NONG BUA LAMPHU, Thailand: A toxic mist had descended as Somkid Sukchai walked through rows of sugarcane crops close to his home. A white dew dripped off the leaves of weeds growing along the way. It was a poisonous route.
But on Monday , representatives of four different sectors - the government, importers, farmers and consumers, as well as Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives Mananya Thaiset - voted unanimously to ban paraquat, as well as other potentially dangerous farming chemicals glyphosate and chlorpyrifos.
Beyond his wound, there are greater fears about the effects on long term human health and environmental contamination in areas like Nong Bua Lamphu. The science has plenty of skeptics, however, and is fiercely contested.Paraquat, which is manufactured by a number of companies, has been used since the 1950s to control weeds. It kills them on contact and is designed to break down immediately in soil.
“We found huge concentrations in the river almost everywhere in Nong Bua Lamphu. That has contaminated the land and also the vegetables,” she said. Elsewhere in the world, studies have linked paraquat to Parkinson's disease, an impact on women’s reproductive health and toxicity to vital organs.But Syngenta, a Swiss company which uses paraquat as the active ingredient in its Gramoxone herbicide, stands by the safety of the product, telling CNA “that paraquat is safe in normal occupational use according to label instructions”.
“The decision to stop the use of paraquat in some countries is disappointing as these decisions do not fully take into account the importance of the product to local agriculture and the potential cost this could add to farmers. There is no viable alternative to paraquat,” he said.Syngenta has been involved in the training of farmers around Thailand in the proper usage of paraquat.
But that decision did not dampen critics’ hopes of an imminent ban and before developments this week, many were more optimistic than ever that one would be enacted within months.The weight of public opinion, and of informed decision makers, seems to be shifting away from the continued use of agricultural chemicals.
In addition, the Ministry of Education has pledged to ban paraquat in all 47 agricultural and fishery colleges under the ministry’s supervision, while the import limits of the chemicals has also been slashed by 50 per cent this year, seen as a beginning of a phasing out of their availability and use.
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