Environment & Ecology Quiz: Organic Farming, Pesticides and the Environment

The correct answer is C, natural manures and pesticides are used. Organic farming is defined by the inputs it refuses. In place of factory made fertilisers it uses farmyard manure, compost, vermicompost, green manure and biofertilisers such as Rhizobium and Azotobacter. In place of synthetic insecticides it uses biopesticides such as neem extract and Bacillus thuringiensis, along with natural enemies of the pest. Option A is the opposite of the definition, since the use of chemical fertilisers disqualifies a farm from organic certification. Option B is wrong because certification standards under the National Programme for Organic Production specifically exclude genetically modified seed and planting material. Option D is wrong because organic farming in India is practised in cereals, pulses, oilseeds, spices, tea and fruit, and no rule limits it to cotton; organic cotton is simply one of the better known export lines.

The correct answer is B, Rhizobium. Rhizobium is a symbiotic bacterium that enters the roots of pulses, groundnut, soybean and other legumes and multiplies inside swellings called root nodules. Inside the nodule the enzyme nitrogenase converts atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, which the plant uses, while the plant supplies the bacterium with sugars. This is why a legume is placed after a cereal in crop rotation. Option A, Azotobacter, also fixes nitrogen but lives freely in the soil and is recommended for wheat, maize, cotton and vegetables, not inside nodules. Option C, Azospirillum, is an associative fixer that lives close to the roots of sugarcane, sorghum and millets without forming nodules. Option D, Trichoderma, is a fungus used as a biofungicide against soil borne diseases such as root rot and wilt; it does not fix nitrogen at all.

The correct answer is C, Biomagnification. A pesticide such as DDT dissolves in fat, is not broken down and is not excreted, so the amount in a predator's body is the sum of what all its prey carried. Concentration therefore rises step by step from water to plankton to small fish to large fish to fish eating birds, which may hold several thousand times the level in the water. Option A, eutrophication, is the enrichment of a water body with nitrate and phosphate that causes algal blooms and oxygen loss, a nutrient problem rather than a food chain problem. Option B, bioremediation, is the useful process of employing microbes or plants to clean a polluted soil or water body. Option D, biofortification, is the breeding of crops richer in iron, zinc or vitamin A, as in the iron rich pearl millet varieties released in India.

The correct answer is C, Sikkim. Sikkim began phasing chemical fertilisers out in 2003, converted its entire cultivated area to certified organic practice and was declared a fully organic state. For this work it received the Future Policy Gold Award of the Food and Agriculture Organization in 2018, the first state anywhere to be honoured in that way. Option A, Kerala, has a strong organic policy and is remembered in this chapter for the endosulfan tragedy in Kasaragod district, but it has not converted all its farmland. Option B, Uttarakhand, has a large certified organic area and an organic commodity board, yet it came later and only in parts. Option D, Himachal Pradesh, promotes natural farming through a state scheme and has declared the goal of becoming organic, which is not the same as having achieved it. Examiners often pair Sikkim with the year 2016 and with the Gold Award.

The correct answer is D, Organochlorine. Dichloro diphenyl trichloroethane is built on a chlorinated hydrocarbon skeleton, which makes it fat soluble, chemically stable and extremely slow to break down in soil and water. Those same properties made it a cheap malaria control spray and also made it the first pesticide shown to biomagnify, which is why it stands on the Stockholm Convention list of persistent organic pollutants. BHC, aldrin and endosulfan are its companions in this class. Option A, organophosphate, covers malathion and parathion, which degrade in days but inhibit acetylcholinesterase sharply. Option B, carbamate, covers carbaryl and carbofuran, which act on the same enzyme reversibly. Option C, pyrethroid, covers cypermethrin and permethrin, laboratory versions of pyrethrin obtained from chrysanthemum flowers; they are far less persistent than DDT.

The correct answer is A, Silent Spring. Rachel Carson, an American marine biologist, gathered the evidence on DDT and other sprays and argued that a chemical released into a field does not stay in that field. The title imagines a spring in which no bird sings because the birds have died. The book led to the ban on agricultural DDT in the United States and is treated as the beginning of the modern environmental movement. Option B, Our Common Future, is the 1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, the Brundtland report, which defined sustainable development. Option C, The Limits to Growth, is the 1972 Club of Rome study on the ceiling that resources place on growth. Option D, Small is Beautiful, is E. F. Schumacher's 1973 book on economics at a human scale. All four are environmental classics, which is exactly why they are set as distractors.

The correct answer is A, Eisenia fetida. This red worm, often called the red wiggler or tiger worm, lives in the surface litter layer rather than in deep burrows, eats a large weight of organic waste every day, tolerates crowding in a pit or bed and breeds quickly. Those traits make it the standard worm of vermicompost units, and its castings are rich in available nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and plant growth promoting microbes. Option B, Pheretima elongata, is a common Indian field earthworm that burrows deep and is far less efficient in a compost bed. Option C, Lumbricus terrestris, is the European deep burrowing night crawler, valuable in soil aeration but unsuited to pit composting. Option D, Ascaris lumbricoides, is not an earthworm at all; it is the parasitic roundworm of the human intestine and belongs to a different phylum.

The correct answer is B, the Insecticides Act, 1968. This Act, with the Insecticides Rules of 1971, sets up the registration of every pesticide before it may be sold, licensing of manufacturers and dealers, labelling and packing requirements and the appointment of insecticide inspectors and analysts. The Central Insecticides Board advises the government and the Registration Committee grants the registrations. Option A, the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, is the umbrella law passed after the Bhopal gas disaster; it empowers the central government broadly on environmental standards but is not the pesticide licensing law. Option C, the Fertiliser Control Order, 1985, is issued under the Essential Commodities Act and governs fertilisers, not pesticides. Option D, the Seeds Act, 1966, deals with the certification and quality of seed. Pesticide residue limits in food, however, are fixed under the food safety law, not under the 1968 Act.

The correct answer is B, persistent organic pollutants. The Stockholm Convention lists chemicals that resist breakdown, travel long distances, accumulate in fatty tissue and harm health, beginning with the twelve named compounds often called the dirty dozen; DDT, aldrin, endrin, dieldrin and the dioxins are on that list, and DDT is allowed only in restricted disease vector control. Option A, ozone depleting substances, belongs to the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol, which phase out chlorofluorocarbons and halons. Option C, the transboundary movement of hazardous waste, is the subject of the Basel Convention, which stops rich countries from dumping waste in poorer ones. Option D, greenhouse gas emissions, is covered by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change with its Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement. Pairing each convention with its subject is a standard one mark question.

The correct answer is B, Endosulfan. Endosulfan is an organochlorine insecticide that was sprayed from the air over state owned cashew plantations in Kasaragod for about two decades. Residents reported congenital deformities, nervous disorders and cancers, studies supported the link, and the Supreme Court of India ordered a halt to its production, sale and use in 2011. The chemical was later added to the Stockholm Convention list. Option A, malathion, is an organophosphate of low mammalian toxicity used in public health spraying and in grain storage. Option C, carbaryl, is a carbamate insecticide, and it matters in a different tragedy: the Union Carbide plant at Bhopal was making it when methyl isocyanate leaked in 1984. Option D, glyphosate, is a herbicide used against weeds and is debated for other reasons, not for the Kasaragod case.

The correct answer is A, Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana. This scheme, launched in 2015 as a component of the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture, groups farmers into clusters, trains them in organic practice and certifies their produce through the Participatory Guarantee System of India, in which members of the group inspect one another's fields. It suits small holders because it avoids the cost of third party certification needed for the India Organic export mark. Option B, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, is the crop insurance scheme against yield loss. Option C, Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, is a broad state plan grant for agriculture and allied sectors. Option D, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, is the irrigation scheme carrying the slogan of water to every field and the per drop more crop component on micro irrigation.