Industry body wants more usage of pesticides

The pesticide industry has asked the government to take steps in increasing the usage of pesticides, while ensuring their judicious use by farmers for minimising losses in crop production.     

"We are ready to help the government in its efforts to ensure better pesticides management," Agrochemicals Policy Group (APG) Chairman S Kumarasamy said, adding that more use of pesticides can help the country minimise crop losses estimated at Rs 1,40,000 crores.     

He said the per hectare consumption of pesticides in India is one of the lowest in the world with 0.38 kg compared with 1.5 kg in the US, 1.9 kg in EU and 10.8 kg in Japan.     

Admitting that residues are bound to be there as long as farmers use pesticides in their crops, Kumarasamy said "residues are harmless if their presence is below the maximum residue limits (MRL)".     

The Centre fixes the MRL of each pesticide for every crop which is 100 times below the acceptable daily intake, he said.     

Kumarasamy also said that the APG, which is a body promoted by three pesticides manufacturers' associations to work toward changing the public perception about pesticides, has tied up with rural NGOs for training the farmers.     

"We have trained volunteers of 600 NGOs over the last two years in six states and they are interacting with farmers on safe use of pesticides," he said.      

Meanwhile, APG has written a letter to the Agriculture Ministry requesting it to advise States for changing the current system of sample collection by insecticide inspectors.     

It pointed out that some states have fixed the quota for each inspector to draw certain number of samples while some others are drawing 5,000-10,000 samples annually.