State bans nine pesticides

Kulwinder Sandhu
Tribune News Service
Moga, July 24

The state government has banned the sale of nine types of pesticides, insecticides and fungicides with immediate effect, asking farmers not to use them on basmati, paddy and other crops.

The Secretary of Agriculture Department, Dr Kahan Singh Pannu, while issuing an advisory to the farmers to not use the chemical formulations of acephate,carbendazim, thiamethoxam, triazofos, tricyclazole, buprofezin, carbofuron, propiconazole and thiophanate methyl on basmati and other crops, said these chemicals were harmful to health. They are banned in most of the European countries.

Meanwhile, the state government has launched a campaign in all districts, asking farmers not to use excessive pesticides in cultivation of basmati, the total area of which is likely to cross 5 lakh hectares across the state.

The chemical formulations of tricyclazole leave chemical traces of pesticides in custom-milled rice.

Dr Pannu has further issued directions to the field staff of the Agriculture Department to reach out to the basmati growers and motivate them for judicious use of pesticides, so as to improve its quality for export.

The basmati exporters in the state had suffered huge losses in the past couple of years as many containers containing basmati rice had been rejected by European nations, Saudi Arabia and other Middle-East countries after traces of pesticides were found in them.