Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh today indicated that the network of pesticides testing facilities would be strengthened and expanded by upgrading the existing laboratories and creating new ones.
The menace of spurious pesticides had assumed serious proportions, forcing some farmers to commit suicides, Singh said, while inaugurating an association of technology-driven crop protection companies called CropLife India.
Around a dozen national and multinational companies engaged in the production of pesticides and medicines for crop protection, public health and veterinary science are members of the association with its headquarters in Mumbai.
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These companies include BASF India, Bayer Crop Science India, Cheminova India, DE-NOCIL Crop Protection, E I DuPont India, Excel Industries, Indofil Chemicals, Isagro (Asia) Agrochemicals, Monsanto India, Rallis India, Shaw Wallace Agrochemicals and Syngenta India.
The formation of CropLife India signals an important step to establish an identity for the sector and to reflect its transformation from chemical crop protection to the plant science industry, the promoters of the new organisation maintained.
The minister stressed the need for proper use of pesticides to avoid the problems residual toxicity.
He expressed the hope that the proposed amendment of the Pesticides Act would take care of most of the concerns regarding the safe use of these chemicals.