Here’s something that has given me cause for optimism about the environment.
Evidently cola drinks, no matter the brand, can be used instead of toxic pesticides, and are much cheaper.
What a great use for these drinks!
Indian farmers use Coca-Cola to protect their plantations against pests. They claim that this soft drink due to its sugar content appears to be an effective anti-pest agent.
Pepsi and Coca-Cola regional managers disagree with them saying that using the drinks in pest control has no scientific ground. I don’t blame them for considering this use for their product to be a massive turn-off. After all, people might get the impression that if it kills bugs, it might kill them too. Who wants to drink bug spray?
The point of using soft drinks for agricultural purposes instead of pesticides is that Coke costs 10 times less. Farmers say that treating an acre with pesticides costs 70 rupees ($1.50), while treating it with Coke mixed with water costs 55-60 rupees less. (about 21 cents) As this practice has become more and more popular among Indian farmers, Coke’s sales have increased substantially.
The way this works is that when sweet sugar drinks are sprinkled on crops, they attract ants, which in turn eat larvae of insects.
Anupam Verma, Pepsi sales manager in Chhattisgarh assures us that if there were any truth in farmers’ statements, then they would sell their products as a pesticide rather than a soft drink because he makes the point that selling pesticides makes more money than selling drinks.
Using Coke as a pesticide isn’t exclusively an Indian invention. Many people set containers filled with Coca-Cola out to drive off pests like slugs and bugs from their yard or garden. The sweet drink attracts them, and acids that Coke contains kill them.
