High time organic farmers were heeded
Saturday, 16 October 2010
At long last, the World Bank is going green, so to say, with respect to the use and abuse of chemical pesticides in Bangladesh and other developing countries. In a handout published in The Financial Express last week, the WB highlighted some disturbing data on the subject and called for urgent outreach programmes to educate the handlers of such poisons in order to limit the damage they do.
According to their survey of 820 boro (winter rice) farmers and growers of potato, bean, eggplant, cabbage, sugarcane and mango, over 47 per cent of them have been found to use the toxins far in excess of requirement. What is even more alarming is that only four per cent of them are formally trained in pesticide use or handling and storing the chemicals. Well over 87 per cent use no protective measures at all, and 54 per cent of the traders reported frequent health symptoms commonly associated with acute pesticide poisoning !
Indeed, the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) under the health ministry, have, on several occasions, found that the cause of ‘mysterious’ deaths,’ was the excessive and indiscriminate use of hazardous pesticides on some farms in the neighbourhood. For example, in two villages in Dhamrai upazila last year, where at least three children and a number of domestic animals had died and as many as thirteen other children and some adults had fallen sick, due to just this one instance of pesticide poisoning !
The Director of IEDCR, had said then that such tragic incidents ‘must be happening in other parts of the country as well !’ That is more likely than otherwise, given the poor risk perceptions regarding pesticides. The IEDCR director had, it is reassuring to note, initiated an awareness campaign soon after in the two identified villages.
It may be recalled that organic farmers worldwide have been crying themselves hoarse to stop trade in, and use of, poisonous agrochemicals ever since the first links between their use and adverse health effects have been suspected. In the last decades of the past century evidence of pesticide residue began to surface in groundwater and in foods, with its far reaching consequences on health.
Now that the WB itself has come on board, it is hoped the government’s relevant ministries and departments — agriculture, environment, health, commerce — would all put their heads together for long-term solutions to the risks posed by hazardous agrochemicals. Not only are strict do’s and don’ts needed to limit as much damage as possible, but also a switchover to IPM (Integrated Pest Managemernt) — the use of natural parasites and predators to control pests — as a viable alternative to poisonous chemicals. Consider this : the IEDCR investigating committee in the field had found evidence of extreme callousness on the part of the farmers who handled certain poisons — some of which belong to the ‘dirty dozen’ group that have been banned worldwide decades ago.
Yet, some of the ‘dirtiest’ pesticides are found to be quite popular in Bangladesh and they are openly smuggled, allegedly, from across the border. It was reported that the farmers in Dhamrai had been spraying too much furadon or carbofuran on their paddyfields. This poison, it may be mentioned, had been banned in Kenya where it used to be applied to kill troublesome predator animals as ferocious as lions ! Organophosphate pesticides like cypermethrin, malathion and chlorpyrifos are still used indiscriminately. Users seem to have no idea either about the ‘recommended safe’ dose or any precautionary principles on handling the poisons. For example an aubergine grower in one village was found to apply about ten kilograms of furadon and over seven litres of some liquid pesticide on his 0.75 acre land. According to the local agriculture officer furadon is not recommended at all for aubergines, but, if used, the dose should have been no more than two to three kilograms. As for the liquid pesticide, a 600 ml application— not at one go, but in phases — should have sufficed.
Apart from outright deaths from toxic overdose of pesticides there are long term health effects that organic farmers have been warning against over the past quarter century or so. We are told that the deadliest pesticides can wreck the human body and mind — the nervous, reproductive, immune systems and the brain itself. The likelihood of pesticide residues turning up virtually everywhere in Bangladesh, in ground water and in foods, causing many adverse health effects of ‘unknown’ origins, is also very real. It has been suggested that there might be links between the growing incidence of leukemia in Bangladesh these days and the overuse of agrochemicals. This suspicion certainly deserves thorough investigation by competent researchers.
High time the authorities did everything in their power to popularise integrated pest management(IPM) — making the most of biological interactions among and between different insect- friends and foes — rather than encourage the wholesale poisoning of the population and the environment. Organic farmers have long been recommending a return to the old farming system, abandoning continuous cropping in favour of rotation of different crops because rotation disrupts the life cycle of diseases, insects and other pests. A five year study by the US National Academy of Sciences revealed as early as 1989 that this alternative or organic farming — with IPM and some judicious use of the least harmful chemical pesticides and fertilizers — is not only productive and profitable but the economy and environment could benefit if more farms went organic. Thank goodness the WB is now singing the same tune and sees hope in the fact that local groups are cooperating to work out sustainable solutions.
According to the Worldwatch Institute hundreds of thousands of chemical compounds have been invented over the past century for every imaginable convenience of mankind. Billions of dollars have been spent on product development and marketing but almost nothing has been researched on the chemicals’ reactions on living things and the environment. Of course, all the effects can never be thoroughly tested, for the sheer number of combinations are astronomical. There are a few industrial substances that have been studied and they reveal indisputable links to certain serious diseases, including cancer. There could be more subtle but potent health problems other than cancer , such as systemic damage to the endocrine system which regulates hormones; the immune system and the nervous system. Who can say what the potential for neuro-behavioural damage, birth defects or other toxic effects are from the endless chemical products that enter man’s habitat and food chain ?
According to their survey of 820 boro (winter rice) farmers and growers of potato, bean, eggplant, cabbage, sugarcane and mango, over 47 per cent of them have been found to use the toxins far in excess of requirement. What is even more alarming is that only four per cent of them are formally trained in pesticide use or handling and storing the chemicals. Well over 87 per cent use no protective measures at all, and 54 per cent of the traders reported frequent health symptoms commonly associated with acute pesticide poisoning !
Indeed, the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) under the health ministry, have, on several occasions, found that the cause of ‘mysterious’ deaths,’ was the excessive and indiscriminate use of hazardous pesticides on some farms in the neighbourhood. For example, in two villages in Dhamrai upazila last year, where at least three children and a number of domestic animals had died and as many as thirteen other children and some adults had fallen sick, due to just this one instance of pesticide poisoning !
The Director of IEDCR, had said then that such tragic incidents ‘must be happening in other parts of the country as well !’ That is more likely than otherwise, given the poor risk perceptions regarding pesticides. The IEDCR director had, it is reassuring to note, initiated an awareness campaign soon after in the two identified villages.
It may be recalled that organic farmers worldwide have been crying themselves hoarse to stop trade in, and use of, poisonous agrochemicals ever since the first links between their use and adverse health effects have been suspected. In the last decades of the past century evidence of pesticide residue began to surface in groundwater and in foods, with its far reaching consequences on health.
Now that the WB itself has come on board, it is hoped the government’s relevant ministries and departments — agriculture, environment, health, commerce — would all put their heads together for long-term solutions to the risks posed by hazardous agrochemicals. Not only are strict do’s and don’ts needed to limit as much damage as possible, but also a switchover to IPM (Integrated Pest Managemernt) — the use of natural parasites and predators to control pests — as a viable alternative to poisonous chemicals. Consider this : the IEDCR investigating committee in the field had found evidence of extreme callousness on the part of the farmers who handled certain poisons — some of which belong to the ‘dirty dozen’ group that have been banned worldwide decades ago.
Yet, some of the ‘dirtiest’ pesticides are found to be quite popular in Bangladesh and they are openly smuggled, allegedly, from across the border. It was reported that the farmers in Dhamrai had been spraying too much furadon or carbofuran on their paddyfields. This poison, it may be mentioned, had been banned in Kenya where it used to be applied to kill troublesome predator animals as ferocious as lions ! Organophosphate pesticides like cypermethrin, malathion and chlorpyrifos are still used indiscriminately. Users seem to have no idea either about the ‘recommended safe’ dose or any precautionary principles on handling the poisons. For example an aubergine grower in one village was found to apply about ten kilograms of furadon and over seven litres of some liquid pesticide on his 0.75 acre land. According to the local agriculture officer furadon is not recommended at all for aubergines, but, if used, the dose should have been no more than two to three kilograms. As for the liquid pesticide, a 600 ml application— not at one go, but in phases — should have sufficed.
Apart from outright deaths from toxic overdose of pesticides there are long term health effects that organic farmers have been warning against over the past quarter century or so. We are told that the deadliest pesticides can wreck the human body and mind — the nervous, reproductive, immune systems and the brain itself. The likelihood of pesticide residues turning up virtually everywhere in Bangladesh, in ground water and in foods, causing many adverse health effects of ‘unknown’ origins, is also very real. It has been suggested that there might be links between the growing incidence of leukemia in Bangladesh these days and the overuse of agrochemicals. This suspicion certainly deserves thorough investigation by competent researchers.
High time the authorities did everything in their power to popularise integrated pest management(IPM) — making the most of biological interactions among and between different insect- friends and foes — rather than encourage the wholesale poisoning of the population and the environment. Organic farmers have long been recommending a return to the old farming system, abandoning continuous cropping in favour of rotation of different crops because rotation disrupts the life cycle of diseases, insects and other pests. A five year study by the US National Academy of Sciences revealed as early as 1989 that this alternative or organic farming — with IPM and some judicious use of the least harmful chemical pesticides and fertilizers — is not only productive and profitable but the economy and environment could benefit if more farms went organic. Thank goodness the WB is now singing the same tune and sees hope in the fact that local groups are cooperating to work out sustainable solutions.
According to the Worldwatch Institute hundreds of thousands of chemical compounds have been invented over the past century for every imaginable convenience of mankind. Billions of dollars have been spent on product development and marketing but almost nothing has been researched on the chemicals’ reactions on living things and the environment. Of course, all the effects can never be thoroughly tested, for the sheer number of combinations are astronomical. There are a few industrial substances that have been studied and they reveal indisputable links to certain serious diseases, including cancer. There could be more subtle but potent health problems other than cancer , such as systemic damage to the endocrine system which regulates hormones; the immune system and the nervous system. Who can say what the potential for neuro-behavioural damage, birth defects or other toxic effects are from the endless chemical products that enter man’s habitat and food chain ?