BITTER TRUTH
Pesticide-laced food serious health risk
PESTICIDE use in the country has trebled in the last one decade and surveys have shown that Bangladeshi's daily intake of pesticide residues in food is among the highest in the world. Tests carried out in fruit-growing districts revealed that most of the samples had pesticide residues beyond the permissible limits, because many farmers ignore rules prescribing a waiting period between spraying and harvest.
Studies done in many developed countries indicate that dichloro diphenyl trichloro ethane (DDT) and benzene hexachloride (BHC), the two most widely used pesticides in Bangladesh and India, may cause cancer, among other things. Both Bangladesh and India have banned their use in agriculture. Still, there is an underground market inducing the farmers to use these hazardous pesticides in a bid to save their crops from pest attack and increase the yield. Taken in high doses, the chemicals seriously impair brain functions, weaken muscles and cause painful cramps.
A major study by the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in the US showed that some chemicals like dibromo chloro propane (DBCP), daminozide, parathion, methyl bromide and alachlor, that are considered to be very harmful to human health, are still being used. Says Jay Feldman of the National Coalition against the Misuse of Pesticides: "The food system is overly and unnecessarily contaminated and children are in the line of fire."
The National Research Council (NRC) has also launched a study to evaluate whether kids face a greater risk than adults of cancer, neurological damage and other ills from pesticides. Children may be more vulnerable for two reasons. The first is what they eat. "Pound for pound, a child consumes more food than adults do," says Jack Moore of the Environmental Protection Agency. Kids also eat comparatively more than adults do of particular foods, such as apples and other juices. Either way, children ingest proportionately more pesticides.
Secondly, children's physiology may be ill-equipped to handle a pesticide-laced diet. For any child, the threat may be tiny, but in the aggregate a country's pre-schoolers may face an intolerable risk.
Children may also be at heightened risk because their neurological, digestive, and other systems are still forming. In very young children, the liver is less able to metabolise, and break down toxics, and their immune systems is not well developed, says Dr. Philip Landrigan, Professor and Chair of Pediatrics at New York Mount Sinai children environmental health centre. The developing nervous system may be especially vulnerable. If baby food is of a higher standard, then about 10 million children under the age of five in our country are well cared for. But what of the 19 million children between one and five, who eat "adult" foods?
Perhaps the most worrisome possibility is that pesticide residues on food may cause cancer. In America, of the 560 million pounds of herbicides and fungicides used by American farmers annually, 375 million pounds are probably or possibly carcinogenic, according to the EPA. A 1987 NRC study showed that these chemicals may cause an extra 1.4 million cases of cancer among Americans.
Scientists suggest that the amount of pesticide allowed to remain on food should be lowered. Because if growers applied every pesticide permitted on every crop, and if the maximum allowed residue remained on every crop, the cancer risk from food would be substantial. But researchers suggest that the risk can be minimised in case of some vegetables by following simple procedures like those mentioned below:
In case of tomatoes most residues are lost if peeled; for potatoes, peeling removes some, but not all residue; for oranges most pesticide residue is in the peel; for lettuce, discard outer leaves, wash inner ones; for apples mostly laced with alar, this can't be washed or processed out; for peaches, washing and peeling recommended; for beans, washing is not enough, they have to be blanched; for carrots, washing, peeling and then cooking to remove residues.
The reason why there is little action is that problems caused by pesticides fall between many ministries and end up becoming no one's baby. The ministries of agriculture and health should propound the judicious use of pesticides to protect the health of the country's citizens and to ensure that agricultural exports are not rejected.
With institutional corruption in every level of our society, and societal protest and government action apparently missing, unscrupulous traders and fake factory owners are resorting to dishonest and unethical activities through adding harmful and toxic substances in food items. Farmers and traders indulge in such practices in a bid to keep their produce fresh enough in the post-production stage. No amount of intervention is going to work unless problems associated with transportation and storage are resolved.
We need integrated pest management and organic farming techniques. The popular belief is that because of large-scale smuggling of pesticides, both the yearly consumption and the list of permitted pesticides actually understate the amount being consumed as well as the variety of pesticides available in the market. For example, DDT, although it was banned long ago, is still available in retail market.
The efforts of the plant protection wing of the agricultural ministry to promote integrated pest management (IPM) techniques, which advocate a mixture of traditional practices and limited use of pesticides, have been too little and lackadaisical to have had any major impact. The tolerance levels have so far not been fixed for many of these pesticides. Worse, labels don't carry details such as waiting period between spraying and harvesting.
Negligence or callousness of the concerned section of the agricultural ministry has seen the problem of pests developing resistance to chemicals out of hand. Only now farmers in some areas of Bangladesh are listening to agricultural extension workers who have been advising them to intercrop one type with others, a measure that prevents pest attack. This has led to an overall fall in the use of pesticides in some areas of North Bengal. Much of the country's cultivable land has already been rendered toxic and it will take years for the pesticides to degrade into harmless substances.
While pesticide usage cuts both ways, the real answer lies in ensuring that we make its judicious use a reality. That means adding health costs while evaluating benefits -- apart from the rising costs of agricultural production. Whether it is advocating organic farming -- using pesticides like 'neem' derivatives, cow dung, poultry manure -- or proven inter cropping techniques, remedial measures must be taken up on a war footing. The Ministry of Agriculture, Health and Environment must wake up to the reality and seriousness of the problem before it is too late.
The writer is a columnist of The Daily Star. E-mail : [email protected]
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