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CropLife Sri Lanka, with a membership consisting of 30 companies, representing the crop protection industry in the country, is part of a global initiative to ensure the sustainability of agriculture.
CropLife Sri Lanka is a member of CropLife Asia, one of six regional associations of CropLife International, a network of regional and national associations in 91 countries.
Driven by its mission to help farmers grow sufficient food to feed the country’s growing population through access to innovative technologies, CropLife Sri Lanka advocates the use of crop protection products as a means to help farmers improve agricultural productivity, contribute to food security and alleviate poverty.
CropLife Sri Lanka undertakes several stewardship activities to ensure the safe handling of pesticides through their correct application, disposal, personal hygiene and environmental protection. It also promotes integrated pest management and good agricultural practices to ensure the safety of food products.
With contrasting reactions greeting the banning of glyphosate, a widely used agrochemical by local farmers, the importance of protecting the interests of farmers, governments, consumers and the environment has never been more compelling.
Glyphosate, a widely-used weedicide in over 118 counties worldwide for over a period of 40 years, is still considered one of the safest available herbicides. For farmers, glyphosate provides simple, flexible and cost-effective weed control removing annual and perennial weeds.
Despite major global regulatory bodies having thoroughly studied glyphosate through exhaustive reviews of all available scientific data and concluded it unlikely to cause a health risk to humans or to the environment, the local ban has garnered a great deal of attention and fear-mongering linking the use of the agrochemical to Chronic Kidney Disease (CDK) afflicting Sri Lankans.
CropLife Sri Lanka Spokesperson Senarath Kiriwaththuduwage said: “While many have tried to paint glyphosate as a danger to consumers, in reality glyphosate is one of the safest and most effective herbicides ever developed. In use for more than 40 years as a tool in helping revolutionise farming through effective control of weeds, and compared to many other commonly used pesticides and herbicides, it is a relatively safe compound which modern agriculture is dependent on to meet increasing food demand.”
Additionally, glyphosate is also used intensively in plantation crops, especially for tea plantations. Apart from it being a suitable and practical way of weed management, it also has a substantial role in mitigating soil erosion by minimising the need for land preparation.
“We agree that pesticides need to be regulated to ensure people and the environment are protected - but decisions must be based on the real risks so our farmers are not needlessly stopped from using appropriate products to protect their crops,” Kiriwaththuduwage added.
With the lack of glyphosate resulting in dire consequences to the quality of the tea industry, including a steady decline of agricultural productivity, the entry of non-genuine spurious pesticides is also gaining momentum.
Explaining its effects, Kiriwaththuduwage said: “Counterfeit or spurious products are a growing challenge for crop protection products in the country as these bear a series of negative effects including economic losses for farmers, unknown health risks causing potential harm to the environment, discouraging investments on technology development and even a loss of tax revenues. The negative impact of using spurious pesticides encompasses every section of society.”
In Sri Lanka, crop protection products are strictly regulated for product safety, biosafety, toxicity and environmental impacts and undergo approximately two to three years of rigorous scientific testing prior to any market release.
“Sri Lanka’s official pesticides authority, the Registrar of Pesticides, ensures the registration of agrochemicals entails rigid scientific, legal and administrative procedures. A wide variety of potential human health and environmental effects associated with use of the product are evaluated and assessed. Only once the authorities are satisfied, a process which could even take up to two to three years, are products released. Until the ban, glyphosate was being routinely tested by the Registrar of Pesticides and released for use by the agriculture sector,” he stated.
With the ban of glyphosate in force despite no well-reasoned scientific argument put forward and re-authorisation becoming politicised, the significant impact and vulnerability triggered on sustainable farming is perilous.
“Traditional modes of agriculture will not yield sufficient produce to cater to growing population or the increase in meat production while facing many obstacles including a reduction in arable land and climate change. We need to promote a sustainable means to grow food and ensure farmers are empowered to produce more food for a growing population,” Kiriwaththuduwage added.
By Skandha Gunasekara
The CropLife organisation is urging the Government to reconsider the ban on the herbicide glyphosate, claiming that the chemical was anyway entering the country through illegal smuggling from India.
Addressing the media at the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute, CropLife Technical Committee member Senerath Kiriwaththuduwage said that while the importation and use of glyphosate had been prohibited in the country, large consignments of the herbicide were still illegally making their way into Sri Lanka.
“In addition to being smuggled in illegally, other detrimental effects of the ban on glyphosate include the use of substitute and more harmful chemicals by local farmers and the negative effect it has had on the crop production,” he said, adding that the use of unauthorised alternative chemicals creates the risk of Sri Lankan exports being banned in overseas markets, citing a recent instance where such chemicals were found in Ceylon Tea exports to Japan and Germany.
CropLife Sri Lanka represents the crop protection industry in Sri Lanka and has a membership of 28 companies that import and market crop protection products. It is an active member of CropLife International.
Kiriwaththuduwage went on to say that although glyphosate was not used locally, imported food items would contain glyphosate as all other countries in Asia used the substance in their agricultural activities and therefore it would ultimately reach the Lankan market.
Kiriwaththuduwage then asserted that glyphosate was the safest available herbicide in the international market.
“In evaluations spanning four decades, the overwhelming conclusion of experts worldwide has been that glyphosate can be used safely. In fact, glyphosate safety is supported by one of the most extensive worldwide human health, crop residue and environmental databases ever compiled on a pesticide product,” he stated, while pointing out that the Sri Lankan ban was effected based on a hypothesis and that there was no scientific study done in Sri Lanka which associated glyphosate with Chronic Kidney Disease.
Customs Spokesman Sunil Jayaratne told the Daily FT that an illegally imported batch of glyphosate, weighing 17,687 kg, packed in 987 cartons, was confiscated by the Customs Department on 22 October this year.
The confiscated goods, which had originated from China, were valued at Rs. 60 million. The importation of glyphosate was banned through a special gazette notification issued on 11 July 2015 by the Minister of Finance under the Import and Export Control Act. (SG)
