Centre restricts use of herbicide glyphosate over health hazards

The Centre has officially restricted the use of the widely used herbicide, glyphosate, fearing risk to human and animal health. From now, glyphosate will be applied only through pest control operators (PCOs).

PCOs are licensed to use deadly chemicals for treating pests such as rodents. A formal gazette notification on the restriction was issued last night, more than two years after a draft on the same was circulated for comments and views.

Though the official order did not mention it explicitly, many experts believe it is intended to curb the rampant spread of glyphosate by farmers.

Glyphosate has been majorly used in tea plantations in India where it is applied to control herbicides. The chemical is also used on non-crop areas to control unwanted growth.

These include areas alongside irrigation channels, railway sidings, fallow land, bunds, farm borders, parks, industrial and military premises, airports, power stations, etc.

Activists said traces of glyphosate have been even found in crops such as chana where farmers use it to desiccate the produce.

The use of glyphosate rose manifold once Ht BT cotton started getting illegally cultivated in India.

To implement the order, all certificates of registration for the chemical that companies have to get for its manufacture or sale have now to be returned to the registration committee.

The order says if any company fails to return the registration certificates within three months, appropriate action will be taken under the Insecticides Act of 1968.

Glyphosate is already banned in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, and Punjab.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer published a study in 2015 that said glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans”.

“The biggest concern now is that there’s no pest control operator system available in the cultivation area and inevitably this order is going to create chaos on the ground. Second, the involvement of PCO would add additional cost to a large extent, so this is not at all a farmer centric step,” said Kalyan Goswami, director general of Agro-Chemicals Federation of India (ACFI).