Punjab was warned in July

Team sent by center had found improper pesticides and its wrong dosage as one of the key reason for the problem

The Central Integrated Pest Management Centre, based in Jalandhar, Punjab, had warned the state government about the presence of the whitefly pest in the standing cotton crop in July.

The pest which was then at a formative state, has been a recurrent problem for the cotton crop of Punjab. However, it has wreaked havoc this year because of an extended dry period in the main cotton growing regions of the state. The situation was further worsened by the poor dissemination of information, and the presence of spurious pesticides in the market.

Officials said, the central government had sent several advisories to the state in August, warning about the problem. The matter was also discussed at the north zone rabi conference held at the end of August, where the state authorities were told about the need to use integrated pest management practices.

In August, the Centre had sent a team of officials to the districts of Mansa, Bhatinda,

Patiala and Mukhtsar, which form the main cotton growing belt in the state. It had also visited Haryana.

The team, during its visits in the region, found improper usage of pesticide, wrong safety gears, poor advice and guidance, and wrong dosage of pesticide to be among the causes for the sudden spurt in white fly attacks. “It was noted most farmers relied on the recommendations of pesticide dealers rather than agriculture experts, which lead to over-dose or insufficient dose of pesticides in wrong combinationsm, making them ineffective,” a senior official said.

In many cases, the investigation team found that farmers used a cocktail of pesticides, which did not work. Whitefly can be controlled by 30 varieties of pesticides and five combinations, but all of them have to be used as per recommendation.

Officials said there were lapses in communication to growers and they should have been made aware of the attack and ways to control it.

“If farmers were using the wrong pesticides, the message was not conveyed properly by the extension services,” the official explained. The sudden rise in sale of spurious pesticides was because farmers, in their desperation, purchased whatever chemical formulation they could lay their hand on.  

A study done by FICCI on spurious pesticides, that was released on Thursday, showed that spurious or counterfeit pesticides account for 25 per cent of the value and 30 per cent of volume of the Rs 25,000-crore sector.

The problem is growing at the rate 20 per cent per year and if not addressed almost 40 per cent of the total pesticide sold in the country by value will be spurious by 2019. UP, MP, AP, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Haryana, Maharashtra, Karnataka are some of the worst effected states.

Spurious pesticides can lead to almost 4 per cent drop in production, the FICCI study showed.