Some farmers hit the bull's-eye, spraying hooch to kill pests

With apologies to Ogden Nash, pesticides may be dandy but liquor is quicker it seems. News of two Maharashtra farmers saving their chilli crop by using country liquor when chemical pesticides failed could be just what unites the temperance and environment lobbies. Every once in a while, stories have surfaced in India of crops benefiting from judicious pints of country liquor as bugs seem to be as affected by its fatal potency as humans. Some years ago, brinjal and onion crops were supposedly revived, and before that, cotton.

Users aver that even deadly hooch is hugely cheaper than socalled ‘safe’ chemical bug killers, and probably as effective; even different flavours work on different crops, they say. At best, the insects fall off the plants dead drunk and, at worst, they die. If indeed that is the case, as this anecdotal evidence suggests, unlicensed stills and even legal country liquor manufacturers can consider a change of purpose — or diversification — and earn some good karma.

Then the demise of pests in their billions — rather than unfortunate humans — due to country liquor would bring renown rather than retribution. Of course, it could all come a cropper if the farmers are using their crop revivals to hide their own consumption of hooch and the stories themselves are proved to be merely country liquor-fuelled fantasies!