Pesticide hazards
Even though the use of pesticides has decreased significantly compared to previous years, health and environmental risks still prevail due to farmers lack of awareness and training. According to statistics, in 2009, pesticide consumption was 45,172.43 tonnes, while it was 42,240.56 tonnes in 2010, 44,423.33 tonnes in 2010, 41,145.74 tonnes in 2011, 41,145.74 tonnes in 2012 and 41,607.70 tonnes in 2013 so reduction in uses is clearly manifesting.
Having said that, some farmers have reportedly complained that sometimes pesticides do not seem to work as per expectations, so at times they have to use an overdose in order to protect their crops. Responding to this, agriculturists pointed out that an overdose of pesticides creates resistance among insects. Instead of killing those pests, it kills innocuous insects, causing environmental and health hazards. The side effect is surely not good since the killing of innocuous insects creates a gap while damaging the crucial chain of environmental balance.
More particularly, the negative impact of using pesticides on regular basis or overusing it falls directly on the environments upper-group animals depending on lower-group animals on the food chain. So we believe the uninformed usage of pesticides by our farmers should stop. Its sale and usage should be strictly regulated. It should be used in a well thought-out way to avoid health hazards and environmental pollution. Moreover, the farmers will have to be brought under an intensive awareness campaign so that they can know both the positive and negative impacts of applying pesticides.
As said before, increased awareness, motivation, use of bio-pesticides, and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) activities and training have considerably helped to reduce the use of pesticides in Bangladesh, but the lack of very important basic knowledge, for instance, inability to read on pesticide usage, their dosage with regard to positive and negative impacts and unawareness and defying attitude of our farmers have not been strategically addressed.
Besides government initiatives, local and international pesticide companies that are operating in Bangladesh have an important role to play here. They can also inform and educate our farmers on appropriate use of pesticides. It is also important that both the government and manufacturers should focus more on the production and usage of bio-pesticides. At present, 11 companies are reportedly supplying bio-pesticides, which are environment-friendly and not injurious to health. Their numbers should, however, increase to encourage our farmers to depend more on environment and health-friendly pesticides.
