Ask religious institutions to grow organic crops and accept organic crops as donation for langars In Pandori Ragsangh village in Amritsar, farmer leader Gurlal Singh takes a large sip of hot milk and asks fellow farmer, Jagdish Singh, about the “poison.” “This year, there is too much of poison,” Jagdish replies. It takes a while to understand that the farmers are discussing lethal pesticides used to grow wheat. While Gurlal and Jagdish have grown organic crops for family consumption on patches of their fields, they feel guilty while donating pesticide-laced food grains for langars or daswants.For ages, Punjab has the rich tradition of donating a part of their food produce to gurudwaras for feeding the poor, also known as langar. They also follow a religious tradition of Daswant that means donating one-tenth of the produce to grurudwaras or to the community. Both Gurlal and Jagdish say that the practice aimed at ensuring food security is actually poisoning people by serving them nearly poison-laced food grains. These guilt ridden farmers no longer want to remain silent. Lately, a section of farmers are demanding that religious institutions should serve organic grains to devotees. This will not only ensure good health of people but also encourage farmers to grow organic food, they say.

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