Argo Chem Federation of India ACFI’ today launched a mass campaign. It is to aware farmers about optimal use of Pesticides. This will help the farmers to avoid purchase without Bill.
Shri Nitin Gadkari, Union cabinet minister for Transport and Highways launched it. Also, various stakeholders including industry members and Dr. C.D Mayee, past Chairman of ASRB- ICAR, joined it.
This ‘Jago Kisan Jago’ initiative will run five mobile vans. It will spread the message about using quality pesticides to farmers. It will also talk about modern technology like Drones, buying Agri-inputs against a bill.
Gadkari said, “India is the second largest producer of Agri produce in the World, but despite that our country’s share in the global trade is only 3%. This is due to lower crop yield as compared to some other nations. By using right technology and quality inputs, the crop yield can improve. Today’s initiative by ACFI & its members will go a long way.” India has around 2.4% of world’s arable land,4% of water resources and 18% of the world population but second largest producer of Agri produce in the World.
Shri Abdul Sattar, Agriculture minister, Maharashtra also joined the campaign unveiling ceremony. He has appreciated the noble initiative to spread awareness of purchasing pesticides with GST bill. This is the only way to get rid of misbranded products.
Praising the initiative, Dr C D Mayee emphasized on using like insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides, in optimal amount to get best results without harming soil conditions. Considering the threats of climate change Dr. Mayee said, “there is an urgent need to bring reform in the system that enables introduction of new Pesticides.
Dr. Kalyan Goswami, Director General, ACFI echoed similar views. He commented “It is important to check the sale of bio-products laced with unauthorized and unregistered chemical pesticides by dummy companies. The need of the hour is to control illegal import of pesticides by mis-declaration which is not only causing a huge loss to farmers, but also impacting the nation’s revenue collection. It poses a grave threat to India’s food security and environment.”
ACFI is trying to create awareness against the illegal, smuggled, duplicate, counterfeit network which are deceiving the farmers and endangers our national resources. It harms the health of soil drains farmer’s pocket.
“In the interest of all the stakeholders of the agriculture sector, it is paramount for government undertakings and private players to work together to achieve desired objectives. Enforcement mechanism needs to improve, and miscreants need to be brought to books,” said Mr. Sanjay Agrawal, Director, Indo Gulf Fertilizer.
Usages of sub-lethal doses of pesticides are also a cause for worry. Last year, 9 Lacs acres of chili crops destroyed in South India, especially in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and in Telangana due to the attack of black thrips.
Recently a committee under the leadership of GVL Narasimhan formed to study the impact of Thrip attack on Chili in Southern Part of India. It revealed the nexus of illicit trader and how badly it impacts the farmers and Rural Economy. This will grossly influence the dream of Making of a 5trillion dollar economy with one Trillion dollars coming from Agriculture.
We can clearly see the scope of growth of Agriculture by increasing per hectare yield and quantum of Agri-produce in India, provided innovative technology pesticides used appropriately in the prescribed quantities.
These modern technology products are not available to our farmers which is evident from the fact that out of 1,175 pesticide molecules (both chemical and biological origin) registered the World over, China has 950+, USA has 1057+, Pakistan & Vietnam have 450+, whereas only 299 molecules registered for use in India.
This is because of our lax registration system, non-promotion of modern technology pesticides and usage of fake, illegal, counterfeit, misbranded pesticides.
These are key reasons of the Indian GDP from Agriculture being almost a third in comparison to China.
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