fields.

Sushanta Mahapatra teaches economics at the Department of Economics, ICFAI School of Social Sciences, ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education (IFHE), Deemed University, Hyderabad

Madan Meher is a former Senior Research Fellow (UGC) at the School of Economics, Gangadhar Meher University, Sambalpur, Odisha

Views expressed are the authors’ own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth