Outlaw glyphosate and its derivatives

Vijay Kumar HK *

Widely used weedicide glyphosate has risks to human, birds and animals health as per research. India needs to outlaw the hazardous weedkiller glyphosate rather than just restricting its use. The long-standing call for the banning of glyphosate by RTI activists, Environmentalist and Social workers has been ignored.

Last month, the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare announced a partial restriction on the use of glyphosate through an order heading restriction on use of glyphosate. The announcement mentions that many State Governments across the country sent a report to the Central Government asking them to forbid the use, sale, and distribution of glyphosate and its derivatives.

According to a research by the International Pesticide board a non-profit organisation focused on pesticide issues, there are about 100 different brands of glyphosate accessible across the country itself.

Only tea crops and non-crop areas are permitted to use glyphosate for weed management throughout the Nation. Assam, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala are the principal tea-growing States in India. But glyphosate consumption data shows a different picture.

Consumption is higher in States that do not have tea crops according to data received by RTI activists and Environmental activists.

The majority of the States obviously do not have any tea crops, where glyphosate is allowed throughout the country easily, according to reports from newspapers and magazines related to the agriculture and others. The highest consumption of native glyphosate in India over the past ten years was in North and North Eastern India.

During a field investigation by International Pesticide control board and Environment experts farmers in Orrisa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and West Bengal were discovered to be applying glyphosate illegally in more than fourty field crops.In these states, glyphosate formulations are sold under at least eighty different brand.

The numbers of glyphosate ingestion have been established and reported by numerous social workers from various states in their submission to the Pesticide board of control. A simple Google search also reveals that glyphosate is widely accessible online in the India.

Both domestically based business tycoons and some of the biggest agro-chemical conglomerates worldwide are manufacturers of deadly glyphosate.Social workers have frequently complained to the central government about farmers indiscriminate use of the weedicide glyphosate in millets and paddy fields.

Even the majority of agriculture universities in the nation have shown in their research that millets, fruits and vegetables have higher levels of pesticide residues.On the other side the survival rate of animals, including birds, exposed to glyphosate was observed to have dramatically decreased. The International Agencies for Research on Cancer long ago categorised glyphosate as carcinogenic.

There are long-term detrimental effects for honey bees and farmers friendly earthworms, as well as water bodies have major health risks from this weedicide. Scientists discovered solid proof that this substance damaged DNA in human and in addition to enough proof that it also caused cancer in birds, water bodies and animals.

The chemical can also cause oxidative stress and genetic damage in cells as per research.The Australian Chemical Agency discovered that glyphosate causes serious eye damage and is hazardous to aquatic species over the long term.

In a study conducted by the IISC, IITs and top agricultural universities of the country exhibits that glyphosate has interference with the liver, kidney function.Glyphosate has been banned restricted in more than 45 countries, according to International Pesticide control board.Despite a long-standing demand from social activists in our country, the central government has refrained from outright prohibiting it.

Previous field experience has amply demonstrated that, despite glyphosate's restriction to tea plantations, it was illegally applied to a variety of crops throughout the nation. It might be possible to prevent the unauthorised use of this harmful weedicide by enforcing a total ban.

The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture of the Center should immediately ban glyphosate in the forms of pesticides, weedicides, herbicides, and residues for good cause.