Surinder Sud: Are pesticides bad?

FARM VIEW

Recent reports linking the increasing number of cancer cases and consequential deaths of farmers in Punjab with the use of pesticides has evoked strong reaction from the pesticides industry.

It has not only contradicted these reports but has categorically stated that pesticides do not cause cancer. The industry has also produced scientific evidence in support of its plea.

The consternation of the pesticides industry over this development is understandable. For, if the impression that pesticides are carcinogenic is allowed to gain currency, it will create needless public scare, besides adversely hitting pesticide use and agricultural production.

The pesticide consumption in India is already among the lowest in the world, confined largely to a few pest-sensitive commercial crops. As a result, the crop loss due to pests, diseases and weeds is quite high, varying generally from 10 to 30 per cent. In case of heavy pest infestation, the crop loss could be total.

No doubt, pesticides are toxic chemicals and their residues can be traced in the farm produce where these have been used, but this happens mainly if the necessary precautions are not taken. The use of chemicals in the right doses, allowing the recommended time lag between pesticide spray and crop harvesting, does not normally pose health hazards.

In any case, modern procedures for the approval of pesticides are quite stringent. Thorough testing to rule out any health risk is mandatory before a new molecule is granted permission for manufacture and use in agriculture.

Indeed, what lends credence to the chemicals industry's plea that pesticides do not cause cancer is its corroboration by the findings of the investigations carried out by the Punjab Pollution Control Board and the Ludhiana-based Punjab Agricultural University (PAU). The Board has clearly stated that it is difficult to pinpoint a single cause for these deaths because cancer is caused by multiple factors.

The PAU has also reported that its preliminary study found no substantial accumulation of pesticide residue in samples of crops, drinking water and soil collected from the cancer-affected villages.

The university has, therefore, advised the state government to undertake an in-depth study into the causes of cancer deaths and not to jump to the conclusion that these were caused due to the indiscriminate use of pesticides.

An elaborate compendium of evidence exonerating the pesticides for causing cancer has been compiled by the Agrochemicals Promotion Group (APG), a caucus representing over 200 crop protection companies.

Among this is a comprehensive list of major cancer causing factors prepared by the American Cancer Society. Pesticides figure nowhere in this list as a major risk factor for any type of cancer.

The APG quotes a report prepared by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute of Cancer Research after scrutinising about 4,500 cancer causing studies that states: "There is no conclusive evidence that any food contaminant (including pesticides) modifies the risk of any cancer, nor is there evidence of any probable causal relationship".

In fact, the APG goes a step further and maintains that there is no need for alarm even if some trace of chemicals are found in the human body. Traces of pesticides like DDT are found in almost every Indian though its use in agriculture was banned way back in 1989.

DDT residues are till today traceable even in the US citizens where this pesticide was banned some 30 years ago. But the studies sponsored by the World Health Organisation (WHO) have found no human illness attributable directly to the DDT usage.

A report Environmental health criteria 9 "" DDT and its derivatives, prepared jointly by WHO and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has stated that the safety record of DDT has been "exceptionally good".

However, regardless of the authenticity, or lack of it, of the arguments put forth by the APG and other bodies, the fact remains that pesticides use is indispensable for modern agriculture till at least other effective environment and health-friendly means of combating plant diseases and pests are discovered.

What needs to be realised is that virtually no remedy to the crop ills is totally risk-free. The best course, thus, is to discourage indiscriminate use of pesticides and promote their safe usage, observing all the precautions that are required to be taken, to guard against any possible ill-effect.