Food or poison?
At long last the government has taken due cognigance of the serious threat posed to public health by unsafe food. Various types of toxic chemicals are being used on all kinds of foodstuff to ripen them or keep them fresh. Print and electronic media, different organisations and the public had drawn the attention of the government to this grave threat and demanded formulation of appropriate law and supervisory body to address the issue.
The ministry of food has decided to form a single agency to ensure safe food, called Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA). A law has also been drafted for passing in the present session of parliament.
Contrary to general perception that only formalin is the threat, agricultural chemicals such as fertilizer and insecticides pose the main threat to public health and the environment. To ensure access to safe food for the people, the ministry of agriculture (MOA) has to play its role in gradually eliminating use of chemicals in agriculture.
MOA acknowledges the deadly effect of pesticides and calls on people to "use less pesticide to save life and environment." It also has Intregated Pest Management (IPM) policy committee to regulate import of synthetic chemical pesticide and a body to intoduce chemical free (organic) agri production. But in the field the senario is otherwise.
From available data we can get a general idea about gross abuse of chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticIdes in agriculture. Fertilizer sales during FY 1980-81 were about 8.75 mt, which shot up to 35.8 mt during FY 2010-11. With so much use of fertilizer and pesticides, the yield of rice and other items should have increased at least four fold. But it has been negligible. In 1971-72 it was 2.87 mt/hector, and 2.94 mt/hector 2001-2010. Increase of a meager 0.07 mt/hector. Similar is the case with other main agri-products. Then cropped area increased marginally, from 3.4 crore acres in Fy 2006-07. It increased by only 30 lac acres to 3.7 crore acres in 2010-2011. These data indicate that our peasants have been caught in the vicious circle to use more chemical fertilizer and pesticide to at least maintain yield rate. Yield has not increased but input cost has increased many fold, jacking up price of essential agri products. (Figures in italic are from BBS publication.)
Financial subsidy in agriculture for FY 2013-14 is Tk 9,000 crore. If MOA had implementd IPM then the cost of production could have come down to an appreciable level. People could get food at relatively cheaper price, growers could get better price and requirement of subsidy would be much less. One may ask that if yield of rice has not increased then how were we self-sufficient in rice during 2012-13? The reason could be that, during recent years, 2 million acres of land have been taken over for rice cultivation by reducing land available for other crops.
Synthetic chemicals are poisonous. Only the levels of toxicity vary. Chemicals retain their toxic characerstics in the environment, aquatic life and food chain from weeks to years after application. Hence, the threat is long term, very long term. It is a well established fact that chemical fertilizers severly affect soil health and turn it into barren land; and pests become immune to them. Hence, use of chemical fertilizer and pesticide are detrimental to sustainability of agriculture. This practice has to change to save our ecosystem, reduce human suffering, and minimise social, economic and financial cost at a macro level.
In our country, the danger to human health is not only due to residue of chemicals in agri products or indirect poisioning through enviorment and food chain. It also comes from direct poisioning. Vegetable growers not only spray 600% more than required, they also spray upto 150 times in a season. The vegetables are harvested without giving mandatory gap between application and harvesting. They are marketed within hours of application. Same is the case with fruits. So people are subjected to direct poisioning. We all are victims of slow poisioning. Very vulnernable are children and the peasants who come in direct contact with pesticdes,.
The UN report of September 5, 2012, titled 'Urgent Action is Needed to Reduce Growing Health and Enviormental Hazards from Chemical,' said:
- Between 2005 and 2020 , the accumulated cost of illness and injury linked to pesticides in small scale farming in Sub-Sahara Africa could reach $90 billion;
- In USA, poorly managed pesticides have resulted in $ 1.4 billion in crop loss;
- In potato farms in Ecuador, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) was introduced to tackle high poisioning rates. The IPM plantations yielded as many or more potatos , but with 20% less production costs, than plots using chemical pesticides;
- In Indonesia, as early as the 1990s, an IPM programme helped farmers to reduce the use of pesticides by over 50% and increase yields by approximately 10%. Economic gains from implementing the country's 2001-2020 National IPM programme are estimated to be equivalent to 3.65% of Indonesia's GDP in 2000.
In the light of the above, what about our country? It is assumed that neither the government nor any concerned body has carried out any study to ascertain in tangible terms the cost and effect of rampant use of synthetic chemical pesticides and fertilizers on crop loss, production cost escalation, man hour loss and cost due to illness caused to applicators of pesticides, cost due to illness caused to general public, effect on GDP, etc etc.
The government will have to very seriously and immediately address the use of chemicals in agriculture, because they make food unsafe. IPM should be launched vigorously throughout the country. Chemical fertilizer should not be supplied free of cost or at subsided rate. Import of pesticide has to be better regulated and import duties raised to make it costlier, to discourage rampant use. NGOs should also be tasked and encouraged to join this effort. If slow poisoning of people through daily food cannot be reduced to a minimum level, it will not be far off before we become a sick nation. We the people must raise robust voice in demanding, 'Poison Free Safe Food' for all.
The writer is a retired Lt. Colonel of Bangladesh Army.
E-mail: [email protected]
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