Latest News: Govt Issues Draft Order for Banning 27 Pesticides

The Centre has issued draft order to the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) India to ban 27 pesticides, in India. These 27 pesticides are already banned in many other countries.

The issue has received welcoming response from the PAN and it has requested the Agriculture Ministry to evaluate other pesticides registered in India on the basis of the same criteria that has been used to assess these 27 chemicals. It has also requested the ministry to issue strict regulatory measures against the hazardous pesticides.

According to a statement, the Agriculture Ministry has issued the draft order and has sought comments and suggestions from those who might get affected by the decision. An expert committee set up by the Minister has recommended the ban of these 27 pesticides/insecticides as they involve risk to humans and animals.

As per the network functionaries, these 27 pesticides are hazardous and can raise severe health issues including hormonal changes, carcinogenic, neurotoxic, reproductive and developmental health along with causing environmental impacts. These pesticides are also toxic to bees.

For you information, here is the list of all the chemicals, according to the draft order, proposed to be banned: 2,4-D, acephate, atrazine, benfuracarb, butachlor, captan, carbendazin, carbofuran, chlorpyriphos, deltamethrin, dicofol, dimethoate, dinocap, diuron, malathion, mancozeb, methimyl, monocrotophos, oxyfluorfen, pendimethalin, quninalphos, sulfosulfuron, thiodicarb, thiophante methyl, thiram, zineb and ziram. All of these are some form of insecticides, fungicides or weedicides.

Interestingly, some of them are already banned in India under state-level regulations. For example, Monocrotophos was banned by Adilabad District Collector and Ooty District Collector due to their illegal use to spread toxicity in food, environment and farmers in 2019. In Punjab, the licenses for 2,4-D, benfuracarb, dicofl, methomyl and monocrotophos, are already prohibited.

Similarly, Maharashtra govt has also prohibited monocrotophos and acephate in 2017 because of the high-incidence of pesticides-poisoning among cotton farming community. While in Kerala, monocrotophos, carbofuran, atrazine and a few others are banned.