Hyderabad: As of March 2024, over one-third of the 339 pesticides registered in India qualify as Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs). Additionally, 20 of the 100 registered herbicides within the nation additionally fall beneath this extremely poisonous class, stated Narsimha Reddy Donthi, an environmentalist.
“Furthermore, 81 HHPs registered in India are banned or unapproved in quite a few different nations resulting from their excessive toxicity and antagonistic results. These chemical compounds, lots of which predate the Insecticide Act of 1968 and lack thorough security testing, are linked to decreased crop yields, soil erosion, and important contamination of air, water, and soil,” he stated throughout a symposium organised to mark the ‘No Pesticide Use Week’ in remembrance of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy.
The occasion, collectively organised by Pesticide Action Network (PAN) India, the Council for Green Revolution, and the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, highlighted the pressing want for stricter regulation and eventual bans on these poisonous substances.
Donthi, in his keynote tackle, described the “chemicalisation” of Indian agriculture as a grim actuality. He likened the seasonal pesticide spraying in rural areas to creating gasoline chambers, drawing a parallel to the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. “Pesticide poisoning is among the least understood and least addressed points,” he added, emphasising its devastating results on rural households.
PAN India’s CEO, A D Dileep Kumar, underscored that HHPs dominate each imports and exports in India, with residues of those chemical compounds often detected in meals objects. “This has not solely raised critical meals security and well being considerations domestically but additionally led to the rejection of Indian agricultural exports in international markets, exacerbating the financial burden on farmers,” he added.
The symposium highlighted the extreme well being dangers posed by HHPs. “Acute publicity may cause irritation, dizziness, sweating, convulsions, and even dying, whereas long-term publicity is linked to most cancers, neurological injury, beginning defects, infertility, liver and kidney injury, and endocrine disruption. These pesticides even have trans-generational toxicity, accumulating and persisting within the surroundings,” added Donthi.
Environmentalist Ok Purushotham Reddy known as on the medical neighborhood to collaborate with campaigners in advocating bans on HHPs. “Through this, we demand to ban HHPs and herbicides in India to guard public well being, biodiversity, and the surroundings,” he added.
