The New Nation - Internet Edition

AT a recent discussion in the capital city, experts including scientists and farmers

stressed on concerted efforts to avert the threat of massive pest attacks on crop fields and warned against mindless use of harmful pesticides on agricultural lands. The insecticide-based management system had 'failed to control many pests' which were becoming 'resistant' to almost all chemical pesticides as a result of their indiscriminate spray on the crop fields. The farmers, particularly, made an urgent appeal that the required measures should be taken immediately so that safe and low-cost pest management is available.

Scientists have trained farmers to apply pheromone traps and allow beneficial insects on the crops to control pests. But these inputs are available neither in the market nor in government stocks. Some participants at the discussion mentioned that damage to production was 40 to 50 per cent even after spraying cocktail insecticides. But after using pheromones and beneficial insects the rate of damage came down to 5 per cent and the cost of using organic pesticides also fell by about 25 per cent. One BARI scientist stressed the need for fresh methods of integrated pest management and warned of an outbreak of pests, which have become resistant to the commonly used pesticides.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute provided synthetic sex pheromones and beneficial insects to a section of farmers in vegetable growing hubs like Jessore, Bogra, Pabna, Narsingdi and Comilla to experiment with and decide if these could replace harmful pesticides to reduce the risk of harm to public health and cut production costs. Mindless use of inorganic pesticides, abundance of spurious pesticides in the market and extermination of beneficial insects were causing an increase in the population of harmful pests. Some discussants lamented that the government remained 'indifferent' to the aggressive marketing of inorganic pesticides by multinational companies and demanded a proactive role.