Judicious use of pesticides can improve land fertility and ensure food security for the Indian population despite diminishing cultivable land resources, according to the latest report by Care Ratings.
The country approximately loses 18 per cent of the crop yield worth Rs 900 billion due to pest attack each year. Of the 40,000 different types of insects about 1,000 have been listed as potential pests of economic plants, 500 pests have caused serious damage at some time or the other and 70 have been causing damage more often. Therefore, pesticides have been recognised as essential in increasing the agricultural production by preventing crop losses before and after harvesting, the report said.
Still, the consumption of pesticides is low (about 40,000 million tonnes per annum) in the country due to a variety of reasons. Non-availability of good quality pesticides in rural India has been an inherent issue especially in the Kharif season (July - November) which accounts for about 70 per cent of the total use.
Consumption of pesticides per hectare is also low at 381 grams in India as compared to the world average of 500 grams. The industry (domestic plus exports) registered a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.86 per cent in the last 5 years with most of the growth coming from exports.
Low consumption of pesticide can be attributed to various factors like higher dependence on monsoon, low level of irrigation, low level of awareness amongst farmers on benefits of pesticides, fragmented land holdings coupled with only 25 per cent of the total cultivable land area (140 million hectares) being under plant protection measures, etc.
The use of pesticides helps reduce the crop losses, provide economic benefits to farmers, reduce soil erosion and therefore, ensure food safety and security. Ranked second in Asia and 12th in the world, India produced about 85,000 million tonnes of pesticides during 2006-07 worth Rs 74 billion including exports of Rs 29 billion.
Proper use of pesticides offers many advantages, said the report. It prevents crop losses due to crop destruction by insects, diseases and weeds. Also, it gives economic benefits to farmers (Rs 3-5 return on every rupee spent on pesticide) thereby, increasing farm revenues, food safety and security for the nation, wider range of viable crops and reduce soil erosion.