The Ministry of Agriculture has restricted the use of glyphosate chemical in agriculture by making it mandatory to employ a professional pest controller to spray the herbicide in the field.
Key points
- While the step is seen as one that increases the cost of cultivation, it will also ensure judicious use of the chemical.
- From now, glyphosate will be applied only through pest control operators (PCOs) who are licensed to use deadly chemicals for treating pests such as rodents.
- A formal gazette notification on the curbs issued on 25th October more than two years after a draft on the same was circulated for comments and views.
- Glyphosate has been majorly used in tea plantations in India where it is applied to control herbicides.
- Glyphosate is used in herbicide-tolerant HTBt cotton, a GM variety yet to be approved by GEAC. Still, it is widely grown by farmers in Maharashtra and Telangana.
- The chemical is also used on non-crop areas to control unwanted growth.
- Activists said traces of glyphosate have been even found in crops such as chana where farmers use it to desiccate the produce.
- The order says if any company fails to return the registration certificates within three months, appropriate action will be taken under the Insecticides Act of 1968.
- Glyphosate is already banned in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, and Punjab.
- International Agency for Research on Cancer published a study in 2015 that said glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans”.
- The Ministry said it is “satisfied that the use of Glyphosate involves health hazards and risk to human beings and animals.”
