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Pesticides are Poisons. Any toxic material that could kill or harm a living organism could kill us too, given the right (or wrong) conditions. Pesticides today are being used as a pest management technology in agriculture but only to result in pests selecting for resistance – there is, therefore, both pest resistance and pest resurgence that the farmer has to deal with, ultimately. This means constant upward spiraling of expenditure on pest management for the farmer, while the pesticide industry grows at an impressive rate and makes more and more profits. However, the heavy pesticide loads in many locations in the country are manifesting themselves in a variety of human health problems. Human lives are falling prey to this technology without any liability being fixed on the industry promoting pesticides or the scientific establishment that continues to believe in the inevitability of the technology. CSA strongly believes that synthetic pesticides are unneeded in agriculture as a technology and can only cause several negative effects in their manufacture and use including serious human health impacts – both in the short term and in the long term. On the ground, the work of CSA has mostly focused on replacing chemical pesticides with safer and better alternatives termed as NPM approach. Work in Punukula village in Khammam district, along with SECURE, our partner organization is a reflection of the enormous possibilities that exist with NPM. The Minister for Agriculture, Government of Andhra Pradesh, Shri Raghuveera Reddy who visited the village was convinced of the need for such an approach in other areas of the state too, for farmers everywhere. Other senior officials of the state government also were convinced about the need for NPM and the role of NPM in mitigating the current agricultural crisis, after visiting locations where NPM has been successfully set up. Today, under a large government programme called Indira Kranthi Patham, NPM is being tried out in more than 25,000 acres on different crops, across 12 different districts of AP. We have been concerned about the human health impacts of these agro-toxins and have been documenting such effects to create awareness amongst farmers, agriculture scientists and bureaucrats and the health deparment officials about the need to ban pesticides. As part of this effort, we have taken up research on Acute Poisoning of pesticide sprayers in the district of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh. This study was followed by a Public Hearing on Acute Poisoning. Based on the study and the subsequent testimonies in the Public Hearing, we have petitioned the National Human Rights Commission [NHRC] to intervene in the matter and fix liability on all concerned, including the pesticide industry for violating the Right to Life of poor agricultural workers. We await their response.