Committee formed to probe impact of herbicides

Climate change ministry’s secretary writes to food security

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of National Food Security and Research has formed a committee to investigate the impact of the rampant and wide-scale use of weed killers and herbicides in the country.

The committee, constituted just days before Eidul Fitr, would work under the Pakistan Plant Protection Department (PPPD) director general. The committee was formed in the wake of apprehensions raised by The Ministry of Climate Change (MOCC) over the large-scale use of weed killers and herbicides in the country without measuring the impact they can have on human health and environment.

Ministry of Climate Change (MOCC) officials told The Express Tribune that ongoing legal battles around the world on the topic, including in the US, had apparently fascinated Ministry of Climate Change Secretary Syed Abu Ahmed Akif. The secretary subsequently wrote letters to the relevant ministries to highlight the issue.

In his letters to the ministries of food security and health, Akif strongly argued in favour of setting up committees comprising specialists to report whether the use of weed killers and herbicides was safe for human health apart from determining their impact on the climate.

In separate letters, Secretary Akif requested the food security ministry to set up a committee of specialists who would determine whether or not it was safe to continue using weed killers.

In a similar letter to the MNHRC, he sought an assessment of the impact of weed killers and pesticides on climate change and human health.

Increasing imports

According to official data, the use of the glyphosate herbicide has been increasing in Pakistan the country.

In 2015, around 1,100 tonnes of glyphosate was imported. This figure jumped to 1,700 tonnes in 2016 with a number of local and foreign pesticide companies importing it.

“Unfortunately, the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997 does not cover or discuss pesticides. Even the Pakistan Pesticides Act does not talk about a definition for pesticides and anyone can import anything registered anywhere,” a former top official of the Pakistan Environment Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) told The Express Tribune.

He added that the situation abroad was such that some BT seeds in the US and Australia were being treated as pesticides due to their engineered nature of killing pests. He further said that Pakistan was the only country where this technology was being imported while terming it as ‘novel’ without assessing its consequences on human health and local climate.

Asif Shuja Khan, who previously served as the director general of Pak-EPA, said that the letters were commendable and that the MoCC secretary had taken timely notice of widely used genetically modified organism (GMO) weed control products which were suspected to cause serious health issues.

Khan further said that the forming an expert committee on the issue would help review and present policy makers considered opinion for a decision.

Carcinogenic?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned about the probable carcinogenic effects of glyphosate.

Following a warning from the global health watchdog, some countries including Malta, Sri Lanka, Netherlands and Argentina banned glyphosate.

In Colombia, the government stopped using glyphosate which was used in aerial fumigations to destroy illegal coca plantations.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 29^th, 2017.