Regulatory norms to curb pesticide overuse

The survey findings of two IITians about high pesticide use in four Assam districts, highlighted in Monday’s edition of this newspaper, have set off the alarm bells on consumer health. Three of these four districts—Barpeta, Darrang, and Nagaon—are major suppliers of vegetables to Guwahati markets, from where supplies also reach other parts of the state. The prevailing situation is akin to a health bomb ticking in the state if pesticide overuse continues to be overlooked by the Agriculture Department. Key findings of the survey are: 80 percent of the farmers in these four districts, Hailakandi being the fourth one, exceeded the recommended pesticide use, and only 13% of farmers use pesticides as recommended by agricultural extension officers. The survey conducted by Kishor Goswami and Abdullah Al Mamun, both from IIT, Kharagapur, states in their report “Navigating Pesticide Overuse in Vegetable Farming in Assam,” published in the International Journal of Vegetable Science, has also brought to light that as many as 55% of farmers in these districts use pesticides in quantities as advised by pesticide retailers, which explains the excessive use by the majority of farmers. Overdependence of farmers on retailers for determining pesticide quantity certainly points towards a wide gap in monitoring and inspection by the agriculture department. This calls for an urgent review of the staff strength of agricultural extension offices to ascertain if these districts need more agricultural extension officers and staff to carry out frequent and regular inspections to find out if all the farmers were following their advice or not. Another route for the government to detect overuse of pesticides and presence of unacceptable levels of chemicals is daily inspection of samples of vegetable supplies arriving in Guwahati markets, as directed by the Gauhati High Court. Farmers continuing to apply excessive quantities of pesticides in these districts only implies that the inspection by food safety inspection officials is grossly inadequate. Use of pesticides in recommended doses is essential to boost production by protecting plants from pests and disease. Insecticides and pesticides are regulated under the provisions of the Insecticides Act, 1968, and Insecticides Rules, 1971, but there is an inherent gap in the law that needs to be addressed on a priority basis. Information furnished by the central government in the Lok Sabha highlights that the officers of state and the central government designated as insecticide inspectors to check the quality of pesticides and their management do not conduct surprise inspections on farmers’ fields as the Act and the Rules exempt the use of any insecticide for one’s own household purposes or for kitchen gardens or in respect of any land under his cultivation. Exposure to excessive quantities of pesticides not only poses health hazards to farmers Pesticide residues in vegetables and other food can cause cancer, heart ailments, kidney disease, neurological issues, etc., and neglecting the issue of excessive use of pesticides for growing vegetables or ignoring pesticide residues in food items will push the incidence of such diseases to unmanageable levels. A viable solution to the problem is to focus on scaling up the implementation of the Integrated Pest Management strategy that employs cultural, mechanical, and biological methods of pest control, which is promoted through Central Integrated Pest Management Centres (CIPMCs), Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), and State Agriculture Departments. Various trainings were conducted to create awareness among farmers for promoting the use of biopesticides, biocontrol agents, and botanical formulations as alternatives to chemical pesticides, and on the safe and judicious use of chemical pesticides under this strategy, which needs to cover all farmers in the state, more particularly all farmers in these four districts. Over the past five years, about 62,000 farmers and about 27,000 pesticide dealers have been trained across the country, which is quite insignificant given the fact that there are 27 lakh farmers alone in Assam. States cannot wait for central government funding support to conduct such training and must adopt the strategy to articulate their own programmes with adequate allocation from the state budget. Such a strategy is critical to prevent health expenditure from rising due to the rise in the number of patients suffering from various diseases caused by high pesticide residues in food items. Vegetables form an important part of daily meals for every household; chances of consuming vegetables high in pesticide content are very high. Collaborative efforts by the departments of Health and Family Welfare; Food, Public Distribution, and Consumer Affairs; and Agriculture are needed to give a strong push to awareness building among farmers, dealers, and consumers about health risks of excessive use of pesticides. The survey indicating profit motive of dealers being a key driver in the majority of the farmers in the four districts using excessive pesticides, the state needs a strong regulatory framework to curb it. For a stronger regulatory regime to bring a perceptible change on the ground, an effective oversight mechanism must be put in place.