A wooden, tin-based construction near my house in Patna contains a simple wheat and flour mill and oil crusher. In there, I found a normal grain stock which the owner usually purchases from the nearby rural locality.
Once, when I was standing over the roof of my house, I found lots of rats parading and marching all around the wooden construction. Lots of food grains were scattered outside thanks to the rats. This experience prompted me to think how the owner may fight against the threat imposed by the rats.
At the end of winter, I observed the same wooden stock construction, I found that there were no rats. I thought the owner might have used some known poison to get rid of rats.
Suddenly, I found some cats and kittens playing on the roof. I was impressed by the wonderful natural understanding of the owner. He was from a rural background and he had adopted one of the most traditional methods of rat eradication. Rats have now totally evacuated that space.
This is not a story that I simply wanted to discuss over a social platform. I am more concerned about natural methods of pest control, which is very much persistent in our normal food chain.
Over a period of time, we have deteriorated and imbalanced our food chain mechanisms. This has left us vulnerable to pest attack. Our modern agricultural patterns based on chemical farming and genetically modified seeds have depleted biodiversity at each and every level within a food chain. Depletion or extinction of any such species within a specialised food chain ultimately causes severe damage to the ecosystem. Anthropocentric operations have pushed our food chain dynamics into an unstable state where we are failing to predict the gross damage.
Industrialisation led to heavy deforestation. Urbanisation and its expansion have started polluting our land, air and water. Corporate houses have developed competitions among consumers, molded their minds by the slow injection of brands and status-based life style. A nexus between huge corporate giants and governments have led to the greatest obliteration of natural resources. Natural resources are now at the mercy of corporate colonialism.
Nowadays, a common man has to adapt to this blind race of uneven utilisation of natural resources. A poor farmer is enforced to operate under this farming pattern for their survival. Corporate-supported agricultural patterns have so far deteriorated the grass ecosystem food chain balance the most. A common farmer has to work on the corporate principle of accessing maximum profits out of the least possible capital input. But we common men have forgotten that how such practices harm our ecosystem and our food chains.
Lots of major species have already become extinct or are on the verge of extinction. We are pouring heavy amount of fertilisers and chemical pesticides to obtain profit maximisation. We are pushing ourselves towards devastation by making our soil infertile. Our capitalistic ambitions are not only alarming for our physical and mental health but it’s also affecting our natural ecosystem.
A sustainable ecological understanding with a change in our lifestyles would be the best possible mechanisms to produce a healthy ecosystem. Consequently, a healthy ecosystem offers you better climate conditions to survive in.