Food Safety and Responsible Use of Pesticide

Sazzadul Hassan, Managing Director, Syngenta Bangladesh Ltd.

If you look globally, you'll find that there are only 8 million farmers who have over 100 hectares of land. But a large chunk of farmers across the globe – 450 million – who have over 2 hectares or so. In Bangladesh, only 10 percent of our farmers fall under this category. If we really want to change the overall dynamics of global agriculture, we must focus on these small holder farmers.

If you see the trend of population growth and the demand for food, you'll notice that population growth is happening in emerging, developing countries and we need to focus on that. With the increase in population and the advent of climate change, there are bound to be impacts on agriculture. In 1950, for example, 1 hectare of land used to feed 2 people but by 2030, 1 hectare of land would need to feed 5 people. These are some of the challenges world agriculture is facing. From a farmer's point of view, crop prices are actually decreasing. With modern technology and agriculture practices, productivity, however, is on the rise. Farmers are actually suffering with their profitability. We need to make sure farmers make enough to sustain and prosper.

The farmers are at the centre of Syngenta's strategy as we offer tailored agronomics solutions to them. We have seed care products and crop production. Globally, we are working with 8 major crops in more than 90 countries. We primarily focus on R&D activities, as we spent 150 million dollars on this last year, roughly around 10 percent of our turnover.

Mahbub Rahman, Head of Research & Development, Syngenta Bangladesh Ltd. 

Bangladesh has achieved self-sufficiency in food grain production, due to the use of modern technologies, which include improved seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. But with the growing use of pesticides and fertilizers, there is also an increasing risk of health and environmental hazards regarding the overuse of these chemicals. In order to overcome challenges, we need to establish integrated paste management (IPM) as the driving principle of paste management. In Bangladesh, we have only a few residual analysis laboratories. We need to set up more such facilities.

David Penna, Asia-Pacific Region Stewardship and Regulatory Policy Manager, Syngenta 

Stewardship means ethical and responsible management of a product – in our case, it extends from the discovery of a pesiticide in laboratory to its use by farmers and beyond. It includes using pesticides safely, following the label and making right and responsible use of the chemicals. Besides, we are also working with governments, NGOs and industries to protect the environment by following safety guidelines. We also have medical teams to keep people safe from any accidental or deliberate poisoning. We also train farmers on understanding the label of products and their safe and right usage. Globally, we have trained 5.7 million farmers on these important agricultural features. In Bangladesh, we also give training to farmers, their families and professional spray-men. But we are finding it difficult to reach the huge number of farmers in Bangladesh with our limited field forces. We are trying to address this problem by training the lead farmers who will later disseminate the information to growers.

Dr. Sayed Nurul Alam, Chief Scientific Officer, Entomology Division, Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute

We must have control over our pastes but it should be done maintaining environmental and social safety. The government has already banned 195 extremely hazardous pesticides. From the end of 2013, it has also started registration of pesticides. Now we have more than 25 environment friendly bio-pesticides. And it is a great achievement that we have managed to reduce the use of pesticides drastically in the last few years. Yet, we cannot say that we are in a good situation in managing pesticides. Use of inappropriate, hazardous, non-registered pesticides is still common in high valued crops. Indiscriminate use of pesticides is leading to resistance, resurgence and residue effects that seriously affect crop production as well as environment. We need to promote the use of bio-pesticides that are effective and, at the same, environment friendly. In using chemical pesticides, we have to follow integrated paste management practices. We also need to invest more in developing paste resistant crop varieties and environment-friendly paste management packages.

Prof. Dr. Md. Sahidur Rashid Bhuiyan, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University

Our farmers are still using banned pesticides in fields because these chemicals are cheap. To stop this, we need strong monitoring at the ground level and, at the same time, we have to develop low cost pesticides. We should give more attention to breeding paste resistant varieties.

Musfiqur Rahman, Chairman, Bangladesh Crop Protection Association

Bangladesh banned organoclorated pesticides in 1995. But most of these banned chemicals are coming from our neighbouring countries, which are yet to ban these types of pesticides. We should strictly control trafficking of these banned pesticides.

M Zainul Abedin, President, B-Safe Foundation and  ex-IRRI representative in Bangladesh

Stewardship should also cover the number of applications, overdose and consumption of pesticides. That's why we need to educate people. Pesticide companies should mention about the harmful effects of overusing those chemicals in their advertisements. We need to transfer to the bio-pesticide mode as soon as possible.

Dr Nur Ahmed, Head, Entomology Department, Bangladesh Rice Research Institute

Sometimes we see that some pesticides, banned for particular crops, continue to be used for other crops. We should stop this practice. We should look for alternative paste management systems. Eco-engineering can be a good solution in this regard. 

Dr. Md Robed Amin, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Dhaka Medical College & Hospital

Bangladesh has one of the highest numbers of law regarding food safety, but the implementation status of these laws is very poor. So we need to focus on the implementation of food safety laws. As a physician, I have to deal with patients suffering from exposure to pesticides. And, among the top ten diseases, poisoning is number four. 15 percent cases of admitting in hospital are due to poisoning. So this is a serious threat for our health. We need to make our people aware about these health hazards.

Reaz Ahmad, Journalist, The Daily Star

As a reporter, I believe that this is more of a governance problem than anything else. When you have a list of banned items in the category of pesticides, we need to make sure that they are not in the market anymore. We, the consumers, should have the right to ask the government on how they are ensuring that these banned items are not applied in the field. Chemical fertilizer companies with fake names are everywhere, without any registration or assurance of quality control. Government mechanisms need to be stronger in this regard.

Simon Brown, Country Director, VSO

Today's meeting would have been more fruitful if the farmers were here. I have been with Syngenta and have worked with farmers closely. Through my discussions with them, I found that many of them were quite frustrated around the ethicacy and authenticity of pesticides. They are being sold fake counterfeit products. Farmers need to be made aware about these counterfeits. And more importantly, it needs to be ensured that they practice what they learn on the field. We need to figure out whether there are regulatory frameworks that can help farmers get access to the right product at the right time.

Dr Abul Kalam Azad, Executive Chairman, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Centre (BARC)

Our association is working on identifying companies that work unethically and sell substandard pesticide. Earlier, according to the law, those who sold banned pesticides would be fined, however, at present, perpetrators of this crime are sentenced to 2 to 5 years of imprisonment. But the problem is the lack of implementation of the law. We are planning to organize a surveillance team, consisting of people from our association, the DAE as well as local law enforcers, which will monitor the bordering areas and companies. We also have plans to visit some of these unethical companies unannounced, and take back samples with us for testing. If the samples turn out to be of low quality, their registration will be cancelled.

Md Khairul Bashar, Country Manager, HarvestPlus

I have a small project which deals with food security as well as nutritional security. We have introduced four zinc rice varieties for countrywide dissemination, and plan this year to reach 600,000 people with our varieties of rice. I believe that coordinated efforts are required within the industry to ensure food safety.

Ashequn Nabi Chowdhury, Chief of Business Section, National News Agency Bangladesh

Farmers are mostly ignorant of the bad impact of pesticide, which needs to be addressed. I believe we need more sensitisation and advocacy, rather than training to raise awareness. We need to figure out what are the major causes behind their ignorance. It's imperative to change the mindsets of farmers who are producing or selling these unsafe food. We also need to think of the young, aspiring farmers, who are students at present. We need to have a specific chapter in textbooks to educate students on food safety. The monitoring programme also needs to be strong. All the stakeholders need to work together to create an effective market chain.

Anwar Faruque, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture 

We have had a lot of discussion regarding the use of carbide and different preservatives like formalin in the mango growing regions. We tried to educate farmers about the harms of using formalin, and could see a change last year, when the use of this dangerous chemical reduced.

Farmers often go for cheap pesticides to increase their income. We have to strengthen our IPM system and educate farmers, alongside thinking up other alternatives. Here the role of the media is very important. Finally, pesticide manufacturing companies need to develop their quality and introduce newer products every two to five years. If we have only one product in the market, the pest gets resistant and farmers use double or triple doses of the pesticide. Therefore, having newer products is very important.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
* Establish Integrated Paste Management System.
* Promote use of bio-pesticides.
* Develop paste resistant crop varieties. 
* Awareness building through enforcement is important.
* Policymakers should think about ways to introduce food safety in the education curriculum.
* Private companies should contribute to different food safety programmes as a part of their corporate social responsibility activities.
* Integrated programmes are needed where every stakeholder - the government, private sector, business people, NGO, farmers and the media, among others - will work together.